Life is just a dot. A dot in space immeasurable, in time unknown. Some lives span decades, while others last just a few short minutes. Nevertheless, these brief bursts of consciousness make up a whole - an indivisible and reactive framework that runs through everything you are and everywhere you've been, everything you've done and everything you will do. Life is just a dot. A dot that you call your home. In the picture above, amid countless distances of empty space is life, is Earth, is You. Behind that bright, yellow-spectral sunbeam lies all that you've known from birth until today. And on this Christmas day, like so many others, people will open their presents, gaze upon the snow, or the rain, or the sun like they've done so many years before. But behind the stories and memories, past the pictures of smiling children and piles of crumpled wrapping paper that have engraved themselves as truths upon our mind - It hovers - rotating quietly amid the sounds of darkness and silence.
The above photo was taken by Voyager 1 four billion miles away from Earth at the edge of our solar system. And I think the late astronomer Carl Sagan, who gave the photo its title, describes it best:
"Look again at 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 "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."
That is Earth. It is not just another photograph of colors and pixels, it is everything you know. It is where you sprung to life, where you first heard your mother's voice, saw a horizon of sun and soil, where you first tasted a slice of pizza, smelled a cut lawn in the green of August, where you first felt yourself and humanity - what it means to be a breathing, living human being amid countless others. Its water has sustained you everyday of your life, hell, it's given you the very ability to know it, and name it, and want it again and again, season after season, month after month, year after year. That dot is the reason you are here and the aim of all your desires, fears, and cares. It rotates, and with each day displays the sun, and with each night the revelation of a billion more beyond it. And don't fool yourself: there are a lot of them.
The photo above was taken in 1996 by Hubble telescope. It is just a pinprick image of our universe, an incredibly small frame. And yet in it is galaxy after galaxy. And each galaxy - each blob of light - is the combined light of 100 billion stars. Not a couple dozen. Not a few hundred. Not several thousand. Not even millions or one or two billion. Around 100 billion stars. And that is just within ONE of those galaxies in this photo, which is, like I said, just an extremely small photographic frame of the macrocosm of our Universe. There are trillions upon trillions of stars in that photo ALONE. To lay that out, one trillion looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000. That's more stars then there are people on this planet - a lot more.
We are just one planet with one sun amid, quite literally, an uncountable amount of other galaxies, let alone suns, and especially planets. Now take the perspective down to - You. Your brain and your body amid THAT. No, let me reiterate. Not THAT... THIS. You are in It. That photo is not somewhere else, it is HERE, NOW, PRESENT. And It surrounds you in all possible directions. You live It. You breath It. You feed off It. You are It. And for your entire life you've interpreted It with the most unique and finite perspective imaginable. Mankind is an impressive race, but amid THAT it is just another speck of dust in a dustpan about the size of Mount Everest, and in actuality, one a lot bigger than that.
But that isn't a cause for meaninglessness. It is quite the opposite. It is a cause for the most incredibly beautiful uniqueness imaginable. Think of "space." Think of "time." Now think of THAT. And somehow amid It you formed a life and survived. You put dates and times on things, named locations and interpreted the uninterpretable down to the very last inch. You knew people and watched them go, met others and they influenced you, as you influenced them. You have memories and experiences that are completely unique to you and thoughts that are but your own, ones that always will be until your body fades back to that dust to emerge anew. Think of how truly incredible that is. No, DON'T THINK. KNOW how truly incredible that is. EXPERIENCE how truly magnificent that is, as you have every day of your life (most of the time never even realizing it). Your brain - with the help of numerous others - has created a world that seeks to understand THAT. That which you can't THINK or UNDERSTAND or INTERPRET. That, which in reality, you can ONLY KNOW. Even your thoughts are of it, whether you realize it or not - and they have trapped you.
