Just to be clear here: you are correct, there are no colonies on Mars yet. Therefore I am not yet a Martian colonist. Not only have I not been to an as yet nonexistent Martian colony, I have not even been to one of the fabulous Martian colony simulators which we have here on Earth. So I am not (yet) a Martian colonist. What I AM is an applicant to Mars One, a candidate for the job of Martian colonist. I am also a thinker. I think, I ponder, I muse, and I ruminate on a wide variety of things. For the last year most of my contemplation has been about Mars and most specifically what my life will be like should I get to live there. What you are about to read are just a couple of lessons which every Martian colonist will know and which I wish very strongly that every human being on this planet knew.
I have had to make a couple of changes to my life in order to remain in the hiring process with Mars One. For example, I had to quit smoking. I should have quit long before and at many times over the years I had said that I was going to, but being a Mars One applicant moved that from the simply important category to important and urgent. I don't think it came as a big surprise to anyone who applied with Mars One that smoking would not be allowed. People don't smoke in space. There's no smoking on the ISS, there was no smoking on the Space Shuttle, and there won't be smoking in a Mars Transit Habitat. While the blame often goes to the dangers of open flame on a space ship, I believe that there is a much more important reason behind the no smoking rule and that is this:
Lesson One - Everything you do affects everyone around you. When you enclose the entire world of a group of people, all of the air, all of the water, all of everything locked up in a small space it becomes obvious that what you do affects everyone else. If I exhale smoke into the enclosed environment of a space habitat the other people living there will be breathing it soon. Best case scenario it gets filtered out in the atmospheric system and we have to change the filters sooner because of my clogging them with all of that nastiness. Because our planet is so big we seem to think that this rule doesn't apply here but we need to realize that this place we call Earth is simply a really big spaceship. Earth is an enclosed system and nothing goes away. When our factories put out large amounts of smoke it doesn't just hang in a cloud around that factory and leave everyone else alone, it spreads through the atmosphere and affects everyone who lives on the planet.
Part of planning for a Mars colony is listing all of the things that the people living there will need and getting them shipped there so that your colonists can live when they get there. The mission designers have to know how much water the colony will need and find a way to either ship it or produce it there. The same with food, clothing, medicine, shelter and so on. it is rather expensive to ship things to Mars. You can't just UPS it there, you have to have a rocket with enough power to get it off of Earth and then push it toward Mars and then land it on Mars when it gets there. It is a very complicated - and therefore very costly - operation. Because of this supplies will be somewhat limited. When we only have one ounce of chocolate sauce left we can't just pop down to the corner store to get another bottle. When it's gone it's gone, and when it's gone we are going to have to learn to live on what we can produce ourselves. Guess what people of Earth:
Lesson Two: Resources are finite. Earth is a really big place and it seems like there is a lot of stuff here, but it just isn't so. Right now a tremendous proportion of our energy needs are met by the use of fossil fuels and we continue to use them as though there were no end in sight. The trouble is that there is an end in sight. You can probably name half of the reasons why using fossil fuels is a less than ideal way to do things, but let's go over a few of them quickly: Air pollution from burning these things, Water pollution from mining, Wars over control of the limited supply, and may I harp on the inefficient and roundabout way of doing things this is. If you follow the trail back, all of this energy ultimately comes from The Sun. Plants ate the sunlight, animals ate the plants, the ground ate the animals and turned them into oil and coal and now we are using those things to get the energy back. Guess what folks, The Sun is still there putting all of that energy out, and we have the technology to use it much more directly so why don't we cut out this loop of middlemen? The sad fact is that we are going to run out of fossil fuels anyway and then we will HAVE to learn to use something else, so why wait until there's a crisis?
Just a side note on this issue of finite resources: I suspect that when there are only four or eight people living alone on a planet and the issue of finite resources comes up you will find that the options of sharing and saving are the choices that people make. When there are only a few of you, nobody will want to be the douche who used the last of the chocolate sauce. Why is it that when there are a few billion of us we don't do things that way?
Mars One is very deliberately and intentionally setting up this mission as an international mission. They have put together standards which will ensure that this is not an American colony or a Russian colony or any other subdivisional colony. This will be a HUMAN colony full stop. Mars One recognizes the one simple lesson that all the Earth needs to figure out:
Folks, we are in this together. At the end of the day, when you strip away prejudice and ideology and divisional concepts like race, religion, and nationality what we all are is human beings. What I do affects you, what you do affects me, what we do affects every one of the other seven billion inhabitants of this habitat called Earth. Why don't we start acting like it?
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Monday, May 5, 2014
Journal entry - "Why go to Mars?"
I have a journal I'm keeping, an actual ink on paper with a leather cover journal that I write in from time to time to keep track of my thoughts and feelings on this journey toward Mars. What got into my head was that when I married my beautiful bride I implied that I would be here to take care of her for as long as I am able and I am basically opting out of that implied promise for what seems to her to be dubious reasons. Well, it hasn't escaped my notice that the first people to live on Mars will be huge historic figures and their memorabilia - especially that connected to Mars One - will be very valuable. I thought that if I could document my journey in writing, maybe those journals would be a means to contribute to her financial livelihood when I go.
I think that one of the first things that we the applicants found out (and I, for one, was surprised by) was that some people didn't understand how we could accept leaving Earth forever. The first mistake I find that I have to correct is that I want to leave. We don't hate Earth, we don't hate our lives, we just see the prospect of life on another planet as sufficient recompense for what we're giving up here. After that I have to explain how I could leave my family (my wife actually, the kids are good with it) behind. I still can't get that across to people.
