Letters From Josh
9/19/22 Vol. 100
Howdy, folks! Can you believe that this is letter #100?! For those just tuning in, Letters from Josh started at the height of the COVID lockdowns...and just kept rolling, most recently turning into The Nighthawk. Thanks for reading along the way, and writing back. It’s been fun!
Here’s the latest philosophical nugget to chew on - a puzzle to unravel. Put on your thinking caps, as this is an unsolved riddle. It’s been pondered around ancient campfires, contemplated high atop towers of old, discussed in long-ruined lecture halls, and now, like a perennial bluebottle fly, has buzzed to my writing desk. It sits there, rubbing it’s little hands together, mocking me. Swat as I might, metaphorically speaking, it’s always a miss.
While delivering a talk on Astronomy in Fairfax, VA, a few weeks ago, a gentleman summed up the riddle: “Josh, why do we like to look at the stars?” .... “Uhh....Uhhh...” I have no idea. Why do like to look at the stars? What compels us to gaze into Infinity? Is it purely evolutionary? Is it a call by a God to appreciate his creation? Is it a by-product of biochemical soup in our brain? The more I study the cosmos, the less I feel I know.
The Saturday sun smiled down on a stone wall, and there I sat, perched next to my father, enjoying a mountain overlook and a philosophical conversation. He said something about knowing “minor truths” (say, the chemical composition of a rock), and they all point to a “greater truth.” (In his faith, a Christian God.) My eyes lit up.
A boyhood visit to my grandmother’s house blazed in my mind. She had a little drawer with bits of string in it. “Never know when you’ll need a section.” The facts I stumble across remind me of these bits. The Dog Star is eight light years away. A bit of string. The Orion Nebula is birthing new stars. A bit of string. That yellow flower over yonder is Goldenrod. A bit of string.
But the more I study, the higher the pile of bits of string grow. The bits remain disconnected, with no rope in sight. Could these “minor truths” be pointing to a greater one? Or will they suddenly join of their own accord once a critical mass is reached? Or do they just exist, and my human efforts at reason doomed to futility? My astronomy lecture audiences are “treated” to an onslaught of facts (bits of string), but we all leave slightly puzzled, something unfulfilled. Why do we like to look up? And what are we looking for?
Thanks for joining me as I stumble around in the dark, looking for answers. So far, all I’ve seen is the glittering of countless stars...and bits of string. They sure are pretty, though. Maybe we can’t know the Answers. Maybe it’s in the sifting of the questions. What do you think? - Josh