Senseless rambling at 2am...

I'm currently sitting in front of my computer screen, in the dead of night, collecting a trolley full of thoughts. None of them particular exciting I must admit, no new stories, no rewrites, no new film to gush on and on about. Just bits and bobs really. It is a Monday night after all. If all the exciting thoughts were collected on a Monday, the rest of the week would seem somewhat dull in comparison. Anyway I digress...

I was just doing my usual rounds of the interwebs before I retired to bed to continue reading more of George R R Martin's epic fantasy saga, A Song of Ice and Fire, when I stumbled across this wonderful video on Youtube...

Now obviously if Star Trek and/or Wars etc isn't your cup of tea, the idea of space travel might seem like a bit of a wet blanket. Frankly speaking the sheer idea of exploring the stars above utterly terrifies me as much as it insanely excites me. But the video makes a good point, when did the human race stop being ambitious? Stop...dreaming. Stop wondering what 'tomorrow' might bring us. Yeah sure technology is more prettier, faster, efficient. Hell, we've got a third generation iPad coming round the corner! I'm able to catch reruns of Neighbours on demand when I bloody well want! I can send e-mails from my phone! Thanks to the magic of the Kindle I've more books now than I'll read in a lifetime! It's the stuff my dad would've replied to as, "the mind boggles."

Yet tomorrow shouldn't be about making life easier. Tomorrow should be about pushing the boundaries. In 1969 NASA landed men on the moon for the first ever time. Landed on the f*cking moon!! How is it in 2012 that idea seems as equally insane as it might have been to H.G. Wells when he first published War of the Worlds in 1898?! Yes there's something of a mix up in the world finances but will we ever have a world leader with that kind of vision for the future? Be nice to see it in my lifetime. Sadly it ain't easy being that idealistic, no matter how hard you try to be. And yes, at 2am in the morning I don't really know where this senseless ramble is going either...

I'll end on this though. One of the greatest pieces of life advice I ever received was during my journalism training in 2010, when I got the chance to work at the Belfast Press Association. The editor told me two simple things which have really stuck with me. The first simply, "Be ambitious. Aim as high as possible no matter how silly it might seem to others." The second was particularly poetic, "Be open minded about everything. If you don't you'll be a cynical asshole by the time you're 30."

Time for bed...