So one day I wrote an entry in my journal to try to explain it. I've realized that this explanation needs to be gotten across before, not after, the mission so I'm going to reproduce it here with a note: the "But - Mars" comment refers to an earlier entry in the journal. It will be available for purchase sometime after I leave for Mars if my wife needs the money. If she's independently wealthy maybe she'll donate it to a museum.
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20 June 2013
I thought that I might try to put into words the reasons that I want to go to Mars. I was telling Katie the other day that I've always said that there are two things – God and Love – that you can't quite explain in words. You could write a library full of books and if someone understands they'll get what you're saying in the first line but if they don't understand they'll never get it. So it is with this. So I will try to put it into words, but I can only hope that you already know what I mean.
Let me begin by explaining my understanding of the term calling. It is used most often in churches, but I believe that it applies in all sorts of cases. In church one can often hear about people who feel called by God to be preachers or missionaries or such. I've always said that the term also applies to certain jobs outside of the church such as teachers and nurses particularly.
This opportunity to fly off to Mars feels almost like a calling to me. From when I first heard about it I've wanted nothing else. For as long as I can recall I've wanted to be an astronaut. I watched every takeoff and landing of the old Space Shuttle that I could find on tv. I remember where I was and what I was doing when the Shuttle exploded during takeoff better than I remember the events of 11 September 2001. It just touched me more. When I was sixteen and headed off to college I decided to go into a course of study that might allow me to eventually be a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle. Life got in the way, obviously, but that dream has never left.
And now … I can picture in my mind the sight of our beautiful mother Earth from space. She sits there wearing her blues and greens and browns while wrapped about with a cloak of misty white which shifts and spins while she turns majestically beneath me. Many of us have seen such sights in our mind's eye as we turned the pages of Heinlein, Asimov, or Clarke, nearly everyone has seen such visions as laid before us by movie makers, but can you imagine being one of the very few dozens who have seen it with their own eyes? The very thought makes me shiver with anticipation. Now imagine being one of only four human beings in all of history to see the ruddy globe of a new homeworld spinning below. Seeing the rusty surface overlaid with the soft pillowy dust of a storm blowing fiercely by. Gazing in rapture at the glittering ice fields of the polar caps. Admiring the grandeur of the largest volcano in the solar system, now long dormant but no less awe-inspiring as it rises far above the rocky plains below. Picture your feelings as you step out of your lander onto the rock strewn surface of your new home prepared to face the challenges of taming a foreign, inhospitable, passively hostile world.
I cannot conceive of a better feeling in this life than this. That is what I see when something in my head says “But – Mars,” it's an overwhelming desire that justifies any expense. To me, at least.
Beyond that, the expense is justified by the gains that mankind will receive. Every venture into the unknown has paid back into the common fund of humanity with considerable interest. The advances in technology will help millions of people here on Earth in ways that we can't even imagine now. The hope that will be felt in many a breast on seeing men and women venturing into the unknown will carry many forward through life encouraging them to follow their dreams. Consider also the future of mankind. Should any disaster befall our mother planet we will continue on in another place and what we learn here can help us to spread further into our universe. The farther we spread out, the more secure the future of our species becomes.
Perhaps I won't get to hold my grandchildren, but I look forward to getting the messages they will record and send to me and maybe I can be there to greet one of them as they land to join our colony, or maybe because of what I've done I'll hear about one of them going out as a scouting party for the first settlers of Titan. Or I could be the inspiration for one of them developing the first interstellar engine to take us out of this system and on into the galaxy. This is only a small second step, but as we take inspiration from Armstrong and Aldrin, future generations will take their inspiration from us.
I think that one of the first things that we the applicants found out (and I, for one, was surprised by) was that some people didn't understand how we could accept leaving Earth forever. The first mistake I find that I have to correct is that I want to leave. We don't hate Earth, we don't hate our lives, we just see the prospect of life on another planet as sufficient recompense for what we're giving up here. After that I have to explain how I could leave my family (my wife actually, the kids are good with it) behind. I still can't get that across to people.
So one day I wrote an entry in my journal to try to explain it. I've realized that this explanation needs to be gotten across before, not after, the mission so I'm going to reproduce it here with a note: the "But - Mars" comment refers to an earlier entry in the journal. It will be available for purchase sometime after I leave for Mars if my wife needs the money. If she's independently wealthy maybe she'll donate it to a museum.
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20 June 2013
I thought that I might try to put into words the reasons that I want to go to Mars. I was telling Katie the other day that I've always said that there are two things – God and Love – that you can't quite explain in words. You could write a library full of books and if someone understands they'll get what you're saying in the first line but if they don't understand they'll never get it. So it is with this. So I will try to put it into words, but I can only hope that you already know what I mean.
Let me begin by explaining my understanding of the term calling. It is used most often in churches, but I believe that it applies in all sorts of cases. In church one can often hear about people who feel called by God to be preachers or missionaries or such. I've always said that the term also applies to certain jobs outside of the church such as teachers and nurses particularly.
This opportunity to fly off to Mars feels almost like a calling to me. From when I first heard about it I've wanted nothing else. For as long as I can recall I've wanted to be an astronaut. I watched every takeoff and landing of the old Space Shuttle that I could find on tv. I remember where I was and what I was doing when the Shuttle exploded during takeoff better than I remember the events of 11 September 2001. It just touched me more. When I was sixteen and headed off to college I decided to go into a course of study that might allow me to eventually be a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle. Life got in the way, obviously, but that dream has never left.
