Really big picture

Jostein Gaarder – wrote previously regarding his essay and the wikipedia debate, had a great quote; “Perhaps humans are the only living beings in the entire Universe with a universal consciousness. Then it’s not just a global responsibility to preserve life-environments on this planet. It is a cosmic responsibility”

Wow. That hit me right in the mental stomach – knocked my thoughts all over the place. What a way to make everyday issues like spring cleaning and washing the windows seem miniscule and insignificant. Perhaps we are not just here to take care of our neighborhood and the globe… but to care for the Universe in all its expanding, mystical glory.

And a short nod to EscapePod – their issue number 100 with the almost always brilliant Isaac Asimov, and the story Nightfall seemed almost pre-cognitient when looking back –as I had just heard it before the news of the “other planet” (see previous post) arrived all over the web.

Who are we to preach – about the sins of the fathers and grandfathers before them?

Just under 90 years ago – as my grandmother started school, women started getting the right to vote in our wonderful democracies. In the span of the last century we – the western world, Europe, the white man, has started off two major conflicts – so large they were labeled World Wars – killing millions, and maiming and scarring countless more.

Even today it is not a simple matter of one man one vote. Here in Norway a vote cast up north counts many times over more than a vote here in the capital Oslo. And in the USA “undesirables” such as past prisoners are past 5 million, with another 2 or more currently in prison – all of them stripped of having their say.

What would “we” say today if China said it was becoming a true democracy – just having the selected few men considered citizens vote? Yet that was the tradition in Greece and Athens – the cradle of democracy, and like the “Founding Fathers” they kept their slaves close and the women off to the side. And France, liberty and all that? They waited until their liberation from the Germans was at hand - 1944, so when they elect a president today it will be with 63 years of votes for all.

How long does something have to last before it becomes the only option? How fast can we condemn our own past mistakes by calling on others to follow directly in our steps- no matter how many generations they might need to take the steps we have already forgotten in the mist of time?

...and the sun is clouded over...