📅 Thought for today:
‘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.’
— Carl Sagan
#thoughtfortoday #selfimportance #leadership #politicians #space #universe #palebluedot
I first encountered Carl Sagan as the host of the TV series “Cosmos”. The original one, with a fabulous soundtrack.
Then I read “Contact” which was made into a film.
Both seem dated now, (Contact had fax as a means of alien communication), yet Carl Sagan remains a titan of expansive thinking.
I encountered two people yesterday who demonstrated self-importance (dare I say, believe their opinions to be mandatory reading), and this quote came to mind.
There was a time when I would have felt the need to challenge them head-on. Now I will simply assert my preference (not to be lectured in a strident voice) and let them do their thing.
This self-importance, especially in business leaders, will in time fade away as a new generation of more self-aware leaders emerges.
The last bastion will be politicians I think, who forget that they serve, and believe that they lead (and we should follow). There are not many politicians who have managed to do that well. I don’t see many today.
Then there is the self-importance of humankind, as referenced by Sagan. In Universal terms we are but momentary flashes of light – seen and forgotten by the Universe at large, unable to make any meaningful impact off our planet, let alone outside our solar system, unable to conceptualise the vastness of space.
