It’s a big old place, the Universe. It defies easy description and easy definition at the moment.

There’s no doubt that we will eventually increase our understanding of it in such a way as to make it more manageable for our brains. Do you remember as a kid lying in bed at night and trying to work out how big it was? Remember the bit where you would reach the edge of your understanding and try to fathom out what happened next? Was there a wall, a border, does it just finish and if it does what’s on the other side and your brain would meander along trying to find ways of piecing it together. Next thing you knew was waking up the following morning.

These are the questions that define the limits of our perception. We have them about everything, follow a path or line of enquiry along far enough and you find yourself in uncharted territory. Whether the limitation is yours or the human race’s there comes a point where you reach the boundaries of your ability to conceive of or contain information. There is nothing strange in this and there is nothing wrong with it, we live in an age where it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we should know everything because there is a glut of information. It isn’t like that. Information is only part of the equation, what you do with it or how you apply it is the greater part.

The celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking has spoken about his drive to find a theory of everything and in time we will. Between now and then there is the certain knowledge that we can only know what we know. Place yourself at the boundaries of your current understanding and you can progress from there but be resolved to your limitations. There is no point being frustrated about what you do not know, settle to become the most accomplished that you can be within what you already have access to.