Love & ... Aliens?

"And I watched those constellations shift, hoping that they would part and I would see her face.  It was at that moment, in that very small town of 30,000 or so, that I truly appreciated the vastness of the universe and the searching we might do in it."  - John Hodgman

I don't have anything to add to this. It's funny and touching and weird. Just watch it.

One down, twenty-four to go.

18. Go for an evening bike ride.

A couple days ago, my friends Bryan&Amy (who, incidentally, live in the apartment above mine) called me up and asked if I wanted to take a bike ride down to a local ice cream shop called Liks.

Obviously I said yes.  I mean, come on, I might be lactose intolerant, but it's handmade ice cream in, like, a zillion flavors.

 We took off when it was still light out.  We took back roads through quiet neighborhoods.  We've had a lot of rain here lately, and all the budding trees decided at once to unroll their leaves.  It was all golden and green and warm.  There's nothing like riding your bike in late, late afternoon to bring you straight back to childhood.

We sat out on Liks patio, where I enjoyed my supernormal stimulus of a s'mores cone.  There was a black lab tied to a nearby bench who was happily snuffling up all the scents the warm evening breeze brought him.  The light went from gold to orange to a dusky blueish purple.

We rode home in semi-darkness, as the light leaked away over the mountains, and it felt like being at summer camp.  There was the same kind of reckless happiness.  We pedaled hard, zipping down hills and racing past sleepy houses, grinning.  We joked about clothespinning playing cards to our wheels and wearing denim jackets, forming our own neighborhood bike gang.

This might have to become a weekly thing.

this exceedingly rare spark

See that little speck of blueness a little more than halfway down in the far right stripe?
That's Earth, from about six billion kilometers away. Image taken by Voyager 1.

The other day, I had a somewhat upsetting epiphany.  I realized that, in the far, far distant future, there will be no more stars in the sky.

Actually, it started with the realization that someday (should intelligent life survive so long), kids will look up into the sky, and Orion will be missing a shoulder.  That's because Betelgeuse, the massive red supergiant that's makes up the hunter's left shoulder, is due to go supernova sometime within the next million years.

And then it made me realize that we live in an absurdly brief period,when stars burn in the darkness, when galaxies bloom, when there is warmth and light and motion.  In the end, entropy wins.  It won’t be long, on the cosmic scale, before every star burns out and every spinning planet goes still.  Heat will dissipate, fusion will cease, and even the microorganisms that turn our bones to dust will have long since gone extinct.

Pretty weird to think about.  Life is an anomaly in the universe, this exceedingly rare spark that we all share.

And yet, in this brief bright time, we spend our days fearing each other, fighting over infinitesimally small differences, feeling disconnected and discontent

It's easy to forget that all life on the planet is made from the same four nucleic chemicals, built with the matter forged in the hearts of stars - each and every organism, from algae  to tigers to viruses to us.  Even the spider that just ran across my bed (sending me into paroxysms of horror - looks like I still have lessons to learn about regarding my fellow life forms as fellow life forms).

And when it comes to humanity, all of our differences lie in a single percent. I am 99% genetically identical to everyone I know, and to the people on the other side of the planet.  Unfortunately, the human brain isn't good at thinking on a global scale, let alone a cosmic one.  It's mostly just really, really good at thinking about itself and its immediate wants.

I'm not good at being considerate of people a few continents over, or a few generations down the line.  I'm not even good at being considerate of my future self, as evidenced by my continued penchant for eating french fries.  So how can I expect human beings to be thoughtful and global-minded?

I guess I don't, really.  But if humans, or whatever humans evolve into, are going to travel across the galaxy and maybe meet other life forms out in the vast wild universe (something I consider a worthwhile goal), I can at least work on trying to be a bit more far-thinking myself.

After all, life everywhere should be reaching out to find each other, so we'd be able to know, as we head toward the day the last star fades, that we're not alone.

p.s. Be sure to read my friend Becky's blog of flash fiction, Pretending to Know You.  She's putting her one wild and precious life to good, creative use.

25 before 26

It's a ridiculously beautiful day today.  Perfect, almost-cliched spring weather.  It makes me want to take a walk, one that lasts all day and brings me to new places.  It makes me want to load up a wagon and find a frontier to brave.

The weather's also got me thinking about the future.  Springtime always puts me in mind of swelling blossoms and ripening fruit and summer storms.  Spring's an anticipatory season.  It looks to what comes next.

What am I going to do with my one wild and precious life?

It's still something I'm trying to figure out.  Do I want to open a weird, enthusiastic coffeeshop?  Do I want to work in a bakery and come home smelling like cookies?  Quit everything and be a writer?  Get into the publishing business?  Go back to school and become a professor?  A museum curator?  A librarian?  An astronomer?  A speech pathologist?





For now, I think I'll try to set some short-term goals.

Before my next birthday, I'm going to:

1. Get a story published.
2. Put together a manuscript.
3. Find a grown up job that offers stability and benefits.
4. Go to the Celestial Seasonings tea factory in Boulder.
5. Write and shoot a short film, just for the hell of it.
6. Take silly pictures in a photobooth with Nick.
7. Stay up late to watch at least two meteor showers.
8. Try to make dolmathes.
9. Make a pitcher of lemonade from scratch.
10. Sit outside to watch a thunderstorm.
11. Read, at the very least, eight new books.
12. Make popsicles.
13. Learn to cut Nick's hair.
14. Make JiffyPop on the stove.
15. Go to at least two street festivals.
16. Watch a sunrise.
17. Have a picnic.
18. Go for an evening bike ride.
19. Take a road trip (even if it's only an hour long).
20. Busk at least one afternoon.
21. Make something beautiful and sell it.
22. Make something beautiful and give it away.
23. Finish Emma's alphabet book.
24. Invent a board- or card- game.
25. Stay up all night having an adventure.

Well, that's one year planned.  Now I just need to figure out a lifetime.

Ready.

Set.

GO.

We humans are capable of greatness.

videos by Reid Gower

In a conversation I had with Becky a few weeks ago, I started putting into words why I'm so fascinated by astronomy, and space, and how we, as a species, need frontiers. To keep us hopeful, and humble.

The idea of future space exploration fires me with hope and fear and a desperate, lonely tender love for humanity.

Humanity is so lonely - the only intelligent species on our planet, the only ones burdened with the knowledge of our own existence and limitations, with no one to talk to and no one to understand us, and we revolve all alone in space, a little blue dot full of a curious and heartbroken people. Thinking of interstellar exploration makes us aware of how rare and amazing we are. It puts us in the right perspective. It makes us realize that we have a future, and we should do everything to make sure it's long enough for us to get to the stars.

Wouldn't it be terrible if there were other intelligent species out there, ones who've been through fire and waste, ones who've come so close to self-destruction, ones watching anxiously to see us take our first wavering steps, waiting to say hello, but we killed ourselves before we even got the chance?



"Projects that are future-oriented, that (despite their political difficulties) can only be completed in some distant decade, are continuing reminders that there will be a future." - Carl Sagan