And now … I can picture in my mind the sight of our beautiful mother Earth from space. She sits there wearing her blues and greens and browns while wrapped about with a cloak of misty white which shifts and spins while she turns majestically beneath me. Many of us have seen such sights in our mind's eye as we turned the pages of Heinlein, Asimov, or Clarke, nearly everyone has seen such visions as laid before us by movie makers, but can you imagine being one of the very few dozens who have seen it with their own eyes? The very thought makes me shiver with anticipation. Now imagine being one of only four human beings in all of history to see the ruddy globe of a new homeworld spinning below. Seeing the rusty surface overlaid with the soft pillowy dust of a storm blowing fiercely by. Gazing in rapture at the glittering ice fields of the polar caps. Admiring the grandeur of the largest volcano in the solar system, now long dormant but no less awe-inspiring as it rises far above the rocky plains below. Picture your feelings as you step out of your lander onto the rock strewn surface of your new home prepared to face the challenges of taming a foreign, inhospitable, passively hostile world.
I cannot conceive of a better feeling in this life than this. That is what I see when something in my head says “But – Mars,” it's an overwhelming desire that justifies any expense. To me, at least.
Beyond that, the expense is justified by the gains that mankind will receive. Every venture into the unknown has paid back into the common fund of humanity with considerable interest. The advances in technology will help millions of people here on Earth in ways that we can't even imagine now. The hope that will be felt in many a breast on seeing men and women venturing into the unknown will carry many forward through life encouraging them to follow their dreams. Consider also the future of mankind. Should any disaster befall our mother planet we will continue on in another place and what we learn here can help us to spread further into our universe. The farther we spread out, the more secure the future of our species becomes.
Perhaps I won't get to hold my grandchildren, but I look forward to getting the messages they will record and send to me and maybe I can be there to greet one of them as they land to join our colony, or maybe because of what I've done I'll hear about one of them going out as a scouting party for the first settlers of Titan. Or I could be the inspiration for one of them developing the first interstellar engine to take us out of this system and on into the galaxy. This is only a small second step, but as we take inspiration from Armstrong and Aldrin, future generations will take their inspiration from us.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Exceptional people
Others among the now less than 1,000 people left in Mars One's first colonist application procedure have been spending a great deal of time in the public eye. They have been featured in print and online news articles, on television, and giving presentations to schools among other things. I've had a local magazine feature done on me and a couple of online news articles have used me, but that is about it. One of the things that I would really love to do, though, is go to local schools and speak to young people. I'd like to teach about space exploration and Mars in particular, but mostly I'd like to tell the following to every child I could.
note: An odd thing that I do (I think it's odd anyway, maybe everyone does it) is think about things that are unlikely but possible. I spend an inordinate amount of time planning what I might say in this or that circumstance just in case. I thought of the following when planning what I would say to school children if I spoke to them as a Mars One colonist in training seven or eight years from now but I realized that it is just as applicable now.
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These days people seem to think that I am someone exceptional. I am one of a very few who managed - through a combination of coincidence, unmitigated gall, and some quality of psychology of which I remain unaware - to be one of the first of Mars One's colonist candidates. There is no guarantee that any of we, the 1058, will ever get to go to Mars, much less be among the first four, and yet we are deemed exceptional anyway. I don't want to downplay the situation, I know that of some seven billion people in the world I am in a group of a thousand who have been set apart, but I feel less that I am exceptional and more that I have an exceptional burden to live up to. For the millions who did not hear about Mars One in time, for the thousands who didn't have the audacity to apply, and for the hundreds who were not of the right psychological makeup I must be exceptional. I feel a need to be as great as all of those people think I should be. I will never be, but I will never stop trying either.
The question, then, is how do I become exceptional? This question is not for me alone either. I believe that every human being who lives - me, you, the guy down the street, everybody - can be exceptional and should strive to be exceptional. And the first step to becoming exceptional is choosing to do so. Whatever you do in life, choose to do it exceptionally. You only have a short time available to you and so whatever you spend that time on should be worthy of the cost. If you're going to spend your time being a nurse or an engineer or a physicist or a teacher or mechanic or raising children or digging ditches, get up in the morning and look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're going to do it spectacularly. Your time is short, don't waste it being half-assed.
The next (and most important) step to being an exceptional person is the thing that Mars One colonist candidates spend the majority of their time doing. By far we spend more time learning than in any other activity. In fact, even when we're doing other activities we are usually learning even as we do them. Mars One colonists are learning how to use new unfamiliar equipment, and how to repair said equipment, and how to repair each other, and how to grow food, and how to have good relationships with other people, and conflict management, and too many other things to list. We are constantly learning and studying and trying to grow. There was a point in time when a single human brain could hold all of the knowledge in the world. That time is long past, but exceptional people are people who continuously try to do exactly that - learn all that there is to know.
I hadn't mentioned this before, but being an exceptional person is only a three step process. Step One: choose to be exceptional, Step Two: learn everything you can, and Step Three: never think that you've gotten there. There's an old saying "You learn something new every day." It's usually used by someone who has just learned something when they didn't expect to. I prefer to think of it as a challenge to not be complacent. "You! Learn something new! Every day." You may be the best writer or cook or mathematician who ever walked the Earth but you don't know all that you can know and you never will, so keep learning and growing and striving until the day you die.
note: An odd thing that I do (I think it's odd anyway, maybe everyone does it) is think about things that are unlikely but possible. I spend an inordinate amount of time planning what I might say in this or that circumstance just in case. I thought of the following when planning what I would say to school children if I spoke to them as a Mars One colonist in training seven or eight years from now but I realized that it is just as applicable now.
