That Big Universe Out there…
I love me a good Ted Talk. Ted talks are public speaking events where people from various different fields and areas of expertise come and speak about their passions and points of views on issues in the world. I first came across them on YouTube a few years back and would select one to watch whenever I'd get a moment too but life has that habit of constantly getting in the way and I wasn't able to watch them as much as I'd like to because I felt it was keeping me from other stuff that need to be done. Much to my joy, I recently discovered that I could listen to them in Podcast formats (Is he extolling the virtues of Podcasts again?!) so I immediately downloaded a random selection onto my phone and have started listening to the again.
This morning as I resumed my Domestic house duties, I came across 'Our longing for Cosmic Truth and Poetic Beauty’ by Maria Popova'. In it, she talks abut the universe and the efforts of those who dedicated themselves and worked so passionately towards the creation of technology such as the Hubble Telescope which enabled scientists to see and now know so much more than what was previously known about our Galaxy, its neighbours and beyond. I'm a child of the 70's and one of my favourite programmes to watch back in the days of only three TV channels in the UK was 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century' (I've attached a link here ) https://youtu.be/xLzYr9dlFWs Not as well known as Star Trek perhaps but portrayed an Earth in the future where humans live alongside beings from other worlds and galaxies. I lived for each new episode come Saturday. I've always believed there are other civilisations out there and who knows, maybe we'll get to confirm that this lifetime but I digress, back to the topic at hand...
During her Ted Talk, Maria quotes a poem by Tracey K Smith called "My God, its full of Stars". Some may also recognise this line from the iconic movie '2001, a space Odyssey'. In this poem Tracey recalls the efforts of her father, one of NASA’s first Black Engineers who worked on the Hubble telescope. I don't know whether it was the first coffee of the day I'd just had or whether I was just feeling super sentimental but it got me all emotional at the marvel that is all around us and the possibility of us all losing the opportunity to learn more about it because of power driven egos who are too busy concentrating on driving their agendas instead of reminding themselves that there are hundreds of billions of stars and planets out there and we are merely one of them. How can they constantly ignore this fact? Anyway, I'm going to listen to this poem once more and if you've had the patience to get through my writing this far, I've put links below to both Maria's talk and Tracey reading her poem below. Take care wherever you are and thank you for reading. Sunday 😊
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkczIuZmVlZGJ1cm5lci5jb20vdGVkdGFsa3NfYXVkaW8/episode/ZW4uYXVkaW8udGFsay50ZWQuY29tOjkxODY3?ep=14
https://vimeo.com/217076829
