As a teen, I was fascinated by Sci-Fi novels – I loved reading about the future and humanity – Isaac Asimov, A. E. van Vogt and George Martin were my idols (yes lads, he was writing science fiction before Game of Thrones). After that, I started to watch a lot of movies and documentaries – but few of them were as inspiring, jaw dropping and just overall beautiful as Wanderers. Enjoy it below:
The video is narrated by Carl Sagan, and this is the text, taken from The Pale Blue Dot – a book which if you haven’t already, I really recommend you read:
For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven’t forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood. We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection as an essential element in our survival. Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game—none of them lasts forever. It is beyond our powers to predict the future. Catastrophic events have a way of sneaking up on us, of catching us unaware. Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds.
Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, spoke for wanderers in all epochs and meridians: “I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas…”
Maybe it’s a little early. Maybe the time is not quite yet. But those other worlds— promising untold opportunities—beckon.
Silently, they orbit the Sun, waiting.
How will future space exploration look like? How will humanity look like in the future? I don’t know. I hope it will be as beautiful and inspiring as this video suggests.