Discipline Blog – Days 2,3 and 4

Discipline Blog – Days 2,3 and 4

Get off my ass time: Day 2, 30 minutes… one short walk to absorb some sun… plus additional time up and down stairs for laundry; Day 3, 1hour … wandering around the school and mingling at a local benefit dinner; Day 4, 45 min (so far)… mingling and chatting with people at “Island Getaway Day” (I’m anticipating about another hour + grocery shopping after class).

The reason for the delay in my posts this week has mostly been due to the unforeseen, and unfortunate, demise of my laptop. The poor thing was barely a year old, and spent almost every waking hour with me. It survived four semesters of classes, often being very vocal in providing information to my classmates and professors when needed. It shall be missed. Let us observe a moment of silence for its passing.










Anyway, Today I’d like to discuss the future of the human race. Kinda pretentious, no?

Mankind is ultimately doomed, right? I mean, everything in existence points to us being a fleeting passing moment in the grand scheme of universal history. Everything that lives dies. So, obviously, humanity won’t last forever. As a result of the awareness of our impending doom, human imagination has been working overtime to produce (and reproduce) millions upon millions of various scenarios about the end of the human race. Nuclear wars, biblical Armageddon, eradication by meteors or robots or aliens or us, are just a few of the examples. We are obsessed with the mortality of our civilization.

Fundamentally, this affects us much in the same way that it affects an individual who spends his whole life worrying about how, when, where, and why he or she is going to die. They forget about the fact that they are still alive. More importantly, they often forget that humanity is less about death and more about the people who continue to live on.

I’m currently writing my senior thesis on an idea that addresses the very issue at hand, by examining a specific doomsday scenario and how to avoid it. However, as I’m trying to illustrate, the point of it isn’t about the fact that we are doomed; it’s about what do we do if our doom isn’t as close at hand as anyone imagines. As The Doctor says, “You spend all your time thinking about dying you can’t imagine the impossible…that you survive” (almost assuredly a misquote from the 2005 series episode “The End of the World” because I don’t have the materials handy to cross-reference well at the moment). So, whenever you get the chance and as much as possible, think about the possibility that we survive INDEFINITELY. I think when you start working it out you’ll see that it’s a far more complex, interesting and terrifying thing than thinking about how we are going to end.

There is another ulterior motive for my talking about this… that is to say: (Regardless of any other issues out there and whether or not you approve or disapprove of the methods or policies of those in power) PLEASE support anything that increases the growth and development of our space program, because personally, I am incapable of imagining a lasting future for humanity if we don’t get out there and expand into the greater cosmos.

Good night to you all, may the winds of change not smell of Durian (think wet garbage under a hot sun…).