This essay made me think of the famous "Pale blue dot" image and what Carl Segan said about it:
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.”
Even more staggering than the thought of our own eventual and inevitable non-existence is that of all humanity. When I contemplate my own death I am aware of and somewhat comforted that humanity will continue on without me. Yet humanity itself cannot live forever. As with the individual, the fate of all humanity is to some extent in our own hands.