It’s a vinyl, only two were ever created, and both are no longer on this Earth. Point one, the pricing on Discogs is probably insane for it, but more importantly, point two, it’s the sole thing that represents everything we want aliens to know about us. That means me and you and your parents and your piece of shit brother, along with your first pet, every girl and boy you’ve have ever liked and the worst boss you ever had. Just one gold record, cobbled together in a couple of months by a few nerds at NASA. We didn’t even get to vote on it.

 

Then it flew away on two magical ships called the Voyager I and Voyager II. 

 

You know what’s on that record? Sounds of animals, tribal music, Bethoveen, the voice of a child, welcoming alien beings to our world. Love, culture, and the strange and fascinating creatures that live together on this ball of lava and water. Chuck Barry is also on it, of course. 

 

Instagram likes didn’t make it on that record. Technically, social media didn’t exist, but I’m pretty sure that scientists wouldn’t have put it on there even if it did. Kim Kardashian doesn’t mean shit. Her weird clan of other clones also don’t mean a thing. Even Barack Obama doesn’t really mean shit. Everything on that record is wonderful. Those nerds at NASA decided that it could only give a very small snapshot of what we bring to the table, and I think they created the most beautiful record of all time. 

 

When we let ourselves strip down to the core of what is important to all of us, it’s not any of this bullshit nonsense we worry about everyday. I am so insanely truly unimportant. Whatever I worried about today, doesn’t matter, whatever I will worry about, won’t matter. I’m going to live, and then after some time, I’ll return to the Earth, and some time after that, no one will really remember I ever existed. I feel free from all of the self-centered thinking I have spent 26 years wallowing in. I don’t matter, so I’m going to have fun with it. 

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