Today is September 11th, 2016. It's a day of reflection for many of us here in America. Many a bar conversation today will start with "...where were you?"...pints will be silently raised...bottles will sit, untouched, just starred at. Eventually conversations will shift to how uncomfortable Carrie Underwood looks trying to fast walk and dance in those heels and dress on the Sunday Night Football intro.
These days, it's easy to find something to worry or feel bad about. I don't think I'm alone in my disappointment that Beiber didn't end up in his fathers sock. (If only Chris was still alive...) Many people are in tears over the fact that they will not be able to listen to music in headphones while the iPhone 7 is charging.
Personally I'm a bit concerned for the safety of the little girls that get cast in the plethora of JonBenét Ramsey made for tv movies on the way. I also get a nervous twitch when someone mentions Zika. (go to your happy place...)
In 2016 alone we've lost some AMAZING artists, temperatures globally are at record breaking levels, Brexit, police shootings, terrorist attacks, Syria, New Zealand has a potential volcano issue brewing and we are still dealing with fallout from the United States dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. (I know the timing is off by a few months, but he's always been a bit ...slow.)
Listening to the news nowadays is a bit mind-numbing at the least and terrifying at best. To be honest, I'm surprised I found the courage to come out from under the bed and type this. These are dark days indeed...wait...no the light was off. It's a little brighter now...but still dark.
Is this the worst time ever in human history? I don't know I'm not that well read or an immortal. (That I know of...) I do remember a time when news actually tried to educate us rather then titillate us. Perhaps that's a part of the problem.
I go back to a conversation I had with a woman over pints. She was watching her nephew for the summer. During the conversation it came up that all he wanted to do was play video games. Despite all of her suggestions, she couldn't get him to do anything else. She saw this as a complete waist of time. I told her I thought he was probably bored, didn't have friends in the area and the games were an escape. Then I gave her my thought on motivating him into embracing his curiosity.
I told her next time he was playing, to walk up behind him...stand there for a moment...then say, "WOW! Those graphics look cool! I bet you couldn't make them better..." then walk away. About a year later, I got an email from her that the youngling was now studying game and graphic design. ;) (I love it when a plan comes together...)
So on this dark day, I'll offer you a bit of light as well.
Somewhere in the world...right now...is the first human to walk on Mars.
I'm not kidding.
Think about that for a second. A human being actually walking on the surface of another planet. Not a moon...a planet. NASA has set a plan for a manned mission to Mars in the 2030's. NASA is 100% serious and are actively recruiting new and future astronauts. They even have some posters that would look great on a kids wall...or mine for that matter. ;) They have an entire section of their website dedicated just to Mars. WE ARE GOING TO SEND HUMANS TO MARS!
Next time a youngling tells you they are bored, sit down with them and discuss that a Great Dane actually has a top speed of 30 mph (48 kph) and a scared Great Dane is probably going to beat that speed. Yet Shaggy always keeps up with Scooby. Therefore it could be argued that Shaggy is a superhero.
Or you could get that youngling excited about What NASA is working on. NASA made it easy for you. Perhaps the Commander of Orion could be someone very close to you.
...now if we could all just avoid the "Earth Shattering KABOOM" 'till then...that'd be great.
@GlenEwing
GE
No comments:
Post a Comment