The mind is a necessary thing. You have to have it not only to be conscious, but to learn and survive. All the words you can speak in a second, all the smells you recognize in an instant, all the tastes you long to taste again, all the memories that sit a top your conscious like the moon above the Earth - they are stored within it. Confined in a space about the size of several of fists. Neurons fire constantly and you are again and again introduced to the world you've come to know - a world of many. One that is not your own... at least permanently. This is the problem - people think too much. It's good to gain a knowledge of the world and to mark yourself as an individual, unique in space and time. But when you forget that your mind is just an interpretation, that it is not reality, that is when you lose who you truly are - your true purpose in the Universe - to a temporal ego. Your purpose is not to be famous. It is not to make money and it is not to go to a heaven that didn't exist in the first place. You already are famous, you are a completely distinct individual in a completely specific (though undefinable) "time" and "space." There will never be a You in this "Time" or in this place in "Space." Ever. Again. You are already rich - you have the company of billions, who though different, share the same fundamental goals to live and experience this Earth, unique as it is. You are already in heaven. Heaven is now, it is not some utopian land that your idealistic human mind has created in an attempt to latch on to the nostalgic and impermanent. HEAVEN IS NOW. No one said it wouldn't come without struggle or without pain or loss, but is there anything more sensational (and by SENSATIONAL I mean OF THE SENSES) than being immersed in this reality. Yes, it is hard at times. But just look at that image above. You are in that! Bright as it is. Sparkling as it is. Alive as it is - like the life inside of you and those that too call this Universe home. Life is Heaven. Heaven is Now. Now is Life.
And so on this Christmas forget the prophets your ancestors created, and who you and your parents have helped grow into monstrous forces that are but an image controlling us all. Forget a God or the gods that you've so tightly clung onto as some sort of guidance. Clearly if any gods exist they aren't concerned with our attention - I mean, it looks as though they've stuck us here, with one another, on a DOT in a SPACELESS VOID with absolutely no prior knowledge of why or how we got here. We weren't put here to be judged, we weren't put here to worship anyone. We were put here with one goal: to live and to help one another live more easily and enjoyably. Mankind has come a long way, but in the shadow of what we could become we are still primitive and barbaric. We have the ability to work as ONE, a reflection of the ONE that we are, the ONE earth that we live on, the ONE Universe we are a part of. We are unique as individuals, but we are dependent. We are on a specific planet among countless others, but all those others - including us - are still of this one vast macrocosm. We can no longer act as counteragents. Why do we insist that our God, or our nation, or our race, or our gender, or our class, or our way of life is better than another's? WHY DO WE INSIST?
Insist (v): demand forcefully to have something.
This is the root of all man's problems. He has forgotten how to simply LIVE. He has forgotten how to simply BE. He has forgotten how to accept things simply AS THEY ARE. He demands - forcefully, violently, atrociously - to obtain this, to know that, and for others to follow suit with whatever he believes in his singular mind, and humanity continue to pay for this brutal desire, which is in all of us. We must come to terms with reality. We must accept the unknown, accept humility and each other or we will never survive. Our paranoid minds have created separations that never existed in the first place. People look down on some and up to others. To a passing comet the CEO of a company is no better than the stoned and fading vagrant on the street. Things of this Earth - material things that no one will ever be able to take with them - have somehow convinced us of this separation. Our own material bodies - their color, their shape, where they call home - have too. Our minds - their creeds, their preferences, their dogmas - have also. Why? Why do we continue to feed our minds these lies? Is it because we are afraid? Is it because they provide security? Do we create stereotypes and preconceived notions - ignoring the fundamentally human part of each other - in an attempt to understand that which can never be understood? We must each become that passing comet, a newborn baby, a flying bird overhead. We must look at the world as it is. Minds thrown aside, love and likeness our alibi.
For the first time in history mankind is truly connected. We have the ability to know and discover things that were once unimaginable. We no longer need wars or tribes to survive, we have the ability to see our parallels and know the fundamental truth in each of us. Although many don't see it, this is an incredible era in the history of the human race. We are at a watershed moment in our evolution. This is the first time we can truly understand what it means to share one sun and one planet. We have developing technologies, that although still basic, have the ability to unite us like never before. These technologies can also destroy us. The past century has been a shit storm of violence and separation. Ideologies have run rampant and people have completely lost touch with the reality of it all, substituting it with earthly pursuits and pleasures. You can help fill your church every Sunday, but that doesn't mean a heaven is going to sprout up in the sky. You can fill your house with a multitude of material items, but you'll only last so long to use them. You can fill your mind with erroneous beliefs and unfound "truths," but one day your mind will fade - along with you. You can fill your pockets with money and your guns with bullets, but you'll never protect yourself from that ultimate Truth. There is only one thing to be filled... and that is You... with Life, with Compassion, with Humiliation, with Love... with Truth. The Present is NOW, and no amount of cash, no promises of heaven, no gadgets under the Christmas tree will ever compare to that gift. In reality it is all you have, and all we have is each other.
