“Hang in there, buddy.”
It’s nine degrees outside, and the telescope is making weird cracking sounds. But there, in the eyepiece, metal and glass freezing in the wee hours, a star.
It looks like any other dim speck foundering in the blackness, always on the edge of drowning in obscurity.
This particular speck is special. It’s not like the one next to it, a “mere” thousand light years away (six thousand trillion miles, that is.)
No sir, it’s a quasar, the relentless furnace of an unseen galaxy, gas spiraling around a supermassive black hole, matter shooting into space in giant relativistic jets–slingshots that zip particles outbound nearly at the speed of light.
It shines 25 trillion times brighter than the sun, lies at a staggering 2.5 billion light years away, and is falling away at thirty thousand miles a second. If it were as close as the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, it would be as bright as the sun in the sky.
I trudge inside to make sure I’m seeing the right speck.
A few adjustments…a detailed star chart… “Oh, that fainter speck. Got it!”
Not bad for 3:45 am.
(Astronomy Now magazine)
(Artist concept, NASA)
Indifference
The springtime sky glitters cold over the frozen landscape. Each step sounds like I’ll wake the neighborhood, but the galaxies, churning across the deep, don’t care.
There’s a freedom in the indifference of the stars. Some find it terrifying. Others insist that God is watching down anyway.
I can see it all ways. But I still like the indifference. What if the quasar could like my Instagram post I made, huddled by the woodstove as I warmed up?
Freya India writes a nifty Substack that mostly doesn’t apply to me directly (being a fella and all), but often does indirectly, is interesting, good for the world, and makes lots of points that are human. She writes in her latest post You Don’t Need to Document Everything–Stop selling your life off so cheaply to strangers:
“And anyway, here’s the truth: nobody cares about your life. They really don’t. I’m sorry but they watch your fireworks story for half a second. They hover over your selfie and then swipe to someone else’s. They skip through the concert you posted. They look at your life and immediately think about theirs.”
It’s a cool post, and I like her point of backing away from the influencer life in favor of participating more fully in the present.
“Yeah, but what if I was famous? THEN strangers would care.”
Freya Didn’t Ask
But….
(Oh God…someone get me help.)
Isn’t that a nagging question? What if you were famous? What if I was famous? “Easy to swear off swimming when you’re in a desert, Josh” you might say.
It’s persistent.
I’ve got an answer. (Not to be confused with the answer.)
The emcee gig last weekend was a blast. The conference went smoothly, we all had fun, and by golly, I got to hang out with some famous people. They were gracious, and we had a few real conversations. But it was tricky. The specter of their work kept looming up, interjecting itself in the conversation. It took effort to not be an idiot. It took concentration to talk man to man, to not need something, to not try to look cool, to see the other person.
At dinner afterwards, I went over to thank one of the guys, and complimented him again on the magic trick he did during the show. “Man, that was awesome.” I didn’t know what else to say. All he could do was say thanks. The moat I built with words remained uncrossed.
I had mixed results with another guy who happened to be a movie star. When we talked life and I asked him what he thought, we were human. Mentioning a dumb pun with a role of his, I flattened him to a character. (And for once, it wasn’t the pun’s fault.) He laughed weakly, lifted his hands, and let them drop, consigned to the prison I’d built him.
The waitress recognized him at dinner. A small group materialized, delighted to have found him. I’ve never seen that before. He was friendly and warm, and posed for pictures and….
Nobody had any clue of who he actually was.
(To be precise, neither do I, but at least I knew he was exhausted and drained after a long day.)
So yes, Freya, I agree, and think it applies to the famous and obscure alike.
“They look at your life and immediately think about theirs.”
“Ah, but what if you’re a writer? Won’t they know your thoughts?”
A successful author and poet told me once “They come up to you, feeling like they know you, and have completely misinterpreted your thoughts. In fact, I’ve had people tell me my interpretation of the idea was wrong…and I wrote it.”
For the guys over the weekend, it seemed like fame was a side effect of competency, a perk of the job.
Freya says nobody cares, but it’s a relief. I know the stars remain indifferent, and I relish it. Maybe there’s something to this.
Outer and inner space remain vast.
It’s such a help when I get wrapped around the axle of needing to opine, needing to speak, needing to be in the world. Yes, I must.
But the quasar will never, ever know I have an Instagram. And you probably won’t, either.
Whew.
PS. If you’re famous, or not, or disagree, I’d be curious to hear.