Distance is inevitable
Today I went to church, and the reverend talked about how the universe is ever-expanding and never stops. He made a joke about how he spent all that money on education just to learn that we are never the center of the universe, that we are never truly special. It was almost a joke—and it landed well, even for me.
When we realize we are living on this small blue planet adrift in a vast, dark universe, it makes us feel incredibly lonely, even as a collective species. We are nothing but dust within something so huge and sublime. And the more we compare, the more the loneliness creeps in, and the more ordinariness steals upon us.
It made me wonder—maybe each individual is like a planet too. We are born lonely the moment the cord is cut between us and our birth mother. We become an entire, separate human being—learning about ourselves, becoming aware of ourselves, and eventually, learning to embrace who we are. But when exactly does loneliness creep in? Does everyone feel that quiet, aching tap in their veins? Or is it only some of us who hear it?
I remember once joking with my friend about how there are over 340 million people in this country, and yet somehow, I still manage to be single most of the time. Even when I put myself in places like coffee shops, bars, libraries—even on dating apps—I still felt a doubled-down hollowness about the world. We see people around us, but we also feel the vast distance between each of us, just like stars. We see so many shining, beautiful stars overhead, but they are always out of reach. Even the Milky Way alone is estimated to have over 100 billion stars—and somehow, that number makes us feel even lonelier.
How ironic is that?
Isolating myself for five months has made me realize:
all that noise on social media was never true connection. We scroll endlessly through TikTok, stimulating our brains to feel happiness; we share videos with others, hoping that act of sharing will bridge the gap between us. We browse feeds full of weddings, travels, and celebrations—not because we deeply care about every post, but because they make us feel like the world is happening around us, that we are not forgotten. Even reading the news—politicians fighting over tariffs, disasters unfolding across the world—reassures us that life is stirring beyond the borders of our own small existence.
All of it serves the same purpose: to make us feel a little less alone.
But of course, by the end of everything, we are still by ourselves. Not many people have the energy to deeply connect with dozens of people every day. If we are lucky, in our whole life, we may find three to five people who truly "get" us. Even those connections are often anchored to special occasions—holidays, trips, moments we plan far ahead. In the day-to-day, in the quiet spaces between, we are still deeply, deeply alone.
It reminds me of a spotlight. The brighter the spotlight shines, the darker the surrounding shadows seem. When we are in that spotlight—when we feel seen, recognized—we are illuminated, yes. But when we look around, we notice the darkness even more sharply. Because the more seen we are, the more we realize just how much of the world is still invisible, unreachable, untouchable.
Every star and planet in this beautiful, dark cosmos is being pulled away from each other. And in some strange, mirrored way, we are being pulled apart too—not by gravity, but by Instagram, by TikTok, by video games. We choose to sit alone in our comfort zones, reaching out to others through screens, and yet with every tap, every scroll, we become a little less connected.
The reality we live in follows a structure so beautiful and vast that our small human minds can barely grasp it. Everything we experience—today, tomorrow, the years ahead—moves across a pattern that repeats itself again and again. It is not that we shape it knowingly. Even with all the history, all the warnings, all the lessons we are taught, we find ourselves looping back—making the same choices, building the same worlds, and falling into the same mistakes.
