REVIEW: Marmaduke (2022)

 The universe is bigger than a lot of us realize.  The expanse is massive on a scale that our human brains truly have difficulties understanding.  Our solar system, which itself is mind bogglingly huge, is but a dot in the grander reality.  The existence we live, our daily lives and our struggles and victories, mean nothing when we consider what we are truly a part of.  Does anything really matter?  As Bertram Gilfoyle states in Silicon Valley, 'We're all just animals in a pit."

And here in this pit that is human existence, as insignificant and lowly as it is, we writhe around in our own make.  The triumphs of our collective efforts matter not outside of the minuscule landscape of space and time that is constantly expanding faster than the speed of light.  Any and all steps forward, from gender equality, to walking on the moon, to the Big Gulp, really are as trivial as who is dating who in Hollywood.  What we believe is mighty and impressive is, as the band Kansas put it, is just dust in the wind.

All of this matters to us, of course.  We bipeds and our survival have the ability to take pride in achievements, whether good or bad.  What we do, from building the tallest building in the world to attempting to explore the greatest depths of the ocean, is chronicled and remembered by our species as significant in the same overall sad way a water bear toils and exists.  That water bear, and everything it does, is lost to all of us on this planet that seems oh so big.  

In the same way, whatever we do really has no effect on canvas of space.  We are not even as significant as a single brush stroke on a mural.  YouTube channel RealLifeLore puts perspective to this.  The observable universe has more stars than there are grains of sand on the entire planet.  Using the theory of cosmic inflation, that means that the size of the observable universe compared to the true size of the universe would be equivalent to comparing size of a single lightbulb to the former planet of Pluto.

Remember, the lightbulb doesn't represent Earth or even our solar system, but the observable universe which has a radius of 46.5 billion light years, and a light year is 9.46 trillion kilometres.  The universe is truly mighty, and we are so meaningless is regards to the cosmos. 

No matter what we do, all of it is contained in an insignificant sphere of influence that has absolutely no impact at all on what truly lies beyond our planet's atmosphere. Perhaps we can take comfort in knowing that our existence is enough, and that we can at least try to do the best we can to make Earth a good place to live.

In the end, whatever we accomplish won't be remembered by existence as a whole. While homosapiens act as though the universe revolves around ourselves, it is clear that we truly are irrelevant.  I doubt that humanity’s presence will be eternal.  We will die off, as we are stupid enough to gradually kill the only environment that we known of that can sustain us.  Could life be supported on other planets out there?  I'm sure it is possible, but I truly doubt that those planets will have peaches and cream corn, so it's not really even worth it.

Maybe the best we could do would be to catalogue what we believe to be important and eject that into space, with the hope that perhaps another race of sentient and intelligent beings may come across it.  Would an image of The Mona Lisa actually translate into the same appreciation that we attach to it if other species looks nothing like us, or perhaps don't even have physical bodies as we know them?  There is no guarantee that any of our arts of culture would truly translate to show others just what they meant to us.

But, perhaps these objects of our civilization may actually communicate who we were and what we valued.  Perhaps another species could see just what our morals, beliefs, and hopes were through exhibits of what we have achieved.  Then, and only then. could our insignificant existence survive past our physical demise.  We may be lost forever, but who we were and what we stood for and valued would be passed on, maybe making it all worth while.

If this concept of transference of historical summation through art may be possible, then we have a chance of meaning something in the universe.  And what if intelligent life discovers and explores our planet after we are gone?  What will they make of who we were?  With all of our failings and mis-steps, they may see us as a kind and peaceful species.  And if we want to ensure they don't know how truly stupid we could be, we need to put Marmaduke on a single thumb drive, tie it to a brick, and drop it into the Pacific Ocean above the Marianas Trench in the hope that those visiting aliens wouldn't have technology that would allow them to survive the massive physical pressure that exists down there.

If you poop your underwear and know that a realtor is going to be showing your house later that day, you don't just drop those soiled gotchies into the kitchen refuse bin.  You burn it.  You destroy it.  None can ever know when we create the most horrible of mistakes.

Rating - 0 out of 4 stars