A dot

I just found this amazing article which is similar to the one I wrote some months ago, but, of course, it is better written than mine, considering that it was written by Carl Sagan (1934-1996), an astronomer who knew exactly how to get to our hearts by showing us the truth of our existence. Enjoy!

Image taken by the Cassini space probe showing the Earth from Saturn!

"Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."


Carl Sagan (1934-1996), Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1997 reprint

About beliefs

Hi everyone! After a long time without putting my ideas into virtual paper, I'm back on track.

As you may know, I am not exactly a religious person. Today I've had one of these long and tiring but interesting conversations about religion with a very good friend who is as certain that God exists as I am certain that God does not exist. We've talked, and talked and talked the same way we've done other times, and, of course, we haven't reached a definite conclusion (again). I've only been an atheist for a short time, but since I stopped believing, I kind of started looking down my nose at religious people. I thought I was more intelligent than them because I had come to the conclusion that we are alone on this Planet. And I just realized how wrong I actually was.

It doesn't matter what we believe or what we don't believe. Because a belief is just a point of view on a particular thing. In this case, it is the view on the answer to the questions related to our existence: "Where do we come from? Are we something more than a bunch of thinking organic matter? Is there life after death?". You've probably heard these questions lots of times. I think that science can and will eventually give us the answers to almost all of our questions. In fact, it has answered many of them already, but then again, there are people who think that these scientific answers are wrong and that the right answers to all of our questions can be found in the Bible, the Koran, the Tipitak (that's the Buddhist holy series of books) etc.

So, if religious people are happy with their believes, who am I to tell them that they're wrong? Even if I do think they are wrong, and even if it is ok for me to peacefully debate with them, I cannot and should not try to force them to think the same way I do, because (as Bon Jovi said) "It's my life", and we all have the right to live and think the way we want to, as long as we don't hurt or interfere with other people's lives. I can give them the reasons why I am not a believer and, if they want, they can say: "Mmh, I find your arguments reasonable, I'm going to question my own beliefs". In the same way, a religious person might give me such strong arguments to believe in a God that I might question my own point of view on the matter. But it has to be a personal choice, it should never be imposed, and neither I nor the religious person shall look down on the other one just because he or she thinks differently.

We're lucky enough, at least in The West and other developed areas, to live in countries were we've got freedom of expression and freedom of beliefs, and we've got to accept that not everyone thinks the same way: something that you might take for the truth, others might take for a mistake, and vice versa. We will never reach a point in which we all have the exact same thoughts. And that is  exactly the wonder of human diversity. If we all thought the same way, what a boring place the Earth would be! So be happy your own way, because happiness is not what other people say, but what makes you happy.

Goodbye, high school

Today was my last day of high school. I will not have one more day, one more hour or even one more minute of high school classes in my whole life. Usually, when the school year finishes, you've got Summer ahead of you, so you don't look back and you just enjoy your holidays. But now, I've finished classes but I do not have any holidays: I've still got to study for the Leaving Certificate by myself. I'm in a period now where I'm not a high school student any more, but I'm also not a undergraduate. It feels kind of weird, really, not "being" something that you've been for 6 years. Because, when you think about it, what we do is a part of us, it helps to define who you really are. Sure, you're not only a "student" or a "worker", you're much more than that, but it does influence your life: you get used to the atmosphere of the place you go to every day, you meet certain people with whom you've got to share every morning of a whole year (or six, or twelve years!), and eventually this place and these people enter your life and become part of it. Then, suddenly, one day it all ends, and you have to say goodbye to those people. Obviously, you're gonna see them again, it's not a final goodbye, but it's just not the same. You're not going to have the same relationship with someone you share moments and laughs every day than with someone you only see a few times a months, or even less...

I'm not making this up, I'm talking from my own personal experience. For the last three years I've moved school three times: In 10th grade I moved to a new high school, in 11th class I moved to Ireland and in 12th grade I've moved back to the high school I was before, but there were many new people in it that I didn't know. Even if I didn't mean to, I've lost contact with people that I used to be really good friends with, and I've found new ones. These things just happen, and I've had to admit it. Changes involve losing a part of your past, but I don't see it as a bad thing, because meeting other people does make you a more open-minded person: each of us has a different perspective of life (as Ortega said), and the more points of view you get to know, the more you actually get to know life as a whole.

