“
Voyagers,
I’ve always wanted to write about you.
And now, at 4:41 a.m. on an autumn morning,
Words have found their way into my mind.
I picture myself like you—
Distant from life,
Alone,
Yet moving towards an unknown destination!
Like you, in the early stages of my journey,
I could see,
I could gather knowledge and transmit it,
I was useful and efficient.
But sometimes, to keep connected to the world,
To be able to stay on course and conserve my energy,
I had to shut parts of myself down,
To survive,
To go blind, to be deaf, to be isolated, and just occasionally signal my existence to the world.
The same thing I do, that you do, that so many others do.
The boundless reaches of space
Have become somewhat more comprehensible through you,
Yet the depths of the human soul remain unfathomable,
And its pain incurable.
We live in an age surrounded by a torrent of information,
Yet somehow, we remain lonely and lost.
Language has advanced,
There are words for nearly everything,
Everyone can describe their own state of mind, yet we’re still at war with one another.
Earth has turned into a vast ship,
Perhaps like Noah’s Ark,
With maximum diversity and multiplicity,
Yet everyone on this ship plays their own tune, rallies their own cause!
Someone steps forward, claiming each individual’s thoughts and personal benefit are like rare pearls to be cherished,
While another insists that collective welfare takes precedence,
That the needs of the masses outweigh individual desires.
Some launch movements to claim their rights,
While others start movements to flaunt the rights they’ve acquired.
No one knows what they truly want;
We’re all still lost.
I don’t know how Earth looks from afar—
Perhaps like a blueberry-flavored lollipop,
A lollipop with a stick,
But Earth’s stick is an invisible one made of sorrow.
I find something common among all the passengers on this ship,
All the inhabitants of this blueberry lollipop: sorrow.
A fetus in its mother’s womb is also like a lollipop,
But connected by an umbilical cord.
As a fetus,
Growing in the mother’s womb,
Suffering, malnutrition, and physical ailments can be painful for us.
If the mother’s state is stable,
We may enjoy brief periods of security and calm, but after that,
We must endure the pain of separation,
Learn how to breathe,
And besides the sorrow of leaving security behind,
We face new emotions like fear and anger.
Later in life,
We each take our own path.
No matter how much they try to show humans as social creatures,
It’s always the individual who walks their own way, who has the freedom to choose,
Even if one finds the meaning of their path in joining a group or a collective, it’s their individual choice that put them on that path.
Today, people have countless options to join others who are like them,
And these options themselves bring confusion,
And when you join a group out of confusion,
You treat the other groups with hostility.
Science, philosophy, religion, politics…each of them has thousands of branches, and each branch
Wants to disprove the other, cleanse itself of its shameful past.
Freedom of speech has become an excuse for verbal assaults and psychological wounds,
Non-violence has become a breeding ground for new and emerging dictators,
For heartless sects and brutal factions.
Knowledge and science alone cannot save us,
Just as religion couldn’t.
I don’t want to write about chaos,
Life isn’t that disorganized,
In some corner of the world,
A lover is staring up at his beloved’s window,
A child is laughing joyfully.
But writing about sorrow,
Speaking of chaos and
Asking questions can reveal where we stand.
Now, we know so much about space,
And about the Sun, too.
The James Webb telescope has mapped out the cosmos for us, and countless projects are underway for the future, crafted with flawless precision and extraordinary coherence, but the rift between humans remains deep.
”
”