Some people live through their life's work. Plato, Van Gogh, Dostoevsky. It even applies today. People such as Vonnegut and Lennon. They're cheating death by leaving behind a tangible account of their lives. The paper in your hands, the sound in your ears, the light being so dutifully absorbed by your rods and cones. They're all ways of reaching out and touching souls from the grave. It's as if they've become immortal.
But if you play this in fast forward, if you take a step back and skip the tape ahead a few chapters to where the Sun has boiled our oceans away and charred our ground, where the Andromeda Galaxy is whisking through the Milky Way and stars make small talk to each other you can start to see that all these souls and minds aren't really making an imprint. The literature and art burned, the music silenced. Everything we've done as a species and as individuals doesn't really matter.
The only things left from humanity at this point are a handful of defunct spacecraft barreling away from sun. A few cold pieces of metal whispering through space. It's lonely, it's quiet. But it's an engrossing feeling to picture this scenario.
I love homo sapiens.
Stephen!
2 comments:
So, uh.
I believe you've already read this.
Which really only leaves me with: I think we have a lot more in common than we may have previously thought.
Maybe.
Man tends to believe he is the center of the universe. And when one has the guts to entertain the thought that we are not, well, that's where true enlightenment begins.
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