ship of imagination

by Shaun Lawton

Now that I've watched and listened to Neil deGrasse Tyson guide us through the earlier stages of our universe in the souped up and absolutely marvelous reboot of Carl Sagan's COSMOS for the Twenty-Teens, I can honestly say that was some of the best damn television that I ever subjected myself to.

I mean, the scene where the chrome seedpod ship of the imagination dives under a hydrocarbon lake on the surface of Titan disappearing like a dorsal fin, that is quality programming.  When he tells us earlier on in the second episode that artificial selection has made wolves into shepherds, I know he's already won me over and even if that's really Carl speaking from beyond Eden's grave with a dragon's tongue, it effectively summarizes a reciprocal value in evolution's long term design, for me.

Just the simple knowledge that we have yet to discover all the varieties of species in the living kingdom and furthermore that a massive percentage have already become extinct right here on this planet should be enough to command the attention of every science fiction and dreamer of extraterrestrial life forms without exception.

Nailed into my mind repeatedly throughout my life is the notion that we are the aliens, that this is the place--the afterlife, whatever you want to call it--and the only point in space which is manifesting all the variants of possibility in the empire of existence.  The reasons for this are plentiful and far from arbitrary, least of which lies the implication that even if there were "other" forms of life "out there" as we so happen to fervently love to suppose to the point there's an entire industry surrounding this quest, it wouldn't matter in the slightest due to the fact we are like it or not caught up here in this particular subsection of the galactic continuum, and no thing, no dreaming certainly because no action whatsoever we may take in this physical universe could ever amount to anything remotely having anything to do with any conceivable type of interaction with 'those' beings on account of their having existed so long ago that their extinction has been glorified into nebulae since time immemorial for us, but never mind the fact we ourselves are hurtling through space at unbelievable speeds whipping about our star here along this out thrust spiral arm of a young barred galaxy, because whatever the case may be for each galaxy or solar system, our case is unfolding even now as we speak so if you'll pardon me, I've got to go and do the things I love, like read and write and listen to music and hang out with my family.  Looking for adventure.  Right here and now with this single opportunity we've been given.

sapience examining itself

by Shaun Lawton

Existence appears as a very peculiar condition to the homo sapien like you.  There seems to be no such thing as separation to the homo sapien like you.   Life forms fit together like metacarpals in a universal body to the homo sapien like you.  Human babies are extensions of their parents to a homo sapien such as yourself. 

The very idea of separateness seems irrational to you. Unknown power must reside within imagination itself, you're thinking. Anything that may be conceived by the mind can become real, you're realizing.  Mankind  invents new ways of alienating itself we believe.   

Humanity remains unique to this solar system if you ask us. Perhaps our destiny will be to create separateness, ya think? Every star of this galaxy might spawn its own form of life, so long as we get what's ours.  Every sentence in this essay appears to be sincere self-reflection. Not that it won't affect those who read it with rejection.