Good morning. I apologize for the long read, but please indulge me.
"You' may have heard the phrase existential crisis, referring to spiraling of things like your place in the universe and the fundamental nature of existence. For most, an existential crisis amounts to an intrusive thought or two about the meaning of life, which usually pass soon after we've had them."
"The 'overview effect' experienced by many astronauts is a cognitive shift reported by some of them while viewing the Earth from space. Researchers have characterized the effect as "a state of awe with self-transcendent qualities, precipitated by a particularly striking visual stimulus"."
That stimulus, viewing the planet Earth from space, is "beyond words", requiring the actual experience to understand it, and can be likened in this regard to Zen Buddhism."
"The most prominent common aspects of personally experiencing the Earth from space are appreciation and perception of beauty, unexpected and even overwhelming emotion, and an increased sense of connection to other people and the Earth as a whole. The effect can cause changes in our self concept and value system, and can be transformative."
"The visual stimulus of viewing the earth from space is typical of William Shatner's response. "People often cry when they first see the Earth from space," he said."
"I wept for the Earth because I realized it's dying," Shatner said.
"Astronomer Fred Hoyle, who had a gift for analogy, was the guy who coined the phrase 'Big Bang'. But he might have been wrong when he said, space is actually not so far off: "It's only an hour's drive away," said Sir Fred, "if your car could go straight upwards."
"As it turns out, the voyage into space can't always be measured in numbers. And there are astronauts who conclude that the distance they've travelled is beyond any calculation."
"Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell returned to Earth a different person than the man who had launched nine days earlier. The mission, which he once said was "akin to a religious experience," sparked a euphoria in Mitchell. Actually, it was the trip home that did it."
"My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity." (Edgar Mitchell)
At the memorial for Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Patrick Stewart, a.k.a. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, said that "Considering the marvelous complexity of our universe, its clockwork perfection, its balances of this against that, matter, energy, gravitation, time, dimension, I believe that our existence goes beyond Euclidian and other practical measuring systems. And that our existence is part of a reality beyond what we understand now as reality."
For any human being to see that razor thin life-sustaining layer of atmosphere enveloping our earth must be a mind bending and awe inspiring but terrorizing experience.
And I say terrorizing because here we are, allowing just a few of us to murder it, and consequently all of us who are spending our lives trying to survive on it.
How greedy, power hungry, misguided, short sighted, murderous and self absorbed are the actions of those few human beings; people like Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un and Benjamin Netanyahu, and all the others that current events and history has taught us about. People who's only genuine human connection is to themselves., and 'not' to other people or to the earth itself. Theirs is a completely insular existence, void of empathy, respect and compassion.
Now this:
"150 years from now, none of us reading this post today will be alive. 70 percent to 100 percent of everything we are fighting over right now will be totally forgotten. Underline the word totally."
"If we go back memory lane to 150 years before us, that will be 1872, none of those that carried the world on their heads then are alive today. Almost all of us reading this will find it difficult to picture anybody's face of that era."
"Pause for a while and imagine how some of them betrayed their relatives and sold them as slaves for a piece of mirror. Some killed family members just for a piece of land or tubers of yam or cowries or for a pinch of salt. Where now are those yams, cowries, mirrors, or the salt that they traded for?"
"It may sound funny to us now, but that is how silly we humans are sometimes, especially when it comes to money, power or trying to be relevant!"
"Even when you claim the internet age will preserve your memory, take Michael Jackson as an example. Michael Jackson died in 2009, just 13 years ago. Imagine the influence Michael Jackson had all over the world when he was alive. How many young people of today remember him with awe, that is if they even know him? In 150 years to come, his name, when mentioned, will not ring any bell to a lot of people."
"Let us take life easy, nobody will get out of this world alive. The land you are fighting and ready to kill for, somebody left that land, the person is dead, rotten, and forgotten. That will also be your fate. In 150 years to come, none of the vehicles or phones we are using today to brag about will be relevant."
"Take life easy!"
"Let love lead your way. Let’s be genuinely happy for each other. No malice. No backbiting. No jealousy. No comparison. Life is not a competition. At the end of the day, we will all transit to the other side. It is just a question of who gets there first, but surely we will all go there someday." (reported to have accompanied one of the many sculptures by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, dedicated to his enslaved African ancestors.)
(Other sources include Julie Ann Harper, The Atlantic, CBC and Wikipedia)