You know what historical event fascinates me most? The moon landing. Not because it was some shining pinnacle of human achievement (though it was), but because it perfectly sums up how bizarrely contradictory people are. In 1969, humans launched themselves off a rock, hurled through space on a glorified tin can, and landed on another rock. That’s insane. Magnificent, reckless, poetic insanity. And then what did humanity do? Argued about whether it even happened. We built the most complex machine in history to escape gravity’s grip, and then half the population decided it was filmed in a basement. I mean… come on.

What kills me is how quickly the wonder faded. We went from “One small step for man” to “Eh, the Wi-Fi’s slow” in a few decades. The same species that stared into the cosmic void and said “Let’s walk there” now gets angry if their DoorDash takes longer than twelve minutes. It’s tragic comedy. The moon landing should’ve made us humble. Instead, it just made us smug, bored, and desperate for bigger distractions. The audacity of trying to touch the sky turned into the audacity of thinking we’re owed the stars.

Still, I love it. I love the chaos of it. Humans aimed for the impossible, and for one brief, shining moment, they hit it. You can read NASA’s mission archives here and listen to the original transmissions here. It’s all very humbling until you realize the same species that conquered the moon still can’t agree on how to use a four-way stop sign.