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A few days ago I got out of the shower and thought, "Covid, riots, white hot politics, war...
it feels like I'm a kid in the '60's, again----except the TV reception's a whole lot better, even if the music isn't as good..."

Then, yesterday, something wonderful happened. NASA/SpaceX did their thing. I'd forgotten about the canceled launch and didn't realize they'd be attempting it again. I'd just gotten my Older Son started on mowing when I came back in to hear my Younger Son shout, "Hey Dad, they're doin' it!"

"It" was the second attempt at launching Bob and Doug (I love that) on an Excellent Adventure in 26 remaining seconds. In the instant, I realized that to call the Older Son in would have been to gainsay his inertia in movement. Starting him up again would be chancy at best. Besides, the Physics mojo was kicking in. "Bodies in motion, bodies at rest..." With 25 seconds remaining, the dye was cast and I stood transfixed, listening to the Woman voice the countdown. Heinlein would have loved it.

I was reminded that it had been 10 years since WE launched anyone anywhere. You could have told me it had been 20. Watching IT, feeling every one of those 10 years lifting off shoulders that had forgotten the burden of mediocrity they were carrying, I simply couldn't speak. WE WERE BACK. NASA as King Theoden, shrugging off the vile influence of Saruman and his toady, Grima Wormtongue. Gandalf as SpaceX removing the glamour, and NASA reasserting its identity and its calling. Over a span of minutes, Science met God and it was Good.

Terence57 7 May 31
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1

The problem with logic is it need only be internally consistent whereas what is empirically true need not be logical in reference to the available data.

Or, as they say, "when life happens."

0

Yes, I use that word misanthrope quite a bit to explain libs. Their main claim to fame is that they never got laid in high school and will ever hate the world because of it....

Funny how so many things come down to base level stuff. Generally, I agree. Half of the problems in life are a result of hanging on to mistakes, slights (perceived and real) and failures (as defeats, rather than learning).

I've referred to your point many times in observance of human discontents. And, no, I didn't get lucky in H.S.! But life did come my way, eventually.

1

Thank you so much for reminding people we have been through this before. Young people seem to think the world started spinning when they popped in. Reminds me of "we didn't start the fire, it's been burning since the world's been turning.

It's funny. I feel, generally, like one of those younger people until I'm around them. Then I feel like a younger person with more accumulated knowledge. I don't feel older unless circumstance presses down on me, and then I remember what it was like before having to really deal with life.

Still, it's hard not to notice after a certain point that you've seen some of this movie before.

1

OK, I will...In the last 25 years or more there was a deflection of major portions of the American population. Many went to the "space" mentality of Star Wars and other space genre movies. Many others went back to nature so to speak and participated in something the spaces would see as soooo boring, like bird watching. There is some cross over but the 2 groups tend to be fairly mutually exclusive. You may detect that I am from the later group. Both groups see these endeavors as a kind of religion - hence the techies and environmentalist for example. The nature people have a much longer track record with Walden Pond, Henry David T. and the para religion of Transcendentalism in America for a few. Some natural orientated religions in the East go back thousands of years.
I am for example a believer in Technological Fallacy which is the believe that any positive traits of technology are met with as many negative traits. Nature has no negative traits that I am aware of outside of natural destructive phenomena. I think people that obsess about space are very boring and out of touch with the planet and hope to bring the same negatives they have developed here to there. They are divorced from nature to a very large degree at their psychological peril. I know some will knee -jerk with you were the same kind that heaped wood around the feet of early scientist as they were burned at the stake and etc.

I'm of a mind that "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

In other words, dynamism and balance must be acknowledged as equal partners. Human beings are unique in inexhastible ways. "Progress," a word progressives have appropriated, is human progress.
Science and technology, at their best, bring us closer to reality (nature) rather than alienating us from it.

That's why I Posted what I did. In that moment, we moved forward in accord with nature and, if you will, nature's God.

T

@ChrisODonnell

Well you are good with language. Being a depressive sort of person I'm always suspicious of people with high verbal IQ 🙂

0

Go relax, go to a National Park and get real......

Maybe you'd like to expand on that...?

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