Something inexplicable happened today. I woke up at 9:30am on a Saturday to let the
dogs out and I didn’t go back to bed. I
actually went to the kitchen, warmed up the coffee Amanda had brewed this
morning and made myself a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich for breakfast. Afterward, because my house always feels like
a meat locker in the mornings, I decided to have a little soak in the bath tub
to thaw out. One of my good buddies
informed me once in reference to men taking baths, “That’s gay.” Every time I step into the tub I think of
him saying that and it cracks me up. I’m
not sure how bathing habits denote sexual orientation, but hey.
Last night was a good time.
I went to Tipton County for a little cookout/going away party. One of my good friends, Greg, is heading to
Georgia for fifteen weeks to train for the National Guard. I definitely wish him the best in his endeavor,
though I know he’ll do well. Greg is a
man of great character. There were only
about eight of us there, but we made the best of it and had a great time. I hauled the telescope to the party and I
think it may have blown some minds when I pointed it at Saturn (the Moon was
pretty popular, too). Some of the people
there had never looked through a telescope in their lives and it was pretty awe
inspiring for them. My friend, Krystle, actually
said something that made me smile quite a bit.
She said, “I feel so insignificant.”
That’s exactly what I felt the first time I gazed through my telescope
and spotted a planet. Astronomy is an
extremely humbling experience. It’s true
that we’re insignificant to a point. In terms of how important we feel we
are here on earth and to existence itself, on the cosmic scale, realizing that
we live on a tiny planet that doesn’t amount to a speck of dust, orbiting an
average star within a spiral arm of a single galaxy amongst billions... if one
isn’t “brought down to earth” by that, they aren’t thinking hard enough. Or possibly they aren’t willing to contemplate this fact. When we look to the sky, we see these tiny
points of light strewn across a jet black background (or almost bluish-black
in areas of light pollution). Most
everyone thinks it’s pretty, but beyond that they don’t give it much
thought. Rarely do people think of the
simple truth that those tiny points of light are whole new worlds. Almost every star in that sky has its own
solar system. Yes, a great number of
stars likely (and in some cases definitely) have their own set of planets
orbiting around them just like our little star, once called Sol or Helios (a Greek god that was the embodiment of the sun). I'll bet most
people weren’t aware that our star had a name once, as did our moon (our moon
is called Luna, which should surprise no one considering all things moon
related are referred to as “lunar”). But
some of those little points of light, those that shine consistently without
blinking, are planets. We all know they’re
there. We’ve seen the pictures in
Science text books and online when folks have posted their own astrophotography.
Despite the beautiful detail these photos reveal, nothing
compares to viewing the planets with our own eyes through the lens of a
telescope. There’s just something
surreal and core-shaking about the whole experience, especially the first
time. But even after multiple views of
these planets, I still get butterflies.
Every time I see the shadow falling upon the yellowish sphere of the
planet Saturn cast by its majestic rings, I am completely engulfed by the beauty. If one allows the eye to acclimate for long
enough, they can even detect the spaces between the rings, revealing them in
yet finer detail. Then, if one can take
their eye from the amazing planet and look up from it just a tiny bit, they can
easily spot Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Then as the eyes acclimate even
further, other tiny dots of light appear, revealing more of Saturn’s moons (as
far as moons go, the real show is viewing Jupiter). Some might find it hard to believe, but I can
sit in my yard and just gawk at a planet for hours and never lose
interest. The longer I stare, the more
I see, the more connected I feel to this Universe. This brings me back to the question of our
significance.
