We are accustomed to seeing our lives and the power of dictators and the influence of tiktok content creators etc as these enormous, reality-defining things. And then we look up at the sky — with extreme rarity thanks to light pollution — and often perceive little more than a tableau as if looking at an aesthetically pleasing poster in a waiting room.
Pale blue dot flips that on its head as it should, clarifying that everything we normally view as so important does not have to be confused with the fundamental nature of reality. If there is something wrong with our environment, the fact that it is small in a grander scheme means that we have a better chance of changing it than we might have otherwise supposed.
Tolkien offers a similar quote I'd like to offer to compare and contrast with Sagan:
```
Frodo sighed and was asleep almost before the words were spoken. Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo’s hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.
```
That's just rephrasing it. "Putting things into perspective" means noticing that those things are bigger. But a giant is not necessarily more important than a dwarf, a cow is not more important than a human, and the rest of the universe, if it turns out to be composed entirely of rocks and gas and dust and devoid of meaning, is not more important than Earth. But people really love the pale blue dot meme, and showing off their humility. Look how aware we are ... aware of relative sizes.
In Tolkien's world the star probably really does have some magical protective or reassuring force via the powers of elves. In reality, if we get reassurance from the bigness and distance of a star, we're just staring at a nuclear furnace and imagining some such magical influence emanating from it, or some nurturing, godly importance. No. Balls. It's gas. People are what matter, in all their annoying pettiness. There is no escape from this.
History, mind you ... one could contemplate the vastness of human history and derive from that a sense of reassuring triviality about the present. "This too will pass," sort of thing. That would make sense. Getting reassurance from the size of space really doesn't. It's big, and it's dumb. It's where everything meaningful is, so far as we know, not happening. Nothing reassuring in that.
We are accustomed to seeing our lives and the power of dictators and the influence of tiktok content creators etc as these enormous, reality-defining things. And then we look up at the sky — with extreme rarity thanks to light pollution — and often perceive little more than a tableau as if looking at an aesthetically pleasing poster in a waiting room.
Pale blue dot flips that on its head as it should, clarifying that everything we normally view as so important does not have to be confused with the fundamental nature of reality. If there is something wrong with our environment, the fact that it is small in a grander scheme means that we have a better chance of changing it than we might have otherwise supposed.
Tolkien offers a similar quote I'd like to offer to compare and contrast with Sagan:
``` Frodo sighed and was asleep almost before the words were spoken. Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo’s hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep. ```