Two days after Ike decimated the Houston area — where I have friends — I find myself pulled from my humble office space in Huntsville to a trade show in Orange Beach, Alabama. Arriving about 5:30pm or so, I find myself sitting here at 7pm on the beach, kicked back on one of those uncomfortable wooden loungers and simultaneously finding myself both at total peace, and in total awe of the world around me.
Along the darkened beach, I hear nothing but the surf, and before me mere shadows of waves crashing into the sea wall. To the left at about 45 degrees, I see a full moon, partially obscured by clowds, shining a bright beacon of light onto the surface below, making the waves glisten in the moonlight.
The clouds part and suddenly the entire left side of my peripheral — if I weren’t already looking that way — is gleaming with the same full moon and rising tide. I know I write differently than I speak, but words simply cannot describe the majesty before me. Given a blanket and pillow, I’d never return to the cold architecture of the hotel. It’s at this inopportune time that my iPhone brings me back with a “ding” (you’ve got mail) chimes.
In short, this is one of those perspective-changing events that makes me realize just how insignificant any of us really are. I’m not prepared to sign my life over to Jehovah’s Witnesses or anything, nor am I finding God as it were, or even signing up for Greenpeace, but if the universe is as random as imperialists would have us believe, then we — as a human race — hit the jackpot where our little blue heaven is concerned.
Now my biggest worry is that I see how badly we’re screwing it up. Pollution? yeah, whatever, but wars, nuclear proliferation, stupidity on a massive scale. We as the human race are too immature as of yet to explore the universe. As long as we can’t even put ourselves above what we believe “God” is and stop fighting long enough to figure this shit out, it all seems all for naught which is truly a bleeping shame, all things considered.