Carl Sagan once said, “We are a way for the Cosmos to know
itself.” I think that’s such a wonderful
quote. Just think about those words for
a moment. The fact that we are in the Universe
means that we essentially are the
Universe. If we are the Universe, then
all intelligent life in the Cosmos is literally part of a collective
brain. Conscious life that is able to
contemplate its own existence, then learn about and even begin to understand
the natural world around it, is the Universe becoming self-aware. I can only hope that one day our civilization
can meet with another civilization, somewhere light years away, and our
collective knowledge will combine with their collective knowledge. Thus, the self-aware Universe will have
completed a thought, and will have learned even more about itself. I think of it as neurons in the brain firing
off to form a thought. When those
neurons come together and work together, something of significance comes about
as a result. On a grand scale,
intelligent species coming together would be relatively the same kind of
thing. Or maybe a simpler analogy would
be the lives of ants. A single ant on
its own isn’t extremely intelligent.
When an ant colony is looking for a new home, they scatter off in relative
chaos. But when one ant finds a suitable
habitat, it signals the other ants around it and they begin to work. Then other ants, messenger ants, will go off
to find the rest of the colony and in some cases even literally carry other ants back to the newly found
location. This happens until all of the
ants are accounted for and eventually the whole colony becomes a collective
thought process. When I think of our
place in the Universe in these terms, I realize that we’re not insignificant,
but we’re very important. We are the
neurons. We are the ants that roam and
collect information and each time we discover something new, the Universe knows
a little more about itself. But
fortunately for us, our brains have developed emotion (above all , love) and
wonder. Feelings that allow us to feel and
enjoy the things we learn and experience.
We matter. We matter and we
should take care of one another. We
should take care of this planet we’re so fortunate to have come to be
upon. We should want learn about this
world and other worlds not only to make life better for ourselves now, but for
future generations.
This planet won’t always be here. Everyone has their own ideas on how this
planet’s demise will come to pass. For
me, I can’t understand how anyone’s existential worldview could ever get in the
way of the desire to take care of our home. For that matter, I can’t understand how
anyone could be so short-sighted as to oppose exploration of the Universe in
order to find a way to create a new home away from this planet, if ever
needed. Sure, that sounds like science
fiction, but so did the idea of something like a smart phone when we watched
Dr. Spock and Captain Kirk communicate with one another on Star Trek. Science Fiction tends to have the uncanny
ability to become Science Fact. To live “in
the now”, is fine for a lot of things in life.
Things like family, work, hobbies, or anything else that enrich our
lives as human beings should be enjoyed in the present and cherished. But for something as incredibly crucial as
taking care of this Earth, we must take the long view and think of future
generations. Would anyone really want to imagine their great, great, great, great grandchildren suffering for the
mistakes of past generations? I know that I
would not. Some deny the findings of
Climate Science on this subject and refuse to acknowledge that we as a species have
created any of these problems. That
could be true, however unlikely. But
even if we aren’t the cause, why is there so much resistance to at least
attempting to call upon newer, cleaner resources that do less harm to our
environment? Are we really this duped by
the capitalist, corporate mindset of consume, consume, consume? Are we really unaware that this attitude only
benefits those that are in it to line their pockets and live indulgently in the
short-term while we watch gas prices soar and then have the gall to be outraged
when we could do something to remedy it?
We’ve allowed this to happen over the years. We were once ignorant, but no longer.
Call me a hippie.
Call me a “libtard”. If caring
about my planet and future generations of human beings makes me worthy of
ridicule then, by all means, send it my way.
I’ll take that side effect. How
we got to a point in humanity where I feel I have to be almost ashamed of my views concerning the environment because of a mindset that states, as the great Louis C.K. put it, “I wanted to go faster… I’m not
fast enough” (during his standup special in a scenario where a human was asked by a higher intelligence why there was oil
spilled everywhere and why he took it from the ground), will always mystify me. Technologically speaking, fossil fuels and other forms of energy that produce pollutants were a necessary step in our progression. But now we're fully aware that there are workable alternatives. There are cleaner, safer, and most importantly of all, healthier alternatives and we should utilize this knowledge rather than cling to old ways. Just because we've always done something one way, doesn't necessarily mean it's the best way. When we know better, it's our responsibility to do better. So, let's do better.