Now, in September everything is going to change again with college. New places, new people... new me? I suppose. I don't think I'm the same person here than the person I was in Ireland. In the green country, I felt way more insecure about myself, because I was away from home (and the weather didn't really help), but the experience taught me to mature, and when I came back to Spain I was a very different person from the 15-year-old boy that went to Ireland in Summer of 2011. Of course, I'm not saying that I've already grown up completely, I've still got a long way to go, but step by step I feel closer to an adult person. And I like that, but, at the same time, I feel like I want to rewind and re-live some moments that I will never get back. Even though I don't quite realize it yet, I've just finished a very important part of my life that, and although I've wanted it to end in many occasions when I was stressed with exams, I have actually enjoyed and I will always remember with fondness.

However, I've still got the graduation party in a couple of weeks, which I'm really looking forward to. That will be the formal ending of this "era". But that night and the rest of the month will fly by so quickly that, before I know it, I'll have finished my Leaving Cert and I'll be finally enjoying my (deserved?) Summer holidays. And then, college... I can't quite believe it. But it seems so far away now, that I'm not really nervous about it. Not yet anyway. But then again, why should I? It is a change for the better, or so I'm told. Only time will tell. 

Being different

Sometimes, it's difficult to be different. That's probably why these two words are so similar. 
Today, my class and I went to a conference about "Selectividad" (the final exam we do in Spain before we start college) in a building not far away from my school. After that, we had to go back to class: we had Universal Literature. We were going to finish reading the Metamorphosis, Kafka's best book. The book is precisely about the topic I'm writing about today: how people who are different are rejected by society and often have to resign themselves to not being accepted.

Anyway, even though we had class, most people just wanted to go home, because it was the last period of the day. I understand that not everyone is as interested as I am in literature (not everyone is as "freak" as me), but they said that either all of us went to class or we all went home. It was only another girl and I who wanted to go in, but she said that she wouldn't go if nobody else went, so I was left alone with a decision to make: follow my will and go to a class I like by myself, with all the other people criticizing me at my back, or follow the crowd and go home. I finally chose the second one, feeling a bit sad that I hadn't done what I wanted to.

Of course, this little story is almost insignificant, but then, if you take the essence of it and see the big picture of the situation, you realize that these kind of things happen to us all the time, not only with small decisions like this, but also with things that actually have an impact on our lives. How many times have we stopped doing something we really wanted because of fear of what others might think of it? Whether we want it or not, we live in a society with other people, and majorities can easily defeat the individual. Even if we are against something because we think it's wrong, we sometimes support it (or at least we don't argue about it) just because most people do so! Let's take politics, for instance. I am sure that there have been many politicians who have had new ideas in order to change the situation of their country , but they have been unable to put them into practice because their ideas clashed with the interests of certain people, and they've had to choose between doing the right thing or keeping their reputation among the ones who surround them.

And this is how we let ourselves be influenced by others, because that is how the world works: it's mostly a chain of interests. If you don't follow the flock, then you're going to be the black sheep. But is being different really that bad? I mean, the most important people in history are important precisely because they've been different. If they had stopped following their ideals in order not to be "weird", we would not have many of the wonders we have now, like electricity, cinema or the internet! There are times when you do have to cope with what others say in order to fit in, but never let your personality be lost, and if you think you have a great idea or you are completely against something, just say it! As Jim Morrison said, "The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are."

El hastío de Don Quijote

Hi! Today I'm gonna make a little parenthesis to my thoughts, an I'm going to make way to a poem that I've written for a poetry competition in high school, which, for my surprise, I have won. I wanted to share it with all of you to see what you think of it (whether or not you speak Spanish, poetry is like music, it is universal).

