George Zarkadakis

I mean, that was the culmination, the realization of centuries of dreaming about going to space.

For George and millions of others around the world, it was proof that humans can imagine and then create the capacity to transcend ourselves, and that stories provide the roadmap.

I interviewed a lot of people to see what made them become scientists or engineers.

And it was always some kind of, you know, book, kind of comic, something, right, that excited them, that triggered their imagination.

It could be, you know, the outer space of planets and asteroids and whatnot, but it could also be the inner space, the human body.

So those stories are very powerful.

And I try to sort of explore those stories, where they come from,

What are they telling us about this desire to become, in a way, like gods?

So, you know, big bang of the universe, whatever it was before, something happened, it changed.

Boom.

We have something different now.

Protons and, I don't know, dogs, cats, you and me, whatever.

Our species has been around probably for maybe 300, 400,000 years.

And yet, for most of that time, we're doing, you know, chiseling some stones, hunting some animals, you know, living very simply in caves, you know.

Not a lot was happening.

And then around 14,000, 16,000 years ago, boom.

the big bang of the human mind.

Something amazing happens and our ancestors, across the world by the way, right, start creating art, start to narrate, tell stories about how they experienced the world.

When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.

Through these stories, we project our hopes, fears, and dreams onto the canvas of the invisible unknown.