Right now, at this absolute (not relative) moment, there are a multitude of civilizations growing in the galaxy much like the human race is. We haven't detected them yet because the information simply hasn't had the time to reach us yet, and it wont for many millions of years, but it's growing. Soon the time of universal evolution will begin, which will be analogous to how evolution started among cells at the dawn of life on earth. The first organisms didn't know of each other, they lacked informational input to detect each other, and even if they sometimes bumped into each other they wouldn't know nor really care what happened. What's happening now is, as mentioned, most likely analogous

If anything is consistent in life is cycles. The methods are always different, but the the goals are the same. There is no reason to not believe in humans being the start of an organism of many, on a much larger universal macro scale. In this perspective we as individuals are nothing but ants, living in the beginning of an age so long it's unfathomable to grasp.

There will come a time where looking back the current state of earth is like looking back at babylon today, but logarithmic, as reality is. The rate of change will most likely say somewhat similar, but the perspective on the timespan will change. Just like how an elder experience a year much faster than a toddler, the same will happen for humanity when viewed as a single organism. And humans are toddlers, actually even less than so, we're barely cells.