This is moving as it addresses one of the more important questions of the age. It’s by Nadia Drake on the National Geographic blog No Place Like Home. It starts out,
Paris was horrific.
And later…
I stewed and stewed, and stewed some more, and emerged briefly and wrote to Kareem Shaheen, a friend who’s based in Beirut and covers the Middle East for the Guardian.
“I wish there were something I could do to help, or something that would at least make a difference. Want to swap jobs for a bit?” I suggested, half joking.
His response was, in a nutshell, that science has the power to redeem and inspire, and that casting our eyes to the stars can unite every human on Earth. Then he echoed a sentiment I’d heard a day earlier: Keep writing about science. It’s important, and it’s inspiring.
“There’s a unifying beauty to it–you can appreciate the stars and planets whether you’re Sunni, Shia, Hindu, Christian, Jew, atheist or Wiccan,” Kareem said. “Finding new things to discover, wondering at what could be up there, us being the universe contemplating itself, setting our sights at conquering a new frontier, that’s what we should be doing.”
If you’ve wondered how to focus everyone on any particular human disaster, then read it. It reminds us that the disaster of the moment, as horrible as it may be, will pass, but our communal building of the knowledge base, well, that brings us together, it unites our spirits, and moves us forward to a better future.
And may explain why ISIS engages in destruction.
(h/t The Planetary Report, print edition)
