Gnosis

So our earth is in a solar system that is one of millions of stars (and probably solar systems) in a wing or arm of a minor galaxy. On our earth, our species is but a blip in long cycle of this planet. So what are we to make of our situation? Our own "individual" existences are so short as to be almost invisible on any scale but our own. In fact, our probable species duration is so short as to be almost invisible on any scale but our own.

The constant hum of birth and death, rebirth, redeath, on a individual, species, planetary and galactic levels anon, is the real "background noise" of the universe. Because the confines of the consciousness we feel sure about, i.e., the individual, is so short, so almost irrelevant, that it really calls into question what we can really know about our surroundings, it may very well be that we are severely limited by forces we either can not know, or are very dimily aware of my virtue of our smallness. 

As a species, we appear to be driven by a search for certainty, perhaps propelled by this inner knowledge of how small we really are.  If there is any significance to "us" it will need to be a collective us, if for no other reason than to become visible in such a massive scale of time and space.