And so this is Christmas. And like last year, and the year before, and the year before that, mankind continues to numb itself with obsolete stories and temporal gifts. Bright Christmas lights won't substitute the light that seems to be fading in each one of us as we continue to fall deeper into this pseudo-world our minds have created. But the sun keeps shining and the Earth keeps spinning. And whether we hear them or not they speak untold truths: It is not December. It is not Christmas. It is simply another day in our end of the Universe. There is a reason we keep coming back to the same tired traditions, the same old rituals and customs. Because we are lost, because we have forgotten the boundlessness of the Universe, the beauty in ourselves. It is a coping device for unconscious turmoil. Our minds have trapped us in a system that has no true purpose, in annual revelries that are exhausted and have no basis or spirit anymore. Christmas became irrelevant a long time ago and yet some force, some malevolent energy bred from human fear and its tendency towards finding some sort of control, has allowed it to continue.
But Christmas is dead, as is any altruistic meaning that Christ represented. There are pastors preaching opulence, "Christians" dropping bombs, moral elitists saying what is right and what is wrong when they themselves have forgotten what it means to be virtuous or sincere. Christmas has turned into a joke. A playing field of politics and religion, diversion and polarization. There is about as much soul in Christmas today as there is in a bomb that kills 30 schoolchildren in some war-torn country miles and miles away. All while the more fortune at the other end of the globe trade gifts, sing songs, and pretend that in doing this they are righteous, that they are chosen and deserving, and that they are going to heaven. Christmas is hypocrisy. Christmas is materialism. Christmas is holier-than-thou. Christmas is polarization disguised behind pseudo-unity. Unity that, for some odd reason, people only seem to care about for a few days once a year, if at all. Shouldn't we always care if someone is starving on the street? Shouldn't we believe that all people are deserving of good health, even if that means we might have to sacrifice a little more money, and possibly a little health of our own? Shouldn't the cries of a dying child drown out all rhetoric spat by presidents and congressmen? Why is it that we need a justification to be good to one another? Why is it that we need a God to tell us what is right? Why is it that we don't trust the humanity in each of us? What is with our obsession with middlemen? We are determined creatures, as well as good and conscious beings at heart, so why is it we've allowed ourselves to be led so astray, especially in the age of reason and rationality?
Dogma must end - it breeds division. Unbreakable beliefs must end - they breed ignorance. The mind must end - it breeds both division and ignorance. It seeks to understand, to order, to stereotype things that simply aren't that simple or cut and dried. It is a good tool for survival, but it is too powerful when left to its own devices. These opinions, views, convictions, judgements, impressions, notions, faiths, confidences, creeds, principles, ideologies, doctrines, teachings - THEY MUST END. They must cease and be replaced with ultimate, provable truth. We are humans. We are the same. We are on one Earth and thus are ONE. It's a shame nearly 150 years after the American Civil War and the end of slavery that we still can't see this truth on a universal scale. This must be realized or mankind won't only fall to mundanity, it will kill itself due to its own ignorance of ITSELF and the truths which abound throughout our Earth and Universe. They are simple truths, but hard to see in the storms of our minds. Minds that are so busy attaining information, they've forgotten the reality hidden behind it. We must forget the unexplainable and focus on that which we experience everyday.
Which brings me to a subtopic: information. I feel the following, though not as fundamental as say, The Present, is nevertheless true and must be understood if mankind is to gain a true sense of humility regarding himself and life. Information, after all, is the abstract fabric of reality. A truth indiscernible but undeniably present. It is mostly abstract mind-talk, glossary terms, etc., but it is real and of physical matter and represents truths, BIG ones, especially in our era...
INFORMATION:
"Instead of asking which came first, the chicken or the egg, it suddenly seemed that a chicken was an egg's idea for getting more eggs."
-Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media
Information is our world. Everything we do and everything we are is encoded data. From the pigment of our skin to the images on our computer screens, all we've come to know is compromised of facts and figures, numbers and formulas. Our DNA writes everything we will be, from the curvature of our nose to the pigment of our iris. We communicate through the medium of information and evolve as a species to the rhythm of numbers. Even words are nothing more than the calculation of utterances, man's attempt to turn his creaturely expressions into viable conveyance.
Zero. It is a number that didn't exist in the Western world until the introduction of the Arabic numeral system through Latin translations. Up until then, Romans conveyed the idea of zero through the word nulla, meaning nothing, but numerically started their system at I. Zero as a predominant number is a relatively new phenomenon. Throughout history it has been customary to start counting at one, not zero. Yet in the age of information, the idea of nothing has become one of the most important aspects of man's technical evolution.
Immanuel Kant describes numbers as being beyond phenomenon. How did people see things before the invention of the number? What exactly does a number encapsulate? Kant considered numbers an undoubtable category of experience. Everything can be measured and conveyed in numbers, yet numbers are ultimately an abstraction, a conceptual designation of multiples and singularities, and even the lack thereof.
I've recently been reading the book, Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife. It touches on the idea of information and how everything in life can ultimately be brought back to it. We live in an age in which information has taken a front seat in our evolution. The answer to anything is available to us in seconds. This is the first time in the history of our species that such a feat has been possible. Not even kings of yesterday had such convenience at their disposal. All around us numbers are translating our lives and yet they go entirely unnoticed. "Nature seems to speak in the language of information," says Seife.
All that is known to man can be explained in one famous statement: "one if by land, two if by sea."
That was the code Paul Revere and the Americans used the infamous night Revere declared, "the British are coming," at Old North Church in Boston. The Americans needed a system to announce how the British forces would be descending towards Lexington. Would it be the faster route across the Charles River - "by sea" - or the slower, marched route southwest of Boston - "by land?" At the top of the steeple of Old North Church a sexton would watch for the British. He would report the news to the patriots across the Charles River in Lexington by lighting one lamp for land, and two lamps for sea. It is this logic - a simple yes or no answer communicated in numbers - that can translate all information known to man, and is the system ultimately used in computing.
If a YES can be communicated as 1 and a NO as 0, then a string of 1s and os can communicate everything feasible. 101010111001001110111111 could convey a plethora of information in computer speak, from the denoting of pixel color in a picture to an entire paragraph in an online encyclopedia article. These strings of 1s and 0s make up bits, amounts of information used by millions of people each day.
The most important thing to remember about information is that it is completely physical. Information does not exist in some other realm, it is entirely here in reality. When you erase bits of energy heat is created. This heat is then dispersed in the surrounding environment. As physicist Rolf Landauer writes,
"Information is not a disembodied abstract entity; it is always tied to a physical representation. It is represented by an engraving on a stone tablet, a spin, a charge, a hole in a punched card, a mark on paper, or some other equivalent. This ties the handling of information to all the possibilities and restrictions of our real physical world, its laws of physics and its storehouses of available parts."
This leads to the most important idea in relation to information: entropy. To understand entropy is to understand life and nature in its most unabashed form. Entropy is time. Entropy is information. Entropy is work. Entropy is life. And, most notably, entropy is death. Entropy is proof that science and religion are not two separate entities, but two interchangeable ideas that must work off each other.
The universe is constantly pushing towards a state of total equilibrium. It is a common misconception that total equilibrium is represented at the peak of life. In reality, total equilibrium is reached at death. Entropy is the measurement of the universe's movement towards equilibrium. The universe is constantly striving for equilibrium (death), and chaos (life) is continuously helping it get there.
Entropy is a fairly complicated idea and I'm no science teacher, so I'll do my best to explain it as easily as I can. Perhaps it's best to start with an example:
When you put a soda in the fridge to cool it off you're decreasing the entropy of the area inside the fridge. In other words, you're fighting off equilibrium in the fridge, which would be reached when it is at room temperature. However, when you decrease the entropy in the fridge you increase the entropy of the universe. Why? Because the fridge must do work to keep its inside cold. That work is ultimately done by an engine in the fridge, which creates heat that is then given off, thus leading to an increase in entropy overall in the universe.
