Larger Than Life Itself

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Larger Than Life Itself

                I often daydream about being in space.  One of the things that I want more than anything is to be on the moon, jumping up and down six times as high as I could on earth, looking at the earth from where I am standing.  I would run around as fast as I could, jumping up and doing triple flips, and writing my name in footprints to leave my permanent mark on the moon.  I want to go to Mars, a world without an atmosphere, where we could maybe one day live.  I would go to Mars’s tallest volcano, which is three or four times taller than Mount Everest.  And from there, I would look at the earth, and at the moon, at the rest of the planets, and at the sun. 

                I want to go to Venus in some kind of spacesuit in which I could survive the 900°F heat.  I would like to look up and see the thicker-than-hell atmosphere, walking around in the hottest, foggiest place I can imagine.  And for my death, right before I would otherwise die naturally or however, I want to go to Jupiter, and just be sucked in, looking at the earth and the sun in the other direction as the supreme gravitational force rips me apart.  I want to stand on Pluto, looking at the sun, as a very tiny ball billions of miles away, watching my breath fall to the ground as ice as I exhale. 

                I want to look at our galaxy from the outside, seeing the spinning spiral, and somehow be able to move at several light years per second, to go anywhere within the galaxy or outside that I want, in my ever-protective spacesuit, of course.  I would go to one of the various other planets, wherever they may be, that have life like ours.  I’m not talking bacteria.  I’m talking bugs, animals, humans.  Or something crazier.  I know they’re out there.  Anyone who doesn’t believe that is absolutely ridiculous, as far as I’m concerned.  Do you ever think that they may find us first?  Who knows?  You might assume that they are mentally and physically inferior to us, but why?  There must be several planets upon which there are beings far superior to humans, mentally and physically.  Someone is going to reach the others eventually; it is just destined to happen.  It may be a year; it may be centuries; it may be billions more years.  In terms of how old the universe is, that’s seconds in our lifetime. 

                How does this make you feel?  Maybe it takes a little bit of the stress off, because you can see that you’re just a very, very, VERY small part of everything.  Nothing is really a big deal.  It’s not like anything you do could be the end of the universe.