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Feud 'Fore Thought {Entry Two}
Posted: Thursday, July 15, 2010 by LePhilozophe in Labels: Abba, discover, exploration, French toast, infinity, Mars, Martian, Mother Earth, Opportunity Rover, space, Spirit Rover
Half a brick of butter, a bit of strategic and carefully executed prying and maneuvering of my headless body by the nanny (bless her vocally un-blessed soul) and a bruised ego later (it wasn't particularly amusing in the least that during the entire extraction procedure, a bunch of construction workers laying bricks at the next door neighbor's driveway downed tools and, amid guffaws and body-raking laughter, made their lardy rear ends comfortable in order to witness the humiliating spectacle), i was free.
They'd been the cause of my predicament in the first place, those construction workers. Could you blame me though? Aged 5, the world was still fresh, new and pregnant with unimagined possibilities. Realities yet to be discovered (especially those of a loud, muddy and JCB-ish nature) were deliciously interpreted into cause for adventure by the 5 year old mind. It was a fearless and thirsty mind, that one; ready to sponge off of anything that would expand its realms of knowledge- real, imagined or otherwise. It dared to explore. And explore it did when it sent my head through the bars on a reconnaissance mission on the noisy goings-on of the next door neighbor's driveway that summery sun-kissed morning; but alas with no proposed plans of how exactly to retract said-head back through said-bars.
It is a decidedly human thing, exploration; is it not? From the moment we push forth from the warm, umbilically attached enclosure of our first residence, we're gripped by the urge to explore and discover everything about our new address in all it's weird, wonderful and horrific make-up. And it is thus from cot to country to continent to constellation; that we discover in order to comprehend, and ultimately conquer.
Our insatiable curiosity has landed us further than we've ever been in our history. Currently, there are two mobile buggies, Spirit Rover and Opportunity Rover taking a jolly Sunday drive around the surface of Mars and beaming us back signals of their extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features. All the required preliminary setting of the table, of course, for the much- anticipated main course of landing the first pair of human size 10s on the surface of that planet. At the astronomical (sorry, i had to) total cost of $20 billion, it won't be a bag of chips in the least bit.
Don't get me wrong, my intention is not to deride the importance or, indeed, the relevance of scientific developments such as this obviously will be. The time, effort, sweat and countless balding scientists' tears will ultimately benefit humankind. A task as elephantine as sending the first human crew off to the red planet would obviously require the invention of the necessary technologies to accomplish such a feat, which- as evidenced by our previous forays into the the mysterious black yonder that is space- will create a spin off of said-technologies into our everyday lives.
i need not remind you of such simple and taken-for-granted pleasures as freeze-dried food, cordless tools, ATM technology,water purification filters, microwave receivers used in scans for breast cancer, remote robotic surgery and heart defibrillator technology (a mere handful from a large vat of 1500 other space program-inspired technologies).
No, that's not my intention at all. It is, however, my intention to have you ponder the following; - to have ventured so far away from home would imply that we have discovered and thus, as is our nature, conquered all there is to be conquered of home. Correct? The average length of an adult skull is around 21 to 22 centimeters. The average width is about 17 to 18 centimeters. In terms of circumference, the average skull of an adult measures 54 to 57 centimeters. And lo and behold, within this shell lies the frontier we have barely begun to understand, let alone conquer.
You see, ladies and gentlemen, for as much as we can claim to have conquered everything on good ol' Mother Earth; the same (shock upon horror) can't be said of the human brain. For at this very minute, 90% of its latent potential is still to be accounted for.
Though it does makes you wonder... what is 90% of infinity?
Hm...
Wow, your article was, variously, intelligent, interesting, funny, insightful and thought-provoking. One of the thoughts it provoked for me was of when I managed to get my little head stuck through the bars of my crib and break my collar bone. I wasn't even two when it happened so I don't have your painful and humiliating recall of the event, but I'm sure you will get over it one day. Or not. Hahahahaha! But seriously, folks, excellently well-written post. Articulate writers are always a joy to find!