Mote Work
We are so small to do so much. We can do more. We can be better at it.
A mote of dust, this speck of us.
More than a pale blue dot in the inky black at the edge of nothing and something. More than the wonder held in the tenor of a voice as it raises our pulse and quickens our gulp. More than stark truth words strung one after the other, arriving with succinct perfection to our ears.
More.
Or less.
More or less.
When we are less, that’s the problem. Mere motes upon that mote of dust looking only inward in our shame. We do not glance at the other, or when we do, it’s for the singular purpose of brushing them from the screens of our radars. From our beam and out into the lonely void. Dust to dust, mote to mote, amen and get out. The ugly dust of our feature film laid flat upon our world. This is our agency of record—a wicked story etched in the annals of our history.
When we are more, we are the epitome of mote magnificence. Award-winning.
But when we are less…?
When we are less, we are lost and bold with it. Afraid and blindly bluffing to all. Selfish and cocky we represent ourselves to the Cosmic Court’s jury and the steno report shows it’s not going well.
Eight billion1 motes of what? Trouble? Is that all we are? Misguided trajectories programmed with evil glee, squealing with delight at the unchecked cruelty. Satellites crash through our moral atmospheres with alarming frequency. Person particles, alive and dead—sometimes both at once. Specks. Meaningless. Trivial. The end.
It’s all so grim.
Look around.
This mote a scornful sermon, this one a war. This speck is a hate particle, viciously animated by the nearest wrong-headed conspiracy screed. A mote collective, united by maxims and cruel pocket credos, a vacuum bag of filth that morphs into a stony heart, concrete and rough.
Where is love? The love mote, exciting and new—where?
The head is cut off the daffodil. Motes drift out, untethered from reality. See that speck, this mote, those dust-busted brain atoms released to the world, seeking only banned book bookshelves to live out their lives in outsized pride. It’s the shame of the game.
Caught in blinking disbelief, the grit stuck in our lids, there is no pearl to this oyster. We are the dust of ruin in a very pricey ointment. Poor communication, dishonorable relationships, bad faith arguments. Where is hope? Where is optimism? Where is the sanguine sermon in the church of our fractured humanity?
Too much dust in the troposphere.
Too many allergy motes. Moving. De-evolving. Getting smaller while growing large in storms of disheveled fear. We are small people. Motes building moats to protect our emotional empires. Speckles and atoms and iotas of possibility gone awry. Sullying the futures of baby motes, which are smaller and even more defenseless, but there you go, and here we are.
Hello!
Come on, motes. Get your shit together. Our insignificant significance is there to be bedazzled. Rise up with the emphatic cry of a hopeful crumb in the darkness.
“Be more, not less!”
In dust we trust.
This is a directive and not just a mote-inspired beat by The Chemical Brothers.2
More motes on heads of pins.
More motes moving mountains.
More motes not giving up.
More.
Look around.
Motes build monuments. Motes make medicines and save other motes from despair. Motes write poetry that bristles with frightening emotional clarity. Motes paint using all the colors. Smaller than, larger from. These are the motes of hope. They plug into our lives to power the engine of invincible me and invincible you, and Them, and They, and Us. The other.
These tiny things—flawed and uniquely fallible motes of us—are caught in the trade winds of relentless humanity. Stands up to, sits down for, honors, and defends. Imagines and refinances the mortgage of our very souls. Invents new ways to do, and to be, and to live, and to survive—with each other, with ourselves, in the dark.
Motes inflate the lungs of our love with the breath of yes. Write sonnets and sing tributes while speaking passionately at our funerals. Build and salvage and teach and grow.
Look at something grand. Have your breath be extinguished in the sheer moment of its beauty.
Have you seen The Starry Night?
A mote did that.
We are not destined to the fate of our worst mote’s instinct.
Pale Blue Dots, whole Earths in the black. There is more than one mote suspended in a sunbeam here. Motes upon motes upon motes.
From one mote to another, I say this: I’m just a biscuit and I don’t biscuit very well. Destinations uncharted and outcomes unknown, we simple particles, we crumbs of the possible, must leap into the beam and be caught for all to see in the sublime truth of our excellence.
In this, this mote of dust, this speck of us.
This week’s amends…
Featuring the voice of Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
About the video:
“The Pale Blue Dot was made as a tribute to Carl Sagan as the final project for the Animation 01 course at Ringling College of Art and Design.
Created during the Fall 2017, this film was a collaborative effort by the entire Motion Design class of 2020.”
On Rotation: “Strange” by Pink Flag. How did I not know that R.E.M.’s version, from Document, was a cover? I feel such a fool. But hey, it’s good for me to get a reminder that I don’t know everything. ABL!3
Via my Spotify algorithm
“Heirloom is a stop motion journey through a papery land... from lost love to found freedom.”
Video about folks who’ve lost their sense of smell.
“I’d really like to know what my son smells like.”
Almost. Here’s the world population clock. The estimate is 8 billion by November 2022. That’s alota motes.
In the heady field of Dustology, these two dudes have always been the experts on motes. Remember they were originally called The Dust Brothers, and their debut album was titled Exit Planet Dust. I rest my case.
Always Be Learning.