Life is shaped by choices. The fundamental debate is whether to live life for learning or for pleasure. This weekend, my existential tension boiled down to a simple question: why am I writing my next book and my next scientific paper rather than having fun in the sun?
After some contemplation, I came up with the realization that learning is pleasure. But there is another benefit to writing. Most people will live in the future and I wish to communicate my thoughts to those who will be born long after I am gone. I weigh my priorities in life based on the number of people who might benefit from my actions.
There are currently 8.1 billion people on Earth, about 7% of the total number of humans who have ever lived since the Big Bang, 117 billion. Based on the star count from the Gaia sky survey, the number of stars in the Milky-Way galaxy is comparable to this total value within a factor of a few. This implies that for the foreseeable future, Milky-Way stars could be named after each person who ever lived on Earth.
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