Explorations

“Oh God, is there ever to be any age of happiness?
Is there never to be any rest?”

“Rest enough for the individual man,
too much, and too soon, and we call it death.
But for Man, no rest and no ending,
he must go on, conquest beyond conquest.
First this little planet, and its winds and waves,
and then all the laws or mind and matter that restrain him.
Then the planets about him,
and at last, out across immensity to the stars.
And when he has conquered all the deeps of space,
and all the mysteries of time,
still he will be beginning.”

“But … we’re such little creatures.
Poor humanity’s so fragile, so weak.
Little … little animals.”

“Little animals.
And if we’re no more than animals,
we must snatch each little scrap of happiness,
and live and suffer and pass,
mattering no more than all the other animals do, or have done.
It is this, or that —
all the Universe — or nothingness.
Which shall it be?”