Monday’s solar eclipse was spectacular by any measure. Sadly, in today’s AI world, almost everything is becoming two dimensional as the distinction between what one sees on a computer screen and in the outside world are made to seem almost indistinguishable. Humanity is losing touch with a three-dimensional, real, colorful tactile world in favor of what shows up in front of us through computer glasses or TV screens. Why ever go and spend money to see a live sporting event if you can see it on TV complete with close ups and endless commentaries by “experts,” especially with a fridge close at hand. Arguments in favor of seeing things “live” are made to appear so quaint and old fashioned that the younger generations simply don’t relate to them. So to be “hip,” we’re told, so should we.

This is Trump’s post-truth world. Reality is so confusing. It is indistinguishable from fantasy, and the latter can produce much better states of feeling. Storming the Capital was so much fun. Facing the consequences was not, but that latter reality factor was just a “bummer” laid on us by lizard-men, anyway.

Humanity’s enemies, yours and mine whether or not you acknowledge it, are eager for us to sink into fantasy worlds of ease and good feelings, especially as they perfect ways to draw us in that are increasingly cost-effective for them. Since the 1960s, we’ve replaced costly brick-and-mortar institutions that are dedicated to mental health, for example, with drive-through drug dispensaries that keep problem cases stoned and away from the public, relegated to tents on streets and in parks where their social costs, except for underpaid police officers, are minimal. Big cities are rife with these.

Alas, what does a spectacular solar eclipse have to offer in this context? For many caught up in this, nothing at all. Just another spectacular visual effect. For their two-dimensional reality, many people saw it as nothing more than yet another excuse for not showing up for life, for yet another party. Whoa, look at that! Almost as good as the action movie I saw last night! What’s next?

So we have to say that the impact of the eclipse is contingent on what the viewer brings to it, be it 8 billion viewers, or a dozen, which would be more than the number who showed up for Thomas Paine’s funeral in 1809. For those with minds focused on reality in today’s world, the eclipse was a mammoth object lesson teaching us all about our place in the cosmos, and in that context, the vital importance of life, our lives, in contrast to the shallow two-dimensional view that says it all just makes us seem so infinitely small.

Life, and the capacity of that which is behind our eyes to see and think about what’s in front of them, is such an incomparable gift in this amazing universe of which we are apart, that the best valid reaction may simply be pure gratitude.