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[anthonyjoesison]

Makers of Music

“To the makers of music - all worlds, all times.”

-The Voyager Golden Records

This blog post is not a formal or argumentative essay (which I would expect to be the dominant essay type in the upcoming weeks). Rather, this is an exercise in meditation. 

I can’t sleep. Why?

I’ve been working on a short film for the past few days. My OCD and unwillingness to share anything short of perfection (yes, I am unapologetically anal about putting any piece of writing, video, etc. out into the public that isn’t the absolute best I have to give) has turned a project that was intended to be enjoyable and self-reflective into a stress-inducing and time-consuming commitment. 

So I can’t sleep because I have an urge to return to my laptop and continue to narrate, film and edit. But I also can’t sleep because I can’t help but lay awake pondering the self-imposed questions I will have to answer if I want to see this short-film come to life.

I’ve taken to Tumblr because if I told my friends I couldn’t sleep, they’d assume a worst case scenario (which would typically be the aptly titled “Sad Boy Hours”) and if I told my parents I’d reinforce their concerns that I worry too much (which candidly, I do).

I wish not to reveal anything unnecessary of the short film, but I do find it appropriate to share the questions that I lie awake pondering.

If you had to choose the pictures, videos, sounds, poems, books, paintings, music, and knowledge that best represent you, what would you choose?

To some the question requires little to no hesitation. To others it is unanswerable, if among many reasons it is because it leads to many more questions and dilemmas. I am unsurprisingly a member of the latter.

How can you craft a fair representation of your past self…your future self? Do they not share equal fragments in your whole existence? Likewise, would you choose the pieces that exemplify your imperfect self? Or would you wish to only share representations of your ideal self?

The aforementioned question and the many that follow it are at the heart of what I seek to tap into through the course of this short film and is inspired by my favorite story of human finitude: the Voyager Program.

Briefly, the Voyager Program was a project by NASA that launched two space probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, in August and September of 1977. The Voyager’s central mission was the flyby and scientific observations of the outer planets (and their respective moons, rings, etc.) of our Solar System.

The mission was successful in sending back hundreds of important measurements, data points, and photographs (perhaps most famously, is the Pale Blue Dot photograph that captures Earth as indeed a “pale blue dot” amidst the vast emptiness of space). Beyond this already exceptional body of work, NASA had the foresight that upon completion of the central mission, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 would not cease drifting into interstellar space. 

Thus, NASA appointed Dr. Carl Sagan as the chair of a committee that was tasked with creating a time capsule to represent humanity in the event that either Voyagers would be intercepted by intelligent, extraterrestrial life.

The result of Dr. Sagan and Co.’s efforts? The Golden Record. A collection of 115 images, 90 minutes of humanity’s greatest music, a plethora of Earth’s natural sounds, and human greetings in over 55 languages, all pressed onto a 12” gold-plated copper disk (complete with incredibly meticulous and well-thought instructions for playback).

I have gone over how difficult it would be to choose the creative media to represent just ourselves as individuals. Can one bring themself to imagine the unprecedented challenge that Dr. Sagan’s team faced?

Presiding over the entire project must’ve been the reality that it is improbable that such extraterrestrial life exists that hears, sees, and processes information in human-like manner. Further, one would imagine there must have been increasing pressure to include (and exclude) the appropriate facets of the human experience and the pinnacles of human creativity, in an ethical and responsible manner.

However, this wasn’t the case. In an article for the New Yorker in August of 2017, Timothy Ferris, producer of the Golden Record, reflects with fondness. In detailing the experience of selecting humanity’s music, Ferris writes: “We’d comb through all this music individually, then meet and go over our nominees in long discussions stretching into the night. It was exhausting, involving, utterly delightful work.” Sounds a lot like the late night music sessions I’d have with my friends.

It would dishearten me if my description of creating a short film and a Golden Record for my own life (“stress inducing” and “time consuming”) were taken out of context. While Dr. Sagan and Timothy Ferris worked in the face of bureaucratic deadlines and regulation, they did their job with a passion and care that is metaphorically represented in the enduring life of the records. (The records are expected to remain playable for over a billion years).

I work with no boss other than myself. As a good friend once reminded me, “You’re your own worst critic”. My project is stressful and time-consuming because I, like almost every human being before me has and every human being after me will, look towards the night sky with awe, asking in silence more questions about the meaning and purpose of one’s place and existence in the universe as we know it.

I am not exceptional. (One of my favorite college essays I wrote was for the University of Washington, detailing a trip to Yosemite National Park which doubled as the first time I had ever seen the night sky proper). When compared to the infinitude of space, our physical and temporal limitations are baffling. 

While I don’t believe that this project will convince me otherwise, I am not appealing to the anti-humanists in the crowd. The uncompromising reality of a universe indifferent to the wishes of men must not be made analogous to remarks similar to philosopher John Gray’s in his 2003 book Straw Dogs: “If we speak of the history of the human species at all, it is only to signify the unknowable sum of these lives. As with other animals, some lives are happy, others are wretched. None has a meaning beyond itself.” 

This is crucial because the Voyagers and Golden Records (and to a significantly smaller scale my short film and construction of a time capsule of my own) are exemplary of the very best in human nature. Humans at their best are curious, self-reflective, and wish to see new horizons. As Carl Sagan himself noted: “The launching of this bottle (Voyagers 1 and 2) into the cosmic ocean says something very hopeful about life on this planet."

