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Gratuitous shots of space in Doctor Who.
(Source: dearborns, via tardisadventures)
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(Source: tellmetofeel, via altairs)
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“When I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.” - Neil DeGrasse Tyson [x]
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just remember who’s standing in your way
(Source: everlastingink, via poisontao)
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And… he’s wonderful.
(Source: strawmeadow, via poisontao)
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Living the History
Living the History
I’ve just finished watching an interesting show titled New Amsterdam. I’ve seen all the episodes, which isn’t that many, considering the show was cancelled, unfortunately, and there’s only 8 episodes. It’s a shame, really. It was a good show, interesting story, good actors.
It talks about a guy called John Amsterdam, a police detective, who is immortal. He was made such somewhere around 1620 (can’t remember the exact year, if it was ever stated in the show) by a Native American shaman who he saved from another white soldier when they were fighting the tribe over the land that is now known as New York. The shaman promised to John that he will not grow old and will not die until he meets “the One”. So for the last 400 years, give or take, he’s been searching for that special woman, while effectively living the history.
It’s interesting that I liked the show as much as I did. Mostly because I usually find romance drama, all that “soulmates”, “true love” things, very annoying. But what I do like and have great interest in is history. And I don’t mean just dates and facts, I mean like how eternal, always in the making, so vast in comparison to a human life it is.
In the 400 years of his life, John has witnessed the shaping of modern world. He saw the New York City being build from scratch and modeled into what it is today. He shook hands with now long dead but still remembered artists, had a drink with inventors who paved way for me to write this on my computer and publish on the Internet, fought through wars, saw people gaining rights, society changing, evolving, humans adapting. And that’s only the last four centuries.
Before that there is, of course, even more. Kingdoms coming and going, armies winning and losing, cultures creating and destroying. All the way to the beginning of the humanity.
You see, the thing is, I feel like all the important history in this world has already happened. That if one would today become immortal, in 25th century, he or she would somehow have lived through less than what John experienced. What if humanity has reached it’s peak and there’s no big history to be created any more?
What exactly could be changed to show that all is not yet over? Take political systems, for instance. We’ve seen them all, lived through them all. Not necessarily in person, but as humankind. When and where one failed, another rose from it’s ashes. Now we’re mostly stuck with what we call democracy. But even for this one, I’m not sure if I believe in it any more. It has failed too many people to be considered “the One”. Yet still, all known alternatives seem worse, some greatly more than other and I really cannot imagine what could possibly be the next step after the democracy.
Every passing moment is history-in-making. But will it matter? Will it be remembered? Will it be debated and argued about like so many events in the history we know? Will the future history hold the same importance? Will it shape the world as much as it has been shaped till now?
Currently the time is 3:14, May 9th, 2012. The day is only getting started, who knows, maybe something will happen. Something important enough, that a student in the year 2462 will just now be researching on the matter for his or her school paper. If it does, I do hope it’s something good.
P. S.: Fun fact, I noticed on Google that today would be Howard Carter’s 138th birthday. Do you think that perhaps, many, many years into the future there will be some archaeologist making important discoveries about our time too? Is there even anything important to find?
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Vestigiality
Vestigiality
Human body contains some interesting phenomena, organs and behaviours that are remnants of something that used to be useful but lost it’s function somewhere along the evolution and are now even annoying in some cases. Such vestigial characters are, for instance, the third eyelid, wisdom teeth, goose bumps, appendix, and a few other.
Some are still degenerating, some were replaced by other functions that still get the same result, some are gaining new functions. But all in all, they’re a good example of how evolution works. With gaining muscles that allow us to move our heads, the muscles previously appointed for moving ears to the source of the sound stiffened; the apparent dead end of the intestine - the appendix - while not digesting cellulose any more, may well be harbouring a reserve of intestinal bacteria to help repopulate the colon in case of emergency.
But what if vestigial occurrence doesn’t happen only in physiology, biology and nature, what if it can happen in society? How is or would that be then represented?
Would a vestigial person be someone who can’t find his or her purpose in life and the proper role in the society? Who maybe had no problem with existing while being a child, like embryos having a proper tail which then degrades into the tailbone, but has, in adulthood, found himself or herself redundant as an individual.
And what can such person do about that? Can he or she gain a function useful to the rest of humanity or is him or her destined for being an outcast, someone always in other people’s ways, slowing down the evolution of the society?
Wouldn’t then be easier for all involved to just “surgically remove” the vestigial person, like an aching wisdom tooth?
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Thoughts from places: Venice, Italy
Thoughts from places: Venice, Italy
When I decided to accompany my Chinese room-mate, who is here on student exchange program for two months, to Venice, I didn’t think that much of it. I have been in Venice before, two times, in primary and in high school - both times a guided tour. Venice didn’t really impress me either time, so it felt like nothing special when we started our journey. But of course, this time was different. Only four of us, completely independent of any nagging tour guides, with a pdf map on my phone, our sense of direction and time and our own desires what to see.
We tried to avoid the main tourist areas as much as possible, enjoying unknown squares and hidden parks, tiny bridges and narrow streets because only a few steps into one of the beautiful and ignored parks already brought us into a complete new world, the opposite of the tourist chaos everywhere. Here you sat on a bench, surrounded by peace and calm, which quickly took over our minds and body. That was especially easy in the late afternoon when we were already very tired from all the walking.
While crossing a tiny square and observing all the little bridges that led to it with their detailed parapets, it finally struck me. Venice are not the Rialto Bridge and San Marco’s Square and the Basilica. Venice are everything else. They are truly and undeniably beautiful if only you take time to discover them. If you manage to look past the enormous mass of tourists constantly flowing through the city, you see the actual reason why people began visiting this place in the first place.
Bridge after bridge, the city charmed me. I now understand why is it so romanticized and not only for the singing gondoliers (which we saw many, two of them actually singing, just not “O sole mio”, one whistling, one talking about the city to his passengers while manoeuvring under the low bridges and turning the long gondola into a tiny canal and four gondoliers stopping in the middle of a canal to have a chat despite having passengers with them).
The reality I saw suddenly turned into that magical place which, till now, I could only find in the books. In the end, I visited Venice for the very first time.
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All of time and space. Everywhere and anywhere. Every star that ever was. Where do you want to start?
(Source: whoniversecaps, via tennantscookiejar)
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“I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars” - Neil deGrasse Tyson
(Source: acciobojan, via pamplemoose)
