why cosmos everywhere?
Why I'm @himanshucosmos (And Why It Matters)
You've probably noticed the pattern. Across every platform (except Instagram, for reasons I'll let you guess), I'm @himanshucosmos. Not a random gaming tag. Not some clever wordplay. Just... cosmos.
Let me take you back.
The Sixth Grader Who Couldn't Look Away
Picture this: sixth grade me, bursting through the front door, flinging my school bag across the room like it owed me money, and sprinting to the TV. National Geographic. Afternoon slot. The show? COSMOS.
In those sixty minutes, I didn't exist for anyone else. Not for homework. Not for chores. Not for anything. I'd change clothes in record time, shovel food into my mouth, and plant myself in front of that screen like my life depended on it.
Because in a way, it did.
The Questions That Wouldn't Let Me Sleep
I was obsessed with one thing: Where do we actually fit in all of this?
Where did we come from? What are we made of? Why are we here at all?
Then came the mind-bender that changed everything: the Big Bang happened around 14.3 billion years ago. Before that? No time. Not slow time. Not frozen time. No concept of time at all.
Just... try to wrap your head around that for a second.
And here's the part that still gives me chills: you and I? We were together once. Every atom in my body came from the same cosmic explosion as yours. The carbon in your cells, the iron in your blood, the calcium in your bones—all forged in the heart of dying stars, scattered across the universe, and somehow... somehow... came together to create you. Right now. Reading this.
That realization hit different when you're the eldest kid in a family where asking "what happened before time began?" gets you labeled as the weird one.
When Books Became My Portal
So I turned to books. Not textbooks—those were just regurgitation machines preparing me to vomit facts onto exam papers. I mean real books. Stephen Hawking became my companion. The words made sense, but something was still missing, some deeper understanding that kept eluding me.
Then came the winter nights.
Standing outside, neck craned toward the sky, I'd stare at the stars until they scared me. Pick any tiny patch of darkness, and it's packed with thousands of them. Millions. Maybe more. Each one a sun. Many with their own worlds. Some with life, maybe asking the same questions I was.
My friend had a telescope. We did every experiment we could think of during those nights. Those moments shaped who I became.
The Dream That Almost Was
Neil deGrasse Tyson. Carl Sagan. These weren't just TV personalities to me—they were showing me a path. I thought I'd become a researcher. I could see it so clearly: my name on papers, discoveries, pushing the boundaries of what we knew.
Then life happened. Family stuff. The kind that makes you choose between your dreams and the people you love.
I chose my family. But I refused to let that curious kid inside me die.
High School and the IIT Industrial Complex
I picked science in high school, thinking I'd found my people. Instead, I found a system obsessed with one thing: the IIT tag. That golden ticket everyone was chasing. The pressure, the competition, the way everything else got reduced to noise—it broke something.
Between what was happening at home and the outside world's expectations crushing down, I could've given up.
I didn't.
Part-time physics and math classes. Astronomy clubs in college. Revisiting those books that first lit the spark. And then, like a gift from the universe itself, COSMOS Season 2 dropped.
The Cosmic Calendar That Changed Everything
One concept from that show haunts me in the best way possible: the Cosmic Calendar.
Imagine all 14.3 billion years of history compressed into one year. January 1st: Big Bang. And humans? We show up in the last few seconds before midnight on December 31st. Within those final 5,000 years—a blink, a heartbeat, nothing—we went to the moon.
We. Went. To. The. Moon.
If we can do that in five thousand years, what can you do in your one lifetime?
Because that's all we get. One shot. One cosmic accident that arranged atoms in just the right way to make you conscious, aware, able to ask questions about your own existence.
What Comes Next
Sometimes I think about legally changing my surname to Cosmos. Starting fresh. Building a family with that legacy baked into our identity.
Maybe it's crazy. Maybe it's perfect. Time will tell.
But for now, I'm @himanshucosmos. Not because it sounds cool. Because it reminds me every single day: I'm made of stardust, I've got limited time, and I refuse to waste it.
This is just the beginning. If you want more stories about life, the universe, and everything in between, keep reading. I promise—you won't be disappointed.
What's your cosmic moment? DM me or reach out in the discord group
Links: Discord group : https://discord.gg/JNXF6xbjk Cosmos trailer : https://youtu.be/QoNSU9o6464?si=boxRVmyZEeL1MiZX Cosmic Calender : https://youtu.be/Bl-s4tqR8Bc?si=dvNEIM0p834dEVR0