14 September 2022

Small fry

Is anybody out there? Calling all aliens. 
If you haven't heard or seen, as I was late to the game, look up James Webb Telescope or check it out on NASA. It's been in a long line from my waiting list to finally educate myself on this topic and the recent discoveries. The photos are astounding- they're beautiful. Science is spectacular. I lost the spark a long time ago, but sometimes the dust blows around and tickles my brain again. It's truly awe-ful (as in, in awe). I stopped thinking so worldly because it always catapulted me into existential repulse but whoa man. To know that we, humans, created a giant telescope, ejected it into space, assembled it into a magnificent flower power lens, and are capturing data (as we speak) of entities lightyears away in damn good quality photos, spectroscopy charts, inferring history-- maybe getting closer to the history of the origin -- is just ..amazing (understatement). The fact that we can visualize stars that have burst, or galaxies on the brink of collision, nebulas, atmospheric data of other stars (? planets?) is incredible. For some reason, I never thought we would get so far in my lifetime. Space still feels unobtainable and like some far-off sci-fi fiction but no.. it's right here. And we're slowly and eventually gathering more information on it as years go by.. albeit a lot of years, but thank god there's still humans out here who care and are driven by curiosity and dedication. Gotta really respect that.. especially in a society that seems to be changing more than ever, but sometimes not in a good way.. in a quick one-time use, disposable, 'was a problem but forget about it in a week or month' type of way. 

Bringing it back down to earth though.. it made me realize how little I know about our world. Everything has been at a standstill, which I didn't mind, but envy is the culprit. Or is it greed? A bit of both. I haven't traveled anywhere at all, and it got me thinking.. of course I'm cognizant of what I'm about to explain.. but I don't normally think that hard about it.. basically, there are whole other countries out there that I haven't even exposed myself to before, and they hold different societies, different norms, cultures, lifestyles, etc. In our lifetime, it's rare or not likely to fully embody or experience all of these places. And that's a shame. a sadness. We share the fact that we are one and the same in species, but there's so much to learn about one another and what we each have to offer and it's likely that we'll never get to know it. We might not even get to fully understand and connect with people right around us in a lifetime. But hah.. that's the existential bullshit I was talking about when I start thinking about the universe and life.  

I will go back to the present now as a small fry in this supersize carton of delicious but unhealthy carbs. 


P.S. I realize the topic is on par with my blog url ! What a comeback right? 

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