The Unknown

The unknown has plagued the human race for as long as it has been around. It is a

dangerous place full of wonder. It is deadly, yet beautiful. The unknown has caused both life and

death, advancement and destruction, enlightenment and confusion. It is a double-edged sword,

yet it has delivered us to the modern era. The exploration of the unknown is our duty as human

beings. There is no other way to advance in all aspects of life; we must step foot into unknown

territory in order to claim it.

Imagine if our ancestors had never set foot on the ground, had never struck those rocks

together to make the first manmade flame, never hunted or engineered or communicated. Where

would the human race be? If we were to scared to touch the grass, scared of the flame, the

predators, and the prey. Too scared of the world. The unknown. Had we not coordinated that first

hunt, cooked that first meal… where would we be? Nowhere. The species Homo sapien would

never have come to be. Take it further back. What if the first creature to ever eye the land had

been too scared to take a breath? There would be no amphibians, mammals, birds, reptiles, no

humans. No us. But, primates did touch the earth and water-dwelling creatures did clamber onto

land and take their first precious breaths. And that lands us here, in the modern era, showing that

exploring the unknown is of the utmost importance.

Even now we are still exploring the unknown. The big two “unknowns” are space and the

ocean. This exploration has caused immense amounts of information to become available to us.

From studying moonrocks, we have learned that the moon is simply a chunk of the earth that was

leftover from an asteroid collision. We have discovered thousands of species that inhabit the

ocean, and are still discovering more. From the earth, we have discovered the existence of giant,
towering beasts as well as our personal ancestors from thousands of years past. We are

constantly pushing the boundaries of discovery, and without this exploration of the unknown, we

would know next to nothing about our world and those unheard of.

The unknown can be a scary concept. It is truly terrifying to simply not know.

Sometimes, when the unknown becomes the known, we don’t like it. Sometimes it claims lives,

and sometimes it improves them. As children, we are told that we will never know if we like it if

we don’t try it, and that stands true today. After all, we didn’t accomplish anything by staying in

the trees, did we?