There is an old saying, too often ignored as old things often are, that there is nothing new under the sun. The Bible says it this way in Ecclesiastes: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
Each of us can only see what is in front of us. All else is imagined. This is especially true of what we see on television, or in the movies, or on the internet. All of that is only what someone else imagined, and we either adopt it as our own, or not. How much of it is true, is another problem. How much of what we see with our own eyes, or hear with our own ears, or feel with our own touch, is actual or imagined? That problem alone can keep us quite busy without even considering what we encounter through artificial means such as the internet. And both of those are compounded by our understanding and misunderstanding of words. But, without words, we can comprehend nothing—we are just biological matter and quickly become food for the worms.
Not being particularly brave, I settled early on into that problematic realm of words. Actions, making use of the words I found to be useful, could be dangerous and had to be done with deliberation—to be considered in advance with as many words as possible. A novel, perhaps. It is for that reason that I am in awe of someone of the caliber of an Elon Musk—allowing, to begin with, that he is of a unique caliber—in that he leaves me unable to comment coherently. But genius is also a burden. I imagine that whatever modesty he has is as struggled for as are his best ideas. And I cannot imagine those.
I enjoy listening to the words of mere geniuses. Because of technology, I can listen to many who would otherwise be beyond my awareness. Their level of perception is higher than my own, they have climbed the mountain, so I listen and try to catch a glimpse of what they see. But I think of Elon Musk as a sort of Genii. Of that higher order that is otherwise only found in mythology. And as some jinni might be, I imagine that he has been summoned by someone to help us find our way.
Technology, and the use of machines, happens to be our current thing. It is the means by which we interpret our universe today. But it is not the only way. There have been such jinn as Musk before, interpreting the human universe through other means. In one particular age that I am aware of there was Bernini, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and da Vinci. The universe they saw, and made their fellows aware of, transported the mind of man from a world of mud and stone all the way to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
Genius does not come unbidden. The genie remains in the bottle unless it is wanted.
Our age must ask for this. If we deny the chance to reach for the stars and turn back instead to the safety of an imagined past, which is just as unreal now as any chance to walk on Mars might be, we will have to live with the consequence for generations. I don’t believe that our past, or our behavior then, offers any new hope for my children or their children’s children. I must look for the genius to save us from our worst mistakes while we bicker over words.
Allowing for the limits of our perception, and of the words we use to understand that awareness, remembering that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ is not to deny innovation, but to accept it as part of our inheritance. What we think the future might be is very likely just a reflection of the past. Mars has always been under the same sun. Technology may be ingenious, but the laws of physics have not been altered to suit anyone. We must summon the future. The future is not what you think it is. But perhaps it is what you want it to be.