Friday, January 29, 2010

Perspective, be nice and Breakfast


Commentary on a picture taken from space, of planet earth.

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

-Carl Sagan

For all of you that have never read that, did you enjoy it? I loved it when I first read it years ago, and I still love it today.
BE NICE, enjoy life with all it's varieties and differences and don't take it all to seriously ;-)

Back to food;

Great 20 minute workout yesterday morning, that had me drenched in sweat and hungry about 30 minutes later. Check out Chris's latest post on Conditioning research, for good info on post work out nutrition and the importance of exercise.

 Sauted in some herb butter from Kerrygold, red onion and asparagus. One fried egg and topped with a few slices of smoked salmon.

Have a great weekend everyone


8 comments:

Unknown said...

Great Marc, now I gotta get all philosophical! This reminds me of "Horton Hears a Who", but does anyone hear Horton? or is he just a speck on a speck on a spot?

The food looks great as always


mikez

Natalie said...

Carl Sagan was one of my heroes as a child. His writing is amazing. Thank you for posting his words and the photo: I dragged my 6 year old over for a looksee, and she was dumbfounded. "Mom! We are like, smaller than a crumb!" I love that.

Plus, I feel pretty good that I'm following a blogger who posts such great intellectual work and chases it up with BE NICE. Awesome.

Mark said...

I had never seen that Carl Sagan quote. Remarkable. Thanks for sharing that and putting it all into perspective.

Anonymous said...

I love that quote and have never read it before. It is very humbling indeed. I wish everyone had to read that everyday.

Hunsdon said...

Marc:

Good stuff! I think "being nice" is one of the best things in this whole wide world to do. I wrote a short piece explaining my philosophy over at the Paleo Garden, except I called it "Be Excellent to Each Other."

http://www.thepaleogarden.com/2009/08/03/wolves-among-dogs/

Up the revolution!

Marc said...

Smoke,
Horton....man did I enjoy that movie!
Thanks!

Natalie,
Thank you ;-)
Be Nice, it's so simple really isn't it? Thanks for for the compliment!
I too show it to my kids...

Mark,
You're welcome! I really marvel over it at times.

Darwin,
Thank you and welcome back!!! Enjoying your posts! Thanks for posting.

Lewis,
Thank you so much! Recently found the PaleoGarden. Great posts and well thought out.

Marc

Becca said...

I LOVE this and am going to share it! New to your site and am really enjoying it.

Becca
http://www.livingwrighthome.com

Marc said...

MamaWright,
Thank you ;-)
Wish I had you website skills.
Your blog looks fantastic!

Marc