Under the New Moon

In the days when it was a high crime to question the supremacy of the church, when it was prevailing opinion that the stars were lights revolving around the earth on crystal spheres, and when a man was put to death for saying that, maybe, the earth wasn't the center of the universe after all...

...on the darkest nights, when the moon disappeared and the sky was black, furtive shapes crept through town, moving from shadow to shadow. These subversives would convene at the house of one of their number and steal in through the back door. Once inside, they would gather by the dying fire and share their most valuable possessions - books, for those of them that could read. Forbidden literature and scraps of paper challenging the divinity of the monarchy. Mathematical calculations which told them, for a fact, that the laws they were living under were lies. Simple ideas which would nonetheless mean imprisonment or death if stated out loud, and in the wrong company.

These men (and women, thank you) - the New Moon Society - dared to think big - to cast their minds outside the prevailing beliefs of their time, and risk their lives and livelihoods to do so.

These days we have the exact opposite problem, although the results are strikingly similar. We have so much information thrust at us that it is overwhelming. We are constantly taking in so much information and keeping ourselves so busy that we act in a continually reactionary fashion, and rarely take the time to just think.

We are surrounded by so much meaningless information (Who is in rehab this week?) that we don't pay attention to the things that are truly important (Can you tell me how many people are orbiting the earth right now?).

Although we can now take pictures of planets orbiting other stars, we still think of ourselves as rulers of the universe. We comfort ourselves that we know so much, and yet there are unsolved mysteries all around us. We've lit up the entire earth and covered it with pavement, but ridicule people who say, just maybe, we might be doing irreversible harm in the process. We ignore the fact that we are tiny creatures, living on a rock covered with the thinnest layer of dirt, water and air, spinning through the infinite darkness at 67,000 miles per hour.

In a world where we take so much for granted, and in a culture where intelligence is downright shunned, the simple act of thinking - and daring to think big - has once again become a subversive activity. It is time to resurrect the New Moon Society - to dare to think, to share those big thoughts, and pay close attention to others who are doing the same.

As a society, or as a country, or especially as a species, we can do big things. But first, we have to make big plans. To make big plans, we have to communicate big ideas. To communicate big ideas, we have to have big thoughts. And those thoughts are in my brain, and yours. In the dark, under the new moon, waiting for the light.

Come sit by the fire...