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These days people seem to think that I am someone exceptional. I am one of a very few who managed - through a combination of coincidence, unmitigated gall, and some quality of psychology of which I remain unaware - to be one of the first of Mars One's colonist candidates. There is no guarantee that any of we, the 1058, will ever get to go to Mars, much less be among the first four, and yet we are deemed exceptional anyway. I don't want to downplay the situation, I know that of some seven billion people in the world I am in a group of a thousand who have been set apart, but I feel less that I am exceptional and more that I have an exceptional burden to live up to. For the millions who did not hear about Mars One in time, for the thousands who didn't have the audacity to apply, and for the hundreds who were not of the right psychological makeup I must be exceptional. I feel a need to be as great as all of those people think I should be. I will never be, but I will never stop trying either.
The question, then, is how do I become exceptional? This question is not for me alone either. I believe that every human being who lives - me, you, the guy down the street, everybody - can be exceptional and should strive to be exceptional. And the first step to becoming exceptional is choosing to do so. Whatever you do in life, choose to do it exceptionally. You only have a short time available to you and so whatever you spend that time on should be worthy of the cost. If you're going to spend your time being a nurse or an engineer or a physicist or a teacher or mechanic or raising children or digging ditches, get up in the morning and look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're going to do it spectacularly. Your time is short, don't waste it being half-assed.
The next (and most important) step to being an exceptional person is the thing that Mars One colonist candidates spend the majority of their time doing. By far we spend more time learning than in any other activity. In fact, even when we're doing other activities we are usually learning even as we do them. Mars One colonists are learning how to use new unfamiliar equipment, and how to repair said equipment, and how to repair each other, and how to grow food, and how to have good relationships with other people, and conflict management, and too many other things to list. We are constantly learning and studying and trying to grow. There was a point in time when a single human brain could hold all of the knowledge in the world. That time is long past, but exceptional people are people who continuously try to do exactly that - learn all that there is to know.
I hadn't mentioned this before, but being an exceptional person is only a three step process. Step One: choose to be exceptional, Step Two: learn everything you can, and Step Three: never think that you've gotten there. There's an old saying "You learn something new every day." It's usually used by someone who has just learned something when they didn't expect to. I prefer to think of it as a challenge to not be complacent. "You! Learn something new! Every day." You may be the best writer or cook or mathematician who ever walked the Earth but you don't know all that you can know and you never will, so keep learning and growing and striving until the day you die.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Martian politicians
For a long time now I've believed that a desire to hold a particular public office should automatically disqualify a person from running for said office. I don't know what it is, but I have never ever, ever never met, seen from afar, or even heard rumor of a politician who faithfully did the very best that they could for the people who they are theoretically in office to serve. Most politicians are lawyers and in my experience lawyers don't believe in an objective "right" and "wrong". They seem to think that what is right or wrong depends on one's point-of-view. I think this viewpoint is either symptomatic of or a cause of their belief that truth or falsehood is all subjective as well. Sadly our politicians behaving this way seems to have poisoned the minds of many (if not most) average people into believing the same.
By way of example - and to set up those who I believe to be counter to the politician's way of thinking, scientists - let's talk about global warming, shall we. Scientific data is absolutely undeniable in showing that our life support system in the universe (this planet) is getting hotter very quickly. The NWS keeps track of global temperature data, NASA has satellites in orbit whose job is to measure the size of the polar ice caps (smaller for at least three years in a row now) and the data is open for anyone to see. NASA posts this stuff on twitter, for Pete's sake. Scientific debate on the issue is about whether it is man-made or a natural cycle (evidence suggests man-made, but it's still debatable) and about whether the system can regulate itself quickly enough to remain habitable by humans. Politicians and those who have been poisoned by them, on the other hand, still argue that global warming is not happening at all. Really!? Did I mention that the data is open for all to see?
Another example of this difference between the way politicians think and the way scientists think is reaction to the political events revolving around the Crimean peninsula. To be perfectly honest I don't know the story behind the whole Russia, Ukraine, Crimea tug-of-war. I know what American news services have said, but I'm sharp enough to realize that their information is biased in favor of American political agendas. I don't know anyone from that part of the world who can tell me the real history as lived there, so I am massively uninformed on the topic. I also know that it has nothing to do with international cooperation in space exploration, although American politicians are trying to make the two things overlap: because of America's governmental officials' stance on the Crimea issue NASA has been ordered to stop cooperation with Russia.
Oh, wait ... except in relation to the ISS. NASA is allowed to cooperate there. Because how would Americans get onto or off of the ISS without Russia? So that's okay, just not anywhere else.
Honestly guys, if Russia is going to be painted as the big bad bully here then they're bad all the way around. You can't have them be the bad guy but still use them for transport to the ISS. That's just ridiculous.
Reaction to this American foreign policy directive from astronauts and scientists pretty much worldwide has been uniformly incredulous and I believe that this reaction is a good indication of the sort of "foreign policy" that humanity should take to Mars with us. Science and technology already has many answers to global problems and the beginnings of many more answers. If governments worldwide cooperated like scientists worldwide do mankind would be much closer to solving issues like global warming, renewable energy, pollution, yada yada yada.
In my opinion, Mars should be kept politician free. Let's populate our next planet with only people who have useful contributions to make to society and see what happens. This is an opportunity to begin human society all over from scratch, let's make the most of it.
