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In the wake of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., an artist/comedian named Joe Veix made a brilliant fake mock-up of what the New York Times’ banner page would look like the following day. The fake headline says, “Everything’s ... Awful,” (expletive deleted) and it calls out the endlessly scatological nature of the opinion pages. It captured the bleakness of the moment. The world-on-fire sentiment is one that I often feel, particularly when calamities, man-made or otherwise, strike.
So the Thanksgiving holiday was a welcome break from the world. It was a time to retreat from the world.
Starting with the peaceful drive from Providence, R.I., to New York, we insulated ourselves briefly from the 24-hour news cycle, the bad news, the critics and thought pieces, and the criticisms of the thought pieces. We managed to tune out our phones, those instruments of endless mind-numbing connectivity, and enjoy each other’s company. We listened to music, told stories, spent time together in the kitchen making old family favorites. We talked about our anxieties and aspirations. We shared stories of our childhood and sibling rivalry, and the curious relationship of parents and children. We had dinner with friends of a friend, strangers who welcomed us into their home. We made new friends, got well fed, and drank plenty of hot apple cider and whiskey. We basked in love and affection, and went to bed that night content as pigs in a very warm blanket.
The holiday was enough, for the briefest of moments, to be at peace with the mess of the human condition.
This left me thinking of the ultimate big-level picture of the condition we are in. In 1990, the spacecraft Voyager 1 left our atmosphere, and when it was about 4 billion miles away, it took a snapshot of Earth, seen here.
It is this image that inspired Carl Sagan to write the following passage. Every reading of it leaves me with different measures but always the same combination of conflicting emotions: of sadness, and insignificance, of awe, and gratitude, and hope.
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on the mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Dr. Chan practices rheumatology in Pawtucket, R.I.
In the wake of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., an artist/comedian named Joe Veix made a brilliant fake mock-up of what the New York Times’ banner page would look like the following day. The fake headline says, “Everything’s ... Awful,” (expletive deleted) and it calls out the endlessly scatological nature of the opinion pages. It captured the bleakness of the moment. The world-on-fire sentiment is one that I often feel, particularly when calamities, man-made or otherwise, strike.
So the Thanksgiving holiday was a welcome break from the world. It was a time to retreat from the world.
Starting with the peaceful drive from Providence, R.I., to New York, we insulated ourselves briefly from the 24-hour news cycle, the bad news, the critics and thought pieces, and the criticisms of the thought pieces. We managed to tune out our phones, those instruments of endless mind-numbing connectivity, and enjoy each other’s company. We listened to music, told stories, spent time together in the kitchen making old family favorites. We talked about our anxieties and aspirations. We shared stories of our childhood and sibling rivalry, and the curious relationship of parents and children. We had dinner with friends of a friend, strangers who welcomed us into their home. We made new friends, got well fed, and drank plenty of hot apple cider and whiskey. We basked in love and affection, and went to bed that night content as pigs in a very warm blanket.
The holiday was enough, for the briefest of moments, to be at peace with the mess of the human condition.
This left me thinking of the ultimate big-level picture of the condition we are in. In 1990, the spacecraft Voyager 1 left our atmosphere, and when it was about 4 billion miles away, it took a snapshot of Earth, seen here.
It is this image that inspired Carl Sagan to write the following passage. Every reading of it leaves me with different measures but always the same combination of conflicting emotions: of sadness, and insignificance, of awe, and gratitude, and hope.
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on the mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Dr. Chan practices rheumatology in Pawtucket, R.I.
In the wake of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., an artist/comedian named Joe Veix made a brilliant fake mock-up of what the New York Times’ banner page would look like the following day. The fake headline says, “Everything’s ... Awful,” (expletive deleted) and it calls out the endlessly scatological nature of the opinion pages. It captured the bleakness of the moment. The world-on-fire sentiment is one that I often feel, particularly when calamities, man-made or otherwise, strike.
So the Thanksgiving holiday was a welcome break from the world. It was a time to retreat from the world.
Starting with the peaceful drive from Providence, R.I., to New York, we insulated ourselves briefly from the 24-hour news cycle, the bad news, the critics and thought pieces, and the criticisms of the thought pieces. We managed to tune out our phones, those instruments of endless mind-numbing connectivity, and enjoy each other’s company. We listened to music, told stories, spent time together in the kitchen making old family favorites. We talked about our anxieties and aspirations. We shared stories of our childhood and sibling rivalry, and the curious relationship of parents and children. We had dinner with friends of a friend, strangers who welcomed us into their home. We made new friends, got well fed, and drank plenty of hot apple cider and whiskey. We basked in love and affection, and went to bed that night content as pigs in a very warm blanket.
The holiday was enough, for the briefest of moments, to be at peace with the mess of the human condition.
This left me thinking of the ultimate big-level picture of the condition we are in. In 1990, the spacecraft Voyager 1 left our atmosphere, and when it was about 4 billion miles away, it took a snapshot of Earth, seen here.
It is this image that inspired Carl Sagan to write the following passage. Every reading of it leaves me with different measures but always the same combination of conflicting emotions: of sadness, and insignificance, of awe, and gratitude, and hope.
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on the mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Dr. Chan practices rheumatology in Pawtucket, R.I.
