Paper or Planets?

In the back of our heads there are numer­ous debates in progress. Some­times they sur­face into con­scious­ness, but for the most part they just drone on in end­less dia­logues. In the recesses of our minds we debate free will and fate; we ques­tion our pur­pose and des­tiny; we dis­cuss the char­ac­ter of God and whether or not Deity exists at all; we won­der if human nature is up for grabs; we pon­der the impon­der­able and ques­tion all ques­tions. Some­times it affects our moods. We may not be fully aware of the deeply inte­rior debates, but they are there. Every so often, I take a moment to hear one of them.

Lately I have won­dered if humanity’s point is human­ity or some­thing else. I am pro­gres­sively com­ing to the con­clu­sion that as a species we have become self-absorbed at the cost of some­thing greater. We have let petty pol­i­tics and super­fi­cial injus­tices dis­tract us from the “big show” of the uni­verse. Some­thing truly mag­nif­i­cent is hap­pen­ing. Instead of being in awe and pur­su­ing it, we have become dis­tracted by social the­o­ries and petty polit­i­cal manip­u­la­tions. Surely we are more than crea­tures mak­ing sure that every­thing is fair (what­ever that is).

Some­times I won­der if we are not like chil­dren argu­ing over candy at Dis­ney World. All of the color and pageantry fade into the back­ground as a sin­gle choco­late bar (worth about a dol­lar) becomes the point of con­tention. The more intense the con­flict the more the mag­nif­i­cent back­ground recedes into oblivion.

We live on a planet of end­less mys­ter­ies in a uni­verse beyond our wildest dreams. In the mean time, we envy our neighbor’s mate­r­ial goods or get lost in social the­o­ries that are ulti­mately irrel­e­vant or out of date before the inked words have dried on the pages.

The sun will rise in a few hours. I am deter­mined not to miss that won­der­ful cos­mic event. The moon will set in a while — and I am not going to miss that either. The stuff on my desk will become food for my trash can one way or the other. I will not miss the stars and plan­ets by get­ting lost in insur­ance forms and gov­ern­ment documents…or even my own work correspondence.

Arise from your dis­trac­tions and go out­side. Paper pales in com­par­i­son to planets.