Today, I got to about the 90% solution in filling out what amounts to a six to eight page summary of the last twenty years of my professional life. I'm not going through any particular transition point professionally, but an opportunity to throw my name in the hat for something that is both a vanishingly small long shot as well as something that I've known for a very long time as something I've wanted to compete to be a part of manifested itself. The last real resume I ever wrote was way back in 1992, so the last several weeks of pulling this information together to describe in a relatively concise and pointed manner has been a really beneficial exercise on a number of levels.
First, I was able to take a look back on the things I've been blessed to have done. Beyond the nostalgia, it was a time of considering lessons learned and thinking about paths not taken. Overall, I'd like to think that I've mostly spent my time well. Not every moment was covered in success or glory, and quite a lot of it was pretty grinding. I have no real regrets because for the last twenty years, I've been able to pursue things that were engaging, challenging, and more often than not pretty fun.
Second, that path has left me with some unique skill sets, from my perspective anyway, that would be beneficial in the pursuit of the opportunity that came like a bolt from the blue through my Facebook feed. With little deliberate planning or action on my part, I think the experiences that I've been given have put me in a good spot to compete and compete well. Again, the odds of a completely successful outcome in this particular direction are vanishingly small, and truth be told, I'm at the upper end of the age demographic to even really consider it. Be that is it may, I'm looking back and finding that I think I have something to offer along these lines. I also believe that this particular endeavor is one of those things that just simply must be done and done as quickly as we as a culture can manage the political will to accomplish them.
Carl Sagan wrote eloquently in his book
A Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space of the reasons I believe this opportunity is so very important. In part and in summary he says:
"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 a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
- Carl Sagan, 1994
He's describing what a picture of earth taken by the Voyager 1 Spacecraft after it had cleared Saturn and the probe's primary mission had been declared a success. Voyager 1 continues to operate, and over 38 years after its launch is the only longest reaching man-made object the only one that has left the solar system.
Meanwhile, back here on that Pale Blue Dot, I went to an overlook that I've driven past countless times, but I've never actually stopped and reflected on the view. Today became the day that I ended that ignominious streak, and I gazed out across the Severn River as snow sizzled into the chilly water.
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| Snowy View over the Severn |
It is a beautiful view, and I should probably make it a practice to meander on by every now and then. I can certainly do better than the 23 years that it took me to get here after arriving in this area for the first time.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow and whatever it may present.
