Steren – Entry 14
Dear…...who?
(Who am I writing this for? You or me?)
Follow the stars. Reach the stars. Create a new world in the stars. This has been my mission and the mission of the planet for years. Before I joined the Celestial Discovery Agency, I was one of the faceless crowds eager to help our fellow humans to find and populate a new home. Never before had there been a global movement that united us all. Under the banner of our world-wide moto of Further, Faster, Stronger, we were all encouraged to look to the skies for our salvation.
(Some salvation that has turned out to be for the many who fell before me.)
It all began with that moto. In a bid to unite us together in the search for a better life, we were zealously encouraged to keep pushing ourselves, to keep achieving, but this only caused us to compete, to see who could be the best and who could ascend to greatness. Rather than uniting us, this global dream saw people drive themselves further apart, become distrustful of each other and desperate to win at all costs.
And then we headed for the stars in a foolhardy campaign to find a new home, somewhere we could start afresh. But this intergalactic Brave New World that we all hoped and dreamed for was a false idol. Travelling from one star to the next, we have yet to find anywhere that could possibly be colonised, overtaken by an eager population that has become reliant on technology and the commodities of everyday life to take care of them rather than thinking for themselves. On this colonising expedition alone, we have lost many. Of course, their families will be told that they ‘died serving the world and their memories will live on in all of us as we continue to discover’. But these victims have already been forgotten, collateral damage in the world-wide mission to keep striving Further, Faster, Stronger.
Will my family soon receive the same templated remorse letter extolling sadness at my death? I can’t see how much longer I will be able to survive this mission. Will I be mourned? Or will my death be seen as another missed opportunity to fulfil greatness, another person to fall short of the aspirations espoused so passionately on launch day?
As I sit here, consumed by the unending black void that surrounds me, I believe that I finally understand. Rather than searching the skies and focusing our efforts on a new home, we should have been looking inward, at the one we were neglecting. While we were investing in the latest technologies, pouring all our ideas, money and resources into tools to propel us into deep space, the world around us was wilting and in need of sustenance. But we were blinded to its cries by our own selfish folly. Our warped desire to succeed had already seen us wave a neglectful farewell to the earth that warmed us, the food the sustained us and the animals that we shared our dying home with.
What would have happened if we could have instilled that powerful human drive to survive into the very bedrock that needed it most? If we’d have halted the individualism that drove us apart and sent us skyward?
I wouldn’t be here, searching the void for nothing but a glowing mirage.
(Our global mission has failed.)
by Cherie Woodhouse