Just a few reminders today that great things come from tiny bits.
New Scientist posted an article on planet formation. Tiny bits of dust come together to form planets, just as sentences come together to form my short stories and novels. Dust is not wasted, even though some bits bounce off each other and don’t form that exact planet.
The very first seeds of planets are made of micrometre-sized grains of dust, which bump into one another as they orbit a star and stick together in fluffy clumps. As more and more tiny grains stick together, the clumps start to compact, until they are no longer fluffy and start to bounce off one another like billiard balls instead of sticking. This happens when the clumps are millimetres across and is called the bouncing barrier.
It helps to think of my work as dust trying to come together to form something greater. And as Delenn said in Babylon 5:
“The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are star-stuff. We are the Universe, made manifest, trying to figure itself out. And, as we have both learned, sometimes the Universe needs a change of perspective.”
J. Michael Strazinski from A Distant Star
We are all star stuff. All of our dreams, our words, and our lives created by the same dust that forms the planets. The universe is patient as dust bounces against each other. It doesn’t ask, “What planet will this be?” or “Why won’t my dust come together?” It just lets the universe form as it will. And we are part of it, with our unique perspectives.
May your sentences and words overcome the bouncing barrier to create something bigger than you could have imagined starting out. Live with joy, friends.