Are you awake?.. The night is quiet and the moon is casting a strange light through my window. Some company perhaps.. Ill pour the tea. A collection of thoughts. I once knew a woman who was very caring but when she was tired she would sometimes say Im beyond caring. I now wonder where this magical land beyond caring is so that I may visit and lay my burden down. I couldnt stay in the little room where she lay in a coma as the final moments drew near, half a lifetime ago I lacked the emotional fortitude to endure it. She celebrated in all things beautiful that we gift to each other through art, paintings, music and poetry but she had long since fallen to the bottom of the heap with her self esteem shattered. It is a strange and awful contradiction to think so little of yourself and yet be so prideful but I do understand the legacy very well. Forgive me, my fingers feel like lead and Ive yet to fill your cup. Its just an illustration, a painting of words, sometimes the circle is not always complete, life does not necessarily tidily package itself up when it is finished, things are left undone, unfulfilled and sometimes the whole thing is cut terribly short. It helps remind us why its so important to encourage each other where we can and to unfurl our wings and at least attempt to fly even if our wings are broken. Life is an altogether most curious phenomenon, more so the ability of self awareness, a function by which the universe would seemly seek to know itself. On the cosmic scale of things the fact that both you and I share this small fraction of time and space together is truly wondrous, though I will confess I cannot say with any amount certainty as to why we exist at all. We are both the same and yet so desperately separate, each of us harboring our own unique collection of grief, love, joy, pain, laughter and sorrow, heaped in unequal servings. Consider too our ability to see, touch, feel, and experience this profoundly beautiful planet in its vast arrangement of color and texture, then look up and see the stars.. The Hubble telescope reveals about 100 billion galaxies in the universe, this number is likely to increase to around 200 billion as telescope technology improves. Its calculated by counting the number of galaxies imaged from a tiny portion of sky then using the ratio its applied to the rest of the universe to determine a total number of galaxies. This process does take into account some assumptions which you can investigate, but for our purpose I think we can safely say that the universe is immensely huge. As far back as I can remember the cosmos has been a constant source of fascination and possibility. In all this vastness it seems the hight of human conceit to assume that we alone are the custodians of conscious thought or that we, on this tiny fragile speck adrift in the great cosmic ocean are the only planet on which life exists. There is of course no hard evidence to suggest that life exists elsewhere, at this stage the distances between the stars is too great for us to investigate fully, we are for the time been very much alone. But let us postulate for a moment the possibility that we do not hold some privileged position, that life is commonplace and that the universe is in fact teaming with a multitude of civilizations. Is this really such a preposterous idea, I would argue that it is the far more likely scenario. I am curious, what would these creatures look like? I expect the reality is something more fantastic and varied than anything we could ever imagine. Some of these beings would no doubt operate on an entirely different level to us, a plane of understanding beyond our ability to comprehend to which our self awareness would be like the musings of an insect in comparison. At this very moment on a billion worlds could life be asking these same fundamental questions. What am I? Why do I exist? Am I alone? Perhaps there is no answer at all. Are you awake?.. So with all this power of observation and self awareness I wonder how we spend our days. Often times it seems our lives are immersed in a distraction of triviality as we run around in frantic circles going nowhere, a soul destroying exercise of routine and conformity interspersed with moments of clarity and revelation. Of course its all well and good to entertain such lofty observations but they will not necessarily pay the bills and self discipline, repetition and structure to our days are the means by which we often achieve excellence. I suppose as always it comes down to finding a balance. The scientific and technological achievements of humanity over the last 100 years in particular is nothing short of astonishing and it continues to accelerate. The one area I feel weve let slip is the advancement of space travel, although the participation of some commercial ventures is encouraging, which reminds me.. Sarah Brightman will be part of a three person crew aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft for an estimated 10 day jaunt aboard the ISS in 2015. She will be the first professional musician to sing from space, I find this a rather delightful notion - her angelic voice descending from the heavens. I had no idea she was such a space junkie, although in 1978 on the the Kenny Everett show she did sing a sci fi themed song, I was tempted to add a link to the video but out of concern for your safety I refrained. Apparently a single viewing can cause permeant brain damage. However Ive watched it several times in an effort to quantify the experience and seem to be unaffected.. Im not quite sure what that means. Anyway be warned, do not underestimate the 1970s and the formidable power of spandex. I hesitate.. the clock ticks, I couldnt hear it before there was too much noise but here in the hollow of the night it reminds me that our time together is short and your tea is getting cold, however I cannot let you leave without telling you how much I appreciate the time you have taken to contribute to Last Star from those that bothered to audition for a role to the extras and of course the wonderful actors and people behind the scenes, even those that follow our progress on this page your interest is appreciated, I think its a great act of courage to walk into these little productions, I mean goodness knows what youd find and lets face it the rewards are few. Last Star cannot function without you. Kindest Regards John Ratcliffe
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 10:34:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015