argument noun 1 obsolete : an outward sign : indication 2 a : a reason given in proof or rebuttal b : discourse intended to persuade 3 a : the act or process of arguing : argumentation b : a coherent series of statements leading from a premise to a conclusion c : quarrel, disagreement 4 : an abstract or summary especially of a literary work {a later editor added an argument to the poem} 5 : the subject matter especially of a literary work —WWWebster Dictionary
From here on the moon, Earth makes for an impressive sight—a turquoise brooch on a field of black velvet, so huge and perfectly clear that you think you could reach out and touch it.
But that's just an illusion. Of course you can't touch Earth—it's a quarter of a million miles away. And when you look more closely, you begin to see that the clarity itself is an illusion. It's all surface. You can see the clouds on the outside perfectly well, but only occasional glimpses of what's underneath, and not much in the way of detail at all.
Memory is in many ways similar. It may seem as though you can take in its sum total—the current state of your own life—at a glance, but the harder we peer, the more depth and complexity are revealed, and the more the fine details elude your searching eyes.
Every so often, however, those details swim into sharp focus—but they never stay that way for long. You get a sense that if you don't capture them quickly in a photo or a sketch, they'll be gone again soon, maybe gone for good.
Thus Memos from the Moon—an attempt to capture my world of memory in words, one square mile at a time. That planet keeps on turning, so you'll never know which bit I may be gazing at on any given day—a mountain peak, an ocean trench, an orderly city, a roiling storm—but I'll do my best to accurately report whatever swims into focus.
Percival Lowell looked at the bleak deserts of Mars and saw inconceivably long canals irrigating massive agriculture zones. I can sympathize with his misjudgment, but when I see a desert, I'll try to call it a desert. After all, this is a map of my home planet I'm making. If I should someday go back, being able to get around would be nice.
