The Only Home

Noah 2022-04-20 08:01:04

By Carl Sagan Look at that dull blue dot again. right here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've heard of, everyone who's ever lived their lives. Our joys and pains, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, Every young couple in love, every mother and father, every hopeful child, every inventor and explorer, every moral teacher, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every A "Supreme Leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - all gathered in the dust suspended in the sun. Earth is a very small stage on the vast cosmic stage. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by those generals and emperors, so that they can become instant masters of a point in glory and victory. Think of the endless cruelty experienced by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel towards the barely visible inhabitants of the other, how often their misunderstandings are, how eager they are to kill each other, how intense their hatred is. Our posture, our imagined self-importance, our illusion of some privileged place in the universe are all challenged by this little light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the cosmic darkness. In our obscurity, in such a vast land, there is no sign of any help from elsewhere to save us. So far, Earth is the only world with life. There is no other place for our species to migrate to, at least in the near future. visit, yes. Settling down, not yet. Like it or not, the Earth is where we stand right now. Astronomy is said to be a humbling and personal experience. Perhaps there is no better proof of human folly than this distant image of a small world. To me, this underscores our responsibility to be kinder to each other and to protect and cherish the light blue dot, the only home we know.

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