This can be applied just as easily to life. When an organism survives by eating and drinking it is ultimately fighting off decay - an increase in entropy - on a personal level, but is subsequently increasing the entropy of the universe in the form of heat, which it gives off. The fighting off of entropy can literally be defined as life. In other words nature is constantly attempting to reach full equilibrium - a state in which total entropy is attained (aka death) - and individuals are constantly trying to survive by prolonging this state of counter-equilibrium. All life ultimately leads to the same place, it's just a matter of how you get there and how long it takes.
This plays directly into Darwin's evolutionary theories and the idea of "the survival of the fittest." Those individuals who exhibit the best traits for fighting off equilibrium are the ones who will ultimately survive. Whether this be physical, mental, or any other characteristic doesn't matter. The DNA of the strongest prevails, while that of the weakest falls to the wind.
"It seems that the act of living can be seen as the act of replicating and preserving information despite Nature's attempts to dissipate and destroy it," says Seife. In a strange sort of reality, only the destruction of the physical ensures the continuance of life, or it is only through living that life can ultimately continue. By fighting off death, we are consequently making ourselves and the human race stronger, as well as ensuring that the information inside and among us continues to expand and proliferate throughout the generations... How does it do this? Through a little acid known as DNA.
"A living organism ... is continuously fighting off decay. It maintains its internal order despite a universe that is always increasing in entropy. By eating food, by consuming energy that ultimately comes from the sun, the organism is able to keep itself far from equilibrium: from death," says Seife. This literally means that the struggle of man is a struggle against the very nature which created him and continues to support him. It's as though life is its own paradox. Seife describes life as a "delicate dance of energy, entropy, and information."
All in all the essential function of living beings is the consumption, processing, preservation, and duplication of information.
The discoveries of science seem to be leading to one ultimate truth, one that could literally shatter man's current view of himself and his place in the universe. We are no longer us, but a product of our information, a carrier for our DNA. As Seife says:
"This information of life is much more than what is responsible for consciousness and the information that is being crunched in our brains. Information is responsible for all life on Earth. The laws of information guide every living creature, down to the lowliest bacteria and to the smallest living particles in the world. Every cell in our bodies is packed with information. We eat so that we can process that information. And our whole being is co-opted to transmit information from generation to generation. We are slaves to the information inside us."
Our genetic code is written upon "long, stringy, double-stranded DNA molecules," and it is through these molecules that our "information" is transfered from one generation to the next. The information on DNA is not written in binary code (001010111110, etc.) but quaternary code, or a code that is made up of four symbols (each symbol made up of one chemical, or base: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine). Adenine and thymine are complimentary, as are cytosine and guanine. This means they bind together at opposite ends of the DNA double helix. This information literally makes us who we are, and any flaw or incorrect solution is called a mutation. Detrimental mutations are generally worked out of a species overtime through evolution, however beneficial mutations stay and help to make the species stronger as a whole. Think of a dog breeder hoping to create the ultimate breed for a certain purpose, such as protection. In this case the breeder is going to find the dogs which best exhibit such beneficial mutations as strength, bravery, size, and perseverance. Nature has its own "dog breeders" of information. Enzymes, which are proteins in our cells, "continually monitor DNA molecules, looking for mutations and editing them out."
So how does nature ensure the survival of this internal information? Reproduction, or the duplication of it. The goal of all life can be wrapped up in that one word. It is the natural, innate goal of all living creatures. As Seife says:
"Sure, the programs go about this task in very different ways, but the goal is always the same. Reproduction. All else is decoration - decoration that helps the program achieve its ultimate goal. Bodies - and their arms and legs and heads and brains and eyes and fangs and wings and leaves and cilia - are just packaging for the information contained in an organism's genes, packaging that makes it more likely that the information contained in the packaging will get a chance to replicate itself."
And continued:
"It is not the individual that is driving reproduction; it is the information in the individual. The information in an organism has a goal of replicating itself. While the organism's body is a by-product, a tool for attaining that goal, it is just the vehicle for carrying the information around, sheltering it, and helping the information reproduce. That the organism reproduces is just a by-product of the information's duplicating itself."
