Saturday 28 February 2015

Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On

Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids/In fact it’s cold as hell/And there’s no one there to raise them if you did.

Well, you are wrong, Mr Dwight. It turns out there will be people there to raise your kids in Mars if you wish to leave them in the care of a fellow earthling.

The news that 100 hopefuls (50 men and 40 women) have been shortlisted with the objective of embarking on the first Mars-bound expedition has been met with derision in some quarters, whilst being applauded in others. Suicide mission? Ultimate sacrifice for science? Commercial opportunism? Opinions are divided and I have yet to side with either camp. It is not the mission itself that made me take to my keyboard to knock this post up tonight but a comment made by one of the wannabe Martians.
Enough to make your mind go blank

I can’t remember her name but at 27 (if my memory serves me right) she was one of the younger applicants. She was interviewed on Radio Four’s Today programme and when she was asked if she felt afraid to go to a place no one knew much about and whence she, sadly, might not be able to return, she answered that going to Mars was no different to getting run over by car. She made it sound as if this were like for like. I disagree. The fact that people do get run over by cars and some lose their lives does not mean that cars pose more of a danger to human life but, rather, that they are driven by careless drivers who on many occasions flout the rules imposed by the Highway Code. On the other hand, as explained by Professor Todd Huffman from Oxford University, going to Mars means coming into contact with an ecosystem that has followed a completely different evolutionary from that of planet Earth. The chances of surviving in this environment are slim. It is almost as if the 100 shortlisted applicants to go to the Red Planet were signing their death sentence, or a collective suicide pact.

The one-way Mars One project (the key is in the word “one-way”. No one is expecting the wannabe astronauts to come back) is the apex of human hubris, in my humble opinion. Once more, we are looking up, beyond the skies, and not up to the uppermost part of our body, the brain. We are desperate to find out about the universe but the same funds are not always available to carry out better research into the beautiful and puzzling ways our brain operates. The fact that the mission to Mars will be filmed like a reality show smacks of irresponsible behaviour to me. Big Brother on Mars? Great working title, lousy and predictable ending: everybody dies. Maybe run over by a Martian driving the equivalent of a BMW.

I sympathise with Natalie Bennett. I really do. The Green Party leader suffered a “mind blank” on a live radio interview on LBC when launching her party’s political manifesto. Specifically, she failed to justify her claim that the Greens would be able to provide half a million new council homes.

Whilst I do not wish to rub salt in her wound (I shall leave that to the Daily Hate), I must admit that even if she had backed up her answer with numbers, I still would have found her claim difficult to believe. Purely because it was of the “crossed fingers” type.

Nevertheless, her performance reminded me of the time I also suffered my own “mind blank”. True, I was only eleven and about to move up to secondary school but I had already developed a good reputation as a singer. People - not just relatives - have told me over the years that I had a good voice and I guess that the competitions in which I participated and in which I won a few awards bear witness to my erstwhile talent.

But back to my Year 6’s final show. There I was, pretend mike in hand (it was basically a mike-shaped fist) and the whole school in front of me. They were calling out my name; I was the last one on the bill. One of my Year 6 teachers held me by the hand (I had a pre-pubescent crush on her so my little heart was beating faster than usual), my parents were at the back, my classmates were in a straight line facing me, but I could see heads poking out to either side trying to steal a glance at their fellow pupil on stage. The younger children were sat on our tiled floor. In those days there was no backing track. It was all a capella. I had done the song before, in fact, I had performed it at a festival a few weeks back. I opened my mouth...

And nothing came out.

My mind went blank. I had forgot the words and with it panic kicked in. I began to sweat profusely and to shake. My eleven-year-old self could not understand a word my teacher (the one I had the prepubescent crush on, remember?) was whispering in my ear.

I sympathise with Natalie. Of course, there is a difference between a primary school child attempting to sing in front of the whole school and forgetting the lyrics and a grown-up politician launching her party’s manifesto and being unable to articulate her ideas.

That is why we need to devote more time to study our brain.  Do not look up to Mars; the truth might be closer, as in, in the uppermost part of the human body.



© 2015

Next Post:” Living in a Multilingual World”, to be published on Wednesday 4th March at 11:59pm (GMT)

29 comments:

  1. Haven't we all had mind-blanks? Mine was in an A level history paper, writing an essay on the enclosures, and unable to remember how to spell 'sheep' (ee or ea?). I just splodged it and hoped for the best.

    I don't suppose there are sheep on Mars - or maybe just the human kind, following where no man or woman has gone before, without really thinking about all the implications.

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    1. Sheep on Mars. There's a track from a forthcoming Pink Floyd album! :-)

      Greetings from London.

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  2. Mind blanks? Guilty. Often.
    And how I wish we put as much money/effort/hope into preserving this planet as we did in searching for another area to put our stamp on. I don't think that any race seeing what we have done to our own home could welcome us with open arms (or tentacles)...

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    1. Quite right about our stamp on this planet. I totally forgot to make that point in my post. A mind blank, I suppose. :-)

      Greetings from London.

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  3. i wonder if we could make that contageous...mind blanks for politicians...it might make them a bit more enjoyable..ha.

    the mars program is daring...and crazy...there is no life line...but hey if they are willing, maybe this is a step..
    i will be intrigued to follow their story...

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  4. Since the Mars venture is being funded by private money and not by public money, I say more power to the sponsors and the "voyageurs." To me, it is really no different than the polar expeditions or treks into "deepest, darkest" Africa and the Amazon basin only a few short life times ago. A sizeable number of those intrepid souls never saw home again.

    As for mind blanks, I think most politicians experience them frequently. The public often is not aware of it, though, because politicians' mouths seldom stop moving and they continue to spew words even when their minds are blank.

