A Way to View Life in the Universe

Let’s say somebody said that they had a belief system in which it was simply posited that carbon came out of, I don’t know, a blue sky one day. That wouldn’t make me feel any more meaning about who I was in the world. It feels much richer to me to imagine that a cold, empty cosmos collapses with stars, and stars burn and shine, and they make carbon in their cores and then they throw them out again. And that carbon collects and forms another planet and another star and then amino acids evolve and then human beings arise. I mean, that’s, to me, a really beautiful narrative.

(From a great interview with Krista Tippett)

Janna Levin

Astro Physicist, & Author, Her Website