A metaphor of the Earth, its inhabitants, and their symbiotic problems

Suggested by a new Friendshipology Friend

By James Luce

7 June 2021

Today an itinerant observer from outside our galaxy sent to me a few observations about our planet. Not surprisingly, this voyager in time, space, and place conceptualizes both the physical and the ethereal universe with senses and processes different than ours. To this observer, the distinctions between simile, parable, metaphor, and analogy have long-eons-ago been extinguished. Thus, these observations, presented just as they were received, may at first seem obscure. 

Here’s what the observer had to say:

          I first saw your galaxy from the side. It looked unimpressively flat, lumpy, and still.  The next time I cruised by, my vector was 90º from the plane. What a difference! Now it looked like an illuminated beach streaked by the tides and rotating counterclockwise. On the return trip my vector was 90º from the plane but from the other side. Same beach effect, but now naturally it was rotating clockwise.  There is no “up” or “down” in space, no “universally correct” view of things.  What something looks like is mostly a matter of perspective.  Same galaxy, different motion.

          Even the relative distance from the object makes a difference. From far away your galaxy looks almost solid, calm, and perfectly round. Getting closer you can see that it’s really made up of trillions of individual and widely separated stars, planets, moons, nebulae, asteroids, comets, even dust particles…an octillion of those at least…all swirling peacefully around an immense and immensely dense object from which no light escapes. All these galactic objects look different, act differently, but all have similar endings, and they are all part of the same universe.

          Once you enter your galaxy, it’s impossible to see how big it is, how vast, how varied. One’s view is limited and fuzzy. Yet one image becomes extremely clear. The adjectives “calm” and “peaceful” are not apt to your galaxy. Stars explode and destroy entire proximate solar systems, instantly ending all life therein.  Other stars expand slowly and swallow up all systems within trillions of miles, baking them to oblivion in white-hot plasma. Other stars just grow old and cold and all life on nearby systems freezes, crumbling into ice shards and then evaporating into space. In the end, entropy works, and everything will eventually disappear.

          Since I was here, I decided to wander through your galaxy at just below lightspeed. After several of my planet’s years, my sensors spotted a blue-green planet orbiting third from a smallish star. I was far enough away so that your planet looked solid, round, uninteresting, but my sensors noted characteristics consistent with planets that support life. Not a rare find in my travels, but always fun to visit such places, to see yet again how varied life can be.

Nearing your solar system, my sensors indicated an abundance of water/carbon-based life forms. Such planets are always intriguing because…unlike life based on methane/silicon combinations or ammonia/crystalline combinations…water/carbon always results in an abundance of species.

          Reaching the outer orbit of your planet’s solo satellite, your planet looked calm and peaceful, clouds drifting placidly in a thin coating of transparent gasses, floating over large expanses of water with scattered landmasses providing an interesting pattern. What a difference with a different perspective! Now your planet looked like an illuminated beach streaked by the tides and rotating clockwise. I noted that most of the landmasses were concentrated on the lower half of your planet.

After rotating my ship 180º your planet was now revolving counterclockwise, and the landmasses were concentrated on the upper half of your planet.  

          Intrigued, I moved inside your atmosphere on the sunlit side. It became increasingly difficult to see how vast and varied your planet is and virtually impossible to see back out into the vastness of your galaxy.

The peace and calm vanished as well. Everywhere you humans were doing your best to create chaos and your atmosphere was dangerously overloaded with heat and pollutants.

          It struck me that if only humans could step back from each other just a bit that they might get a different perspective on each other and their planet. “All the time in the world” is not as long as you humans seem to think it is.

Hallo  James,

I greatly appreciate how you have  gorgeously developed my hint in ” Our Galactic Beach.”.. disclosing the dynamism of galaxies ( what an adventure ! )

great the idea of the outside observer ! enhancing the principle of PERSPECTIVES… making all the difference…

With pleasure I share  samples of my artphotography. I develop themes.. t a l e s... each  as per its own perspective…as per  the language of synthesis..through complicitas…since  opposite  perspectives… . come together … expressing a  visionary,  intimate ,adventurous,  relationship…

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BILLY’S COMMENTS : HOW MARVELOUS IT IS TO DISCOVER :

NEW FRIENDSHIPOLOGY FRIENDS ! ! !

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When the average person without any geological training is standing on the shore they see a beach, a wide and long expanse of undifferentiated sand.  The beach in this metaphor represents all the thousands of cultures in the world. The geologist is a metaphoric multiculturalist expert.

         If a geologist asks the person to describe what they’re looking at, the response will be “a bunch of sand”.  If asked whether they see anything in particular about the sand, they will note that there are different colors of sand. If pressed for more details, they may suggest the existence of different textures of sand. Pressed harder, they may even mention the fact that not all the grains of sand are identical in size and that there are bits and pieces of things on the beach that aren’t sand.

         Never will they observe that each single grain of sand is unique. The chemical and mineral composition; the origin of each grain; the age of each grain; the shape and reflectance of each grain are all slightly different. However, one grain is no better than the other. One is no better at building the beach than any other. Yet each grain collectively gives the beach its own character. Some beaches are all black or even green. Some are permanent, some temporary. All these differences are to be observed in all our cultures, past and present and most likely future.

         The problem is that unless prodded, people generally just see a beach, their beach, the perfect beach, the only beach the world needs…rather than understanding that their beach is really an amalgam of billions of grains of sand from around the world. When they see “their” beach, they do not understand that what they’re looking at is the world’s beach. Their beach is in fact the result of many thousands of years of cultural change, exchange, and experimentation.

         To walk along a beach is to take those first steps of a thousand li journey across time and space. Some of the grains of sand will irritatingly get clogged between your toes. Sand flies, blood worms, and deer ticks add to the discomfort. Yet the journey overall is one of pleasant discovery…if one ignores all the irritations. The uniqueness of each grain of sand is forgotten in the general joy of being alive on this planet while being caressed by a gentle wind and a soft sun…just as everybody everywhere from all cultures experiences walking along the world’s beach.

The End

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BILLY’s COMMENTs: What I admire most about my dear friend and old colleague from The 1990 Institute Board is that he always thinks as broadly and deeply as about Black Holes, but somehow always relevant to our hearts and our humanity. I love especially many of his poems and shorter essays.

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