By way of example - and to set up those who I believe to be counter to the politician's way of thinking, scientists - let's talk about global warming, shall we. Scientific data is absolutely undeniable in showing that our life support system in the universe (this planet) is getting hotter very quickly. The NWS keeps track of global temperature data, NASA has satellites in orbit whose job is to measure the size of the polar ice caps (smaller for at least three years in a row now) and the data is open for anyone to see. NASA posts this stuff on twitter, for Pete's sake. Scientific debate on the issue is about whether it is man-made or a natural cycle (evidence suggests man-made, but it's still debatable) and about whether the system can regulate itself quickly enough to remain habitable by humans. Politicians and those who have been poisoned by them, on the other hand, still argue that global warming is not happening at all. Really!? Did I mention that the data is open for all to see?
Another example of this difference between the way politicians think and the way scientists think is reaction to the political events revolving around the Crimean peninsula. To be perfectly honest I don't know the story behind the whole Russia, Ukraine, Crimea tug-of-war. I know what American news services have said, but I'm sharp enough to realize that their information is biased in favor of American political agendas. I don't know anyone from that part of the world who can tell me the real history as lived there, so I am massively uninformed on the topic. I also know that it has nothing to do with international cooperation in space exploration, although American politicians are trying to make the two things overlap: because of America's governmental officials' stance on the Crimea issue NASA has been ordered to stop cooperation with Russia.
Oh, wait ... except in relation to the ISS. NASA is allowed to cooperate there. Because how would Americans get onto or off of the ISS without Russia? So that's okay, just not anywhere else.
Honestly guys, if Russia is going to be painted as the big bad bully here then they're bad all the way around. You can't have them be the bad guy but still use them for transport to the ISS. That's just ridiculous.
Reaction to this American foreign policy directive from astronauts and scientists pretty much worldwide has been uniformly incredulous and I believe that this reaction is a good indication of the sort of "foreign policy" that humanity should take to Mars with us. Science and technology already has many answers to global problems and the beginnings of many more answers. If governments worldwide cooperated like scientists worldwide do mankind would be much closer to solving issues like global warming, renewable energy, pollution, yada yada yada.
In my opinion, Mars should be kept politician free. Let's populate our next planet with only people who have useful contributions to make to society and see what happens. This is an opportunity to begin human society all over from scratch, let's make the most of it.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Focus
I've tried to live my life being mindful of how fortunate I am to live, and to live in such a beautiful place, and to live among such amazing people. Sometimes the troubles and stresses of life make it hard to pay attention to the wonder of it all so it's nice to have a reminder every now and again. The movie About Time was just such a reminder. I got to watch it - appropriately - with my family, and I recommend that all of you go do the same. It's brilliant.
If you know me very well at all you'll know - and if you don't you'll learn - that I believe that the key to practically everything in life is balance. Moderation. The middle path. This particular blog post is another example of said principle. The issue for today is happiness and how to achieve it.
I've lived with people from various economic backgrounds during the course of my life. When I was growing up my family was of a relatively low economic class, although that got higher over the course of time until we were a solidly lower-middle to middle class family. I've been intimately involved with a lady who, when she was growing up, was from a solidly upper class family. And I've been on very close terms with people pretty much from every part of the spectrum. I've found that there are different things that people of different economic classes tend to teach their children and in many cases those things are both helpful and harmful. For example, the poorer people are, the more they seem to emphasize to their children the importance of non-material things. While everyone mentions to their kids that interpersonal relationships, etc are important, the poor seem to get it better. This is a blessing for them because if you are hung up on material wealth as a key to happiness you'll be miserable as a poor person. On the other hand, if you learn the lesson too well it takes away a lot of motivation to improve your circumstances. There is a very fine line that we, as human beings, need to walk. A balance between being happy where we are and being motivated to change our circumstances to make life better. If we are too content with our place in life then we don't improve it, but if we're too focused on where we are headed we miss out on the beauty of right here right now.
This working for the future mindset is just one of the reasons that we miss out on happiness. Another reason is the today sucks mindset. This is that time that we spend focused on what is wrong with life to the extent that we fail to see the beauty that we are constantly surrounded by. Very young children are always a good cure for this part of the spectrum. When my daughter was very small - two or three years old - she loved to pick flowers and bring them to me. She was amazed and entranced by how beautiful flowers were in all of their gorgeous variety.
One of the ways that I can tell that Spring is on its way is from a particular weed that sprouts up. Driving through the suburbs in the winter you'll see everyone's perfectly manicured perfectly brown lawns. Toward Spring they start to get patches of green, but after a short while you'll notice that those patches of green are tinted with purple. Once those weeds (I've since learned that it is called purple deadnettle) start sprouting I know that Spring is not far off and everyone's perfectly manicured lawns will be perfectly green again soon. Well, the reason that children are a good reminder of the beauty that surrounds us constantly (and incidentally what I think Jesus was talking about when he said that we must be like children to enter the Kingdom of God [or, may I say, see that we're already in it?]) is because they haven't learned all of the things that we adults will teach them eventually. My daughter didn't know that the first bunches of "pretty flowers I brought for you daddy" were just weeds.
I hate that we adults take their innocence and "ignorance" away from them, but that is a rant for another day.
So where is the balance between working for the future and today sucks? How do we maintain a childlike eye for the beauty that surrounds us while still maintaining a drive to improve our life? In my case it's not even that today sucks. It's more that tomorrow could be so powerfully awesome that it draws my vision away from the here and now. It is awesome to see pictures that Curiosity is sending back from Mars every day. It is incredible to read about the Mars Society's simulation missions. It's great fun to think about what we might do or see or eat or build or learn or whatever when we go to Mars. I realized after the movie tonight that I've had my head so far into that very very remotely possible (let's face it, even as one of the1058 I still have less than a 1 in 50 chance of being hired by Mars One, much less going) future that I have not been paying enough attention to how lucky I am.
