Environment is like a vase. Histeris and entropy will come for it. Not only for the Earth and all the beauty we observe here, but for the local star, our sun,, the galaxy, and whatever we can observe of the universe. Cycles of warm and cool start to create fissure. Biological, chemical, mechanical forces each have their desires to make all that was once whole part.
Be that the physical manifestations of corporeal objects, or the inner domain of our electrical networks, it will all dissipate, and the beauty we've known will erode, decay and vanish. Make the very most of it.
Now that I have started a book review in a very off topic way, I want to thank my good friend @riverflows for reccomending To be taught if fortunate. A tale of humanity exploring the cosmos. A tale that does not seem real or viable, given the way our planet is going, but a tale of hope, love, careful observation and unending kinship.
To swap again away from the topic at hand, and perhaps instead bring your attention to a lavish critique of our present day Earth. Upon returning from her Artemis mission, Christina Koch spoke with the undertones of a worrying mother, scolding all of her offspring as though she herself were the Earth, inciting them to behave. I wonder if people realised that...
... when we saw tiny Earth, people asked our crew what impressions we had. And honestly, what struck me wasn't necessarily just earth, it was all the blackness around it. Earth was just this lifeboat hanging undisturbingly in the universe. [...] So, I may have not learned... I know I haven't learned everything that this journey has yet to teach me, but there's one new thing I know. And that is at planet Earth, you are a crew.
Amid the backdrop of an escalating conflict and a war that isn't formally declared, she may as well have added, with vitriolic the spittle of an emotional caring custodian, "now act like it."
Instead, she allowed me to jump to that conclusion.
This is precisely what we get out of To be taught if fortunate, a bonded crew with a single objective. Observe. Study. Do not disturb. Instead of imposing the ideals of humanity upon a place, adapt humanity to that place.
For now, we've only got the one location we can flourish in, and as fragile as it is, and as fragile as we are, we can tolerate a lot. Our bodies, however have needs. Oxygen, water, proteins, carbohydrates. Star light. What so often that is neglected is the deep platonic bonds that enable people to tolerate the hardships and the shortcomings.
Conserve and observe. Care. Love. These are the central messages of To be taught if Fortunate. This, however, is punctuated by brutality that is heightened by a moment in which the steady quarantine that the crew establish between their environment and that of the study.
A momentary lapse, a failure, and one of the most heart wrenching moments of fiction ive read for some time.
I reread that bit several times, in fact, because I wanted to suffer again. This book is brief, but poignant, particularly when it comes full circle to return back to the life boat that is Earth.
Not taking into account things like time dilation, and other "harder" sci-fi principles, the return is the commencement of yet another conflict, and the realisation that at any moment the fragile ampoule containing what we know as Earth could shatter.
There is loss, but in loss we must find hope. This is a tale that sticks with you, whether you'd like it to or not, because at the end of the day, we are ephemeral and transient, and the atoms we borrow from the cosmos to be will one day be stateless, quiet, cold, and without observers to marvel upon them.
