The clock strikes midnight, the crowds cheer, I mumble the words that everyone seems to say to each other at this moment. An artificial one, to be sure, but so are most human constructs of time. I step outside, it’s a cold night, but the skies are clear. For the first time in a while, I see my moon-shadow against the crisp, white snow. Gazing up at a night sky I didn’t expect to see in a bright city I begin to despair.
I despair to think of our lack of ambition, our sheer provincialism when a universe of unending wonder exists, and most of us could care less about it. Futurists argue that the next centuries will be an exploration of the ‘inner’ rather than the ‘outer’. They (usually with a naive idealism that I at once appreciate and abhor) point to direct human-computer interfaces, genetic engineering and the inherent possibilities of innovations in these fields as the beginning of a new era for our exploration of the possibilities of human existence. And perhaps, just perhaps, that is a more meaningful, cost-effective path for humanity’s future and fulfillment. For heaven’s sake, we haven’t yet managed to get clean drinking water to every person on this planet, not by a long-shot.
Yet, I find myself again staring at the night sky with awe and wonder; and so I begin slowly to comprehend the occasional futility of reason in the face of curiosity and what must surely be our destiny.
