Once it was a ‘poet’s fiction’ to fly in the sky, to go beyond the stars and to call them ‘diamonds’ in the sky, to go close to the moon. Science made the poets’ dream come true.
I was always eager to see new things. I was always excited to go to a fair – and I liked to ride in a toy airplane, that could take me to the sky and beyond. I loved to gaze at the bright stars against a clear black sky, and watch a pleasant night washed by the rain. I thought that they were made of fireflies, and I wanted to grab some of them, and put in my pocket. I’ve read in the storybook that shooting stars fall on earth and turn into white flowers. So I kissed the white flowers, and thought that I had kissed the stars. I was told that during the eclipses, the moon and the sun were swallowed by demons – and therefore, I wanted to defeat the demons so that they couldn’t eat them.
We started our journey with our tiny legs – and now, we’ve covered millions of miles. We are nomads! We love to travel! Explore! See new things! Why do we have joints in our limbs and spine? Just to push ourselves further! Our skull holds only 1350 cc of the brain, but our curiosity is infinite – and it is expanding, just like the universe. We too have undiscovered forces inside us. We are made of ‘universe material’! We are the universe!
Yes – we live on that tiny ‘pale blue dot’ (as Carl Sagan puts it) in this big universe or multiverse, but… we are the ‘topmost’ life-forms present on it. Our journey seems to be ‘outwards’ – and it is, but it also lies deep in our thoughts and feelings. When we throw ourselves in an uncertain, inexperienced ‘space’, we look ‘inside’ for the deepest vital answers. We are unveiling the biggest secrets of the universe, with our tiny mind and body.
I am mesmerised by the beauty of secrets. I want to know what I don’t know. I want to go across the universe, and want to find new places like our ancestors did. They came out from the dark caves, explored the world, and found better places for us to flourish. I would do the same for my children.
Life on earth is all about ensuring existence – a continuous effort to transfer DNA to new cells before its protoplasm is destroyed. We pass our ‘genome’ to the next generation, to achieve the ‘immortality’ of DNA. We are living in an uncertain universe. There are an infinite reasons that could wipe out our existence – and they are all just around us. As living beings on earth, I think our grit to save our existence is the highest. And we will surely go ‘far’ to save our existence. We will not go extinct! We’ll survive!
Why did these complex, precise, beautiful-looking things happen in the universe? Why did the universe ‘happen’ at all? How big is it? What are those undefined experiences? What happened before the Big Bang? What does a black hole look like? What is dark matter made of? What’s on the sun? Well, right now, we don’t know all the secrets. But someday, we’ll find them.
But, what I know for sure is that we are ruining this beautiful system of the universe – the pale blue dot, that is home to billions of life-forms including us. We are affecting our ecosystem so badly that we ourselves have become a threat to our own existence.
Science, knowledge and technology have enormous constructive power. What we call ‘man-made’ has come into existence because of this power – something that can even be seen from and in space. But, due to vicious, arrogant human activities on a massive scale, the earth is suffering from severe consequences – and so are its billions of inhabitants.
The power of knowledge and science can save our lives. It can tell us about rain, sunshine, wind, snow, storms, earthquakes, meteors and meteoroids, so that we can plan accordingly. It can connect us to our loved ones; it can help us find our lost ones; it can open the gates to a new world; it can give us joy and it can cure our pain. But if we use it for destruction, we commit a crime against earth and nature. We have created so much destructive power that it’s enough to destroy every single thing (beautiful or ugly) on the earth’s surface. And we are not stopping!
So, doomsday is near and we must seek asylum. However, when the doomsday clock will ring the final knell again, I hope science and technology will help living beings to save their existence.
But, when ‘the survival of the fittest’ is the criterion for ‘natural selection’, then who will get access to the ‘Noah’s Ark’ to leave earth forever?
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Featured image used for representative purposes only.