Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his "Concert & Conversation" series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It .
 
 

As I thought about a Thanksgiving themed blog, I was sort of overwhelmed with various places to start the conversation. Personally, I have many things to be thankful for, but we all know that there are lives filled with such pain and complexity that it’s hard to tick off all the things to be thankful for without some sense of survivor’s guilt.

But is there one thing that we can all be thankful for? The obvious answer: the sun.

And then I started thinking about how hard it works every day. Massive interchanges of energy without a single thought of how important it is. It has no sense of whether we’re “entitled” to its output; no judgment about how deserving we are of its hard work. Of course, it’s not hard work—it just comes naturally.

It’s being perfectly the sun. It’s not trying to outdo other stars, or wishing it could cool off so we would visit.

You may be thinking at this point that I’ve lost a little bit of my mind. But I think if we could all remind ourselves—and be humbled by—the significance of this event that is ongoing in the sky that allows us to live our lives. And how this star is also a lesson in how we can become our best selves. It might bring us all back down to earth a little and remind us that the very best lessons are all around us in the natural world.

We will be reminded if we stray too far off the path that keeps us connected to the natural world around us. And the sun may just be the first in a series of these reminders. Yes, the climate is changing. And there’s no reason to think that the fifth major ice age was the last one. But the sun just has to burp a little to deliver the knock out punch that brings us back to, say, a few hundred years ago—before electricity was king.

So this Thanksgiving, when you’re listing off the things you’re grateful for. Remember old reliable—the sun. And remember that just like it, being fully you—fully present in your humanity and your connection to the world around you—is all you really need to be.

And you might want to keep an eye on this website: http://spaceweather.com/ 

What do you think? Share your story at changeourstory.com . Visit www.peterbuffett.com to learn more and Change Our Story to join the conversation on how we all can become active participants in shaping our future.   

Image courtesy of NASA Goddard Photo and Video, licensed under Creative Commons. 

Bohnam's auction house in New York City will be taking bids on hundreds of tiny treasures from the glory days of NASA's space program. If it weren't for this damn recession, I'd have me one of those lunar rock box thingys. Here's a sampling from the catalog (pdf):

LUNAR ROCK BOX COVER

Lunar rocks were placed in an aluminum storage box that was vacuum sealed on the lunar surface. The crew then placed the box inside the container covers of this type for the journey back to Earth, to prevent lunar dust from spreading inside the Lunar and Command Modules.

$2,000 - 3,000

ASTRONAUT CHARLES DUKE’S SPACE SUIT CUFF CHECKLIST

The cuff checklist used by Lunar Module Pilot Charles Duke, Jr. was exposed directly to the lunar environment for over 12 hours during those exploration periods. Apollo mission planners were well aware of the importance of making every minute productive while astronauts explored the lunar surface. In order to make certain the lunar explorers did not overlook planned tasks, spiralbound cuff checklists were created to provide a detailed script of each task or activity. The crew of Apollo 16 found a special drawing on the next leaf. It features a drooling space-suited astronaut melting away in the arms of a buxom nude woman. The astronaut says: “Happy Birthday Whatever Your Name Is.” This gag illustration continued the tradition started on Apollo 12 with the cuff checklists that had small images of Playboy pinups and Snoopy cartoons.

$200,000 - 300,000

MAN’S FIRST CELESTIAL MEASUREMENTS MADE WHILE ON THE MOON

The navigational chart used by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to determine their exact position on the lunar surface just after their historic lunar landing. From Buzz Aldrin: On the back of the star chart, there is a square velcro patch. It has an overall tint of gray with darker grayish material embedded within. Those gray areas are most likely lunar dust that came off our space suits or from various equipment such as the sample return container.”

$70,000 - 90,000

(Thanks, Hrag Vartanian.)

From a physics standpoint, time travel is entirely possible, according to an article in Cosmos Magazine. All you need is a really fast space ship and knowledge of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity.  Financially, however, it’s still totally unviable.

Theoretically, if a person were to orbit the Earth at 161,556 miles per second for one full year, during the same time, two years would have passed on Earth. *  That would mean the person would have traveled a year into the future. The problem is that to travel that fast for that long would require about 30 trillion gigajoules (GJ) of kinetic energy. At over $9 per GJ, the bill would total around $27 trillion. So for Back to the Future to become a reality, Marty McFly would have to be a very rich man.

—Erik Helin 

Image by Valerie Everett, licensed under Creative Commons.