The similarities between the images at left are eerie. Both, impressions of a man's foot in the soft gray soil of and ancient lava plain. Both firsts; the earliest recorded steps of a human ancestor and the first footfalls of a man on a surface not of the Earth.
Yet they are also striking in differences. One made by a forefather of our species but an ordinary man for his time. The other made by an extraordinary man selected to represent the best of us. One made by a worn bare foot. The other boot clad. One simply existing to survive. The other looking to explore a new world.
We've come so far and yet stayed so much the same in the last 3.6 million years. We've gone from barely scraping out an existence on a small corner of our planet to occupying it pole to pole and taking our first steps off it. At the same time we've continued to walk on two feet and enjoy the use of an opposable thumb, among other physical characteristics common with our distant ancestors. We've invented and refined agriculture, providing us with the means to feed all the world. But still some of our brothers and sisters go to sleep hungry each night. We've cured debilitating diseases that once ravaged whole populations. Yet we continue to find new ways to kill each other. We've developed a system of writing which has grown into electronic mediums that share ideas around the world in seconds. But we still use our tools of expression to hurt and wound one another and when pressed still resort to physical violence to solve our problems. We have invented democratic means to govern ourselves under which the rights of an individual are celebrated. But we still hate our neighbors over superficial differences and seek to silence those with opinions different from our own.
But I wouldn't have it different. We still laugh. We still love. We still cry. We still can see the good through the evil. We still raise our voices in song and kick up our feet in dance. We still have children and hope that their world is better than ours is.
The world will always be a better place as long as we remember were we have been and continue to leave behind our own Laetolis.
-John C. Martin
To John Martin's Home Page