Monday, November 7, 2011

the pale blue dot

"Plagiarism!" Cries the blogger crowd. "STFU!" interjects the teenager who doesn't need to be original 100% of the time to feel satisfied. Hipsters need to calm down.

If you haven't listened to it before you should.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g

I often listen to it when I need to be humbled by the absolute grandeur of what exists beyond all that my existence will ever be. How unlikely am I? The culmination of millions of years of accident after accident and simple mutations. How lucky are we to live our fleeting existence on this "pale blue dot"?
think how inconsequential we all really are. Atomic bombs have destroyed cities on that dot, and millions of people have been senselessly killed, yet from that far away even events as grand as the holocaust and bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki become negligible.
What does that make us then?
We exist to only as many people as we open up to, and for most that number is very few when weighed against the whole world population. If one were to travel not too far out of his way he will discover that he, and all he has ever been through, means close to nothing to the people who live there. Only if he shares his life story will he have weight in that community, and who wants to sit through that?
What trials and tribulations have we gone though that have lead us to now? What do those mean on the grand scale? Well if harnessing the energy of atoms to decimate populations becomes nothing; I doubt we hold any sort of ranking.
All that we have ever done, or will ever do, becomes forgotten at our atmospheres boundary, and that the farthest we have ever gone in human history is to our own moon. I say this not to discount the perceived grandeur of our history here, but rather to place emphasis on the fact that when you are a dot you are no longer grand.

perspective changes everything
Tyler

2 comments:

  1. I read pale blue a number of years ago and have the paragraph regarding his reflection on the first time he saw the image posted on by bathroom corkboard. Its one of the most profound and special pieces of writing I've ever read. I blogged about it too a while back! http://lionstigersandscienceohmy.blogspot.com/2009/01/prayers-for-bobby.html

    take care,

    steve

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