Does the fact that there are billions of lives happening all at once here amaze you?

It is safe to assume the LSD you bought was real. :-)

Here is the fun part. You can start putting yourself in the other peoples shoes. Life is a bit better once you develop some empathy. We are all in this together and we have a duty to help others when we can.

I am not religious

No.

I’m amazed because a few of them are happening.

@Drush545 Welcome to Fluther. Amazing as it is, such is life. There have been over 100 billion of us born on Earth. That’s analogous to how many stars the are in our Milky Way Galaxy. And 7 billion of that 100 billion are alive right now.

100 years ago, we thought our galaxy was the Universe. We called other galaxies nebula, from the Latin word for cloud. We thought they were glowing dust and gas clouds in our own galaxy. Some are. Most are not. They are distant galaxies, some far bigger than our Milky way. Now we know those distant galactic clusters number far above 100 billion and that all that are not in our puny local cluster are racing away from our own local cluster, and that their speed of recession is accelerating. At a finite point in our future, they will be receding from us faster than the speed of light, because space between us and them is expanding that rapidly. So one by one, they will flicker out.

Yet we live at a time when we can still see the cosmic microwave background radiation left from the Big Bang and thus know that a Big Bang set all this in motion. That will all become invisible in the future. In a phrase, “We live in a very special time. A time when it is possible to know that we live in a very special time.”

Yes. I become aware of it most when I travel. Especially when I travel to a very different region of my country or to another country.

Yes I have thought this myself. Each individual is different and yet similar to ourselves. We could have been born into quite different lives.

I just want to know why they are all trying to get to the same place as me on a Friday night.

No. It rather disturbs me, just like watching the countless ants on an anthill, or bees in a beehive. It gives me the urge to grab a flame thrower.

I’m more amazed by the fact that not one life lived in the history of the world, past, present or future, is exactly the same as anyone else’s life. Each life is indisputably its own.

Even if someone shares a body, but has different heads, such as Abby and Brittany, will not have precisely the same life experience. At one point or another, one will disagree, one will be an actor and the other an observer, etc.

Far more than billions, if you count species outside of humans…

Welcome and yes, I actually think of it quite often, and when I was seven I asked my mom why there was so many sad people.

It’s especially hard when I see people spending a lot of money to have all the newest gadgets and material possessions. I think to myself, if we all cared a little more, we could eradicate hunger and homelessness, and wouldn’t that be great?! No children would go to bed hungry or cold or with horrible parents, no women would get beat up, no old ladies would get raped by meth-heads.

For me, it shows me how indifferent most people are to the suffering in the world. There’s so much pain and tears and hurt happening every single minute, while we live our own little lives. It’s overwhelming.

Yes, I am very amazed. I especially think about this when I walk around in big cities, passing thousands of people each day. They all have their unique lives, worries, loves and tears. I also think about what is going on in the world right now, as I am sitting here – babies are born, people die, people fight, some commit suicide, some are breaking up, some are making up and what’s sad to think about, is all the disasters that is going on right now.

What you are experiencing is called sonder.

And, just like snowflakes, no two are alike.
Except for identical twins.
Unless one has a tattoo.

The twin, not the snowflake

I was in Athens, Greece. It was really hot, noisy, crowded, dirty and I had sudden flash of peace of mind realizing the lack of importance I had in this world and simultaneously realizing that my life was also most important to me because it was all I had. It had a profound effect of how I have the rest of my life. I don’t stress about small things because in the scale of my life, everything is small.

@SavoirFaire Here’s sonder in video.

Yeah I think it’s hard to grasp how all these different people can dwell in different places and all have completely different mind sets and everything.

I was thinking of this the other day. And the whole Six Degrees of separation came to mind. Yes, we all lead our own lives, but we are so interconnected that it amazes me.