The Pale Blue Dot

We live on a pale blue dot. Not even something that looks like it could possibly have life on it. It is simply a little dot. So pale and soft in color, just hanging in space. I've always found space to be an interesting concept because the majority of it is unexplored and who knows for how long it will remain untouched. So while a lot of it is unknown, we somehow know a bunch of stuff about this pale blue dot. Sure, we've explored near planets and have walked on the moon. For goodness sakes, more is known about the surface of the moon which is 238,900 miles away than the bottom of the seas on our own planet. It's astonishing to me. Yet here we live, on this speck of nothingness that hangs in a beam of light. As said best by Carl Sagan, 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.

I Iiim quite fond of that quote. Yes, it's long and yes it takes a few moments to read. So what? Everything said is true through and through. When you sit in history class you don't learn about the great alien rulers from Mars and you never learn about all the civilizations constructed in space. Whether you believe in life outside of earth or not, isn't it incredible to know that everything we ever really learn about has taken place right here? This earth of ours has a radius of only 3,959 miles (Juptiper has one of about 43,500.) Our world is 4.54 billion years old, has a population of over 7 billion people, and is a whooping 92,960,000 miles from the sun that's kept us alive for so long. Yet it's still just a blue dot. Not even a pretty shade of blue. It's pale and lonely even while it's surrounded by stars. I've always been fascinated by earth and space because I just can't wrap my head around it. Perhaps I never will because I'm not capable of understanding something so vast. It's so odd to know that all your family is on this dot with you. There is so much love on something so small. So many wars take place on this planet. So much power. So much wisdom, hope, adventures, beauty all on this pale blue dot. Think of everywhere you've ever traveled, everyone you're related to, everytime you've ever laughed or cried. All the life changing moments you've had and all the boring days you have spent listlessly sitting on the couch. All the people you meet or all the ones you read about. Think of Shakespeare and Cleopatra. The Romans or the Mayans. The Revolutionary War. Columbus sailing the ocean blue in 1492. The Middle Ages. The Dynasties of China. The Royal families and all the celebrities you read about in the magazines. The dieases and mindless destruction followed by hope and strength. Big cities and quaint countrysides. The poverty and the lavishness of mansions. The animals and the weather and everything you see just looking out a window. All these "important" things and "notable" people and "impactful" events are on this pale blue dot. And suddenly that makes them seem entirely less than what they were just moments ago. Yet they can't be. They aren't. Everything and everyone that has ever happened and ever will happen is important and it matters. It all matters because while it may just be this dot it's still a dot. Though barely visible it is there and so much has happened. As said "every sinner and saint" are together. In my opinion, that makes life a whole lot more equal. Someone may be rich and someone may be poor but they're all with one another on this pale blue dot. If everything is squished together in the cosmic calendar, that makes it seem smaller. Yet while it's small I also find it empowering to know that so much has happened in a relatively "short" period of time. 

Sso I've decided that while I'm living on this mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam I better make it count. We all should. After all, we were given a life on this pale blue dot for some reason greater than we can ever understand. The universe is big and we can look up at the stars each night for the rest of our lives if we wanted to. But would that really help us to understand anything about our own lives down here on earth? Probably not. So why waste anymore time? Time always seems to run out anyways.  Until next time xxx.