"I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars."
-Just another sucker.
That's so comforting.
We can stare up into a clear night sky and see the universe alive and shining. Unless you live in one of the places where you can't. We have unlocked many secrets the stars hold, and holy shit, they're pretty rad. There's this commonly held notion of magic which we are all familiar with, and how infantile it is. Is it because humans had no other way to explain those things? Isn't it sad that people still cling to magic to explain things that might actually make sense if they stopped thinking about magic. I think so. Even though these people don't care about the math, they trust that these things have been explained. They know better, after a fashion.
Yet people cling to them. Maybe that's for the best. Maybe wiccans are doing us some good by clutching to antiquated systems of thought*. Not antiquated because they're pagan and that shit is ancient, antiquated because that kind of thinking is right in line with medicine from the 1800's. Stupid, but the best that you have at that time. Not this time, that time.
I don't need magic to hold a sense of wonder in my mind. There's nothing like the raw forces of the universe to allow the mind to do just that.
But what about humanity? Where's the wonder there? They sense it individually more than collectively. And I sense it in the individual. When one of those horrible, hairless slugs pits their everything, the entirety of that chemically-laced meat machine, against something they can hardly look at, something they can't quite get their grip around....well, that's something.
Just like a star the best thing, the only thing, they can do that's worth doing is to use up everything they have against forces larger than themselves. I can't imagine any of the people I know at the end of their lives holding all the potential until their dying day. And if they do, how horrible! I don't think that's the case. Sure, they might be stupid, but nearly everybody has some thing that burns their shit up. Unfortunately, I feel much of this gets sucked into the black vortex of television.**
We reach, given time/money/sense/need, as high as we can. At some point we stopped reaching toward the stars. As NASA winds its way down one can't help but feel a certain pang of sadness, because look at what we can do, you now?
I will, however, maintain a certain comfort level with us staying where we are.
Because the only reason we don't have to try to kill the stars is because we can't. Because as long as stars battle the vacuum of space we will battle anything that is in front of us. Because the second we figure out how to kill stars we will.
As soon as we are able we will make slow runs from star to star, and get paid double overtime where applicable. One by one, until the last light in the night sky is snuffed out. Because we are hungry, and we persist. Horribly, exponentially, beautifully we persist.
*PROBABLY NOT LOL.
**FUCK The Big Bang Theory, and FUCK YOU if you like. Yeah, I said it.
This was beautiful and painful and poignant.
What Nigel said. Wow, Alty.
Thanks!
It's harder to get them out these days, but when I do it's usually got some weight behind it.
Damn man.
We do, in a sense kill stars as best we can. Light up everything so they go away. How many stars can you spot? For me, probably 30 on a good night.
When I go away, I go to places where you can see the milky way, like a great glowing stripe across the sky. When I come back the sky is gone and it pisses me off, and I hate where I live, and I hate the cunts I'm surrounded by, and I hate technology and civilisation and all the fucking bullshit that humans cling to, as if it had some sort of merit, and I want to burn the whole thing to the ground so that, when the smoke clears, I'll be able to see the stars again, instead of some shitty petrochemical glow that progresstm shat all over my sky.