pale blue dot
So aside from the typical back pains that arise from moving your life from one location to another -- my life weighs 4,365 pounds according to the CAT scale in Grand Bay, AL -- things are going pretty swell. As soon as the horizon was defined by open desert in all 360 degrees of beautiful blue sky, it was easy to feel at peace with the new surroundings
And what a delightful surprise to peek my head in at the school's front office... and be told class doesn't start for another 5 weeks... so go get lost
So that's the plan. Whether it's a long moto ride through the gorgeous southwest, or an excursion through some books in my living room (the docs might cast my foot this week and force me to choose the latter), I guess I should feel blessed to have this time off to reflect, forgive, and appreciate all of it... and all of you.
Anyways the real reason for this is to throw up another video. I shared this one with Mike a couple months ago. Brandon and Dylan, two roommates from my past, kinda reopened my eyes to the humbling world of science and the overwhelming imaginations of some of the writers out there who weave beautiful epics, all to fill in the void of the vast amount of real information which we just don't know yet.
There are too many versions of the pale blue dot excerpt online, all posted over a flurry of comments containing philosophical rants, religious analogies, and hateful chest puffing. But if you take Carl's words for what they are, a four-minute unbiased view of our physical existence in this universe, you can derive from it exactly what your personal spirit needs. As much as he was a skeptic, he always left a little bit open.
I like this version because the guy who put it together had a pretty good taste for movies...
Consider 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. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "supreme leader," every "superstar", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we've ever known, the pale blue dot
And what a delightful surprise to peek my head in at the school's front office... and be told class doesn't start for another 5 weeks... so go get lost
So that's the plan. Whether it's a long moto ride through the gorgeous southwest, or an excursion through some books in my living room (the docs might cast my foot this week and force me to choose the latter), I guess I should feel blessed to have this time off to reflect, forgive, and appreciate all of it... and all of you.
Anyways the real reason for this is to throw up another video. I shared this one with Mike a couple months ago. Brandon and Dylan, two roommates from my past, kinda reopened my eyes to the humbling world of science and the overwhelming imaginations of some of the writers out there who weave beautiful epics, all to fill in the void of the vast amount of real information which we just don't know yet.
There are too many versions of the pale blue dot excerpt online, all posted over a flurry of comments containing philosophical rants, religious analogies, and hateful chest puffing. But if you take Carl's words for what they are, a four-minute unbiased view of our physical existence in this universe, you can derive from it exactly what your personal spirit needs. As much as he was a skeptic, he always left a little bit open.
I like this version because the guy who put it together had a pretty good taste for movies...
Consider 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. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "supreme leader," every "superstar", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we've ever known, the pale blue dot
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