TootootootooOO! League of Extraordinary Bloggers! Assemble!
This week, Brian at Cool and Collected posed the following assignment:
If money was not a concern and you could choose any career path, what would be your ultimate dream job?
I've actually worked in my dream job (videogame development, as it happens) and although it was fun, it was way more job than dream - unless your dreams involve cramming six days of work into an afternoon, working to impossible deadlines, fighting to balance your concept with the needs of your publisher and having a two year project ripped to shreds by a magazine's junior writer trying to make a name for himself as a ''serious'' reviewer by offering your hard work as a sacrifice on the alter of being cool. So having lived a livable dream (and it not being all you'd expect it to be) I'm instead going to go with an off-the-wall fantasy dream job.
Like most kids who grew up in the 70s and 80s, a lot of my world view was shaped by the idea of space exploration, alien adventures and non-terrestrial planets. A steady diet of Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Cyborg, Android and Muton toys, Star Trek, 2000 AD, Micronauts, Doctor Who and Space 1999 will tend to do that. So naturally whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd always say ''an astronaut.''
Of course, when you get older you realize it's less about flying awesome shooty pew-pew spaceships and kissing blue-haired space ladies and more about mathematics, physics and sitting in spinny boxes until you pass out, so the appeal kind of fades. But of late I've found myself wondering again about the infinite vastness of space and just how cool it really would be to go exploring there.
Yes, I know we're probably alone in our little piece of the cosmos. The enormity of time and the vastness of space tend to make it pretty much impossible that two intelligent species could actually come into contact with each other but I also know I'm not the only one who looks up at the night sky and wonders if there's an equally handsome, sexy and smart alien across the void looking up and wondering about me and my species.
It's one of the few facts of life that truly saddens me that I'll never live to see humanity put aside our differences and channel all our creative energies into exploring space together. Because we really need to. Not only for the sake of future generations, who - let's face it - will soon find this planet worn-out and useless but more so because, quite simply, space if frigging awesome and I want to go to there.
Who's with me?
Like most kids who grew up in the 70s and 80s, a lot of my world view was shaped by the idea of space exploration, alien adventures and non-terrestrial planets. A steady diet of Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Cyborg, Android and Muton toys, Star Trek, 2000 AD, Micronauts, Doctor Who and Space 1999 will tend to do that. So naturally whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd always say ''an astronaut.''
Of course, when you get older you realize it's less about flying awesome shooty pew-pew spaceships and kissing blue-haired space ladies and more about mathematics, physics and sitting in spinny boxes until you pass out, so the appeal kind of fades. But of late I've found myself wondering again about the infinite vastness of space and just how cool it really would be to go exploring there.
Yes, I know we're probably alone in our little piece of the cosmos. The enormity of time and the vastness of space tend to make it pretty much impossible that two intelligent species could actually come into contact with each other but I also know I'm not the only one who looks up at the night sky and wonders if there's an equally handsome, sexy and smart alien across the void looking up and wondering about me and my species.
It's one of the few facts of life that truly saddens me that I'll never live to see humanity put aside our differences and channel all our creative energies into exploring space together. Because we really need to. Not only for the sake of future generations, who - let's face it - will soon find this planet worn-out and useless but more so because, quite simply, space if frigging awesome and I want to go to there.
Who's with me?
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Meanwhile...
See the rest of the entries - and the assignment itself - at Cool and Collected.
very cool post. I am something of a space nerd myself so this was def cool. Myself and a friend of mine take a yearly journey to a dark skies park to gaze into the cosmos. I'm thinking of doing a post on it! thanks for the inspiration!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I wish I'd had more time/energy to put into making it actually say something, although when you deal with how staggeringly awesome space is, it's difficult to say anything but ''space is awesome.''
DeleteAnd yeah, it's great when you can get somewhere like that. Even where we live, we get some pretty decent views of the sky but it's amazing when you can get somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah this place is called Cherry Springs state park. It's incredibly remote and incredibly dark. The last two times we went we saw the international space station cruise past. You can see satellites and meteors like crazy. The view of the Milky Way up there is mind blowing!
ReplyDeleteNice. I've never been to a place so clear as that but I'd love to one day do something like that.
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