Thus it is not the individual who is trying to survive, it is the very information inside of him. It is not the individual who ultimately controls his own fate, it is the natural microscopic data that runs through him and makes him who he is. It is this drive, often unnoticed and disguised, that influences many decisions in an organism's life. Each human is literally the byproduct of many millennia of transferred, developing information. Years of evolution has brought us where we are today. The decisions of individuals thousands and thousands of years ago have in some way - if only by association - helped mankind reach the current point in its development. For example, the main purpose of someone millennia ago may have been to warn generations of people after him that it was deadly to eat a certain berry or to instigate a maternal lion. Is there such a thing as true, creaturely independence in life?
There are exceptions to this individual, reproduction-driven aim seen in Nature. Take ants, for example. One organism reproduces in an ant colony, the queen. All others simply exist to serve her ultimate strive for reproduction. Most ants will never reproduce. The information in these ants tells them to give up their own shot at children so that the species overall has a better chance of surviving and reproducing. But this example serves only to reinforce the idea that information is king. Why? Because if the individual is in control, why would ants do this? Why would an individual ant give up its ability to bear young for another? Because its information tells it to. "If the information in the organism is in control and is the entity trying to reproduce, the sterile ant's behavior begins to look rational," says Seife.
So what does this mean for the individual? Clearly there is such a thing as freewill. But where does freewill begin and nature end? Is everything we do somehow related to a strive to carry on information, to excel as a species? Theoretically, yes. From simple goals like getting a glass of water or a plate of food, to larger ones like trying to succeed at a job or be accepted among peers, it's as though everything one does is in hopes of continued survival and ultimate evolution, both individually and as a species. Life seems to be a collective goal, a working together towards some higher form of terrestrial living.
Is it possible that the true purpose of our existence is to further ensure the better existence of humans of the future? It is clear that the efforts of yesterday's man have brought us many conveniences today. From entire languages to, say, the concept of a chair, it was not we who invented all in front of us, but countless others previously. Before we were even here, many of the wheels had already been set in motion. In fact, man's influence on our lives has been so profound, that the question of a God in relation to creation is as much linked to previous men as it is to some higher, omniscient power. Man's influence on our planet seems as significant as "God's."
So what does this better understanding of INFORMATION tell us? Some might look at it in a paranoid way - that our information is out to get us, but I've included it because I think it does quite the opposite. You can't look at DNA or its drives as an other, as a separate entity. You must look at it as the foundation of life, the reason we are here, and the reason we have evolved. It makes us - physically... literally. True, it controls much of what we do and how we go about life, but it is necessary for our evolution. It also helps to create the beauty that is our world. A flower looks the way it does because of events happening on a microscopic level.
Like I said, information though true, is not fundamental. It is a bit too specific to apply to say, everyday life and interpreting life in the Present, but it is still important in gaining a certain sense of self as well as a level of humility - you begin to realize that it is a universal strive towards something better. This is a comforting thought if you really think about it - the information inside us wants to better us for reasons we may never know. This is an incentive to strive towards unity and work towards Oneness throughout the world and, eventually, the cosmos. The very fabric of reality is one of determination and perseverance.
And so on this Christmas, remember life and truth. Remember that there is no need for the customs of yesterday, which have held us back and destroyed so many of our fellow humans. As man enters this new decade, one that will hopefully be more uplifting than the war-ridden last, we move towards progress. Things that we ignored yesterday, such as climate change, should help to push us closer to a One World People, striving to work with nature, not against it. Solar energy - essentially FREE ENERGY - holds the promise of not only a cleaner environment, but a futuristic image of ourselves. One of a unified people - of the cosmos - using their very own sun-star (a symbol of unity in and of itself) towards the aim of advancement and peace. The time is NOW. Humanity simply can't wait any longer. Let's replace the tired images of kings, prophets, gods, and spirits, with Reality. For years we told ourselves that Earth was punishment and that Heaven awaited somewhere else. But it's becoming more and more clear that this is all we have and that it is something much bigger than could ever fit in the dull walls of some clichéd heaven in the clouds. We've made it this far humanity, and there's nowhere to go but NOW.
When talking about the Pale Blue Dot, Sagan goes on to say:
"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 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 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.
"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 somewhere else to save us from ourselves.
"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. 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 pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
<>YOU