The Pale Blue Dot

“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.” – Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot

We know very little about each other, reader. We are strangers. In fact we do not even enjoy the simple privileges that most strangers do; like being able to look each other in the eyes, or engage in a dynamic dialogue. Unless you leave a comment for us, you are simply a statistic on our site meter.

Bear with me. I’m going somewhere with this, I think.

The universe is incomprehensibly vast. That you and I should find ourselves together on this planet, much less this website, is, at the very least, unlikely. That the molecules you are made of have gathered themselves in such a way as to be able to contemplate the molecules I am made of is downright absurd. Nevertheless, our consciousnesses meet here, for a moment. Lest I should squander this opportunity.

Listen. It is my moral obligation to pass this along. I hope that whatever trust we’ve built so far will not be damaged when I say this. And I won’t say it often, but this is…

A must watch:
(stick with it, it gets good!)



The voice you hear is Carl Sagan himself, author of The Pale Blue Dot. The music is Mogwai’s Stop Coming To My House.

In the words of this film’s creator:

“This is not meant to be nihilistic or defeatist. Rather, it should inspire us to make the most out of our brief stay here on Earth. It is a scale on which to measure the insignificance of our differences and magnifies the importance of our similarities.” - Pale Blue Films

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for humoring me.

Download:
Mogwai – Stop Coming To My House