how much do you care?
The highest resolution pics ever captured of the Martian surface were released the other day. I brushed past them as I was doing research for a project here at work. I took about 10 seconds to look at a photo, then went about my business. Then about another 10 seconds went by before I realized what I'd just done.
I had just seen a photo of the surface of another planet. Mars. Something that is usually an unwavering pinpoint of reddish light in the sky. A sight that, for centuries, countless astronomers have only seen in their imaginations. The stuff their dreams were made of. It's not a computer-generated simulation, or a PhotoShop creation - it's the real deal. And how much did I care? How excited was I?
I feel sickened by my own torpidity (Torpid: dormant, numb, sluggish in functioning or acting). I am numb. There's a saying in journalism that you'll take more interest in a robbery in your neighborhood than you will in 10,000 people dying over 3,000 miles away. Such a condition of self-centeredness is perpetuated by the onslaught of news that burns up our airwaves and Internet connections.
In the time of the first lunar landing, most anyone who had a television set was watching. Now there are full-color pictures zooming from across the solar system, and we yawn. The story is second-banana to Britney Spears impromptu wedding, a lottery jackpot dispute, and speculations on whether the Cowboys can pull it back together next year.
It's nauseating. At first I thought, oh, well, when there's a human on Mars maybe people will care. But that still doesn't pacify me. I'm not comfortable with the fact that so many people, myself included, can't get excited about something so meaningful to the history of mankind. I suppose we don't see it as meaningful.
I am uplifted, however, that NASA has had over a million hits on its MK24 site. Though if we truly had the excitement of our parents' generation, that statistic would be much higher.
Well, break time is over, so I've gotta wrap this up for now.
The highest resolution pics ever captured of the Martian surface were released the other day. I brushed past them as I was doing research for a project here at work. I took about 10 seconds to look at a photo, then went about my business. Then about another 10 seconds went by before I realized what I'd just done.
I had just seen a photo of the surface of another planet. Mars. Something that is usually an unwavering pinpoint of reddish light in the sky. A sight that, for centuries, countless astronomers have only seen in their imaginations. The stuff their dreams were made of. It's not a computer-generated simulation, or a PhotoShop creation - it's the real deal. And how much did I care? How excited was I?
I feel sickened by my own torpidity (Torpid: dormant, numb, sluggish in functioning or acting). I am numb. There's a saying in journalism that you'll take more interest in a robbery in your neighborhood than you will in 10,000 people dying over 3,000 miles away. Such a condition of self-centeredness is perpetuated by the onslaught of news that burns up our airwaves and Internet connections.
In the time of the first lunar landing, most anyone who had a television set was watching. Now there are full-color pictures zooming from across the solar system, and we yawn. The story is second-banana to Britney Spears impromptu wedding, a lottery jackpot dispute, and speculations on whether the Cowboys can pull it back together next year.
It's nauseating. At first I thought, oh, well, when there's a human on Mars maybe people will care. But that still doesn't pacify me. I'm not comfortable with the fact that so many people, myself included, can't get excited about something so meaningful to the history of mankind. I suppose we don't see it as meaningful.
I am uplifted, however, that NASA has had over a million hits on its MK24 site. Though if we truly had the excitement of our parents' generation, that statistic would be much higher.
Well, break time is over, so I've gotta wrap this up for now.
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