‘Come down now’,
they’ll say
But everything looks
perfect from far away
The Postal Service
Such Great Heights
And yet there is no sign of humans in this picture, not our reworking of the Earth’s surface, not our machines, not ourselves: We are too small and our statecraft is too feeble to be seen by a spacecraft between the Earth and the Moon. From this vantage point, our obsession with nationalism is nowhere in evidence. 1
Carl Sagan
Pale Blue Dot
From a distance
the world looks blue and green
And the snow capped mountains white
From a distance
the ocean meets the stream
And the eagle takes to flight
From a distance there is harmony
And it echoes through the land
It’s the voice of hope
It’s the voice of peace
It’s the voice of every man
From a distance we all have enough
And no one is in need
And there are no guns,
no bombs and no disease
No hungry mouths to feed
From a distance we are instruments
Marching in a common band
Playing songs of hope
Playing songs of peace
They’re the songs of every man
God is watching us
God is watching us
God is watching us from a distance
From a distance you look like my friend
Even though we are at war
From a distance I just cannot comprehend
What all this fighting is for
From a distance there is harmony
And it echoes through the land
And it’s the hope of hopes
It’s the love of loves
It’s the heart of every man
It’s the hope of hopes
It’s the love of loves
This is the song of every man
God is watching us
God is watching us
God is watching us from a distance
God is watching us
God is watching
God is watching us from a distance
It seemed to me that another picture of the Earth, this one taken from a hundred thousand times farther away, might help in the continuing process of revealing to ourselves our true circumstance and condition. It had been well understood by the scientists and philosophers of classical antiquity that the Earth was a mere point in a vast encompassing Cosmos, but no one had ever seen it as such. Here was our first chance (and perhaps also our last for decades to come). 2
Carl Sagan
Pale Blue Dot
Everyone I know is lonely
With God so far away
And my heart belongs to no one
So now sometimes I pray
Take the space between us
Fill it up some way
The Police
O My God
I first met Carl (as he preferred to be called) during a visit to
Cornell for the required college interview. My letter of application
had been dripping with an interest in the universe. The admission
office, unbeknownst to me, had forwarded my application to Carl
Sagan’s attention. Within weeks I received a personal letter inviting me to visit him in Ithaca, New York, the secluded home of Cornell University. 3
Neil deGrasse Tyson
The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
John Lennon
Imagine
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
Counting Crows
Einstein on the Beach
With only one or two human-made structures visible from Earth orbit, everything else that divides us – national borders, politics, languages, skin color, who you worship – is invisible to you. 4
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization
Yeah, we’re playin’ those mind games forever
Projectin’ our images in space and in time
John Lennon
Mind Games
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
Eurythmics
Sweet Dreams
No one is dumb who is curious.
The people who don’t ask questions
remain clueless throughout their lives.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Forbes Interview by Jim Clash 5
Is it love that makes
The world go ’round and around?
Bette Midler
Is It Love
Notes & References:
- Carl Sagan
Pale Blue Dot
↩︎ - Ibid.
↩︎ - The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist
↩︎ - Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization
↩︎ - https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimclash/2017/02/02/neil-degrasse-tyson-the-next-time-youre-abducted-steal-something-off-the-spaceship/
↩︎
Come down now,
but we’ll stay
The Postal Service
Such Great Heights
We all end in the ocean
We all start in the streams
We’re all carried along
By the river of dreams
Billy Joel
River of Dreams