An eclipse and the world didn't end yet.

I got to see a full eclipse of the sun yesterday.

And yes, it was fascinating. It was a very visceral reminder of our tiny human experience in the middle of great, physical machinations.

I was lucky. I lived right in the middle of the totality path and just wandered to a nearby lakefront park with a lot of friends and watched our little solar system do one of its magic tricks.

It got dark. The lake and the hills and trees and rolling green fields got dark. It never got totally midnight dark, but maybe 7:45 PM dark. It stayed dark for a few minutes and then creeped back to light. It’d been cloudy most of the morning and the totality part came through a big hole in the clouds and we all got to oohhh and aaahhhh.?

There weren’t any human sacrifices or people getting raptured or earthquakes or anything really fun, but it was a unique experience and probably the only time I’ll see it.

But I got to thinking about what William Shatner wrote about going into space on one of the rich guy rockets. He was expecting to be filled with the excitement and joy of space exploration, since he’s made a damned fine living bringing the idea to life.

But instead, it depressed the hell out him.

Big bursts of reality are mostly depressing.

He sat in the rocket, out in cold, dark space, and realized everything around him was empty and dead. He looked down on our beautiful little gem of a planet, all green and blue and cloudy and wet and dry and hot and cold and just full of life and unfortunately full of idiots who are brazenly destroying it all.

And we are destroying it all. I say that without passing judgment or pointing fingers, but yes, we’re screwing the pooch here. Maybe it’s just inevitable. We’re basically yeast, eating up all that sweet grape juice and yakking out ethyl alcohol till our waste kills us.

Yeah, there are rich powers who are getting richer by yakking out more ethyl alcohol and laughing while the poor masses drown in their rich guy waste, but nobody has the huevos to do anything about it.

Sounds kinda nihilistic I suppose.

So that’s where my mind went as the sun disappeared behind the moon for a few moments. Something the universe around us does on a regular basis that means nothing to it but a lot to all of us little yeast cells, and we make a big deal out of the wonders of the grand machinations and blather in awe and do everything possible to destroy our little lifeboat in the process.

“He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.”

And I’ll add my own deep well of thought.

“Whatever. Enjoy what you can because you’re just taking up a little space for a little while, so don’t think it really matters.”

But go find things that make you happy and enjoy the big machinations and maybe we’ll get lucky enough that we won’t destroy it all. There’s hope I suspect.

Amen.

#eclipse #totaleclipse #startrek #norapturedamn