The Lights in the Sky are Stars

    “Because something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” – Bob Dylan

    I think people forget we live in a fantastically large universe. We’re bacteria living in a drop of water and imagine the few molecules we swim in are the crown of creation, the darling of God’s eye. Light polution has stolen the Milky Way from our lives and shrunk our universe. Most people never look up any more and speculate beyond the event horizon of their lives. Sense of wonder and philosophy has been replaced by gossip about Anna Nicole Smith. Is it no wonder that the uneducated of the world crave their old time gods? DVDs and iPods can’t give the young transcendence. We live in the most exciting time of all history but the only philosophers we have are ones that tell us how to cope with stress, lose weight, invest money, or quibble over left and right politics. Where are our transcendental explorers? Our population seems divided between people who want to ignore reality by partying till they die or those who ignore reality by feverishly studying ancient religious texts and praying for a rebirth in another reality – one that is simple and easy to understand.

    If you wake up to The Today Show, come home from work to the ABC World News Tonight, and go to sleep with Eyewitness News and Jay Leno, then your view of our monsterously large multiverse is rather tacky and small. Watch the Discovery Channel in High Definition – it is the Henry David Thoreau of our times. A telescope will help you learn how small you are and a microscope will teach you how big you are. Ask yourself this question: What should I be doing in this immense creation that has no guidebook or instruction manual. For most of history our philosophers have asked: “Why are we here?” Up till now people have answered that question by believing in the silly idea that we’re being judged on our behavior and assume the judgement determines our immortal life in the reality after this one. Imagine if ants thought one human judged their every action.

Get over it. There is no reason why. We’re not being judged and there is no reality after this one. This reality is our final destination – our only vacation from oblivion. We’ve all gone to Hawaii and all we do is sit in our hotel room and watch reruns of That 70’s Show. How lame is that. We need to remember every moment of our lives that the lights in the sky are stars.