Life is a journey, as the old cliché goes and when we have seen the final chapter of humanity, the epitaph of our race will read something like this: “they journeyed from one end to another, searching for themselves and finally stood, awed at the beauty they have seen in themselves”.

When we look at our world, we see terror, poverty, misery, pain. We have in the last hundred years only improved our capacity to kill and destroy. However, when you look at the flip side, the last hundred years has also seen the rise of a society driven constantly by technological marvels that three--- four generations ago would find quite magical.

We have disease that we can not kill, but have we stopped to think of the lives saved because of the technological and scientific marvels of the last century? Many remain alive and filled with even greater hope that their battle is not yet over because of those very same accomplishments. Today, we can now prolong life and its quality--- in all forms of measure is greater than the quality of life of our immediate ancestors. And in the years to come, we may even improve much more on that. We should be thankful for that.

Certainly, our power to destroy and to strike fear has been immensely magnified by the same tools that power life saving measures, the very same technology that allows travel from one continent to another in a matter of hours and by technology that allows us to talk without wires to another human being in a completely different time zone and half the planet away. Deadly if used improperly, perhaps, but still we should be thankful for that.

We should also be thankful that men from the old continent traveled across the Atlantic and discovered for themselves a new world. Just as we should be thankful that Chinese traders spread their fire all across Asia and similarly every other exploration be it commissioned by a government or simply to find new land or trade or challenge the norm or simply our of simple curiosity. They were all done under the harshest of conditions, of the deadliest threat, from around this world and beneath it and even beyond, they traveled. Both men and women made the journey and they gave birth to this New Century, in all its facets.

As a race, our two greatest strengths lie in the diversity of our cultures and the native impetus of our inquisitive nature. In the next century, the human race will find itself solving problems of the times. Some people would say, focus in the here and now, let us rid ourselves of bigotry and terrorism and of poverty and of cancer and aids. Perhaps we will get there, perhaps not, who can tell?

But you know what we should embark on? We should begin a journey towards the stars. Not just to scan it with powerful satellites or to conduct experiments in zero gravity.

A mad dream, a crazy ambition, wild, insanely and ill advised because, what does it profit us as a race? Is it to spread the rapid fire of humanity, to move our conflicts off world and bring it to another? Or is it a way to survive ourselves, that a facet of humanity live beyond the confines of this homeworld should we or some extra-world cause would wipe us out?

No, not for those reasons but simply because it is in our nature to challenge the norm, the common wisdom--- the world is not flat, that atoms could be smashed to produce power, that we could send men to the moon. The spirit of discovery is at the very core of humanity. It is who we are, it is our identity, it is the journey to discover, to explore, to learn, to see, to break barriers and find out what's beyond the next horizon. That is precisely what makes us a beautiful race, a beautiful people. We should see that and all this wouldn't be only crap.