Poetry and Music That Reaches Across the Digital Void | Elle Cordova | TED

Hey, everybody, I'm Elle.

If I look familiar to you,

it's probably because at some point,

you scrolled across one of my many goofy videos about fonts

or AI or the planets or whatever.

One of the nerdy sundries I've put out there.

I am a literature person by trade and by training,

but I love to nerd out about science,

and one of the questions that keeps me up at night is:

What happened before the Big Bang?

So I wrote a poem about it

with an assist from science communicator Hank Green,

who was talking about that very topic.

And he sort of said in passing this line,

which really struck me as simple but powerful.

So I expanded it into this poem.

Here it is.

Before the Big Bang

there was no up

there was no down

there was no side to side

there was no light

there was no dark

nor shape of any kind

there were no stars or planet Mars

or protons to collide

there was no up

there was no down

there was no side to side

and furthermore, to underscore this total lacking state

there was no here

there was no there

because there was no space

and in this endless void which can’t be thought of as a place

there was no time

and so no passing minutes, hours, days

of all the paradoxes

that belabor common sense

I think this one’s the greatest

this time before events

because how did we get from nothing

to infinitely dense

from immeasurably small

to inconceivably immense?

but before we get unmoored from the question at the start

let's take a breath and marvel

at when math becomes an art

because we don't have to comprehend it

to know there was a time

when there was no up

there was no down

there was no side to side

Thank you.

(Applause)

Well, I just have one other thing I want to share with you before I go.

And I'm going to invite guitarist Toni Lindgren up here

to join me for this.

(Applause)

This is a song I wrote about social media, where I spend so much of my time,

and I think where so many of us spend maybe too much of our time.

And I wrote this about kind of the endless scroll,

and I think the conscious and unconscious desire that we all might have

to reach out to other human beings and make connections in the digital void,

even as we're sitting alone on our devices, in our homes.

And I named the song "Carl Sagan" after the great astronomer and philosopher

who saw the connections between ourselves

and the billions and billions of stars in the night sky

that are constantly sending out their light

through the void to make contact.

So this is "Carl Sagan."

(Guitar music)

Hey, how are you?

Are you scrolling alone inside your room?

Is your heart good?

Or did something go and break it?

In the words of Carl Sagan,

we're all just stars and bacon.

That's not quite what he said,

but it's true.

Hey, you still here?

Are you like me on this app

so you can be lost and numb

in a warm bath made of content,

watching brilliant bits of nonsense

because it feels like making contact.

Maybe that's just me.

How are you?

And we are billions

and billions

of lights

reaching out through a satellite

just to know

that feeling

that even

when we’re cold and on our own,

we're not alone.

Not alone.

We are billions

and billions

of lights

reaching out

through a satellite

just to know

that feeling

that even

when we're cold and on our own,

we're not alone.

Not alone.

And hey, are you all right?

Are you scrolling alone again tonight?

You'll be fine.

Even if your heart is breaking.

You got me and Carl Sagan

and his famous postulation.

That if we’re all alone in space,

it’d be an awful waste.

So I’m just signing in to say, how are you?

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)