When I think about how advanced technology has become, I don’t just think about machines or discoveries I think about where I am in all of it. I think about the fact that I’m alive at this exact moment in history, a brief flicker of consciousness in a universe that has existed for billions of years, yet somehow able to witness and participate in its unfolding. That alone feels overwhelming. Sometimes it makes me feel powerful. Other times, it makes me feel very, very small.
We’ve created instruments that can see galaxies as they were billions of years ago, detect ripples in spacetime, and translate cosmic radiation into data we can understand. I struggle to reconcile that with the fragility of my own life, with how easily I can feel tired, lost, or unsure of my place. The contrast is almost absurd: a species capable of decoding the universe, yet still wrestling with meaning in our own hearts.
What makes it personal for me is how invisible the process often feels. Just like success, technological advancement looks sudden from the outside. A breakthrough headline, a viral announcement, a stunning image from space and it feels like magic. But I know that behind every first are years of quiet effort, failed experiments, long nights, and people whose names will never be known. That resonates with me deeply, because so much of life feels like that too, doing the work without applause, hoping it matters, trusting that something is slowly forming beneath the surface.
Drawn through time
Technology also forces me to confront my own contradictions. I benefit from it daily. I rely on it. I’m shaped by it. And yet, I sometimes feel overwhelmed by how fast it moves, how little time we give ourselves to reflect. We can simulate universes, map brains, and send messages across light-years, but we still struggle with empathy, patience, and wisdom. It makes me wonder whether advancement is supposed to feel this unbalanced—like our tools are sprinting ahead while our inner lives lag behind, trying to catch up.
There’s something deeply humbling about realizing that all this technology the satellites, the probes, the algorithms exists because the universe allowed it. The same physical laws that govern collapsing stars also allow silicon to compute, energy to flow, and consciousness to emerge. We didn’t impose ourselves on the cosmos; we emerged from it. In that sense, technology isn’t separate from nature, it’s nature becoming aware of itself through us. That idea stays with me. It makes my existence feel less random, even when life feels chaotic.
At the same time, I feel a quiet responsibility pressing in. If we are advanced enough to touch the edges of the universe, then we are advanced enough to harm ourselves irreversibly. Technology amplifies intention. It doesn’t make us better or worse it makes us more. More capable, more destructive, more creative, more careless. I sometimes worry that we’re so focused on what we can do that we forget to ask what we should do. The universe has waited billions of years; it doesn’t need us to rush.
What stays with me most, though, is the thought that despite all this advancement, the universe remains indifferent and that’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t judge our failures or celebrate our discoveries. It simply exists. In that indifference, I find a strange comfort. Our technologies may one day fade, our civilizations may vanish, but for this brief moment, we get to witness something extraordinary: a universe vast enough to swallow us, yet structured enough to be understood by minds like ours.
