When I started this blog over ten years ago, I decided to
stay away from two topics:
Politics and religion.
My aim with this blog since my first post is to write
about stuff that anyone, anywhere, may find helpful.
Stuff that may assist in some way to broaden
our understanding of others and ourselves.
Stuff that hopefully can offer some nuggets of hope
and encouragement for those times when we
may find ourselves troubled, confused, and finding
it hard to articulate with words our true thoughts,
feelings and state of mind.
For all the books(and they are many) that I have
read and are still reading, there is one topic that
I find very challenging to read about.
That topic is that which we have named Universe.
Watching a documentary on Space in general, an
ex-astronaut was asked if the experience of seeing
earth from ''far, far away'' had affected him.
His answer was that he and other fellow astronauts
no longer identify with a specific nationality or culture,
instead they see themselves, and all citizens on earth,
as one people, one world.
(There is a word for this, and it is ''Overview effect''.
Which means a cognitive shift that affects some
astronauts when they view the earth from space.)
The doco ended with our view zooming out from
earth until earth was no longer visible and me,
experiencing a bad bout of vertigo.
In 1987, Ronald Reagan gave a speech before the
United Nations in which he had this to say:
''Perhaps we need some outside universal threat
to make us recognize our common bond.''
Unfortunately when he said this, many of his loyal
supporters had come to the conclusion that he
had gone a bit ''batty''.
I'm not so sure he was wrong.....batty or not.
There's even a movie suggesting that Reagan
may not have been so batty after all:
''Independence Day.''
Many of the astronauts who have viewed earth
from space, have said that they experienced unexpected
overwhelming emotions and an increased sense of
connection to other people and Earth as a whole.
Exploring species as we are, we keep exploring space
in search for life on other planets. As we do so, we gain
more and more understanding of just how vast space is
and how small our precious little blue planet is.
At this point in time, as far as we know, Earth
is alone in harboring life. (As we define life),
A lonely little blue dot in the midst of an unending
cosmic darkness.
Such being the case, that makes Earth precious
in my view.
Yet, somehow we behave as if it isn't.
Our history of behaviour on this precious planet
bear witness to our carelessness, indifference,
and rampant abuse of the bounty and beauty
it has, and is, providing for us.
Are we so caught up in our own little worlds
that we are failing to acknowledge that perhaps the
greatest threat to our planet may not be aliens
..............but us?
We can do better.
''Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need,
but not every man's greed.''
(Gandhi)
Maybe if we were to invest time and practice into
being compassionate, charitable and understanding.....
More considerate in the way we treat our ''home'',(earth)
our fellow humans, our fellow critters, maybe then
we would come to truly value just how
precious our ''little blue dot'' is.
Scarcity, as I understand the word,
is what makes something precious.
But, so far, we have yet to discover another
planet just like ours.
''Earth is not our property to
do with as we please.
We are mere its tenants.''
(Citizen Z)
about the image: ink on paper, editing in Elements
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