When the universe still has room to fascinate us

The moon

In the era of the Internet, of blogs and Instagram, of Youtube, every remote location seems to be accessible, and the beauty of its exploration kind of slips from our hands in this self imposed need to get more and more.

There are very few places that we visit without knowing what to expect. In fact, some people are so exhaustive in their obsession that they would be able to tell whether some feature of a certain landscape has been modified on the first time they visited just by the amount of pictures, videos and other media they would have consumed on it while preparing their trip. It’s understandable. Time is limited and we are taught to try and see it all, do it all, live at maximum speed and tick all the boxes.

But it’s also exhausting and leave us easily dissatisfy when things are unlike most (fake) media show us or when we move on to the next sight right after we reach the previous.

That’s why I felt so emotionally seduced by the reaction of the people featured in this video, where Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh hit the streets of Los Angeles with a huge telescope in order to show the moon. It’s a very simple thing, just at a different scale than we can appreciate with our eyes. But I think the main reason while there is such an awe on the faces of the people passing by is because we have come to a point where we don’t even look at the moon anymore. At all. Let alone with a telescope. The moon, like the rest of nature and our planet Earth, is something we take for granted. Stupidly so.

The universe is magnificent, and no matter how much we think we know, there is room to learn, to have new experiences and to have them help us grow as humans. And, to be honest, we don’t even need to go as far as the moon, I’m sure our own neighbourhood could do wonders for us if we just decide to give it a go and presently experience it.

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