Hello… If you are reading this, you have found humanity's third attempt at making contact with our intergalactic brothers and sisters. I send this essay along with the Voyager 3.0 in the hope that you find it and read it. Our cosmic address is Planet Earth, The Solar System, Milky Way galaxy, Virgo Star Cluster. I know our location is not all that special in the grand scheme of things but before you rule us out as ordinary, please read the following story of mine for this may change your viewpoint of us. I don't know about your planet, but our globe and its citizens are still firmly attached to political distinction and economic supremacy. As a result, small countries and vulnerable people are often bullied and exploited. My country Tibet happens to be one of them. It was invaded and taken over by China in 1959. I was born on foreign soil as a refugee in India and as ironic as it is, I have never been to Tibet. My father fled Tibet in the year 1981 at age 13 with thousands of other Tibetans to seek asylum in India under the guidance of H.H the 14th Dalai Lama and has never been able to go back since. My mother, like me, was born in India and has never been to Tibet. Throughout my life, people would ask me, “Where are you from?”: A question easy for many people to answer but not for me. I would say “I am from Tibet,” but in the next breath I would have to add “but I have never been to Tibet.” People would either frown or laugh hearing that response. That would always be saddening. I was desperately in search of identity whereas most people were entitled to it since they were born. Growing up like that might seem dark, and it was until the Universe found me. I was a small kid (age 8) when my mother showed me picture books of Dinosaur and the next thing I knew, I was attached to it. Memorizing and visualizing different dinosaurs became my favorite past time and digging the earth in search of fossils became my best-loved adventure. With curious ventures like this, I was already in love with science, but it was when we were learning the universal law of Gravity that I realized that science was much more than just 'curious adventures.' It was a way to see universal connections- connections spanning beyond Space and Time. The equations of gravity told me that everything in the universe obeys the same law of gravity and is connected in that way. In some deep sense, I am connected to you and you are connected to me as well. This glimpse of a universal connection started my quest to look for more of our connections. I read books like Selfish Gene, Feynman lectures, Upright thinkers and A brief history of time. I watched youtube videos from the World Science Festival, Vsauce, and Kurzegast. I listened to podcasts such as Waking up, Startalk and Infinite monkey cage. And the more I looked, the more our connections seemed obvious: How we live, interconnected, through a delicate food web, How all of us humans evolved from the plains of Africa sharing the same genetic makeup, and how all of us atomically came from the stardust of distant Supernovae. Only then did I realize how petty our human-made political differences are in comparison to our shared reality of physical laws. In the face of that realization, worrying about my political insignificance seemed stupid. Instead, I started to see how connected we are to each other and felt a strong sense of love for everyone. I also started to see how our actions affect our shared planet and became morally and ecologically concerned about it. So dear Alien, although I have never met you, I still hold a strong sense of respect and love for you. These series of realizations, for me, was an indicator of how strong knowledge of the Universe can be in the service of Unity and peace. That's why I became a ‘Student of the Universe' passionately in pursuit of the physical laws that the universe has to teach us in the hope that I can foster these realizations to create our Universe a better place to live in. So Dear Alien, if you are still reading this, I hope you understand now that our planet is unique not because of its location but because of stories like mine. Thank you for reading, Tenzin Jampa Student of the Universe

Isn't it the most frustrating thing to have the persistent feeling that you need to write, but for the life of you, your always rampaging mind can't seem to come up with something suitable for your emotions today? I'm sure all writing enthusiast out there can relate to the situation I feel right now. Like an itch you can't seem to get under control unless you start typing, I can say for sure that writer's block is at its worst when you feel the urge to have words flowing onto the page by any means necessary. I wasn't always like this. In fact, I still find those horrendously boring topics they force us to write on in school to be a big encouragement to give up the writing gig for good. But, recently, it's become like my drug I can't escape from. Whenever I write about what my heart desires that day, I'm forever floating in a relentless high, entirely at peace with myself and the words that stream across the page in an unstoppable torrential rush. It's the one thing that makes me feel free of everything: judgment, restrictions, deadlines, worries, pain, limitations. Time. I can travel wherever I please without fail. From the deepest, darkest parts of the ocean to the highest, brightest, stars in the galaxy and beyond. All are mine for the taking. Pencil, pen, keyboard; the medium doesn't matter so long as I can let my mind soar into my wildest imaginations. I could revisit the past without worries of disrupting the future. I could be the first to confirm that black holes indeed lead somewhere reachable. I could be the version of myself I hope and forever wish to be and start shaping my Now to chase after that Tomorrow. The possibilities indeed are endless, with our only limit being how far our mind's eye is willing to see. Who knows; perhaps one day we will discover what some perceive to be impossible to comprehend. That all the “fiction” we've created is really other universes “non-fiction.” Who's to say that every time we create a book, we've indeed created a new universe? Or further yet, what if the ideas we have that lead us to the pieces we create are downloads about other worlds that exist somewhere in the infinite vastness that is space. For all I know, I could be the main character of someone's book right now. Now that is something the reflect one for sure. Well, how strange is this? I could've sworn I had no idea what to write about a few moments ago. The itch, my persistent need, has finally been quelled. But that only happens when I've written about the right thing. How interesting. How'd did my perfect something come from absolutely nothing? Where did the words arrive from? Our mind is one strange entity. It makes me wonder how much we truly understand about ourselves.

Time occurs simultaneously. This makes an odd statement, considering it's true, yet also false. It depends on one's perception, of course. Everything that is happening, happens at the same time. That is an obvious fact, no? What if all time occurred simultaneously? As in everything? Everything that has ever happened is happening right now. Major events in history replay, constantly. Every birth, every death, every murder, every celebration, and every battle, occurring at the same time as what is considered present day. The marching of time is endless, never ceases, never slows down. Individual human experiences make the entire world and the timeline of it. A civil war nurse, just doing her job, significance. A failed playwright in England, just trying to make a living, significance. A child sent from London to live elsewhere when the blitz attacks began, just wanting to be a kid, significance. All such personal accounts, lost, but equally important to the fate of the entire world. Every person that has ever lived experienced something. They saw something, felt it, heard it, tasted it. They lived. Perhaps, in some way, they still live. Their lives continuing endlessly along a set timeline. It's not laborious, and it doesn't get old. It's just life as it would be lived the first time around. Every time is the first time around, and everyone will always be new to it. Right now is history and so is the future. Tomorrow will be a long time ago, very soon. A distant memory.