I hope all those who visited Dispatches from Aldeburgh have enjoyed their time here—it's been fun for me, too. Of the 400-plus items I posted to this blog from 2020 to 2024, I'm leaving up the most popular.
Update: January 2025. With the return of the Tangerine Palpatine to the White House, it seems appropriate to mourn the end of the good old USA as I knew it—in addition to my late blog.
© 2024 SummitCityScribe
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| Ice Age Earth footprint, Apollo 11 lunar footprint |
It's hard not to be discouraged living in a modern world still plagued by war, superstition, sexism, and bigotry.
That's why it helpful to step back occasionally and look at the big picture—to remember where humankind began and just how far we've come. The photo at the top of today's dispatch illustrates that concept quite literally.
On the left is a fossilized human footprint—said to be around 23,000 years old—found near a dry lakebed in New Mexico. Meanwhile, over on the right we have a boot print on the lunar surface, left by an Apollo astronaut in 1969.
Those Ice Age humans—who doubtlessly gazed up at the Moon each night—couldn't possibly conceive that their descendants would one day walk the lunar surface. In that same way, we modern humans have no idea what our forebears might accomplish in the future.
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| Lascaux cave painting, Van Gogh's Starry Night |
That's why it's good to remember that humans aren't always bent on finding new ways of hurting or killing each other. We're not always hateful, petty, or stupid. Sometimes we can do great things—inspiring things.
Here's to that next great thing.
©2024 SummitCityScribe
