Changing the change

And now?

Every one is back, or about to go back home after the conference. Back to its small place on planet Earth, a small place on this mote of dust which is our planet in relation to the universe, a mote or as american scientist Carl Sagan called it: a Blue Pale Dot…

When the Voyager 1 finished its primary  mission, Sagan convinced NASA to make its spacecraft turn back and photograph planet Earth. That turning back was a tremendous change in the way in which people used to think about the planet… and their place on it. But it is Sagan who can reminds us where is it that we are standing… and prompt us to think -again- about our “mission” after the conference…. without forgetting that we are also small motes of a living net…

Sagan:

¨Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.¨

You can listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

“He who would travel happily must travel light”.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry

COME AS YOU ARE!

So you are going to the CtC conference! Have you already packed?… I wonder what have you packed; I wonder what is it that you need to survive in Italy!?… the designers land… have you got all the accessories, night dresses and ¨crazy¨ outfits that can give account of how creative you are? Have you checked your luggage weight? Do you fill the cheap flight’s Kg. requirements? Have you left space for the goods you may take back home (most of them regarding Italian food?).

Much of the discussions around sustainability deal with the ¨travelling light¨ issue, but…, how many participants are actually packing just what’s necessary to attend a conference…? to share ideas, to reflect, to listen…, to think? How many of us go leaving a light footprint as we move backwards and forwards (from conference to conference) in life…?
Travelling light is an issue that concerns simplicity and it has a sort of ¨karma¨ sense within, meaning conscious or unconsciously every time you travel you carry with you a good deal of thoughts, feelings, unfinished issues, desires, whims, never-ending stories, ghosts and expectations that at times turn into material culture and all those: weight.

Now, the conference is not a gather of pilgrims who in a very ascetic way drift the world trying to get rid of their karma with their inventions and ideas (while fixing the planet), but still, could a spin in the mainstream ways of travelling be given this time? Maybe not out loud, because it is kind of late to organize an European car sharing or a biking crowd which moves towards Turin, but… on a very small, silent, personal scale… would it be something that you can leave behind…?

What if this time you travel just as you are right now, as in those ¨come as you are¨ parties? Would you lack of too much? …Ok maybe you’ll need your laptop and power point presentation… and your rack of USBs, and visit cards… and your camera and your mobile and your I-pod, your mp3 or your minidisk, and…, there we go again. Although, wait, these last accessories the ones regarding music, those yes, are fundamental!
Come as you are, if your life has an excess of luggage… then bring it along –you can’t do otherwise-, but in all cases, bring music, at least in your head, bring joy, smiles, good vibes and then, let us dance as those ancient tribes that gather asking for better times, for peace, for light, for wind and rain to come… and for that, all that we need is you to come: as you are.

Now, go and check your bags.