The moonlight is elegant -- it sure is. It shines on humanity without scorching it. It carries warmth without the harsh heat of the sun. Nonetheless, it shines, despite of its inability to light our lives up. It does not take credit of that.
It is as if the future is communicating with us, when I look at the sky it is. I wonder how many emotional and inspirational quotes are derived from this glowing rock, reflecting the sun's radiation on earth, yet almost in an ephemeral, insignificant manner. A wisp of the electromagnetic power, transported nonetheless, unfailingly, no matter how negligible. It perhaps reminds us, how we are but a measly group of creatures, inhabiting this small rock in the solar system, orbiting along the Milky Way, somewhere in space, sometime in time, or perhaps, somewhere in the Multiverse. We are but a "pale blue dot".
But some are not content alas. Moonlight is not enough. Being insignificant isn't the answer. Through calculations and papers, we have arisen from an uncivilized culture to a civilized brawl. Brawlers berserk under the moonlight, transforming into menacing werewolves, about to devour the very heart of humanity, the earth, the measly, almost impalpably tiny pale blue dot. They want not the immaterial moonlight. They want the moon. The moon itself.
Thus, no more union.
The first spacecraft to reach the moon arrived at the moon in 1959, the Luna 2. The first man to land on the moon, of course, is Neil Armstrong, in 1969. We, people from the earth, are trying to own the moon. We want the competition. We like competitions. Science is a competition. We engineer to lead our country to compete against the onslaught of other countries, carrying the same psychology. The leading institute in research, but of course. For a number, we have fought. For a number, we have self-denied. For a number, we have strangled. For a number, we have murdered.
And you wonder, sitting here reading this, what a number can do to us. Certainly, competitions are the derivative of numbers. (Mathematics is often confused with numbers. I assure you they are not equal.) We want the rock above the pale blue dot. Most of all, we want to be above the pale blue dot. It is not enough for us to advance. We need others to fail at advancing.
And you wonder, sitting here reading this, what happened to the man who wanted the moon. Well, all I could say is that he found himself a way to ascend, a way to pull himself to the surface of the moon. He rises, and rises... until the earth became a pale clue sector, then a pale blue sphere... A rock in front of him. That's all he gets. Nothing else.
You want a rock? (Do you mean what you say?)
The moon, thus, is not about union anymore. Nor is it about time, about curiosity, about love. It is about a number. 7180114562 deaths, as well.
