Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

launching missile at satellite = the human condition

According to AP news, US plans to fire missiles from a U.S. Navy cruiser to shoot down a disabled satellite before it hits the earth’s atmosphere.

This has to be another one of those slip-ups or what are called the urban legends, something that makes me chuckle and want to weep at the same time.

We think we are so civilized now. We are brilliant enough to manufacture and place a fancy satellite in space; but in time, it becomes a menace and we can destroy it with a missile.

Civilized? Today? Hasn’t the humankind been that way all through time? We act just the way we did at the beginning, evolution or Adam and Eve if you like, since I am not arguing that part of the deal now.

We Homo Sapiens have always created our own problems, thinking they are solutions. Then, we have tried to get rid of those problems that were supposedly solutions at first.

We do this in our daily lives, in selecting our governments, in our vocations, in raising our children, in…well, the list is endless.

Still, I have to rejoice because we can do all that and sometimes more. What if we didn’t and we just ate grass and lulled on the meadows, like sheep? That would be worse.

Yes, come to think of it, the drama of it--the drama of our human condition--is inspiring. Just use your imagination. The tears and the laughs always come from watching things rise and fall.

Having said all that, just watch out for what may fall on your heads from the sky, especially in the beginning of March. Just as in telling a joke, its timing is everything. Luckily, the missile will be smart...I hope.