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On December 21st, 1968, when Apollo 8 blasted away from Earth to fly a lap around the moon, we thought the point was to learn about the moon. However, when the astronauts got to space, they looked back at Earth and had the profoundest moment of, āOhhhhh, I didnāt understandā¦ā Itās been fifty-five years since the āEarthriseā image was taken on that Apollo 8 mission, capturing the mother of all travelerās insights for all the world to see. Many great thinkers thought this image would change the world ā bring about world peace, solve our ecological crises, that we might finally see that, on this little blue-green ball covered in life floating among endless space, we are in this together. Yet, over half a century later, our cultural paradigm hasnāt much shifted. What gives? As I once wrote in the boldly titled post, The Size of the Universe, Einstein, and Cosmic Religion: āWe have discovered a new, indescribably big thing about the reality in which we exist. However, this discovery has yet to be integrated into our everyday experience, into our culture, into our foundational beliefsā¦ We still go to work, eat at restaurants, and walk down the street without awareness that all our experiences are playing out āon a spec of dust suspended in a sunbeam.ā It takes the work of creatives (artists, authors, musicians, filmmakers etc.) to reach people in positions of power (politicians, news anchors, influencers, religious and organizational leaders etc.) to expand our cultural view. We can all stand enrapt and grasp the truth of our whereabouts on a cosmic scale for a moment, but we inevitably return to the culturally conditioned lens. Grasping at the size of the universe once is not enough to impress cultural change upon billions of us for good.
I honestly forgot about this passage until I reread it tonight while prepping for this letter, but it seems my unconscious didnāt. Because in a random, stoned, flash of inspiration some months ago, in less than an hour, I designed a bumper sticker:
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