Before I show it to you, I want to say that the poem is about the suffering of Don Quixote when he realizes that his ideal of reality, where beauty and justice are above anything else, is exactly the opposite of the reality he lives in: a cruel and unfair world. This contrast makes him feel weariness (hastío) and emptiness and, inspiring myself in "Les fleurs du mal" by Baudelaire, I put these feelings into words. Here it is:

Dulce tarde en primavera
a mitad de su camino
un pobre diablo espera
alcanzar a su destino.

Un bravo y fiel escudero
a su lado le acompaña
y teme que al caballero
ya le aceche la guadaña.

Su rostro blanco y cansado
y su alma, limpia y pura
tristemente han aceptado
que en el mundo no hay mesura.

Esas rosas coloradas
sangre de cobra parecen
esos mirlos en las ramas
de hastío y rabia perecen.

Los esclavos de galeras
por él fueron liberados
pues de muy injusta manera
habían sido condenados.

Piedras clavan en sus sienes
los que ahora de paz gozan
¿dónde está el honor de quienes
tras sufrir el odio, brotan?

¡Oh, Tierra perdida!
¡Oh, Venus dorada!
que todo mi ideal de vida
se desvanece en la nada

Deciden llamarme loco
esos que sufren locura
capaces de, por muy poco,
tornar su alma en oscura.

Este hidalgo caballero
con valor marcó una senda
porque el Mal es aún certero
sigue viva su leyenda.

Fear to fail

Sometimes, I just feel melancholic. There isn't always a specific reason for that feeling: there might be many, there might be none. Today, I was thinking how fragile we humans are. One day we think we are going to eat up the world, next day we feel all alone, even if we know that there are great people who will always be by our side. But why is it? What keeps us back from going out there and do anything we want, make our dreams come true, look for the new? There is a fear that we all have, a fear to fail. If we have a goal, we set high expectations, but then we are afraid that the actual thing may not live up to these expectations. Telling a person your true feelings for her is one of these situations. 

Personally, I tend to dream too much each time I fall for a girl. I don't know why, but I picture that girl and I in the near future, sitting together in my terrace, hugging, kissing, feeling like the happiest people alive. For a moment, I actually feel that happiness, but then I come back to reality and realize that that perfect moment hasn't happened yet, and I start to worry: What if that moment never comes? What if everything goes wrong? I suppose that's a quite pessimistic view, but doesn't that happen to all of us?  

Other times we stand up and say: "Well, I'm going to go for it." But then, when you see yourself in front of that person with whom you've been having all these passionate dreams about, you stand back, you think that it's impossible and that it is easier if you just stay the way you are. Afterwards, when you're by yourself again, you regret not having said anything and think: "This time, oh yes, this time I'm gonna do it!". You see her again, and when you're about to tell her, you get the fear in your stomach and reject your plans once more. It can be a never ending thing, but that is how fear works.

Of course, there are also times when you are able to fulfill your expectations about that girl or boy you like, and these are the times when you see that it is worth being brave and conquering your dreams, and that there is no point in fearing the new. This doesn't just apply to love relationships, it applies to anything new that you are willing to do but are too afraid that it might end up badly. My conclusion is: If you really want something but you're scared of failure, just think that you've got much more to win than to lose, so don't overthink it and take a chance!

 

Kids

My little 5-year-old brother is one of the happiest and most curious people alive. He lives without worries, without problems, without regrets. He just lives. Everyday, when he comes back from school, he runs towards me to hug me with a huge smile drawn in his face. Sometimes little Daniel asks me questions such as: "What would happen if we went to the moon?" or even "If Jesus is dead, how can he see us?". Other times he comes into my room when I'm playing the piano. He doesn't know how to play, but he just watches me and stares, fascinated. Then he tries to play as well. Everything is so big for him, everything is so amazing, that he won't stay still, because he always wants to know more about the world that surrounds him.

