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Last week, I have re-watched Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” followed, a day after, by a documentary on the History of Earth and Life.

Being under the impression of Kubrik’s film while watching the documentary, I have realised, once more, that people have “eyes wide shut” not only in relationships like in the movie, but in many aspects of life, not to say in almost everything. We kinda live on auto-pilot. We see the world, but we don’t really see it. We hear things, but we don’t really hear them. We know things, but we don’t really know them. Take me, for example, I had lived decades knowing that the troposphere, the lower layer of the atmosphere, is only about 10 km thick (its thickness varies seasonally and geographically, though) but, actually, not truly knowing it, not in all the complexity of that knowledge. For me it was just a number, a piece of information I learned in school. Watching the documentary, something happened. That was the moment when I had realized that the layer of the atmosphere where we spend our life in, the one that contains apx 75-80 % of the mass of the entire atmosphere, the air that we breath, is just a narrow band and that the distance from the earth’s surface to the upper end of the troposphere equals the distance from my door to the restaurant where I use to drink my morning tea sometimes. And that is a small distance! I cross it in no time. Visualizing that, I had suddenly felt things differently. This thin circle of air and the planet it covers became more fragile to me and I understood even more than before how easy it is for us to break the balance of everything and put life on Earth at risk. Every one of our actions gained so much more weight in my new understanding of things. Every step we make had suddenly become of much greater importance.

Feeling a little overwhelmed by this new understanding of things, I felt the need to take some time to reflect on all these. I didn’t want to shut myself in my room, instead I wanted to go in a place with a different visual perspective on Earth. Up on a cloud seemed a good idea, as watching everything from a higher point of view was just what I needed for the kind of thoughts that troubled me. I asked Ala, a dear bear friend, to come join me, as I hadn’t seen her in a while and I missed her dearly. She is busy with her cubs, lately, and she doesn’t have too much time for anything else. But, lucky me, the little bears were asleep and, besides, that, Ala likes blueberry tea more than fresh blueberries, so she couldn’t say no to the invitation.

We climbed up in the sky on a rope ladder (made from rope that an Indian magician gave me once) and we got comfortable on some puffy clouds with a cup of warm tea to keep us warm as the atmosphere is colder up there. And we started talking about the things that concerned me, but the panorama was so spectacular from up there that we had soon stopped talking and just stood there, enjoying the view, the silence and the tea. Luckily, no plane crossed the sky to hassle us, but a few birds stopped by and asked for biscuits. Good thing they did, as my disturbing thoughts flew away with them, leaving me totally relaxed, enjoying my time with Ala. I came to the conclusion that there is no better way to reflect on the importance of things than from up on a cloud, with a new perspective over everything, with a cup of tea, with a bear friend near and having a such impressive view in front of our eyes! Magical! Only good things can come from spending a morning like that! You must try it! Or another different perspective at your choice.

PS: Do you know that we hear sounds because of the atmosphere? In empty space, humans would not be able to hear any sounds! I thought that there is silence in space as there are no motorcycles there, but no. It is because there is no air. Or water. Or any other medium.

Thank you for stopping by! Have a magical tea time this week and always!