Our political landscape is a disaster. We have a mentally and morally challenged executive who, enabled by a spineless majority party, is a walking disaster. Trump is tearing apart almost 250 years of the American experiment … democratic governance under the rule of law. He is attacking historic allies while courting the worst authoritarian rulers around the globe. His economic policies demonstrate an astounding combination of avarice coupled with unimaginable ignorance. He has peppered the Civil Service and his cabinet with incompetent toadies whose only redeeming quality is obsequious loyalty to himself. He has purged the Pentagon and other federal agencies of competent leadership on grounds that only make sense in his warped mind. He uses the Office of the President to push products for personal gain and to seek revenge on an ever expanding list of enemies. He has permitted an unelected outsider to dismantle federal institutions and eviscerate the civil service without any real thought to longer-term consequences. He is systemically attacking science and the (to date) best higher education system in the world. He has attempted to bully key institutions and individuals into total compliance, wesponizing the nation’s law enforcement organizations for this nefarious purpose. He has advanced a key principle inherent in all totalitarian regimes … attacking a defenseless scapegoat group to stir up negative and irrational passions. He has waged unceasing war on the poor and the vulnerable while seeking to further enrich the top tenth of one percent of the income and wealth pyramid. In the latest GOP budget bill, that elite group would see another $180,000 in federal benefits while the bottom 40 percent of all Americans would come out losers.

It is hard to imagine a more horrific scenario than the one we are in. It is like living in a Steven King novel of unending terror with a plot that suggests no easy escape from the enveloping pain. The resulting hopelessness arises, in part at least, from the knowledge that we have done this to ourselves. No one invaded us. No one imposed tyranny from without. This was evil willingly and knowingly embraced by Americans themselves. They did so eagerly, with some apparently believing that Trump has been divinely sent to save us. And therein lies the ultimate horror. Even though our wannabe dictator is experiencing short-term declines in favorability polls, I have no faith that the electorate will not be fooled again. Or worse, perhaps this is what they ultimately want from our government.

However, I do have a source of comfort amidst all the pain. Virtually everyone in my circle of friends and associates (with at least one obvious exception) shares my views and concerns. Every conversation I have quickly descends into a corrosive discussion of the dire state of our public affairs. The highly educated members in my collegial orbit are stunned and depressed by what they see. We all express disbelief that our fellow citizens, who often appear normal on furst glance, apparently suffer from a debilitating form of cognitive decline. How tragic. How depressing.

While discussions with like-minded associates afford some relief, they often result in further agitation. We tend to feed into each other’s senses of despair and anger. Not good! Not good at all!!! Fortunately, there is a more soothing form of relief. Oddly enough, it comes from an unexpected place … a place one might not suspect. It comes from out there. Not just out there, but in places where our poor capacities for apprehension typically fail us. I am soothed by the incredible majesty of our magnificent cosmos.

When I look at the night sky above, all I can see are a few scattered stars. There’s just too much light pollution. Perhaps, if I get out into the country I can catch a bit of the Milky Way Galaxy … which is our celestial neighborhood. But that’s little more than looking at the ground around me. I can still recall seeing a canopy stars when I spent two years in rural India. That was the one time in my life when I fully appreciated the visible heavens above. Still, even that was a mere taste of what exists out there.

In truth, there is no way to fully embrace what is out there directly. That is beyond our meager powers. No, we have become creatures of technology. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors started with the simplest tools … clubs and flint sharpened with rocks into tools for both conflict and domestic use. Now, we send incredibly sophisticated machines with highly calibrated, digitally controlled telescopes to penetrate the edges of the known universe and the origins of time. These are toys of incredible sophistication and possibility.

The pictures that have been sent back by our amazing new technologies have reimagined our universe in ways no one would have conceived a mere century ago. Then, the limits of the cosmos were contained within our own galaxy. Soon, however, as we could peer deeper into space and farther back into time, unimaginable worlds and spectacles opened up to us. There were black holes and giant stars and novas and super novas and billows of interstellar gases whose dimensions defy understanding. But mostly, the known universe kept expanding and expanding as we looked in wonder at someone’s (or something’s) creative masterpiece.

How does this affect me? Well, today we have identified somewhere between two and three trillion galaxies out there. Each of these has billions or trillions of stars. Who knows how many earths or earth-like planets are out there. Who knows how many life forms exist in this vast cosmos or even how close we have come to calculating its boundaries. Perhaps we have only touched upon a corner of what exists. And then, of course, there are those theories, articulated by the advanced mathematics of brains far superior to mine, that postulate many parallel universes. Perhaps what we can see, or measure, is merely one of a multitude of possibilities that defy our meager intellects.

How might we think about all this? I can not speak to what others think or how they might react. For me, the awareness of these otherworldly dimensions of time and space is extraordinarily humbling. We are nothing in this vast tapestry of cosmic wonders. We are one planet orbiting a very ordinary sun that is situated in a remote spiral arm of one galaxy among billions and billions of such. Homo-sapiens, our species, has been around for maybe 100,000 years. Seems like a long time, but that’s a blink of an eye over the 14.5 billion years since the initial big bang (or is it the latest big bang). Of those 100,000 years, settled humans have existed for 10 percent of that period; urban societies perhaps 5 percent; our industrial world perhaps two-tenths of one percent; our modern, technological society has been around for a mere nanosecond in the history of the species and much less in the history of life and even less in the duration of the cosmos as we know it.

I am totally humbled as I think on such things.

Is there any meaning in contemplating our magnificent and mysterious cosmos? If so, perhaps it lies in the miracle of consciousness. Think about this. I once had a friendly debate with a scholar who also happens to be my neighbor. He argued that the probability that life formed anywhere was the product of an almost infinite number of serendipitous and highly unlikely events. He thought we were probably the only advanced life form around. I countered that with so many galaxies, stars, and planets out there, the prospect of multiple life forms is more than reasonable. There are countless potential petri dishes out there for endless experimentation.

Even if we are the only game in town (or the cosmos), we have no idea where evolution can take us. Look how far we have progressed since the emergence of deductive scientific methods and the industrial revolution. And just consider how fast the pace of evolution and change is occurring. Can we even imagine the possibilities when human creativity is merged with advanced technologies. It could be mind-bending. Then again, it might also be Armageddon.

Is there a bottom line? For me, contemplating the cosmos and the broad sweep of evolution leaves me with a sense of wonder. It helps me put our petty problems into perspective. Small minds like Trump and the MAGA minions cannot see the bigger picture. Their lives are circumscribed by petty goals and limited ambitions. They seek power and money as if such things mean much in the broader scheme of things. I feel bad for them.

If there is a divine presence out there, the cosmos being unfolded before us is His or Her masterpiece, an ultimate work of art. And if the struggling species of homo-sapiens manages to survive, perhaps our primitive consciousness might evolve into some higher form that we can not possibly envision. At some point, perhaps we can shift our sights from irrelevant earthly issues and petty political squabbles to the bigger questions out there.

There is so much more to understand. And it is so much fun speculating about the possibilities.