Experiencing the Near-Totality of Being Human
Today I experienced a near-total eclipse on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. I did so with no preparation whatsoever — not even a pair of safety glasses. I say that not because I think it’s a good idea to look at an eclipse without eye protection, but because I left home for the 40-minute trip to the National Mall (about 20 minutes walking and 20 minutes on the train) in the hope that I would have a unique experience among other people, with or without the glasses. And I was not disappointed.
Just moments after arriving at the Smithsonian Metro stop on the National Mall, I stopped at a table where volunteers were handing out eclipse-related materials. There was a sign on the table which read something along the lines of “we no longer have any glasses available.” And yet, thanks to the kindness of strangers, someone had dropped off a pair that they no longer needed on the table a short time before, which I picked up and put on to experience what was at that moment the eclipse during its earliest moments.
In may respects, the Mall feels like home, because I spend just about every weekend volunteering in the FossiLab at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and also because the Mall is one of the most welcoming open spaces anywhere in the world. A short time after taking the photograph above of the museum, I bumped into one of my colleagues from the Paleobiology Department. We had not seen one another for quite some time, and it was great to catch up.
There were all sorts of information booths, starting on the end of the Mall closest to the Capitol, and extending much of the way to the Washington Monument. Many of the booths catered to younger visitors, and there were plenty of them. Is there anything more wondrous than witnessing how children experience the world around them, with open minds and open hearts?
And it is a moments such as this one where we too, as adults, can easily set aside our distractions, our biases, and our all-too-often hasty and ill-informed judgements of others. All of those things melted away, especially as the eclipse reached near-totality, because it was then that the mostly-obscured sun ducked in and out of some clouds. You might assume that the clouds detracted from the experience, but the reverse proved to be true — it was during those moments that all of us expressed our amazement at what we were seeing via “ooooooooohs” and “aaaaaaaaahs” — it was almost as if the sun was winking at us.
And the whole time I was there, as I walked among what were mostly strangers, we were all experiencing these precious moments as one. Is it not possible for this same sense of shared humanity to exist all of the time? I believe that it is possible, and that it is incumbent upon all of us to be open to experiencing the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of others, to meet them where they are, and where we are. Our very future depends upon it.
