Matt Kilty

And with that, suddenly, we were confronted by another sort of dark mirror, this one with tiny little specks of light, an even bigger void for us to confront.

And it would take some time for people to start waxing on about the enormity of this void, conjuring up just how itty-bitty we really are, where our eyes would start to turn away from the sea and up to the stars.

A void that goes on forever.

I mean, further than forever.

A forever that is getting bigger with each passing moment that we sit here and contemplate it.

And to do this, to gaze up into the depths of the universe, is, as Victor Hugo might say, in the imagination.

like beholding the vast unknown.

Lulu.

Latif.

Radiolab.

And today we are playing a recording of a live show we did a few weeks ago in New York City.

And for the last story, I'm taking you to space with a guy who is reaching out into that void.

So I am in the middle of reading the book series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with my son.

And in the second book, there is this device called the Total Perspective Vortex.

It's a closet-sized machine that you walk into, close the door behind you, and what it does is it shows you, like really, truly shows you

how small and insignificant you are in the universe.

And I should have mentioned, it's actually a torture device.

No one has ever survived it because it is just that psychologically, cripplingly unbearable to know how trifling you are in the grand scheme of things.

But I think there's something maybe even worse than knowing how small you are.

And that is the possibility that we are all alone.