Arbitrary restrictions

Every once in a while I see the famous photograph of the Earth called "The Blue Marble."  It's a photo of Earth taken from the moon.  It certainly is a beautiful shot, and it calls to mind how suspended we are in space.  It shows how real it is that the Earth is not attached to anything as it makes its way around the sun.

Also from time to time I see the Earth from the surface of Mars from the Curiosity rover.  It's not as close, of course, as the shot of the Earth from the moon, but it puts in perspective that Earth is only one of the planets making it journey around the sun.  One becomes aware of the rotation of the Earth as it travels on its path of revolution.

This year everyone got to see some close-up photos of Pluto for the first time in human history.  That certainly lets everyone see that many planets exist other than the one we all live on.  It has its own path around the sun, and one that is different from the other 8 planets in front of it.  That photo recalls a few facts about the planet, in particular, that one day on Pluto is 6.39 days on Earth.  And, one year on Pluto is 247.92 years on Earth.

That illustrates how arbitrary time is once a person is able to break out of thinking like one who can only see things from an Earthly point of view.  That tells me that holidays that come once a year are so very man-made.  Even the weekly rituals, like those of a religious nature who like to strap their thinking to 3 prayers at certain times of the day or the first day of the week (or sabbath day), seem so regimented on Earth, but so unnecessary from any other perspective.  Once humans begin to travel in space, we will find how utterly arbitrary are the rituals and customs of the days of our lives.

Although I like the holidays observed in the U.S., both religious and secular, I do understand that one rotation of the Earth is like all the other rotations of the Earth.  One rotation is not any more special than another.  One revolution of the Earth is merely that and doesn't match the revolution of any other planet, so marking a new year with a lot of pomp and circumstance is a little unnecessary.  It's just that we want to do it.  The same day has happened with and without humans, with and without celebration.

Thinking in an off-Earth  manner helps to keep my thinking open and not bound by clutter that would otherwise make life so very restrictive.  I just can't handle limited living any longer and refuse to be bound by thinking that arbitrarily binds one to customs and traditions as if that thinking was the only game in town.