Just the abstract numbers, and scales alone can bring awe to a person... but those rare moments where you truly FEEL the enormity of it all, those moments can literally leave you reeling.

One such moment I particularly remember was looking up at the center of the galaxy... a laser pointing out the location- in a detached way I was thinking that the photons we were observing from the galactic center were created 26,000 years ago, about 1000 generations ago... we were living in caves, humanity was struggling to survive...

Then it hit all at once- the glow of the milky way FELT like millions, billions of stars so numerous and distant they were a single glowing cloud- the dark spaces in the glow were gargantuan gas/dust clouds somewhat closer... yet inconcieveably distant... looking at light from a 1000 generations ago, answering it with a beam of light that would take another 1000 generations to reach the galactic center.... some of those photons would be destined to make the infinite fall towards the singularity of a multi-million solar mass black hole... what would we be in a 1000 generations? As vast as the galaxy is, it is just a speck in the cosmos... and compared to that speck, we were just another speck within a speck. An infinitesmal sliver of space and time. In that sliver a photon was born and died, and humanity had come so far- but it was still an insignificant sliver...

It all hit me on a gut level- almost like a physical blow- dizzy, breathless... It left me feeling stunned awe- overwhelmed- I was somewhat dazed for a while. Such moments are rare, and perhaps there is a good reason for that....