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Stargazing

August 6, 2008 1:37 AM

remember the first time I really saw stars. It was in college.

Nogales is not, by any means, a bustling metropolis, but even it puts out enough light to diminish someone's view of the night sky. And though I had been camping a few times, I think that the moon was always out and, besides, I wasn't really paying attention. But one day, for no real reason, some people and I went on a drive in the woods around Flagstaff. Flagstaff takes its astromony somewhat seriously--they discovered Pluto from Lowell Observatory. There's a "dark sky" policy which means that, even though we were only a few miles outside of the city, Flagstaff's lights didn't really affect our view of the cosmos. And there wasn't any moon at all that night.

I remember getting out of the car and looking up at the sky and seeing the band of the Milky Way for the first time. It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.

Sometimes thinking about the vastness of the Universe is extremely comforting: it doesn't really matter what I do or what happens to me because, in the end, I can't change a single important thing. Other times, it's the most depressing thing in the world: given the nearly infinite nature of our reality and the surely exhorbitant number of intelligent beings in the galaxy, I still spend a great portion of my time feeling completely and utterly alone.

I guess right now I'm feeling the latter.



4 Comments


JLee said:

There is nothing like looking at the stars. They are so hard to see in the city, that when I am visiting somewhere in the country, I am fascinated by them. I even have the little stick on glow ones for my ceiling at home!
You are never alone...

August 6, 2008 8:52 AM



Lauren said:

Remember, your relationship to the stars and the cosmos is defined by your frame of reference. Change that, and you change everything, even the rules...may time for a paradigm shift?

Physics aside, I have never seen anything more beautiful than the desert sky on a clear night.

August 6, 2008 10:45 AM



Valerie said:

The stars were amazing when i was camping last weekend....

ON another note, I am sorry you felt alone gazing at the stars. But sometimes that's the way it goes, eh? Nevertheless, you are never alone, even if it seems that way sometimes. I kind of think that feeling alone is just a frame of reference that we need to fully appreciate awesome people in our lives, much like winter is a much needed menace when it comes to totally loving the hell out of better weather.... but maybe that's just me?

August 6, 2008 5:09 PM



Ismael Tapia II said:

JLee,
Yeah, the stars are awesome. Even the little stick on glow ones. It's nice to see you're a thirteen-year-old girl at heart.

Lauren,
Ahh, physics. Was there ever a better class than Philosophy of Physics? Clearly not. Except for maybe Philosophy of History. Man, Peter was the shit.

Also, did you have to bring up the "D" word. I mean, seriously--is sky as seen from the desert really more beautiful than the sky as seen from, say, a wooded area? No, it's not. Your love of the desert is baffling.

Valerie,
I see what you're saying and it's not necessarily wrong. But it doesn't make the feeling suck any less.

August 7, 2008 9:11 AM



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