Virginia Woolf On Dancing With The Stars And Non-Human Biologics
"When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter, do they?" - Virginia Woolf
Sometimes we can all use a little perspective, and Virginia Woolf captures the sentiment perfectly in this quotation from her novel Night and Day.
You would think that with our modern technology and scientific advances we would grasp this humbling reality better than ever. But whether you consider it metaphorically (life is miraculous and precious) or literally (we’re specks on a dot drifting in an incomprehensibly vast void), it can feel like humans can’t see the forest for the affairs.
Of course, it’s hard to consider the stars when you can barely see them, as is the case for an astounding 80% of people. According to this article, “one third of humanity can’t see the Milky Way.” I can only think of one occasion when I saw the Milky Way: On a night drive near Kenai Lake in Alaska. It was awe-inspiring, humbling, and terrifying all at once. Nothing will make you feel small and appreciative of nature, our little planet and of our existence.
Speaking of our little planet and its place in the galaxy, have you read any of the news on, um, aliens lately? If you’ve missed it, good morning! Please sit down and prepare yourself: I know this is impossible to believe, but congress recently did something we used to call “bipartisan,” where both sides of the aisle agree on something, like whether or not there are UFOs, sorry, UAPs, in Area 51.
I’m surprisingly optimistic about this possibility. If the assertion that “non-human biologics” managed to zip through light years of space in a tic tac turns out to be even remotely true, then a) we’re not alone in the universe, b) all intra-human conflict is by comparison absurdly petty and narcissistic, and c) there’s so much more scientific discovery yet to be made which can bring us all together as a species.
Oh, and d) we owe Christopher Walken an apology for the poor treatment of Communion.
Call me crazy. But when I weigh the risks of an intergalactic species against the risks of us just continuing to duke it out here amongst ourselves, I feel like we’d be better off realizing our intra-species squabbles don’t seem to matter. So for now, I’m pulling for the little space men. And who knows, maybe we figure out how to do the cha-cha with the grays like Walken.
One last thought: since humor is my obligatory defense mechanism, I need to pass the mic to a more serious and qualified person on this topic. In the same spirit as Woolf, here’s what Carl Sagan had to say about the power of putting our existence into the context of the universe: