Ah, the Sixties. Best. Decade. Ever. Or at least the most exciting. When Neil said "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed," it was 12-yr-old me and my 39-yr-old Mom watching in real time. Mom was amazed. I was like, what's the big deal Mom, it's just engineering. God, I was dumb.
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ReplyDeleteHi Steven,
ReplyDeleteI was a little older then you, yet still a teenager at the time; however old enough to have seriously taken notice of women :-) . Interestingly I watched the whole thing at a cousin’s home, situated in the suburbs of the windy city U.S.A. I remember most around me were talking about what a historical event it was and the advancements in human ingenuity it highlighted.
However, you might be surprised that even at this age I was more impressed in what this had to say about the human spirit. That is the effort some being capable of expending and the risks they willing took to have realized a goal, having nothing directly to do with eating that day or the comfort one might after enjoy.
Unfortunately this was the last time I was left so impressed, as rather than it marking a reawakening of this in the general populous, I found it was mostly restricted to those few in NASA and some others like me. Then again I don’t imagine it would have been different after Columbus made his discovery or any other such event.
This experience left me mindful that in Spock saying “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few: or the one”, not only applies to selfless sacrifice, yet also to the purposefulness of the likes of Neil Armstrong and those he represents. It was with this it hit me that the wonderful world people would to like to have realized, will only come to be had, when not just the few, yet most see things the same.
”The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Best,
Phil