Going to Mars will be monumental. Whoever goes - I and three friends, or someone else - will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Just don't forget in the interim that today you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Tomorrow you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Every day of your life you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way if only you will be mindful and see what's around you.
If you know me very well at all you'll know - and if you don't you'll learn - that I believe that the key to practically everything in life is balance. Moderation. The middle path. This particular blog post is another example of said principle. The issue for today is happiness and how to achieve it.
I've lived with people from various economic backgrounds during the course of my life. When I was growing up my family was of a relatively low economic class, although that got higher over the course of time until we were a solidly lower-middle to middle class family. I've been intimately involved with a lady who, when she was growing up, was from a solidly upper class family. And I've been on very close terms with people pretty much from every part of the spectrum. I've found that there are different things that people of different economic classes tend to teach their children and in many cases those things are both helpful and harmful. For example, the poorer people are, the more they seem to emphasize to their children the importance of non-material things. While everyone mentions to their kids that interpersonal relationships, etc are important, the poor seem to get it better. This is a blessing for them because if you are hung up on material wealth as a key to happiness you'll be miserable as a poor person. On the other hand, if you learn the lesson too well it takes away a lot of motivation to improve your circumstances. There is a very fine line that we, as human beings, need to walk. A balance between being happy where we are and being motivated to change our circumstances to make life better. If we are too content with our place in life then we don't improve it, but if we're too focused on where we are headed we miss out on the beauty of right here right now.
This working for the future mindset is just one of the reasons that we miss out on happiness. Another reason is the today sucks mindset. This is that time that we spend focused on what is wrong with life to the extent that we fail to see the beauty that we are constantly surrounded by. Very young children are always a good cure for this part of the spectrum. When my daughter was very small - two or three years old - she loved to pick flowers and bring them to me. She was amazed and entranced by how beautiful flowers were in all of their gorgeous variety.
One of the ways that I can tell that Spring is on its way is from a particular weed that sprouts up. Driving through the suburbs in the winter you'll see everyone's perfectly manicured perfectly brown lawns. Toward Spring they start to get patches of green, but after a short while you'll notice that those patches of green are tinted with purple. Once those weeds (I've since learned that it is called purple deadnettle) start sprouting I know that Spring is not far off and everyone's perfectly manicured lawns will be perfectly green again soon. Well, the reason that children are a good reminder of the beauty that surrounds us constantly (and incidentally what I think Jesus was talking about when he said that we must be like children to enter the Kingdom of God [or, may I say, see that we're already in it?]) is because they haven't learned all of the things that we adults will teach them eventually. My daughter didn't know that the first bunches of "pretty flowers I brought for you daddy" were just weeds.
I hate that we adults take their innocence and "ignorance" away from them, but that is a rant for another day.
So where is the balance between working for the future and today sucks? How do we maintain a childlike eye for the beauty that surrounds us while still maintaining a drive to improve our life? In my case it's not even that today sucks. It's more that tomorrow could be so powerfully awesome that it draws my vision away from the here and now. It is awesome to see pictures that Curiosity is sending back from Mars every day. It is incredible to read about the Mars Society's simulation missions. It's great fun to think about what we might do or see or eat or build or learn or whatever when we go to Mars. I realized after the movie tonight that I've had my head so far into that very very remotely possible (let's face it, even as one of the1058 I still have less than a 1 in 50 chance of being hired by Mars One, much less going) future that I have not been paying enough attention to how lucky I am.
Going to Mars will be monumental. Whoever goes - I and three friends, or someone else - will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Just don't forget in the interim that today you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Tomorrow you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way. Every day of your life you will experience amazing things that no one else will experience in quite the same way if only you will be mindful and see what's around you.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Religion on Mars
There has been much heated discussion among aspiring Martians about religion and its place in Martian society. Most of those who have expressed an opinion in the discussion have tended to fall into the group which I shall call "Keep it to yourself". There may have been a person here or there among the theistic religions who has said that they will spread the word of their religion, but if so I haven't seen it. I have seen a few of those following Atheism who have been rather insistent about forbidding from Mars all religion - except for theirs.
Full disclosure: I do believe that Atheism is as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, or any other. Atheists tend to very loudly proclaim that there is no God - a statement which they can prove no more than a Christian can prove that there is a God. If you're going to be intellectually honest about it then you can't really be anything but agnostic, in my opinion. Naturally I am not that brand of intellectually honest. I am honest enough to say that I can't prove it to anyone else but I believe that there is a God anyway.
Fuller disclosure: I self-identify as a syncretist who practices Christianity. Religious people tend to emphasize their differences and thereby have splintered the world into many warring factions. To misquote a RUSH lyric (I swear that this is how I heard the song for three years - until I finally looked at a lyric sheet for Armor and Sword) "Battle flags are flown at the feet of a god of love." The actual lyric is "god unknown" but my misquote makes the point better, and the point is this: I looked around at all of these people making WAR in the name of God, and claiming that theirs is a God of Love and Peace and I realized that it was completely absurd on the face of it. I also realized that while they emphasized their differences, most of them had quite a few similarities. After hearing and thinking about the Buddhist version of the old parable of the elephant I began to believe that if one could study all of the world's religions and find the points where they coincide one might come up with a more clear picture of God. I've studied some on other religions, but I claim to practice Christianity because I still haven't gotten it all figured out yet.