Some may denounce time pondering the Voyager Program in the midst of the challenges we the human species face as wasted time. One may reference not only the global pandemic, but a difficult grappling with issues of race within the United State (where I write this), the blatant neglect for the Earth’s climate and natural resources, and rising xenophobia throughout even the world’s most developed countries.

In response, I feel a need to share that I too am acutely aware of the hardships we face. I recently read Richard Haas’ The World: A Brief Introduction (Think of the book as an Introduction to Foreign Policy/Globalization for Dummies). Each chapter ended with a section titled “Looking Ahead” in which he summarized the future prospects of the region, development, etc. Reading that book left me existential angst, for almost every chapter concluded with dreadful prospects for the future of humanity.

However, let us remember the message attached to Voyager 1 by then United State’s President Jimmy Carter. It reads: “This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.” 

Perhaps, in our most intimate moments when we acquaint ourselves with our uncertainty over the meaning and purpose of our existence, we may remind ourselves that like Voyager, we too are stewards to the future of humanity. And like Voyager, we too are encouraged to observe and remember the awesome music, sounds, peoples, places, and knowledge along the way.

-Joe Sison (July 4th, 2020)

[anthonyjoesison]

Why Am I Starting a Blog?

“The truly educated man is not a man who knows all the details of all subjects (if such a thing were possible): the ‘whole man’, in fact, may have little detailed knowledge of facts and theories, he may treasure the Encyclopedia Britannica because ‘she knows and he needn’t,’ but he will truly be in touch with the centre. He will not be in doubt about his basic convictions, about his view on the meaning and purpose of his life. He may not be able to explain these matters in words, but the conduct of his life will show. a certain sureness of touch which stems from his inner clarity” 

-E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful (1973)

There exists a moment in one’s course of events where one first confronts discomfort regarding their life’s purpose. I would assume that for a majority of readers of this blog (if there are any at this particular moment in time) that this confrontation has already taken place.

Of course, this confrontation exists in an incredibly diverse range of possibilities. Every conceivable aspect of this confrontation is subject to variation. How deep does the discomfort lie? Is the discomfort akin to anxiety or excitement, both? What prior course of events led to this moment?

One may well assume that this blog is a byproduct of my own run-in with discomforts of the purpose of my life. This is not necessarily an incorrect assumption, as much as it is only a piece of the puzzle.

The purpose of this first blog entry is to inform the reader with clarity as to why I am starting this blog in the first place. Consider my attempt to explain the purpose of my blog the puzzle and the former and subsequent paragraphs the pieces which I will put it together.

Let me begin by sharing that I have always been encouraged to write. In Middle School, my mother returned from running errands with a pack of three journals. She encouraged that I try journaling, perhaps sensing I was a particularly confused Middle Schooler (weren’t we all?) and so over the course of Middle and High School I underwent a maturation that is best exemplified by what confusing features of life were confusingly worthwhile. This development can be almost exclusively credited to my practice of journaling at first, until I began to come into my own and saw the world, not just my journal, as a space to discover my own place in the order of things. Friends, family, and the occasional stranger have read excerpts from my journals and have always encouraged me to share my thoughts in public to some extent. At first reluctant, I realize now that I have much to share, the capacity to share, and an inkling of an audience to share to. In other words, this blog is the natural evolution of those many journals. 

In anticipating many of the reactions the last paragraph evoked, I must assert that this blog will not be a series of incoherent rants or summaries of a day’s activities. Thus, it should come as no surprise that this blog is an exercise in writing ability, vocabulary, persuasion, argument, and focus. I wish to strengthen all these skills through this medium.

The next piece of the ‘Why Did Joe start a blog?’ puzzle relates to this post’s opening quotation and my brief excerpt on confronting one’s purpose. For better or for worse, I have been consumed with the desire to educate myself. This is a desire that my parents and former teachers reaffirm to me was evident from a younger age, but unfortunately I never quite understood how to go about satiating this desire.

This was troublesome for two reasons. First, I was frequently made anxious upon remembering that the infinite material there is to learn must be done in my own finite lifetime. Secondly, in never knowing how to satiate my wish to truly educate myself, I limited myself from aspects of a fuller life. By a ‘fuller life’ I wish to mean a life filled with debate, discovery, and sense of self.

This changed at the beginning of my senior year. Unnecessary details aside, I was introduced to philosophy and my principal group of friends mirrored very much a liberal arts study group. Since then, I have fundamentally transformed how I viewed I should go about educating myself, from learning “know how” as Schumacher goes to say to discovering my “basic convictions” and “view on the meaning and purpose of (my) life”.

To explain it another way, I am attempting to turn the discomfort of not yet knowing the purpose of my life into a blog that will aid in the discovery of the aforementioned purpose. This is the biggest piece of the puzzle.

I thus return to the purpose of this blog entry and to a greater extent my blog. I am starting a blog because I need a change of pace from journaling (I have journaled to the greater length of four years),  to challenge myself and strengthen my writing and other skills, and to learn about myself in hopes to learn more about my life’s purpose.

It is my sincerest hopes that you learn, agree, disagree, read, and write along with me.

-Joe Sison (June 15th, 2020)