in another universe

“we are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.”

carl sagan wrote this in his famous book, “Cosmos”. i’m sure that as an astronomer he may have meant to convey how trapped humans seem to be in their own bubble here on Earth - stuck, when there’s a vast world left unexplored, an entire cosmos that we cannot even begin to understand because we are so caught up and so absorbed in our lives as they are now.

but let me offer a different perspective -

there come many moments in time, many periods of our lives where we constantly fall victim to the intoxicating illusion that the people around us, our struggles and hardships, our greatest loves, or even material goods will be there for us forever. we fail to realize the significance of these things in the moment no matter how much we may try to delude ourselves into “living in the present”. it’s an inevitable fact of the human condition - we think something will last forever because we haven’t yet seen it end. we are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever. we can claim to live in the present, yet we still live with a hint of uncertainty, uneasiness, anxiety, and maybe even the tiniest bit of excitement at not knowing what’s to come the next day.

“in another universe” is a tribute to what it’s like to be human in this way - us surrendering to the irresistable temptation of thinking about the “what if’s”.

maybe in another universe…