That said, tonight there was a debate held at the Creation Museum between Bill Nye - on the side of science (and Atheism) and Ken Ham - on the side of creationism (and fundamentalist Christianity). I had no interest in this debate - I've been involved in it more times than I can count, I know all of the arguments that will be brought to bear, and I don't want to hear it any more. My personal point-of-view on debate/argument/discussion has always been that the audience doesn't matter. I'm in a discussion to hear someone else's views, have mine heard, and come to a consensus, even if the only consensus can be to agree to disagree. Because of this viewpoint, I find debates like tonight's quite pointless - not only are the debaters not going to listen to each other, but in this case the audience won't even really listen. My twitter feed was full of commentary on the debate and the only tweet that I found the least interesting was when @MZHemingway said "While I'm enjoying #creationdebate, neither Ham nor Nye's debate strategy seems terribly persuasive to those not already in their camps."
The question that I have never had answered satisfactorily is why there was ever a debate on this subject at all. Don't get me wrong, I know exactly why, I just don't know how people didn't see their mistake and quit arguing. The trouble is that the group of Christians who believe that scripture should be interpreted "literally" (I use quotes around that because they only want people to use THEIR "literal" interpretation) are trying to make The Bible answer a question that it was never designed to answer. Science is concerned with how things work, in this case how the universe came to be. Those stories in The Bible about how the universe was created (yes, there are two creation stories in Genesis - with different details) are not meant to answer the question how, they are meant to answer the question who did it all - a question that science couldn't care any less about. Scientists got suckered into an argument that the other side had set the boundaries of and fundamentalist Christians have steadfastly refused to use observation and reason. It's a no win situation.
I tend to have double standards about most things in life. Usually I have a standard of behavior for myself and one for everyone else. I can get away with this because my standards for myself are almost always higher than my standards for other people. Religion on Mars is yet another issue where I adhere to a glaring double standard. I will practice my own religion as I wish to without intruding on anyone else. I won't bring it up for discussion, I won't perform any prayers or rituals in front of other people, I will be firmly in the "Keep it to yourself" group. On the other hand, if someone else wants to talk about their religion it doesn't bother me. I will gladly enter the discussion. I actually hope that there are people on Mars with different views and experiences than I have who are willing to share with me. If it should become obvious that such discussions are becoming useless then I can always stop participating.
Thanks for listening
Full disclosure: I do believe that Atheism is as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, or any other. Atheists tend to very loudly proclaim that there is no God - a statement which they can prove no more than a Christian can prove that there is a God. If you're going to be intellectually honest about it then you can't really be anything but agnostic, in my opinion. Naturally I am not that brand of intellectually honest. I am honest enough to say that I can't prove it to anyone else but I believe that there is a God anyway.
Fuller disclosure: I self-identify as a syncretist who practices Christianity. Religious people tend to emphasize their differences and thereby have splintered the world into many warring factions. To misquote a RUSH lyric (I swear that this is how I heard the song for three years - until I finally looked at a lyric sheet for Armor and Sword) "Battle flags are flown at the feet of a god of love." The actual lyric is "god unknown" but my misquote makes the point better, and the point is this: I looked around at all of these people making WAR in the name of God, and claiming that theirs is a God of Love and Peace and I realized that it was completely absurd on the face of it. I also realized that while they emphasized their differences, most of them had quite a few similarities. After hearing and thinking about the Buddhist version of the old parable of the elephant I began to believe that if one could study all of the world's religions and find the points where they coincide one might come up with a more clear picture of God. I've studied some on other religions, but I claim to practice Christianity because I still haven't gotten it all figured out yet.
That said, tonight there was a debate held at the Creation Museum between Bill Nye - on the side of science (and Atheism) and Ken Ham - on the side of creationism (and fundamentalist Christianity). I had no interest in this debate - I've been involved in it more times than I can count, I know all of the arguments that will be brought to bear, and I don't want to hear it any more. My personal point-of-view on debate/argument/discussion has always been that the audience doesn't matter. I'm in a discussion to hear someone else's views, have mine heard, and come to a consensus, even if the only consensus can be to agree to disagree. Because of this viewpoint, I find debates like tonight's quite pointless - not only are the debaters not going to listen to each other, but in this case the audience won't even really listen. My twitter feed was full of commentary on the debate and the only tweet that I found the least interesting was when @MZHemingway said "While I'm enjoying #creationdebate, neither Ham nor Nye's debate strategy seems terribly persuasive to those not already in their camps."
The question that I have never had answered satisfactorily is why there was ever a debate on this subject at all. Don't get me wrong, I know exactly why, I just don't know how people didn't see their mistake and quit arguing. The trouble is that the group of Christians who believe that scripture should be interpreted "literally" (I use quotes around that because they only want people to use THEIR "literal" interpretation) are trying to make The Bible answer a question that it was never designed to answer. Science is concerned with how things work, in this case how the universe came to be. Those stories in The Bible about how the universe was created (yes, there are two creation stories in Genesis - with different details) are not meant to answer the question how, they are meant to answer the question who did it all - a question that science couldn't care any less about. Scientists got suckered into an argument that the other side had set the boundaries of and fundamentalist Christians have steadfastly refused to use observation and reason. It's a no win situation.
