A mother and son watching a mushroom cloud from a nuclear test – a scene that would be almost unthinkable today. On this 71st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, it gives cause for pause. 71 years ago the world changed forever. And it has changed again in multiple ways since then.
Americans. Men. We seem to have a bit of a propensity for blowing things up. While all of the nuclear testing was very rigorous and scientific, one wonders whether there was a little glee as big explosions filled the sky, leveled testing grounds, and turned sand to glass. Sure, later, when they realized what they had done and how it affected the world, it was pretty sobering. But in the moment, the big effort to push forward and invent the big, new thing there was a lot of enthusiasm.
We do blow things up. We change culture. We push forward. It's not all good or bad. (We did also eventually "blow up" our nuclear testing program.) It's just part of our human makeup, and perhaps our American, adventurous culture to push.
One of the most profound aspects of what it means to be human is that we have the ability to dramatically change the world in which we live. Likewise we have the ability to change our lives within the world we have built. We do not have to accept the status quo. As things continue to get pretty nutty in some arenas, let us not forget that ultimately it is all up to us to make the beds we lie in.