Tuesday 29 November 2016

Personal Log Stardate 3.722 (billion)

"If you want to make apple pie from scratch, first you have to create the universe."

This is a popular quote from the cosmologist Carl Sagan. I like it, it takes me from the everyday to the ultimate: a profound leap for one that takes just a moment to make. 

Thing are looking bleak at present, so much so that I am tempted to batten down the hatches, stick my head in the sand and hibernate for a decade.

What perturbs me is that it is fashionable to embrace lies to gain power, to encourage mistrust to hold on to it, to turn  a blind eye to the effects of greed and selfishness on those who cannot shield themselves from it: the poor, the unprotected, the marginalised. 

How can this be right?

It isn't.  All I can hope for now, is that one day the appeals to the worst in us will run it's course, and the liars, cheats, war-makers and fear-mongers will be vanquished. I am usually optimistic, but am struggling to remain so. I want the world to be a better place, but what I am seeing right now is pretty much an end-game. 

Such a pity. Because, to end with another Sagan quote:

"Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious."

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