Solar Eclipse & What we don't know

On 8th March one day before the Total Solar Eclipse I started to gather some coloured bottles & plates and also dug out some x-ray films. Based on the sun's direction at around 8am I even marked the best spot just opposite my house where the sun is usually visible without blockage.

Around 7.30 am on 9th March (when the total eclipse just began) I went to the chosen spot with a green coloured empty bottle in hand. Peering at the sun through the bottle was astonishingly blinding. I tried again a bit later but could not make much of the phenomena. I then went home to fetch the X-ray film and placed it very close to my eyes. Lo and behold, almost like magic, I saw a sun like a crescent moon. Awed and dumbfounded I fastened my eyes to the image as the sun grew darker and darker. How amazing! The naked eye could only perceive an ordinary cloudy day like before a tropical storm, ignorant of this remarkable phenomena taking place.

This makes me wonder how much more things we are oblivious of in our world and in our lives. Had astronomy not gone this far the myths and superstitions that were associated with such 'strange'' happenings would have lived on for generations with the blind leading the blind. We only know as much as our senses can detect, understand only from the knowledge we can acquire and the limits science can discover; as well as believe and value things in our lives according to generally accepted social norms and values.

Knowing about the billions of other worlds in the universe already makes one feel so incredibly small and insignificant or meaningless the things we are so hung up on. As someone once said "Nothing compares to the perspective, the shock, or the excitement, of being reminded of what we don't know".

It makes me also wonder about all the religious beliefs we have about after life, how very very little we must be knowing.