today's happy revelation

Long story of how we got here, but Daniel and I were listening to the soundtrack for Carl Sagan's Cosmos and I was suddenly reminded of the first time I saw the series, when I was a little older than Daniel is now. There was an animation sequence in it, that I believe won a few awards, showing evolution on a black screen with white chalk-like figures, going from single-cell organisms to humans to the accompaniment of Vangelis' "Alpha" (I think) and I will never forget the absolute thrill I got when I first saw it. The thrill wasn't so much about the sequence itself or the music, although both were wonderful; it was that the final image, the being that evolved from a crouching ape to a hunched Neanderthal and finally to an upright homo sapien, and who then took a step forward into the future... was a woman.

It had just not occurred to me that generic 'humanity' could be represented by a woman, because it never happened. We were still using "man" as the default word that meant "people." Police officer, firefighter, and chairperson were mostly only said to make fun of crazy feminists who insisted on using such ridiculous 'gender-free' terms, as if that had anything to do with equality. I remember my mom and I looking at each other at the end of that Cosmos sequence and saying "Wow!"

And here was my little revelation today; I wondered if Daniel would like to see the miniseries, which I bought for my mom about eight years ago, and then I thought of that sequence... and realized that Daniel and Justin would in all likelihood never notice the uniqueness of the gender of that final human figure. Nor would their female age-mates. It's just not that unusual any more.

And isn't that a happy thought?