to destroy a planet.
very conveniently, innocuously, discreetly seated in some squat white washed building with glass doors and the AC humming as it spews out CFCs, someone quietly destroyed a planet.
Lo! And Behold! Pluto is no more ....
My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Planets!
That is how we remembered the planets and the order of their occurrence back in school.
Now, our kids will have to conjure up the image of a mother with some debilitating illness perhaps, that has claimed one of her fingers, very enthusiastically bringing up both her hands to give a high nine! sigh ..
So for all those who think star wars is hog wash, as a race, we have destroyed one planet and are well on the way to quite literally destroying the one we happen to be sitting on as well.
3rd grade astronomy classes aside, this also shows how short sighted we can be with respect to what we perceive reality to really be. I often hear people say that there is something wrong with Hindu astrology because 2 of the planets there in, do not correspond to any of the nine planets in our solar system. I am not taking a stance on astrology here but isn't it obvious now how we can have 2 planets in an ancient system that disappear in the next only to be replaced by some other planet with a name like XC12345%$^&*!
Another important thing to remember at this point, is that all classifications are made just so we can comprehend reality. Our classification of reality is NOT the reality itself. (refer to Quality and I - my second post). Irrespective of whether you call Pluto a planet or a dwarf planet or forget its very existence, nothing short of a genuine Darth Vader can stop the little runt - held together by gravity and goo - from hurtling at thousands of miles per seconds, cutting across the orderly orbits of the other planets like an Indian motorist, from doing just that ... as it always has! So, someone has gone and changed its classification, and someone wants to organize the folks to give it back its planetary status ... hah!!! (arms wide palms extended outwards, eyes staring at the ceiling)
A good time to think of what Don Shimoda had to say about negative attachments too ... when Richard is practicing cloud vaporization, and trying to hit out at the cloud with all his lasers and stuff, Don wonders how the cloud actually vanishes despite all the negative attachment (attachment being the keyword here). Don explains how to make a cloud vanish, you just need to remove it from your thoughts! Well, for the unbelievers, how did it feel one morning to wake up in a solar system that was one planet short ... darn it disappeared while you were ... ahem .. anyways.
Somehow we never ever thought that USSR would ever become just R, and well, the solar system, it was here to stay. It began way before our times, and it would stay long after we were gone ... till Sun became a red giant and gobbled up Mercury and Venus and singed our mother planet before shrinking back and finally going out ... not even massive enough to be a black hole ... and there in some dark corner of a spiral arm of the milkyway galaxy, to revolve forever around a dark center ... constant ... and damn that changes too.
On the bright side, perhaps this will open up the possibility of more things getting included in the solar system ... what was it? The Krupier belt I think ... a few more objects on the periphery of our perception ... and perhaps we will be better equipped or prepared mentally to cope with the even bigger changes that are yet to come ... in things as fundamental as how we govern ourselves ...
So, on an otherwise pleasant September morning, I raise a toast for the dear departed ... Pluto ... that it may be happy wherever it is. And should it be re-incarnated or resurrected, we shall be here to raise another toast to it ... (wonderful isn't it ... this whole raising the toast thing ... I think I'll raise one more to the ingenuity of the folks who created this whole toasting tradition ... hic!)
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