It’s Written in the Stars

“Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” ― Carl Sagan

Watching the earth rise from the moon made humans finally understand what a small little fragile planet we live on. If we could keep more of that sentiment we would approach life and our relationships to one another very differently.

We, humans, believe us to be way, way more important than we really are. Both, as a species and as individuals. I have the theory that this is so because we live in cities. Large, noisy cities, which light obscures the stars at night. We have forgotten that there is a large, spectacular cosmos out there. An immutable universe that’s not concerned in the least with us. We could destroy ourselves down here, and the stars would notice nothing.

If we could not only understand, but feel like the astronauts did how small we are, we would look at the world with a very different perspective. And maybe, most likely, be a little better to one another.

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.” ― Carl Sagan