Thursday, January 26, 2012

Pale Blue Dot

I'm not sure if anyone here has ever read the quote or seen the picture, but this has been on my mind a lot lately.  I guess a lot of it has to do with my growing disgust coming from the politics of both parties in the United States, and just how futile it seems to try and change anything.  I think everyone needs to drop the holier than thou attitude and start trying to fix the problems we have.  If we cannot find a way then we are doomed to repeat the errors of the past.  How can we lead the world when we can't even lead ourselves?



Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Falling Apart.

For the longest time my health and general ability to heal have never been a problem for me.  However in the past few months, it's becoming more and more apparent that as I get older, I'm actually going to have to start paying attention to stuff.  Now I don't doubt that every person who gets older goes through this at some point, but this time it's me.  I guess the past few months just haven't been that great for me physically.

First, we had the whole knee thingy.  That has healed, but now because it was injured I am spending a good amount of time doing some physical therapy trying to strengthen the muscles and tendons surrounding my knee.  I really didn't realize just how week my knee was going to be after until I started doing some of these exercises.  I also realized just how dominant my left leg.  However, once I've done these exercises and the muscles and joint are strengthened I should be just like new.  Ok, well not really new, but back to my complete inability to jump higher than about 1 foot.  Some white men can jump, I am not one of them.

Then in December I had a 24-48 hour bug.  Which is starting to become more and more common for me.  This thing took me down and beat me up.  I almost felt like it was food poisoning, but it didn't present with all the normal symptoms I have when I get food poisoning.  Sadly, I have had food poisoning now 5 times, and I am quite aware of how it makes me feel.  This bug though, thoroughly wrecked me though.  It was gone after two days, but it took almost two weeks before I really felt back to normal.  This extended recovery time might have more to do with the last health related issue.

Lastly, it turns out I've had a urinary tract infection for a few months.  Turns out we can get them too.  I didn't know that.  Given the fact that my parents read this blog I'm not going to go into the details of how I got it, but rest assured I sure did manage to get one.  Well, the problem I had was that after a few days of discomfort it really felt like it was getting better/going away.  I normally wait a few days to see how my body is going to react to something before I go see a doctor (see: get dragged kicking and screaming).  Well since stuff was getting better I figured I'd just give it a few more days and I'd be fine.  Well, it turns out that with a bacterial infection like this, it doesn't get better, the symptoms just move wherever they can and your body adapts to them.  Which is what finally dragged me into a urologists office two weeks ago.  It had started moving into my kidneys, and I was noticing some back pain, even though I hadn't done any heavy lifting.  Once I also noticed it was localized around the kidneys and on both sides I figured I should go see a doc.  I'm on week two of antibiotics, and I'm hoping that when I go for my check up tomorrow morning the guy is going to clear me.  I'm sick of taking pills.

The whole thing that is weird for me though is that five years ago this probably wouldn't have been a problem.  The whole kidney thing would have, but it would have been the one issue in a few years that I tend to get.  Broken finger, Drainpipe to the head, sliver in the eye, hyper-extended shoulder joint, sciatica.  Every one of these things were pretty well spaced out, and when my knee went screwy I figured it was just about time I hurt something again.  However, with the infection, I'm a little worried I may not be as bullet proof as I never was.  We'll just have to see how the next few years go.