I don't really understand relativity. Special or General relativity. I've watched a lot of documentaries on this though. Seriously, I've spend a LOT of hours watching documentaries about space time. But my mind just isn't convinced about how exactly this stuff works. To truly understand and satisfy myself, I know i will need to get into the details and "do the math" as they say here in America. But i guess my priorities are elsewhere right now. Anyway, i find the subject utterly fascinating. And what i've taken away from my hundreds of hours of documentary watching is this:
Think about it, the universe is ginormous. If i were to be picked up and dropped into any part of the universe apart from where i am now (in a very specific part of a tiny blue ball orbiting our particular Sun), I'd be totally and completely lost. Similarly, if i am transported back or forward in time, even just a few hundred years, i'd be completely helpless. I wouldn't know the language, probably wouldn't recognize the food, i just wouldn't know how to survive.
Even where i am right here and now, i don't hunt or grow my own food, i just go to the supermarket where food appears by magic. I don't know how to build by own shelter, i just pay someone to live temporarily in a structure they own. There are probably countless things that i interact with everyday that i have literally no knowledge about, but someone else spent a lifetime understanding and building it. The only thing that i am "good" at, is navigating life as a 28 year old human in urban America and bringing some value to a software engineering company. Don't get me wrong, i am extremely proud of what i have achieved and where i am (and where i will be going), but compared to what is out there and what can be known, it is nothing.
My point is, each one of us is like that. I have realized that each one of us is a master of a very thin, but, very own slice of space time. Have you seen those videos that say "Americans are SO DUMB lol they don't know basic geography/whatever"? But guess what, the person asking the questions is probably just as "dumb". Its not hard to ask a bunch of random questions to people, edit out all the right answers and give the impression that people are dumbasses. Average people are not stupid, they have limitless potential. And in fact, they know enough to thrive.
In thinking this way, i was humbled and at the same time, my self esteem got a huge boost. I hope that anyone reading this is similarly influenced.