The geek lives!

Just to put some things in perspective.



There is simply so much that is so vast, so literally beyond our ability to truly grasp, to truly conceive, there is so very much out there that it is incomprehensible to me that there should not be life out there, especially since as of the end of December, 270 extrasolar planets (i.e., beyond our solar system) have been found, including some in their star's habitable zone, at least one of those being a rocky (that is, roughly Earth-like) planet.

And yet - and yet - in all that inconceivable vastness, the only place we know for a fact that life exists is right here on this ball of rock orbiting a very ordinary star in a very ordinary galaxy. Thinking about things like this video solidify my conviction that the universe is aflame with life. Maybe it's super-intelligent. Maybe it's slime mold. Hell, maybe it's super-intelligent slime mold. But it's out there in astonishing variety.

And at exactly the same time, thinking about things like this video drive home to me the specialness, the preciousness, the fragility, the utterly incalculable value, of life and remind me of what it is we waste on blood-stained fields and streets over squabbles and quibbles and passions and prejudices that in the "long" run of our vanishingly short human history don't mean a fucking thing.

Uh-oh, that "world is too much with me" business is starting up again. I'd better find a distraction for a while.