Tuesday, July 22, 2014

stars in space

      I've made it into a game. Log on to Netflix. Type a random word in the search engine box and see if anything good comes up. Rule #1: You have to watch whatever comes up. Rule #2: Rule number one is voided by any mention of David Bowie. It's rather challenging. Today, I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a documentary about the human race's first moments in space. Don't ask the name, after scanning for David Bowie, I don't really notice.
      This was one of the greatest films I've seen in quite a long time. Original footage, first-hand interviews, shiny space suits and one of the most influential events in human history. Let me clarify, I do not classify this as an influential event due to our making it to space and the moon. No, this makes the list of times when the human race proved that they are amazing and in doing so, influenced everything else. This is my favorite list. 
      Humans have long been known as a group of individuals comprised of many different hobbies, tastes, interests, abilities, desires and perceptions. It's amazing to me that we haven't blown up the planet yet (though we have come close). Throughout the years, humans have found ways to link those skills and interests and whatnot to create and improve. 
      Concerning this documentary, I found another great thing about human beans: we are brave. Not only were the astronauts brave in risking their life to explore, but we were brave in believing we could send them out there and bring them back alive. Space, for me, represents the epitome of "the unknown."  If you think about it, there is really close to nothing that we know about space. Sure, we've progressed since that day in 1961, but if you think about it, there is a lot out there that we have absolutely no solid knowledge about. And can you imagine back when Yuri was suiting up? Someone was looking into that black abyss one day and thought, "we should wrap a man up in a shiny suit, fling him up there and see what we find." And then someone volunteered. And then someone built a spaceship. And then that volunteer got into the spaceship and was rocketed up into space. And THEN, a few years later, someone got to the moon. What if the moon was acidic, and one step could have disintegrated you? But Armstrong did it. He left that shoe print that looked strikingly similar to every pair of shoes you ever wore before the age of 8.


"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." 
       
     Here is a human bean, testing the limits. What I love about that, is that people do it everyday. I had an irrational fear of turning on a blender once. Fortunately, the only job I could get freshman year was at Jamba Juice. I walked in, and after making my first smoothie, started the blender. So maybe it would explode and rip my face to pieces (that was the irrational fear part), but I did it. Martin Luther King Jr. knew the risk of standing up for his rights, but he did, and because of that, our entire nation was changed. Firemen jump into burning houses to save people, soldiers fight to protect their freedom, a kid stands up to the bully at school, you leap off the plane with nothing with a backpack that supposedly has a parachute in it. 







                                             




     It's amazing. The human race is a lot of things, and brave is perhaps one of the greatest. So, here's to being brave. Cheers. 


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