    Nice music, CiL ....

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    1. YOu're right about the venture being funded by private money. I should have made that clear in the post. Also, at least this "adventure" is less lucrative than Richard Branson's intergalactic enterprise, pitched to the superrich, mainly.

      Great Pavarotti track. i have been wanting to upload this song for ages. One of the few arias I really love. I'm not a big fan of opera.

      Greetings from London.

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  5. Siempre hay la curiosidad de ello, pero como no soy demasiada curiosa y menos en exploración lo dejo para los que estén interesados en ello.
    Un feliz fin de semana.

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  6. I think we all get mind blanks from time to time, part of being human.

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  7. If they want to go, power to them. A mind blank or two happens to us all. But yeah politicians should know their manifesto.

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  8. I heard about this on blogger and thought that the program could not be legal, love your music and thank you Cubano for bringing songs into our lives

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  9. We all suffer from brain farts from time to time. Most embarrassing for those in the public eye. I do like the way you tied the two stories together so perfectly.

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    1. "Mind farts", now there's something I would pay to see in our forthcoming television political debates. :-)

      Greetings from London.

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  10. Well, there are a few times that I have gone blank, but thankfully only a few. I found it intriguing how you tied the study of the brain and the "reality TV show about Mars" together. I haven't paid it much attention. Maybe I should come up with a "modest proposal" and suggest that all life become a reality TV show and we vote off (to Mars) those we don't like...

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  11. Thoughtful post!

    ALOHA from Honolulu
    ComfortSpiral
    =^..^=

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  12. I remember having strange feelings about this Mars programme. I'd read an interview of a young French woman who had succeeded in the first selection phase. Maybe it's the same one you are mentioning. She was very gung ho. In the past, I wouldn't have hesitated to embark onto Starship Enterprise and go to the stars, but now I'm thinking... all these people (I've checked the whole list) some of them very young, so eager to go to Mars - how much have they seen of Earth? And I'm also thinking: why do we disconsider Earth so much? It's this unique place, with this unique life and we kill it as much as we can...
    A very interesting post.

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  13. how is it that we always tend to focus on the things that are out of reach and not of what we should obviously focus on... i dunno.... sounds like a crazy project... i def. wouldn't volunteer to go up there...

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  14. Thank you for the touch of opera - one of my favourites.

    Frankly I can't think why anyone would want to go to Mars, even with a two-way ticket. It's definitely suicidal.

    Now, about blank minds ... it happened to me just before I played the piano to a whole school. I couldn't even hum the tune yet I knew the piece off by heart. I was mortified and cried a lot!

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  15. Ah--thank you so much for the Pavarotti--and the post. I can sympathize with the blank spot for sure. I don't know what to make of the mars.

    I so love the Pavarotti ==I saw this opera with Flores at the Met last year--he is also very very good--incredibly charming--but not with as rich a voice perhaps. It is a beautiful aria. I see Flores again next week with Joyce di Donato. (Lucky lucky) . K. (Manicddaily)

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  16. Ha...I get mind blanks too often these days - usually at the most inappropriate moments!
    Seriously though, wouldn't mind blanks be a great idea for some politicians?

    The Mars programme scares me...imagine if something went wrong up there, leaving you stuck in such an alien environment...I wouldn't dare...!

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  17. Those who go to Mars will not come back. They will die either on route or on Mars. But it is their choise. They want to be famous and they will.

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  18. Interesting and insightful post!

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  19. It is the inherent commercialization of everything these days that scares me. People willing to sign off from their lives. for a nobler, greater than yourself cause, for adventure or for fame? It is the individual's choice - largely that is, given he/she doesn't have dependents, has not brought into the world children etc. - but it is the sensationalization and commercialization of everything that I find scary.

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  20. My hair stylist told me about this last week...very disturbing to me. These people are leaving their loved ones behind. Can you imagine how painful it would be if your child, spouse, parent came to you and said they were going on a one-way trip to Mars?

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  21. I don't understand why it has to be a one-way trip. If astronauts came back from the moon, why can't they come back from Mars? Are they being used as guinea pigs for astronauts? The whole reality show thing makes this sound like a questionable event to me.

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  22. A very good commentary on the folly of human endeavour. I think it's still worth shooting for the stars though. It seems to me quite possible that one day we'll make our planet uninhabitable and then - if we have succeeded in colonising another - we'll hail these men and women as heroes. Suicide pact? Could be, but that happens, too, more often than we'd like to acknowledge.

    As to the stage fright, I wholeheartedly sympathise with anyone who suffers from it. I did a few amateur dramatic performances as a child and young teen (as most of us do, I guess) and when the day came that I had to catch my breath in the middle of a poetry reading in sudden awareness of where I was, what I was doing, and that there were hundreds of people staring at me and listening intently, I realised that it was not the life for me.

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  23. By the way - I just found your comments on my blog in the spam folder. I've rescued them, so hopefully if you come over again, there'll be no more problems. Sorry about that!

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  24. There is so much we don’t yet know about Earth, the Universe and Everything that it well behoves us to study a bit more down here before we take off for goddess-knows-where. The thought of travelling to Mars on a one-way tickets makes me break into a cold sweat. But Happy Landings to the intrepid explorers! The ultimate Reality Show will have us glued to our terrestrial TVs. If it ever comes off. The whole thing might well be a hoax, methinks.

    Mind going blank - is that something that doesn’t normally happen then?
    I know the state well, it’s permanent with me.



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  25. My husband is enjoying a novel about a man who is accidentally left behind alone at a colony on Mars. I think it's called The Martian.

    I find public speaking scary although I've never had a mind blank, I fear one. I'm sorry you had to go through that as a child.

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