210801 Sentinel, Perfection, Book and Target

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Perfection

We use this word far too much because there is no perfection in this world. We can consider some things as being near perfection, but no matter what humans do they cannot reach that lofty goal. There is always something amiss, varying from slightly off to egregiously pathetic. Many great artists in song or on canvas are always thinking ‘this could be better’. Writers are the same, no matter how many times they rewrite a story, they know it could be and should be better. We should all strive to do the best we can do with any given task, but trying to make everything perfect only leads to disappointment because it is not possible.

Book

Years ago Joyce’s mother picked up a book titled “The Sentinel.” It was written by Arthur C. Clark in 1951. I read the book and it was a good story. It was written long before anyone on earth ever set foot on the moon, or even had satellite images of it. The story was about an earthly space traveler who went to the moon. There he found a large, strange, rectangular obelisk. It was a sentinel that watched and recorded whatever passed by the moon. The book was made into a movie titled “2001 Space Odyssey.” The movie used an obelisk as it was in the book. Enough of the back-story, here is where things get interesting and perhaps mysterious and scary. NASA files have shown that there actually is a tall rectangular obelisk on the moon. The Voyager space satellite has taken pictures of obelisks on Mars and Mercury and folks they are not of earthly origin.Astronaut Edgar Mitchel on his lenghty moon walk called NASA on a secure chanel and said, "We are not alone here." Whatever he saw there scared the jeepers out of him.

Target

Something I notice largely in young people and some elderly people too is this: they walk around with their heads down and do not want to make eye contact with anyone. This is such a bad thing to do. I was that way when I was young and got picked on by others. Not looking up and at your surroundings makes you a target for nefarious men and women. Once I pulled my head up and stuck my chin out I looked confident and assured, not aggressive but sure of myself. I think that’s why a skinny young sailor never had trouble when I was on shore patrol. I was often picked to go with the regular duty shore patrol; the guys pick up and deliver unruly sailors to the on shore brig.