(no subject)
Feb. 20th, 2008 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aroraborealisI like to imagine what it might have been like to live in a time when major natural events would stand as some powerful sign from the great intentionality beyond day to day reality. The drama of a thunderstorm is so moving, even knowing that it's "merely" an electrical storm, what might it have been like when it was an unexplained event?
Tonight, though, I'm reminded that being moved happens in spite of scientific reserve. Listening to people walking by on the path -- "Oh, look at it!" "It's so beautiful." -- and standing out in the cold watching the moon looking so familiar while also foreign, both fragile and immense, I imagine I can have a foot in both places.
I love that we've been so blindly arrogant as to fly people to that distant, shimmering rock, even while I am appalled at our wasting our brilliance on such a distant dream, when just think of what that our imagination could do here, where we are.
Still, standing on my back porch in the sharp cold, listening to the quiet of night, I can't be sorry to know what we know, or that people have been there. And, still, and all, it somehow manages to be both mysterious and magical.
Tonight, though, I'm reminded that being moved happens in spite of scientific reserve. Listening to people walking by on the path -- "Oh, look at it!" "It's so beautiful." -- and standing out in the cold watching the moon looking so familiar while also foreign, both fragile and immense, I imagine I can have a foot in both places.
I love that we've been so blindly arrogant as to fly people to that distant, shimmering rock, even while I am appalled at our wasting our brilliance on such a distant dream, when just think of what that our imagination could do here, where we are.
Still, standing on my back porch in the sharp cold, listening to the quiet of night, I can't be sorry to know what we know, or that people have been there. And, still, and all, it somehow manages to be both mysterious and magical.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-21 03:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-21 04:40 am (UTC)I love that we've been so blindly arrogant as to fly people to that distant, shimmering rock, even while I am appalled at our wasting our brilliance on such a distant dream, when just think of what that our imagination could do here, where we are.
I can't help but continue to be in favor of sending people to the moon and Mars. But I feel like it's not totally unjustifiable... we've gotten a lot of unexpected benefits from all the science and technology work that has gone into sending people into space. Right? Er. Maybe not enough to really justify it, but... c'mon! The moon! Mars! Amazing! :D
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-21 04:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-21 02:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-21 04:58 pm (UTC)