8800 km away from everything you know, there is a land that resembles nothing you have seen before. But do not take this statement in a frivolous way. Imagine the colossal dimension of Tokyo-3, with buildings that go beyond what the human eye can see. A showcase of what humankind is capable of. A vast sea of cement taming the effervescent nature that grows in every corner we have spared. A scenery where the ancient and the future meet.

Except it’s not the future but definitely the present.

The excellence of “the natural” colliding with the toxicity of what men made. Conforming a new homogeneous medium where amazing and disturbing things are born alike. A place where our prowess can reach the stars while it sinks our souls.

Or is it so?

Sometimes I find myself wondering if our future is to anihilate our differences, and become a hive mind. Focus our endless distributed power on a single goal, and push forward. Ripping the barriers of space and time away, and expanding through every dimension in unimaginable ways for the simple (individual) minds we possess now.

But that’s basically removing the thing that makes us special. Our diverse cultures, languages, history and heritage. Is it worth to become a machine with the ultimate purpose of expanding? What will we bring to the other worlds we conquer? A dull blanket of cold-hearted mechanisms of self replication? One could argue that we are now a warm and inefficient organism spreading through rudimentary mechanisms of reproduction too. What good does that bring to anything?

None of this matters though. Some people have already decided for you. Maybe without realizing themselves, but they think that we need to bring whatever it is that we are to other planets. We have to bring wars and capitalism, and this huge income disparity to Mars and wherever we can reach. But one here is optimistic: we won’t make it to anywhere if we don’t get our shit together. A fractioned humankind cannot push through the large amount of obstacles that separate us from the stars we so badly want to touch.

The most likely outcome, before we unite in one voice, is that we’ll have to endure a severe crisis to realise that.

But maybe once we have reached this state, we can spread a vibrant and beautiful painting through many galaxies, while our time lasts in this infinite story. Maybe we can bring misteries in the form of relics to future civilizations, and be their seed even if they never get to meet us. Or perhaps, it’s not so sad after all if we manage to coexist in this planet as a sustainable part of it and never manage to leave it.

There are many possibilities for us to thrive without having to assert any dominance. It is all about how we face what is in front of us and what choices we make with what we have.

We are no more and no less than a part of this universe. We’ll eventually perish and become the soil for other things to be. What we do with our time is what ultimately matters and should occupy our thoughts and time.

There is no point in trying to trascend because we are and will always be a part of everything no matter what we do.