I'm alone. It's night and I'm in my garden, sitting on a chaise lounge, occupying one square meter of land. A heavy book in my arms and light of a lantern that comes from behind me to read. Beginning to do so. I pause. I look up. Star night sky impeccable. I think. I'm in my neighborhood, who belongs to my people, my city, my state, my country. Country that is part of a continent, one of the five that exist in our world, our planet Earth. Planet where nearly seven billion people like me, in an area of \u200b\u200bthree hundred seventeen million square kilometers occupying a hemispherical surface, we usually see in pictures as a field representative. Area that is part of a solar system composed of several other planets in orbit around a star that gives us nothing less than light and heat, which we call the sun and that is two billion miles away from this round world we inhabit. I keep thinking. I resume reading. A beam emitted from its source sun takes eight minutes to reach my house, walking distance to my garden at the speed of light, ie three hundred thousand kilometers per second. I was impressed and can not stop reading. Our solar system, if you read yours and mine, is part of a galaxy in outer space, the cosmos, which we call the Milky Way (studied by Galileo in 1690 and by Kant in 1755 and called "milk" because when you look in the sky white color belies its star product, gases, and bodies that make up). Not if it were but concerned: this Milky Way is also "our" galaxy to give more details (and in the difficulty of giving exact numbers) say astronomical studies is between two hundred thousand to four hundred billion stars. I'm rapt. To plot it is somehow a "gated" enormous, "urbanization de puta madre "(the English would say, at least for its size, if not luxury). But I'm wrong. Is large but not quite. I read Carl Sagan and I find that there are many of these "neighborhoods" in the universe and that many galaxies double or even triple the size of "our" Milky Way. The amounts overwhelm me: it is estimated that there are over one hundred billion galaxies in the universe, which implies that there up there in the cosmos, nothing more, nothing less than seventy sextillion of stars (the number seven followed by twenty zeros , to be clear and express it in numbers: 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of their respective planets stars above our heads, some flashing and signaling of existence, others, many in the dark does not imply their absence ...). I do a moment of reflection. Again I look up and think "that piece of asshole am!!, I thought I was alone. How can we be so foolish and petulant and think that the only place where no life is this grain of sand we call Earth? ". Silence. Continuous observing the sky with a little more attention while gaping head spin, aware of our smallness. This makes me nervous. Change the subject. In my head turned a question: "For how long will all this in the space ?. "Sagan me answer it again: the stars and the universe would, as all studies, fifteen billion years old. Repitámsolo: fifteen thousand million years. I try to understand the figure, try to understand the time and for them to reflect: an average human life today covers eighty years (generations ago much less). Comparatively, this duration of life is a sigh. I still think. It's been fifteen billion years since the universe exists in this tiny part of the cosmos, on earth, human life began only forty thousand years ago with the appearance of a man "smart" our relatives "the man Cro-Magnon. "Studies on the cavemen and evolution confirms this. Forty thousand years since the" hommo sapiens sapiens, 2500 from Socrates, only two thousand from Christ. Comparatively, this time with the past calendar fifteen billion years old the universe would, again, is nothing, is a moment just yesterday ... I was inevitable question arises: "What has happened before when there was human life on earth? It was a long time: 14 billion nine hundred and sixty thousand years where no one thought ... where no reasoned ... where no one knew it was going to die .... just nature and animals. What was it like the time of our planet? When the man was slow in coming? ". I start to feel uncomfortable in my chaise. I move, I settle and close my eyes. I think back to size: in the context of astronomical dimensions of the" neighborhood "of stars the planets in which we live, our, earth, occupies much less, but much much less than a millimeter square, and my square foot garden, where I sit, is something like an atom molecule. I go to move. I think of human beings and in the short time that has history if I compare it precisely with the time of the cosmos ... Definitely I can not stay still. I get up from my chaise, I stretch my hands and legs slowly, carefully, walk across my garden, I look up and distracted for the last time (with a tad of embarrassment) and I prepare to enter the house. When you open the sliding door I see an ant, very small, which moves in a hurry to their nest. I'm careful not to step on and still view your route ... As I understand it better ...
finally roused me and I go home. Time, distance, space and dimensions come with me. Reality slapped me. I come to a conclusion: insignificant size, small place, little time, neighbors who do not know ... many ... I call this place it.
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