I believe
that our species will
not last long. It does not seem
to be made of the stuff that has allowed
the turtle, for example to continue to exist more
or less unchanged for hundreds of millions of
years; for hundreds of times longer, that is,
than we have even been in existence.
We belong to a short-lived genus
of species. All of our cousins
are already extinct. What’s
more, we do
damage.
There
are frontiers where
we are learning, and our desire
for knowledge burns. They are in the
most minute reaches of the fabric of space,
at the origins of the cosmos, in the nature of time,
in the phenomenon of black holes, and in the
workings of our own thought processes.
Here, on the edge of what we know,
in contact with the ocean of the
unknown, shines the mystery
and the beauty of the world.
And it’s breathtaking.