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Outer-space scares me. It's so vast and predictable. Infinite real estate with no arable land, puppies, or love to report. Even if there is another sanctuary deep in the reaches of space brimming with beautiful creatures that long for acceptance and spirited living, it is a statistical anomaly in an other wise star-spotted void. I believe this dichotomy between outer space and life on earth to be the heart of human kind's existential loneliness.
We live in a world that is no longer horizon-bound. We have met and become the other; the they's are us's. The religious, cultural, and national in-group hostilities are increasingly suicidal. This cultural integration requires an analogous leap in consciousness that technology or reversions to a romanticized past can't do for us. We live in a world circled by satellites that can pinpoint any address on the globe, but we know precious little about our next door neighbors. Humans have longed to bring the mathematical certainty of the cosmos to bare on our messy daily lives from the time of the Sumerians to today. This celestial Order is the very model for civilization itself. Could this metaphor become too literal; could this systematization and encoding create an inhospitable wasteland? Could we grow estranged from our personal qualitative experience? Could we dismiss our need for purpose in life as superstitious? We can decode our inheritance, determine the history of the universe from the periodic table, and theoretically traverse eons or light years, but if we can't connect to these concepts it becomes more unintegrated data to be weary of. This is why edifying arts that interpret these new realities and communicate their truth and beauty are crucial. The miracle of life, the possibility of harmonizing with its creative source, the moments of pure spirit are found in the intercourse between supposed opposites: the “eureka!” of buoyancy, the systematic stroke of the ancient Korean bamboo painting, the mathematical perfection of a three part harmony. |
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