Hello Everyone,
This article was extracted out from a 2005 Calendar that I had
received as a gift.
Two Japanese men were exchanging their views pertaining to Life
on Earth.
Joe (Zulkifli Mahmood)
THE WAY WE AS ADULTS LIVE SENDS AN IMPORTANT
MESSAGE TO CHILDREN
A: I heard that, when you saw the Earth from outer space for the
first time in your first mission, you felt that the Earth was a
solitary beacon of life in an ocean of complete darkness.
B: When you look at the Earth while orbiting at an altitude of
300 kilometres (186 miles), making one round in 90 minutes, you
know that there are pandas, whales, and your friends down there.
You know it but you can’t see it. On the other hand, if you step
out of the spacecraft, it’s a world of death. You keenly realize
that science and technology are keeping you alive up there. You
asked yourself if people’s belief that the atmosphere protects the
Earth is true. There happens to be air, vegetation, and ocean now,
and you happen to be here. And you rarely become conscious of death
as long as you are there. But there is no assurance. Maybe there is
assurance until tomorrow or 100 years from now. When I was in outer
space, I felt that everything is uncertain. In that sense, the
existence of animals and plants is something you have to
appreciate.
A: I found lion tracks on the African savanna where you can look
out over horizons 360 degrees around you. When I saw those tracks,
I started shaking so badly I had to hold my knees. It was not fear
of lions. It was rather from my inner self, feeling the uncertainty
of my own existence just like you said. Most people who live on the
Earth now barely have a chance to experience fear that makes them
hold their knees. If they all felt it, the world would never have
wars.
B: There is an incomparably greater existence, so you feel the
pettiness of your own existence.
A: Yes, I was convinced there must be something. That’s why I
included “Natural Order” in the title of the book of the
photographs I shot in the African savanna.
B: Now we often hear people say humans are violating and
destroying the environment and that the Earth will be ruined by
humans. But when I went around the Earth on the Space Shuttle, the
existence of humans is totally invisible. Of course, large cities
like Tokyo and New York look gray. But when you compare them to the
whole, the gray areas are still much smaller. Rather, the sense of
existence of forests and deserts is much greater. However, when I
saw scratches in the Amazon’s jungles that were otherwise all
covered in green, I realized that they were traces of
slash-and-burn farming. I actually went to the Amazon after I
returned to the Earth. Farmers slash and burn the jungles to a
width of about 300 metres (980 feet), and there are enormous oil
pipelines cutting across the jungles. So I experienced two points
of view. The destruction is still small when you look at it from
outer space, but it is immense when you look at it on the
ground.
A: It is difficult to look at things from such different points
of view.
B: It’s not logic. What we need is experience to realize the
fragility of our existence – something that makes you tremble, like
you said.
A: For example, you go out of town with your family, and your
kids find a bug and get interested in it. If you tell them not to
touch the bug and drag them away from the bug, your kid’s
sensitivity will be ruined. I think that sort of thing happens a
lot now.
B: To show children how we adults live – that’s an important
message to children.
A: When my daughter was still a little kid, I took her on
extended shooting sessions in Africa and Australia. She said she
felt that a place where she could see the faces of her family was
home to her no matter where she was, regardless of what culture she
was in and what national borders she was surrounded by.
B: When you stay in outer space on the Space Shuttle, it’s a
totally artificial world. The air you breathe is made of liquid
oxygen. The water you drink is made by mixing hydrogen and oxygen.
Everything is artificial, and nothing is natural. You lead such a
life. Then you return to the ground, and, as soon as the hatch is
open, air flows in gently. And that air is somehow wet. You smell
earth in it. You feel there is life here. You’ve come back to the
Earth. It’s your home. You feel relieved.
A: Wherever you open the hatch after landing, that’s your
home.
B: Then you are handed a glass of water, and that’s so
delicious. It’s completely different from the artificial water you
were drinking in outer space. As soon as you taste it, you feel the
Earth is our common home in the end. I think that only on Earth can
one feel at ease and at home.
A: That’s indeed true. We owe our existence to this wonderful
planet.
Tokyo, June 26, 2004.
