We humans rely substantially on what we see. That is real. In total darkness, we are somewhat lost – until, perhaps, our other senses take over to compensate – but, surely, to a degree. But, I have read that there are bacteria or possibly other mobile life-forms which, as scavengers, keep our skins clean. But we cannot, thankfully, see or even feel them. I certainly do not want to hear them. Indeed, I am not happy about these life-forms living on me. What am I? Some sort of pasture?
Then, what about all those trillions of diverse categories of bacteria living within us? They are supposed – in the main – to be beneficial. Indeed, we are said to need them in order to survive. So, what are we? Homes or transport vehicles for a variety of unseen (and unseeable) microbes?
I once had the wacky idea that bacteria, which had previously arrived from deep space, had developed us, in the hope that we will one day take them back home. In any event, are there not residues within our body cells of those early bacterial astronauts which (science says) have helped to shape us (apart from other advanced spacemen, or giants from Planet X)?
So much for the reality within us. What about the reality of other influences which we cannot see? Are they not affecting us in ways of which we are not aware? By influences, I do not refer only to the bombardments by particles and rays from both the sun and space. These affect us by day, or less regularly if they come from further out. We may be what we are, partly because of these bombardments, just as what we are is partly through the actions of life-forms both on and in our bodies?
Reliable scientists tell us that dark matter represents about 96% of all the matter in the universe. Purely as an aside, we yet rely on what we ‘see’ through the Hubbard Telescope to contribute to the formulation of the current cosmogony; that is, the speculated origin of the universe – the one we think we can see. Is the speculated dark matter part of our existence? Indeed, is there some of it within all of us, affecting us in ways we may not be able to fathom?
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 