Matter

The origins of everything are a little murky.  On what scientists seem to agree is that, at some point in the very distant past, there was nothing; something then occurred (e.g. a Big Bang); and then there was something, probably the most elemental specks of matter.  From that point, fast forwarding a few million (billion?) years, we have us, clothes, food, iPods, and this shiny titanium notebook in which I am penning these thoughts.

But what preceded the Big Bang?  Some posit that swirling nothingness actually begat mass, leading to matter.  I pause to reflect on that.  Extrapolating a bit (and simplifying that overall theory), I realize it is possible to observe this creation of matter and mass in the creation of relationships.

I'm not sure it is fair to say that relationships start with actually nothing.  However, I do observe that--from a void where nothing exists--two people can create something that fills that void, a relationship.  Relationships are both tangible and intangible, a fact proven by how one feels where one exists and where one no longer does.

I'm a little hazy on the exact difference between mass and matter (from a quantum physics standpoint); however, I do know that--once mass is created--mass cannot be destroyed, or so concludes the law of the conservation of mass.  Moreover, by that logic, one must conclude that--since mass can neither be created or destroyed--all mass (and its eventual matter) existed immediately at the time of the Big Bang, including relationships.

I guess I want to pause there to appreciate the implication: that relationships will always exists, despite the mitigating, temporal circumstances that may cause their corporeal existences to ignite and to extinguish.

Of course, upon further research on what, exactly, mass is, I read that mass commonly refers to any of three properties of matter (generally, anything that has mass and occupies volume): inertial mass, active gravitational mass, and passive gravitational mass.  Relationships do not really exhibit any of those three properties of matter, nor do they seem to occupy volume.

Yet among all of the tangible items of matter one will encounter (and then probably lose, like an iPhone), based on the few years I have spent on this Earth, I see no evidence to contradict a suspicion that it will be those relationships you make that will stay with you forever.