You see, when you're a kid, most of the things you see, hear and smell each day are new for you, therefore, you look up in astonishment at things that adults take for granted. For adults, life has become a "habit": they think there is nothing new for them to see. 
In the book "Sophie's World", Jostein Gaarder compares children with philosophers. To explain this, he uses a metaphor. He says that the universe is like a white rabbit that has been pulled out of a magician's hat. We are microscopic insects living in the fur of that rabbit. When we are born, we are at the top of its hairs, wobbling, but firmly staring into the big blue magician's eyes. The magician represents all the things that we still don't understand about life, all the mysterious things that make life possible. We want to find out who he is and what he is doing to us. This is why kids ask so many questions. However, when we begin to grow up, we get tired of hanging from the tip of the rabbit's hairs, we crawl down, make ourselves comfortable deep into the cozy fur of the rabbit and stop caring about what's going on out there. Eventually, we even forget that we are being part of a trick and we believe what other people say that the truth is because we find it too difficult to find our own. Only philosophers, like children, climb up again in order to inquire the magician and come to their own conclusions about who he really is. By the way, I absolutely recommend you to read this book if you want to enrich your perspective on life.

But what is this rabbit thing all about? It's basically about trying to live like a kid, in the way that we should never think that life is boring or that something is not worth our interest. You might think that there isn't much more to know about life because you already know a lot and you might make every day seem identical to the previous one, not caring about the little wonderful details that make every day special: sadly, many people do so. Question everything you hear and try to find every possible answer to it (but make sure you find your OWN answer). I swear if you do this, you will never have a minute of boredom and you will find life way more interesting.

Life is indeed fascinating, and just like my brother stares at me when I play the piano, I sometimes stare at the stars at night, wondering about our existence, thinking of how perfect the universe is. If you think this is crazy, it means that you're comfortably warm on the fur of the rabbit, not feeling the strong wind and unsteadiness of the top of its hairs. But, if you want, you can still climb up those hairs and begin to feel the excitement of being alive. Just remember: the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder...

The After Life

Ok, so now you are completely sure that there is life after death. But, have you ever stopped your busy life for a minute and actually thought about it? We live in a floating rock called Earth that floats with millions of other rocks in an immense universe. Mmmh... this might be difficult to picture. Let's do an experiment, then.

Try to fly away into space with your imagination. Fly over your house, over the clouds, take a look at the China Wall, keep going up and stop when you're able to see the whole globe. Is your mind out there in the dark already? Great. Now, look at the Earth. Oaw, it's beautiful, isn't it? And the sun is blinding your eyes... You realize how small your planet is compared to that huge warm star. Look around, there are a few other planets like yours, also just hanging around, moving thanks to the sun, and unaware that the ball that gives them light will eventually die. Now look on top of you. There are so many other stars! Put your arm like Superman and fly away from the Solar System. After travelling at such a super-fast speed, you relax and observe the wonderful Milky Way. The glowing blue spiral hypnotizes you. You have never seen such an amazing landscape. This spiral is formed by very many other Systems like the one you live in, and other awesome things that move at an incredible speed, things that suddenly burst into millions of little pieces that dissapear into darkness, things that die, things that are born... The list never ends. 

So, now that you are up there, looking with a stunned face at the colourful and bright galaxies that surround you, you feel negligible, infinitely small... 

For some of you, the thought of you being so insignificant to the Universe will overwhelm you, and you will go back to your small planet, close your eyes and dream about being immortal, being the centre of it all. Oh, glorious humans, who shall live in a perfect world made only for them and eternity!
But others will wake up and face the truth: our existence is the closest you can get to nothing. We are not the emperors of space, we are not the puppets of a "God" who had nothing else to do but to create us and build a magical world somewhere over the rainbow so that we can live happily forever after when we die. Although it is hard to accept, we are here by mere chance, and there is no misterious force out there to protect us and take care of us. Just like every other living being on Earth, we are nothing but organic matter. What differences us from the other living beings is that our organic matter has evolved to create an amazing brain which allows us to use reason. However, this brain also makes us have feelings, such as dread. And dread is exactly the reason why many people think that they are immortal: they fear that some day, they will return to be part of the earth they came from and mix with the soil that our planet is made of. It is indeed easier to think that God has saved us a seat at his right hand because we are the most important thing in the Universe, but we are not. However, why should we be frightened of this reality? Even if our lives are actually quite absurd, we do have a life, don't we? So, if there is no Father to give sense to our life, let's give sense to it by ourselves! I mean, let's not waste it fooling ourselves and dreading death, but let's make the most of it for the short time that it lasts instead!

