You are Rare

Picture Credit: Lakshmi Ambady

“We have this interesting problem with black holes. What is a black hole? It is a region of space where you have mass that's confined to zero volume, which means that the density is infinitely large, which means we have no way of describing, really, what a black hole is! “

Andrea M. Ghez, American Astrophysicist.

Black holes are rare. The conditions required to create them are extraordinarily extreme. A star does not just become a black hole when it dies. Most stars in our universe are too small. To become a stellar black hole, a star needs to begin with a mass at least 25 times bigger than our Sun. After burning through its nuclear fuel, the star must collapse under its own gravity with enough force that nothing at all, not even light can escape. And that star must live fast, burn violently and die catastrophically. And that is an incredibly specific rare outcome. Small stars become white dwarfs. Slightly larger ones become neutron stars. But only the massive ones collapse into black holes. Scientifically black holes are so rare relative to the scale of the cosmos because matter itself is surprisingly diffused throughout the universe. Galaxies are mostly empty space. Even though it is believed by astrophysicists that black holes are common in the centre of large galaxies, the universe contains vastly ordinary stars, gas clouds and empty vacuum. What makes black holes common in our modern culture is the psychological weight they carry- time warping, gravity becoming extreme, light bending and spacetime behaving in ways the human nervous system struggles to comprehend. In short, a black hole is peculiar because it’s the place where gravity wins.

According to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, the rarest event in the universe is not a black hole. It is you. Not just because you were born. But because out of billions of years of cosmic violence, collapsing stars, evolving cells, surviving ancestors, emotional inheritances, genetic accidents, and microscopic probabilities and consciousness gathered itself into this exact body, this exact nervous system, this exact pair of eyes reading these words. A black hole maybe considered quite extraordinary. But black holes are common compared to the statistical miracle of a human life.

You are made from dead stars. The iron in your blood, the calcium in your bones, the oxygen in your lungs, all of it was forged inside ancient stars that exploded before the Earth even existed. Every atom in your body has travelled through cosmic time to become you. The universe had to survive itself long enough to create a nervous system capable of wondering what the universe is. And somehow, it did. Did it not?  But the tragedy of being human is that we rarely feel this miracle in the body. Trauma shrinks out perception. Stress narrows our innate consciousness and sheer survival compresses life into repetition. A nervous system stuck in chronic threat cannot experience awe because it is too busy scanning for danger. This is why so many people feel disconnected from life even while being surrounded by it. The body becomes organized around protection instead of aliveness. Somatically, the human organism is always asking one question:

“Am I safe enough to fully exist? Do I matter?”

Be honest with yourself and see how many times this question has crossed your mind.

What has been your answer?

When the answer is no, the body contracts. The shoulders tighten. Breathing becomes shallow. The jaw hardens. The gut clenches. And the most devastating events of all- the mind starts to loop. You stop experiencing yourself as a living event and start experiencing yourself as a problem to solve. As something to rectify. But your body was never designed only for survival. It was designed for participation. For engagement and for involvement with the universe and the life in it.

Your vagus nerve, one of the most important nerves in the human body constantly listens to your internal and external world for signs of safety or danger. This process is called Neuroception, a term developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges. Before conscious thought even appears, the body has already decided whether to open or close. This means your experience of reality is deeply biological and not just psychological.

When the nervous system feels safe-

Perception changes.

Time slows.

Breathing deepens.

Connection returns.

Curiosity reappears.

The body begins to emerge from defensive architecture. And here something extraordinary happens-You start feeling the miracle of life again. Not intellectually but somatically. And cellularly. Science now shows that your body is not separate pieces functioning independently. Your fascia, the connective tissue surrounding muscles, organs, nerves, and bones forms one continuous web through the body. Researchers increasingly describe it as a sensory organ involved in memory, tension, emotion, posture, and perception. So, your body is not a mere machine of isolated parts. It is a living conversation. Always interacting with the environment.

Your heartbeat changes with emotion.

Your immune system changes with loneliness.

Your posture changes your thoughts.

Your breathing changes brain activity.

Everything is connected. Even your genes are listening. Epigenetics demonstrates that trauma, stress, nutrition, connection, and environment can influence how genes are expressed. Your biology is not fixed destiny. The body remembers experiences chemically. Some fears you carry may be older than your own life. Some tensions may belong to generations before you. And still despite wars, heartbreak, grief, ancestral pain, illness, loss, extinction events, and evolutionary struggle, life continued long enough to become you.

Think about the odds. One sperm out of hundreds of millions reached the egg. And the egg chose a certain sperm. Your ancestors, your great- grandparents, your grandparents and your parents survived famine, predators, disease, migration, accidents, and history itself. Entire bloodlines converged into one nervous system.

Yours.

You are not separate from the universe. You are the universe organized into a body capable of self-awareness. A black hole bends space and time. But you can bend meaning. You can transform suffering into wisdom. You can interrupt generational trauma. You can create art from grief. You can make music from joy. You can recall your childhood from a scent. You can hold another human being and change their nervous system through safety alone. And this rarer than any cosmic phenomenon we have discovered. A black hole cannot do this.

Frankly if you think about it, the human body itself is statistically absurd. Your brain contains roughly 86 billion neurons communicating through trillions of synaptic connections. Your heart generates its own electromagnetic field. Your immune system identifies threats with astonishing precision. Your microbiome contains trillions of organisms cooperating to keep you alive. And most of this happens without you consciously doing anything. Right now, your body is performing miracles silently.

Healing tissue.

Balancing chemicals.

Tracking gravity.

Regulating temperature.

Encoding memory.

Listening for emotion in human voices.

The body is not simply flesh. It is intelligence embodied. It is matter that emerged to become aware. Yet modern life often trains us to treat ourselves mechanically, as productivity systems instead of living organisms. We, as a species have become disconnected from sensation.

Disconnected from grief.

Disconnected from rest.

Disconnected from wonder.

Disconnected from curiosity.

But healing can be the slow return to astonishment. To wonder. To a fascination of the human chassis. To knowing its intelligence and its yearning for balance. A passion to feeling life inside the body again. This is why moments of deep presence can feel spiritual. Because for a moment, the nervous system stops defending itself long enough to witness reality directly. And suddenly existence itself feels sacred. Not because suffering disappeared. But because you remembered you are alive.

The rarest event in the universe is not a black hole. It is your consciousness emerging from stardust. It is a body learning safety after pain. It is a nervous system choosing connection after trauma. It is a human being becoming fully present inside their own life. It is you.

A black hole cannot wonder about existence. A black hole cannot love. A black hole cannot create music, grieve, heal trauma, or look at the night sky and feel awe. The universe produced billions of stars. But somewhere inside those stars, chemistry became biology. Biology became nervous systems. Nervous systems became self-awareness. And now the cosmos can observe itself through you. Isn’t this a rare event? You. A body of ancient stars learning how to feel alive.