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NASA has launched a spacecraft with the task of crashing into an asteroid to see if the rocket can “push it into a different trajectory.” The experiment, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, is designed to test the ability to deflect asteroids that might pose a risk of colliding with Earth.
Such experiments only distract humanity from where the real solution lies – in global society.
This does not mean that the idea of an asteroid colliding with the Earth is absurd. It happened before and could happen again. The problem is that instead of dealing with what we really need to fix in our lives, we turn our thoughts to imaginary future dangers that have little chance of materializing. While the real dangers come from the people around us. And they are the ones that need to be fixed. Not to send darts into space, but to aim for your heart.
The real problems people suffer from are our relationships. Inflation and high costs, water, air and land pollution, war and terrorism, poverty, depression, drug addiction, social divisions–none of these problems are natural, they are all serious crises, and they are all man-made.
We need to stop looking out into space for threats and start looking at each other, asking how we can learn to live together. We need to start asking real and painful questions! Why does a man hate his neighbor? Why is everyone dependent on others, unable to provide for themselves, but at the same time tolerant of others?
Of course, not everyone takes these issues so acutely, but to some extent they live in all of us and poison our relationships. If we can’t admit it to ourselves, we should look at the statistics and see how many people avoid reality through drugs or other myriad forms of addiction. We must pay attention to the growing number of violent incidents, the growing animosity between countries that are economically interdependent, and the growing political divisions between countries and nations.
Human society is falling apart. And this is a much greater danger than a shooting star. If we solve our social problems, we can solve all the others. But if society falls apart, we will never solve anything. Therefore, our first priority should be to overcome social divisions and all kinds of strife.
Until we change our attitude toward each other from alienation to interconnection, from indifference to mutual responsibility, concern about any other “threat” will be a distraction that can only delay the correction we really need to make. This, in turn, will make the correction slower and more painful.
