A Change in Consciousness or Not

John Creighton · 2004-02-03 11:46:09

With current plans for bases on the moon and mars, completion of the ISS, and a possible space elevator I can?t help but wonder the impact of this in the short term on life on this planet. What are the influences to, art television and music, and to the educational dreams of the young? Will these historical landmarks make profound differences on our life or will the impact be know bigger then a few good movies or television shows. What is the real measure of the short term value of these events?

There may soon be a vehicle that can go well beyond mars. What does this mean to the average JO. What does it mean if in 50-60 years we have people living or exploring europa and what significance does it have to us if they discover life. Try to respond not to the been counter. Try to write in a way to unlock the hart of the existentialist. I am not an existentialist but if you can unlock the hart of an existentialist you have done far more then captured my imagination.

clark · 2004-02-03 13:02:39

Not quite sure what you're looking for, but I took a jab. Anyone care to comment?

We shall always be outnumbered. Those words you spoke to me, years ago, on a shore and world filled with life never had much meaning until now. Until sitting here, on a wind scraped rock, staring at eternity, beneath the numberless stars waiting patiently above. I was just a child then, in that long ago idealized memory filled with the limitless exuberance of youth. You had taken me out beyond the cities and lights, beyond my tantrums and innocent naivete. What did I know then? Never mind that I thought I had the answers. Never mind that I thought I had it all figured out. You didn't care. You said it didn't matter, that answers were suspect; it was the questions that counted.

And now here I am, grown, long past any answer I thought I had found in youth. Long past the troubling questions you had taught me, or I found along the way. In this place, a red desert dreamscape millions of miles from anything I once called home. Science has made the incredible credible, and with it a new Martian burden; the realization that this dream is not our own. That we few, who live this dream, shall always be outnumbered.

Even now, as I make a new path on land unknown, there is a clarion call for even greater exploits. Even now, as we stand at the forefront of all that is possible, all that is attainable, some dare dream further, hoping to make even the impossible, possible. These dreamers, these others who look to all that is and still cry out for more, their ideas number like endless grains of sand. My love for this place, my Mars, with endless canyons and mountains that swallow the sky, feels like a solitary refrain since your passing. I share so many of these others hopes, but they are not my own, and for that I shall always feel outnumbered.

You had shown me what the world could be, what I could be, pointing to the land we walked upon, and the star filled sky we carefully treaded below. Looking back at how far I have come, how far we have come, I realize that was where this journey had begun. You, haven long given up that childhood hope of daring adventure beyond the limits of your day, had let that flame burn into an endless ember, sublimated into your family and surroundings. No one really knew how far your convictions had taken you, as I sit here among the rock littered landscapes you made me imagine as a child, I still think that I have but an inkling of your own desires. Your love for this place, these moments I now live, all because of you. Because of all of those who thought like you, who felt like you, who dreamed and loved against all good sense. Who, always outnumbered, never ceased to believe that against all odds, our dreams could be fulfilled.

We shall always be outnumbered, so let us never give up hope.

John Creighton · 2004-02-03 13:17:22

I?m impressed. Have you ever considered writing?

clark · 2004-02-03 13:55:15

Thank you.

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#1 2004-02-03 11:46:09

Re: A Change in Consciousness or Not

#2 2004-02-03 13:02:39

Re: A Change in Consciousness or Not

#3 2004-02-03 13:17:22

Re: A Change in Consciousness or Not

#4 2004-02-03 13:55:15

Re: A Change in Consciousness or Not

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