I tend to have double standards about most things in life. Usually I have a standard of behavior for myself and one for everyone else. I can get away with this because my standards for myself are almost always higher than my standards for other people. Religion on Mars is yet another issue where I adhere to a glaring double standard. I will practice my own religion as I wish to without intruding on anyone else. I won't bring it up for discussion, I won't perform any prayers or rituals in front of other people, I will be firmly in the "Keep it to yourself" group. On the other hand, if someone else wants to talk about their religion it doesn't bother me. I will gladly enter the discussion. I actually hope that there are people on Mars with different views and experiences than I have who are willing to share with me. If it should become obvious that such discussions are becoming useless then I can always stop participating.
Thanks for listening
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Olympic Dreams
This will be less a blog, and more of a statement about how and why I choose to strive for the goals which are my vision of life ahead. I recognize that life and our actions within it are often a result of seemingly random things coming together at just the right time. This Olympian's Manifesto is a result of just such a confluence of a few things in my life recently.
Perhaps the first thing that I should explain is why the title Olympic Dreams. One of the random coincidences of life is that just now, when we - the would-be settlers of Mars - are beginning to work toward our goal, the Winter Olympic Games are about to start again. the Olympic Games are named after Olympia - the site in Greece where the ancient Olympic Games were held, but the name calls to mind Mount Olympus, home of the Greek Gods of mythology. This, in turn, calls to mind the Mount Olympus which was named for the Greek peak, but which resides several million miles away on an entirely different planet in our solar system. Where Olympic athletes might be said to aspire to ascend Mount Olympus to dine with the gods, we potential Martians aspire to live in the shadow of Mount Olympus (quite literally. the likely landing site for Mars One's colony is quite near to Olympus Mons) an entire world away.
The first thing to impact my life to begin these Olympic Dreams was not the Olympic Games, of course, the first piece of the puzzle was myself. I'm just a guy, no different from billions of others on the planet, except that I am what Michael P. Kube-McDowell described as a starhead in his book The Quiet Pools: "There was something simultaneously delightful and pathetic about the starheads. They knew the schedule for the center's one LTO runway better than most allied staff, knew the difference between a Pelican and its near-twin Martin Rendezvous, knew the nine satlands and the governor of the Mars colony and the latest news and gossip from Ur. They came to the ob deck at Johnson Field as a solemn pilgrimage and then turned into wistful wishful children, noses pressed to the window on a rainy day. ... The starheads were obsessed with dreams they could never fulfill, and so came to touch with their eyes the only piece of that dream they could reach."
The first thing to come into contact with the incredibly fertile ground which is myself was, of course, Mars One. Mr. Lansdorp, Mr. Wielders, and the rest of the Mars One team has brought forth a plan of such complex simplicity that dreamers like myself can clearly see that it cannot be stopped and its unstoppable necessity makes the possibility of my Olympian dreams - which had been cold and dead for decades past - coming true. Mars One has relit the fires that propel me and changed my life from a pleasant plodding from comfortable home life to comfortable work life to comfortable band life and so on until I comfortably and pleasantly plodded into the grave into a life with passion and purpose again.
The thing that caused me to write this out for the world to see was the Metamodernist Manifesto by Shia Labeouf which I ran across yesterday thanks to twitter. Reading through that document brought to mind Mars One so many times that I felt a clarity of thought about the venture which allows me to express it perhaps more clearly now than I could have before, and so I shall endeavor to do.
My Olympic Dreams are a paradox as the Metamodernist Manifesto describes so well. Since Mars One began to be talked about there have been doubters aplenty who will go on endlessly about all of the reasons why Mars One's plans cannot be realized and they seem to think that we who have applied to be colonists don't know these things. They think that we are ignorant of the dangers, unknowing the obstacles, and in need of education about all of the things that will stop us. The truth is that we know all of what they are saying. We are well aware of the dangers. We also know that those dangers cannot stop us. We have embraced our informed naivety and go forth in a spirit of magical realism which no obstacles can hinder. This pragmatic romanticism is exactly why mankind has not been stopped in its grand designs of years past. When we embrace the paradox, we can go from nothing to a moon landing in ten years with less computer power than you carry in your pocket today. As the Metamodernist Manifesto says "Existence is enriched if we set about our task as if those limits might be exceeded, for such action unfolds the world."
So come along on the journey with us. Today we are the1058. Soon that number will dwindle until there are four of us sitting on a firecracker and then it will grow again as we populate another world.
The thing that caused me to write this out for the world to see was the Metamodernist Manifesto by Shia Labeouf which I ran across yesterday thanks to twitter. Reading through that document brought to mind Mars One so many times that I felt a clarity of thought about the venture which allows me to express it perhaps more clearly now than I could have before, and so I shall endeavor to do.
My Olympic Dreams are a paradox as the Metamodernist Manifesto describes so well. Since Mars One began to be talked about there have been doubters aplenty who will go on endlessly about all of the reasons why Mars One's plans cannot be realized and they seem to think that we who have applied to be colonists don't know these things. They think that we are ignorant of the dangers, unknowing the obstacles, and in need of education about all of the things that will stop us. The truth is that we know all of what they are saying. We are well aware of the dangers. We also know that those dangers cannot stop us. We have embraced our informed naivety and go forth in a spirit of magical realism which no obstacles can hinder. This pragmatic romanticism is exactly why mankind has not been stopped in its grand designs of years past. When we embrace the paradox, we can go from nothing to a moon landing in ten years with less computer power than you carry in your pocket today. As the Metamodernist Manifesto says "Existence is enriched if we set about our task as if those limits might be exceeded, for such action unfolds the world."
So come along on the journey with us. Today we are the1058. Soon that number will dwindle until there are four of us sitting on a firecracker and then it will grow again as we populate another world.
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