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| Garden of One Thousand Buddhas |
I have been fed up with social media recently.
I know that out there, a strong social movement is growing due to a disappointing act by the two powers (I already got a bad feeling knowing that the winning president and political party ruled by the same power). I did what I could and took a break from my personal accounts.
Taking a break from social media gives me time to read. At the moment, I am finishing one of Sagan's books: The Demon-Haunted World. I have mixed feelings about this book; in some parts, he turned into a fanatic like Richard Dawkins, and in others, he wrote like the person I knew from his other books and lectures. However, this book introduced me to James Randi, one of the greatest anti-science debunkers of all time. But just a few days I knew him, he passed away - just two days ago.
James Randi was an interesting person. I just watched his lectures from his channel, James Randi Foundation (which he dedicated to supporting science), and I think he was a person with a very strong personality. When I learned from Sagan's book that he was a magician, I was excited. I think being a magician is a very interesting job, as I grew up with Kindaichi's manga, in which the lead character had a genius magician opponent - and Now You See Me, a movie that blew my mind away. A magician would be a perfect fit character to debunk the anti-science movement, and his words were very strong when he said that he tricked people, and he blatantly said he did, and he disliked people who tricked people and said that was the truth.
Update: Indonesia now has its own 'James Randi': Pesulap Merah! I am super excited.
Now when we think about it, the community that holds the responsibility to debunk anti-science is the scientific community, the scientists. But James Randi proved that magicians could be the greatest science communicators of all time. I always favor this premise: you don't have to come from a specific background to excel in things. You need hard work for it. Just like Wallace, who didn't come from a wealthy family like Darwin did; or Goodall, who didn't have any academic degree in Biology to get a groundbreaking primate research finding; or Carl Sagan, whose parents were immigrants but did an excellent job on storytelling for communicating the works of NASA.
From James Randi I also learn one important thing. Maybe it's okay if it's not a scientist who is able to speak humanly to people about anti-science. Maybe it's okay to not take part in something that society told you to, or you are demanded to do so. Maybe it's okay to be someone that doesn't fit somebody's expectations, no matter how important this person is to us. Maybe it's okay to be someone who is quietly listening and giving others a chance to get the spotlight when this world demands you to be 'on the show' more. There are billions of people on this planet - a hundred thousand millions of stars in this galaxy, and you are a non-unique tiny little piece, and that's okay.
Maybe it's not you, and that is okay.
