According to the Mayan Calendar, 2012 was supposed to be it, the year we all went out with a Big Bang. And the wags keep asking, how do we know that the world didn't already end and we just not notice. Huh, right? Other than HOW we get our news, not too much has changed in the news. Economic crisies, scandals, elections, crime, uprisings, protests, manmade and natural disasters...the list is not so different than it's been in the last century. For all our scientific and other advances, on the surface, humankind still appears to be actively courting the fate of the dinosaurs, except, they had a less active role in their decimation. As has proven before, nature has a way of evening up the score and we wait to see what she throws up this time. Or maybe the Mayans just ran out of space on that piece of rock the calendar was carved on eh.
And as we move through the second decade of this century the real difference seems to be more a lack of hope, a jadedness...for all the self help books, Dr. Phil and finding peace within ourselves, blah, blah blah, it would also appear that the only people benefitting are those who collect the cash. When the next best thing happens like clockwork every 6 months, what is there really to inspire awe and wonder? Is the hype really worth it and why do we feel so empty after we've acquired the next best thing. Why do we feel restless and dissatisfied, craving, the next thing. Is it really just great marketing or is it a hole in our collective souls?
A significant piece of history went almost unnoticed last week. The unmanned Voyager mission has indeed, boldly gone where no man has gone before. Voyager I is poised to enter the interstellar highway, in doing so it has become the little probe that can. Launched in 1977, the Voyager programme has run ever since, quietly gathering data about the space outside our little cocoon. It is indeed a wondrous thing because it is so much bigger than we know. If there is anybody else out there, Voyager may well be the first piece of man they meet. Think about that.
To borrow from the evergreen Noel Gallagher, " Someday you might find your hero
Some say you might lose your mind..................Keep on chasing down that rainbow
You'll never know what you might find, Over the sunset on the horizon". Somehow the words seem to fit, coming from a man who's now lived about half his life, experienced the highs and lows, seemingly understanding what is important to him. Maybe that tiger you want to take for a ride isn't the next phone or gadget, it's life.
