As the summer slowly progresses, and I prepare to fly to Bali this Saturday, not only do I order copious amounts of books, movies, and tv shows to entertain myself with but I also take this time to explore the Internet and all the trash and intellectual articles/videos that are thrown at me. Recently I came across a site called upworthy.com which is a domain where people/journalists/bloggers whatever you prefer to call them create articles that individually have their own unique videos attached to them. And as my inclination to not simply ever watch one video and stop there, and rather continue to immerse myself into this hour long project of mine to watch as many videos as I possibly can.
This is where I found an article written by Rollie Williams -->
How Carl Sagan Used His NASA Connections To Get A Picture Of The Earth From 3.7 Billion Miles Away
Now if you are like myself and thought the article/video would simply be a 10 minute lecture of "how Carl Sagan used his NASA connections to get a picture of the earth from 3.7 billion miles away" then you are wrong (like I was so nicely mistaken). The video transcended simple scientific talk, and entered the realms of philosophical questions and the debatable matters of morals and ethics in society. I could easily explain what Carl Sagan found and how he used the tiny dot of an Earth pictured at precisely the perfect moment (a moment earlier or later would have failed to show any sort of a beaming dot) to explain the human/individual's importance or place in a universe that is simply too vast to ever comprehend.
The video is one of the rare ones that actually left me rather enlightened...when we go to history class and condemn evil men such as Adolf Hitler - such individuals are not even grains of sand in a vast universe that is so incontrovertibly profound and continues to expand and make us even smaller. It leaves me to wonder if my responsibilities, worries or pretty much anything that concerns me having to do something has any significance in the true light of things. If the people who concern me matter at all, if the individuals who have disappointed or betrayed me in the past have any importance in my world and are thus not even worthy (yes I am saying worthy) of my attention.
I mean seriously, where am I in that planet reminiscent of a miniature golf ball? Such things leave me unable to bring any such comparisons at all really...
Sources:
http://www.upworthy.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9TIeuBF9Ss#t=561
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2URsvF/1H9HeY_1p:l1BvcOD8/www.upworthy.com/a-french-film-showing-men-what-being-a-woman-feels-like-kinda?c=reccon1
