To the best of our knowledge the cosmos in which we, the human species, find ourselves is unimaginably large, complex, and old. Governed by forces greater than our best philosophy, theology, and science can understand it will last for innumerable eons after each and every one of us is gone, returned to dust. It is in this knowledge I bring glad tidings. We are small, but we are not nothing, and that makes all the difference.
Contrary to the beliefs of many, revelation hasn’t ended. It has continued unabated, each time expanding humanity’s experience through the centuries. It began slow, with our exodus from Africa and journeys across Earth. With the founding of cities, and the creation of our first buildings and agriculture, the pace of revelation increased. The first empires, religions, and philosophies grew into new empires, religions, and philosophies. Life then death then life again. The inanimate becomes animate and back again, and each time humanity grows stronger, more powerful, and more curious to explore further and greater horizons.
This is the story of our species, is it not? We go where no one else has, and what do we do? We make a home. For not just ourselves, but our children. And their children. And so on. We are nomads that build.
Nomads. Builders. Humans.
I am sorry to say in the present moment too many have fallen into the sin of despair and ask, “Should we continue?” There is only one answer to this.
YES.
According to our knowledge an end is coming. The best understanding of this knows disaster may befall this planet from without, and will certainly end when our star, Sol, expands and dies. Beyond that lies the problem of entropy and the eventual running down of the entire universe. This last question can be put aside for a moment, for we have a much more pressing issue: leaving the cradle.
On February 14th, 1990 the Voyager 1 spacecraft took a photograph of Earth. This spacecraft was approximately six billion kilometers away. The iconic picture, dubbed “Pale Blue Dot,” shows our home planet as a tiny speck hanging in the light of our home star. The great astronomer Carl Sagan said this about it:
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.
You just read revelation, in every sense of the word. Hundreds of thousands of years of human history, billions of years of cosmic history before it, all the lessons of our species distilled into a short paragraph. It is long past time we address the three most pressing words. It is long past time we seek then receive further revelation.
Settle, not yet.
If we do not reach out beyond our cradle and make new homes for ourselves and our children all of this, everything that has ever happened on this planet and in this solar system, will amount to nothing. All we are, all we ever were, blown into cosmic gas to fertilize a new generation of stars. Virtually, amounting to nothing at all.
I reject this fate.
We are better than this. We are stronger than this. We are capable of being more than this. The proof is obvious. We’ve thrived across this planet, turned it to our will, and made discoveries of such monumental importance we stand at the precipice of the cosmos.
By what authority do I declare this audacious vision?
My own. I have read, seen, and heard enough to know that the blood in my veins is the same that pumped through the countless that came before me. I have the same kind of mind that all those ages ago looked up and realized the night sky was more than it seemed, that it moved with purpose, that it was full of places not just to visit, but settle and build new homes upon. As a progenitor of the future countless, I declare this for them: nomads that build will come, take, and make great these vast, innumerable places.
But what of our Earthly concerns? What of our failings, our faults, our mistakes?
They don’t matter. Our salvation lies in outer space. We are Mother Earth’s children, forged in the fires of nature and life and death. It is said when the universe needs a knife, it makes a knife. What did the universe need when it made us? Masters. Yes, we are frail, foolish, and flawed in our first effort but yet here we stand, masters nonetheless. The genius of our explorers, our scholars, our priests, and last but not least our warriors won us this world. There are billions more waiting for us to reach out and make them more than they ever could be alone. Earth is the first, but will not be the last or greatest of our conquests. The wilds yearn for the gardener. They yearn for us.
By what proof do I claim this?
Fool! Simply look at all that’s happened! We’re still here. We’re still alive. And in spite of everything that has ever happened we thrive and thrive and thrive. Until the last human breathes their last breath in the void, I claim victory over entropy! Over death! It is a poor marksman, unthinking, unfeeling, incapable of downing us, the hunters and foragers and explorers. We are not at the mercy of the Earth. It is at the mercy of us. As below, so above beyond the sky.
But what of the losses? The hurt? The weak?
Sol will someday see to the end of everything in this solar system. Let the forests burn, the oceans boil, and the cities vanish! Extinction is the rule. Reach out into the cosmos and break the rule, once and for all. Let our example, by which I mean Mother Earth’s Tree of Life we carry not just in our bodies but our souls and intellect, bear witness to the sacrifice of those multitudes. My sacrifice. Your sacrifice. Let future generations witness us and sanctify us in the lives they lead, the homes they build on worlds we’ll never know, and finally the children they bear who in turn carry on until the end of time itself.
What will we gain?
Everything. Our species, spread across the universe to the farthest reaches, will finally know the rest of rests. The pleasure of sleep, after seizing a long day of profitable work, will be ours in such a fashion the firmament will break at the heave of our Contented Sigh and the dreams that come.
Rise up! Rise up! Rise up!
For too long have too many clawed at the dirt, the muck, and the filth. Now is the time to gaze upward, see the bounty before us, and to understand it is ours by right. Ours by work. Ours by faith in the generations to come. It is said the ancients build with the millennia in mind. We build toward the billions. The eons. Infinity itself.
Reject fear. Reject superstition. Reject anything that demands you remain on the ground, for it is the death of everything. Eternity isn’t worth your moment of panic, your moment of terror, your vain and pointless attempt to escape the inevitable. Run towards that which brings you up, higher, closer to the stars. Would we all die like our forefathers, not in the bluest sea, but the blackest one. A glorious grave, floating forever in rapture among the billion points of light going on forever.
We must open the eyes of our fellows. Read, write, and create so that others may see our revelation and bring their efforts however and whenever they can. Build your families, raise your children, constantly point them towards their birthright beyond the sky. Know all that we offer as a species so that we may bind our history, theology, philosophy, virtues, and vices into our pack and bring them with us on the Journey of Journeys. Demand your fellow humankind follow in kind. Remember it all, with discerning judgment on what should and should not be repeated. Be what Mother Earth made you to be: nomads that build, that is, humans. Do not be cowered, slowed, or halted in your pursuit. Do not concern yourself with failure, the fear of which is our greatest sin. Not even our own species will stop us. Especially them, as we do this for them to sanctify their lives and prove to the universe they lived, they died, just as we all do and will. Leave these foes behind if you must, forcefully if need be, for they make the choice to die in the dirt. Our end is a higher, larger, more magnificent way.
And finally to those spoken of above that reject this message, I put you to the question with Pascal’s wager: what if you’re wrong? Who are you to condemn the untold billions of souls through the untold billions of years? Who are you to end everything that ever was, or will be? Who are you to do the bidding of Entropy, so easily, so compliantly, so ignorantly? Begone, and trouble us not with your rivers of blood, your glories, your triumphs, your moments of mastery on this pale, blue dot!
The stars are waiting.
They will not wait forever.
And neither will I.
Will
We are ugly monkeys whose survival is based on our willingness to kill other ugly monkeys and steal their food.
Let it end here. The universe is a vast and beautiful place. Let’s not be the ones to fuck it up this time.