Love your life, you know that you only have one. YOLO ;)

We are sinking

The sinking into poverty of the middle class is one of the main problems in Spain. Families who could always make great presents to their children now struggle in an attempt to feed them. 
Not only can they not afford whims anymore, but they can’t even buy very basic things like clothes or food. They have no other choice but to go to a community kitchen, a place where they never thought they would end up eating. Many of them are not able to pay their home’s rent or the mortgage, so they are evicted of the only place where they felt safe. One day they have a place to hide from the wild world that surrounds them, next day they find themselves in the streets. Some are lucky enough to have a relative that can take them in, but others have nowhere to go. They are wasted, devastated, and they see alcohol or drugs as the only way to escape from their sorrow. 

These situations are actually not new, what has changed is the number of people who end up like this. 26% of the Spanish citizens have lost their job and many of them are now homeless. The crisis has surely not gone unnoticed, and the only way to soothe the damage that it has done in the Spanish people is to stay together and form a big family, being empathic and helping each other as much as possible, don't you think?

Rubbish

My city is full of shit. Like, literally. Thousands of rubbish bags have decided to comfortably take a nap in the streets. Well, more accurately, 2400 tonnes of trash, and the numbers are going up. I have always said that Granada is a very beautiful and charming town, but right now, it is probably the worst looking place in Spain. The thing is, all the "proffesionals of public sanitation" (aka steet sweepers) who work fot the company "Inagra" are on strike. They earn 1200 euros a month and work 35 hours a week, when most of the people with a similar job (like a builder) get paid less than a 1000 euros and work at least 40 hours since the crisis begun. Poor them...

However, if the cleaners of Granada are already privileged workers, their bosses are even more priviledged. They earn more than the very same president of Spain! Can you believe it? All the citizens of Granada are suffering the consecuences of a town that looks like a pigsty because some rich men do not want to do without their expensive Mercedes.

But the same happens in most of the countries, not only in the private sector but also in the public one: If the directives have debts to pay, they just get rid of the bonus of the civil servants or employees and... taraa! Problem solved! Sometimes these moneygrabbers even raise their own salary in this terrible time of crisis. Long live corruption and selfishness! How far is the man willing to go in order to gain more and more power and wealth? Do they not care if other people can't buy their kids a present for Christmas, or if they can't even feed them because of their greed? Power definitely blinds the mind: it always has.

So, I'll go buy a mask and a pesticide or else I won't be able to go to high school on Monday...

                                    

Modern society

Today, I have spent hours looking up on Google whether the iPhone 5 is better than the Sony Xperia Z or vice versa. I've also looked for Google Glass and other high-technology stuff. I was stunned by all the things the human is capable to invent to make our lives "easier". But, on the other hand, I didn't go to the gym because I was doing that. I could have also done my homework instead.

This has made me think, and I have realized not only how much time we spend looking at a screen doing useless things, but also how modern society's "spirit" affects us: It seems like the greatness of being a human has been reduced to being simply a consumer. Is having the best phone really that important? Is that actually going to make us happier? Or is modern society missing the point of our short life in earth? Sure, technology is useful, but too much of it can consume us. Same happens with expensive clothes brands. We think we'll be cooler if we have an Avercrombie T-shirt than if we have an H&M one. And why is that? Because that's what these mega companies that control the world tell us to think. And we obey them, like 5 year old children. We compete, trying to see who has the most delicious candy. 

But as the Beatles said: "All you need is love". It doesn't say "All you need is an iPhone", or does it? Maybe if Apple paid millions of dollars to Paul McCartney, he might changed the lyrics. Because, after all, we all succumb to the apparent awesomeness of expensive stuff. But that's what it is, just stuff. So think it twice the next time you dream with having something you can't afford, and think of what you have instead: family? friends? love, perhaps? These are the people who actually make you happy. And unless you want to spend the rest of your life having a relationship with Siri, try to care more about these people. You won't regret it.