Something about reading that just sort of made me depressed. Oh sure, it's wonderful to find out that these things might be possible. But what's the fun in it all if we're stuck here for all eternity? You know, as Earthlings (my that sounds funny), we're all rather helpless individuals. We're all trapped. Together. The only way out of all of this is death. Otherwise, we can move wherever we want to (most of us), but still be stuck here. It's like an island out at sea. We're shipwrecked and no one knows where we landed or if we're even alive. Across the ocean, we sometimes see other little islands, but we don't have any materials to make any substantial boats out of. Sure, we can get into some lifeboats/rafts and float around on the very edges of our island, but if we ever try to go farther out, we sink.
I remember reading out they might do a voyage to Mars. A manned voyage. One of the many problems would be the problem with asteroids. As they said in the Apollo 13 movie, some layers are no thicker than aluminum foil. (I think that's what they said). So if they run into any asteroids, they're all dead. So our raft springs a link in the middle of the ocean, we're dead.
We're stuck here, and there's no way to get to the other side of the ocean. Except in books and dreams and TV shows and movies. And it's all fake. It's an illusion. Sooner or later, we all have to face reality. We have to face reality and realize, that this is all we've got. This is all there is. This is all we can reach.
posted by Val at 11/28/2001 04:22:00 PM
