These are those pictures...
I can't remember if I've mentioned them here or not, but I know I've mentioned them to Paul.
A coupla times...
These pictures and all that they not only imply but flat-out PROVE are changing the way I think and feel about everything.
Or, actually... confirming it. Everybody on the entire PLANET needs to be made to study these pictures and get the fuckin' point, which is, simply stated... we humans ain't shit and none of this crap that we think is important enough to fly planes into buildings over, go to war over, fight about and kill ourselves over really matters in the grand scheme of things, either.
It's all pure bullshit in the face of the truth that these pictures show.
It's also a shame that none of this, these pictures, the implications thereof, the lessons we could get from them... none of that matters even more (or less, if you like) than we stupid humans and our bullshit concerns do.
That's our planet in between them, seen from 4 billion miles away in a shot taken by Voyager 1 in 1990.
Still seems pretty infinitesimal to me, especially when compared to the rest of the universe.
And, by the same token, we (mostly criminally stupid) humans matter even less than that.
Our little blue dot doesn't mean shit to the universe.
And, we humans who inhabit this planet like amoebas on a flea on a Chihuahua puppy, matter even less. Here's what Carl Sagan said in the speech in which he used these photos...
"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, 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 rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. 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. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, 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 and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."Hey Carl?
I agree with you, but... dude, if we're gonna depend on each other to survive and to care about any of this enough to actually CHANGE... we're all fucked. And, we are. Humans are too self-involved, arrogant, and concerned with ending up with either "all the toys" or "72 virgins" when they're dead to give a good godamn about anything else now. But, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that. After spending a month or so thinking about this, it is my considered opinion that I'm glad I'm 43, with a history of heart shit in my family that'll probably kill me before much longer.
Before some chronically confused human asswad kills us all... Here's where I got this.
Go see for yourself.
Then, spend a little time thinking about it.
What it all really means. And then see how devastatingly important (/sarcasm) all this crap we kill ourselves and each other over every day really is in the face of such pure truth. God, we are so self-important and stupid.
I almost can't wait to go.
It'll be a relief, believe me.
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