Astounding. The museum never ceases to amaze. They've added over 300 new holos to the Gallery of Extinction! It is always such a bittersweet experience. I wonder if the people of that time might have made a greater effort if they had thought to themselves, What if I never get to see this animal alive, ever again? What might they have done if they allowed themselves to feel the loss? I guess we'll never know. The museum has done an incredible job of reproducing the complex habitats, though. You can literally watch the intricate systems unfold right before your eyes. It is hard for me to understand how the people of that time actually saw the world - as just dead matter, isolated entities, disconnected. It seems so obvious to us today - the interconnectedness of it all. Perhaps in the year 2100 people will be viewing holos of our time and shaking their heads in wonder.
The new exhibit - Religios - stirred me even more. Dozens of people from the time talking about their philosophies of God. I think what really struck me was how lonely and scared they all seemed. I guess it is no wonder that they fought so hard for their beliefs. To believe that you are just floating through space on a ball of rock, in a meaningless universe... God would be the only thing holding you to sanity. But who knows... maybe in 50 years our belief in an interconnected universe may seem equally absurd, though that is certainly hard to picture!
As a souvenir, we got to choose a small download to take home. We chose the Hopes vid. I never tire of the faces, the expressions of hope, the desires for a better tomorrow. It always makes me realize that there were people of that time who cared; who worked hard to salvage the planet for my generation. If it weren't for them, things could have been much worse. But they paved the way for a new paradigm. They loved their planet and their species so much, and saw such potential... it must have been utterly painful to watch it all dwindle away. They must have felt that no one was listening. But we are. We're listening. And we are grateful.
