4k Planets

I had the idea I might post about some of the “Influences” on my list here on this site, so I am reading Bob Dylan's “Chronicles Volume One”. I wanted to write about Dylan's effect on my imagination, but I went even more cosmic than that:

On TV, I was watching Shatner and his Ancient Aliens group and Michio Kaku is telling them, in recent years, that like 4K planets have been discovered just in the Milky Way Galaxy alone and how it's impossible to rule out the notion that humanity isn't the only intelligent life in the Universe.

Couple that with the fact that, only a couple of days ago, I Googled “Joe C. Smolen” and found out there exists specifically yet another Joseph Christopher Smolen.

Thirty years ago, for the first time, I heard V.S.C. Ho ask the questions Who am I? Where did I come from? and Where am I going? Back then, on the first two, I thought "No problem. I know my name. I know my parents."

But now, as I think about it, the simplicity of my Google search seems to prove the insignificance of a name. A personal name has possibly less basis than just even a URL or a domain name.

Maybe that's why James Brown felt so good; he figured it out before Google spelled it out for me.

I'm not afraid of it, but suddenly, every single person I meet is even more mysterious than before.