Planetary Science

So I'm back from three+ weeks in atlanta and charlotte, and apparently having been away from the house for that long, my body has forgotten my bed. Haven't slept well since friday... so, lying in bed last night, I was thinking, human life ... specifically the social interaction of human life, mimics planetary science. I have never been in a debate club and don't understand the details involved in creating a good argument. To me it sounds like they are making a statement, and then voicing opinions on what that statement is feasible.  So, that's what I will be doing here.

In a solar system, you have planets, moons, stars and asteroids or some other foreign body. Obviously, the most important of all those solar bodies is the star. Without light and heat, nothing survives. Then would be the planets, because they are the only thing, as far as we know, that can support life. Then moons, and then asteroids.

In this analogy, the star, I believe, would be represented by Love/compassion/respect/caring, etc. the desire to get along, to be social creatures and to coexist. For survival, that is a basic need - the odds for survival are better as a group than as an individual. The planets represent the more prestigious humans. People with more status with more money, better looks, more intelligence, what have you... then there are moons, maybe not *quite* as prestigious as the planets, but still important. They help regulate a planet's orbit, helping to keep them on a single axis, stabilizing their spin and regulating their seasons. These moons represent the person's mate. The love of their life. Or their best friend. Generally the most important person in the "planet's" life. Together they compliment each other. While both could survive and possibly even thrive without the other, they'd never be quite as good apart as they are together. The asteroids are at once the bane and the blessing of the solar system. They basically serve no purpose other than to bash in to other solar bodies. They have no responsibility, and live to have fun and fly about. But they are a necessity - they deposit much needed minerals in to the planets and moons when they crash in to them. Sometimes a gentle nudge from an asteroid is all that a body needs to move it in to the proper orbit of a planet, or star...

People, while most are probably too busy or too oblivious to notice, behave a lot like solar bodies. For the most part, everyone is part of some community, some society... whether it is a sprawling metropolis, or an intimate village. Some people we meet in life have distinct orbits of their own - and sometimes those orbits are congruent to ours. When that happens, when two people meet and they are locked in each others orbit, it's a grand thing and "happily ever after" ensues... But sometimes people come in to our lives who were really only meant to be here a short time... regardless of how much we may think they belong, they are just passing through... they aren't in sync with our orbits. They have their own orbit and it has been my experience that there is nothing that can be done to change that, and no good ever comes of trying.

So this is it. This is why I believe people are like planets. We're all orbiting around together, crashing in to each other, dancing for a while, sometimes moving on - but all together around a mutual need to coexist.