Voyager

*slaps roof of blog* This bad boy can fit so many spurring thoughts in it.

Welcome, welcome.

     Over the past couple years I've had a note in my phone titled Thoughts, where I usually jot down some kind of personal narrative, scheme-less poem, or snippet of a short story I had a flash of an idea for. Some of them aren't half bad, and I might post a couple of them here later, and some will never see the light of day because zoinks they're not great, but a common theme among all of them is that they don't seem like something I wrote because I wanted to go back and read it sometime. To me at least, they feel structured more in the sense of a story you'd tell a friend, or a writing assignment you'd turn in, knowing a teacher's gonna read it. A lot of them are catered to someone. Not just anyone, but also nobody in particular. So I guess this is my way of putting that type of writing "out there", to give it the chance to be read by someone other than the one who wrote it down in the first place.

     I've also wanted to do this for a while because it just seems like a good use of time. In the midst of a gap year (and figuring out what to do afterwards), working two part-time jobs, and whatever else comes up in-between, being productive with my days is not only a big part of developing a healthy lifestyle for when I go back to school, but also just to keep my sanity when I'm faced with nothing else to do. I think this is a good way to do that. I have no segue into the next sentence, but we're shifting from my day-to-day to space, so buckle up.

     The Voyager Spacecraft (1 AND 2, mind you), launched in 1977, are still drifting through interstellar space to this day, and still transmitting scientific data through the Deep Space Network. Each carry a golden phonographic record containing images and sounds of Earth: human greetings in different languages, sounds of nature, a top-notch musical selection (thanks, Carl Sagan), and an AWESOME photo gallery you should check out here: https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/golden-record/whats-on-the-record/images/. All this information serves as a kind of time-capsule, showcasing what our planet was like for any intelligent space-faring life who came across it. Over 40 years have passed, and though nothing from beyond the stars seems to have taken notice, the fact that our history as a species is floating out there on a golden disc is pretty sweet, and I guess that's kind of what I want this to be for me. Whether or not any of this writing receives praise or criticism or anything isn't all that important, I just want to put it out there. This internet is a virtual universe, ever-expanding, ever-changing, the main difference being we create what's in it. Some industrial titans have built entire planets and moons in here, some are happy with their few shining stars. If nothing else, a long time from now I can dig up this probably-terribly-outdated blog, and read my old thoughts and stories and comparisons, and know this is my golden record, drifting through cyberspace.

     So if you're reading this, thanks, it's what this is for. I want this to be something I'm responsible for, and the word "cultivate" keeps popping into my head. I don't know how often I'll add to this, but I'll probably do some kind of Snapchat story or something to let folks know. I'm gonna go to bed now.

Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Something Something Heavenly Bodies