The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative suggests that narrative is the principal way in which our species organises its understanding of time. And even when time is seemingly frozen, we search for the narrative. In the static picture we can see that the red boat sits on a calm sea beneath a brooding sky. But whose boat is it? (I don’t know.) Where is everybody? (I don’t know.) Where is this? (NW Scotland, Cape Wrath.) And so on. This searching for the narrative, for the meaning, is a natural state of our curious minds, of our visceral need to explore our world.

And beyond.

Nasa’s Pale Blue Dot is a static image, containing seemingly nothing at first glance. Yet when we find the dot, this image leads us to questions far beyond those of the red boat. Far, far beyond. Questions that blow our minds.

And yet, we choose to go there. We choose to ask those questions, to strive to divine the unknown.

This is an essence of our spirit, our soul.

Our joy of life.

Our lifwynn.

Photograph of Earth taken Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager 1 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles. Courtesy of NASA/ JPL-Caltech.