What a gorgeous shade of orange-pink-magenta-something the pre-dawn sky is flashing this morning. I should study the color palette, there might be a word for it. Probably not.
We watched the DVD version of the old IMAX film “Cosmic Voyage” the other night. I was thoroughly entranced by all those transforming shifts up and down scales of magnitude, by the power of ten. It reminded me of the great opening sequence in Contact, and of the Carl Sagan/Pale Blue Dot poster (“You are here”) in my office.
But Older Daughter wondered what the point was, being more drawn to the living room window and its comparatively-pale alternative programming: someone in the neighborhood was intermittently discharging the unspent balance of their rainy July 4 arsenal. (But really, how can anything compete with the Big Bang for impressive pyrotechnics?)
The point, I said, was to try and get a better sense of perspective about our place in the larger scheme of things. That’s what philosophy is all about for me. I don’t think she gets the point of it either. I’ve always disputed Plato’s insistence that philosophy is not for the very young. But my own brood might side with him. Geez, what if they turned into Republicans?!
I wonder: how many philosophers’ kids become philosophers, or even consider themselves philosophical? It doesn’t seem to work with us the way it does with Preachers. My best childhood friend was a Preachers’ Kid, last I heard of him he’d taken his Johnson Bible College degree and was doing God’s work, putting us humans in our lowly, fallen, degraded place. Praying for unmerited salvation.
I, on the other hand, find saving grace in the contemplation of all those magnificent factors of ten. So near. So far.
Tags: Carl Sagan, children and philosophy, Cosmic Voyage, Pale Blue Dot, Plato
