coming of age

I used to be a Christian, Lutheran to be specific, ELCA (Evangelical

Lutheran Church in America) to be even more specific.

It’s not that I denounce Christianity now, but it is more so just

the fact that I no longer wish to associate myself with organized

groups of individuals that are, by definition, separated from each

other.

As humans, we have a tendency to try and fit everything into a box,

or sphere,

or triangular prism…

Whichever shape you prefer. We like things to be organized,

definable from some sort of objective disposition. We call this the

Scientific Method. The Scientific Method basically allows us to

make assumptions and then “prove” them by being right more times

than not.

What’s funny about the Scientific Method is that it is based in

deductive reasoning; making sense out of things through

deconstructing them to their core elements. And what’s funny about

that is that Plato is the one who developed deductive reasoning.

And what’s funny about that is that Plato also wrote Allegory of the

Cave, which has been a cornerstone to my experience as a human

being, and I will tell you why:

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, he describes a scene where there

are people in a cave, who are shackled by the neck and legs so they

can hardly move at all. There is a fire behind them, and people are

behind the fire carrying “artifacts” back and forth, casting a

shadow which is all the people shackled to the ground can see.

Plato, through the character of Socrates, gives many scenarios from

here, but the one that has stuck with me is this:

One “prisoner” is let go, is allowed to go out of the cave. He is

frightened, but makes it outside still. When he returns and tells

his fellow “prisoners” about what he had seen, they simply do not

believe him. He is taken a fool, and all that he had learned is

disregarded because the others, the majority, had not seen it, and

therefore do not believe him.1

1 Plato. The Allegory of the Cave. Brea, CA: P & L Publication, 2010. Print.

In my high school, the science class “Earth Science” was “only for

stupid kids”. They had to take Earth Science before they could move

on to the more “prestigious” sciences; Biology, Chemistry and

Physics.

I don’t remember the equation for angular velocity, but I bet the

kids that took Earth Science remember how planets are made.

As “scientific” or “religious” or “spiritual” or “whatever” beings,

we still use this sort of deductive reasoning in our daily lives in

one way or another.

We still categorize people by race, gender, religion, location,

sexual preferences, lifestyle choices, “diets” (which I recently

found out derives from Latin as “a way of life”, but here, I’ll use

it to mean what our society has deemed it, “the type of food we

choose to eat on a daily basis”), the type of beer one likes to

drink, one’s transportation choices, political standpoints, whether

someone owns an android, iPhone, or a “non” smartphone,

“and so on” as Kurt Vonnegut says.

We categorize people by whether their beliefs align with ours or

not.

We categorize people by whether they see the same artifacts in the

cave we do or not.

We categorize people by whether they see what we see, or not.

*****************

I do not remember much from when I was younger, and by younger I

mean like 6 years ago and back. But I do remember watching the moon

in the car, and I probably remember this because I still do it.

When you drive in a car, and the moon is out

(and I suppose this happens with the Sun as well but it’s too

hard to look at the Sun

[I also enjoy that the Sun often gets to get capitalized,

but the moon often does not]),

it follows you. So when I would drive, or more so be driven around,

I would follow the moon following me. I would look at its many

scars and try to see the face in the moon,

and I hardly ever did.

But what I did see was a magnificent rock, or at least I’ve been

told it’s a rock.

And this rock and I would travel down the road together, whether it

was waxing or waning, bright or hardly visible, huge and red, or

tiny and blue, we never failed to travel side by side. And while we

did, all I could help but think is, “Where did you come from?”

When I was little, I used to think I would be an astronomer.

I thought space was probably the coolest thing that ever existed and

I had charts of the solar system and the constellations lining the

walls of my room to prove it.

Alas, it was just a fad in the many things I thought I loved or

thought I would become as a child. But even still, “Space”,

capital S-p-a-c-e,

has never ceased to, quite simply, blow my mind. How could it not?

How could you deny the absolute amazement that looking up at the sky

provides you at night?

Even in the cave-like nature of the Chicago sky, I knew that the

miniscule pin-pricks of light I could see were actually ginormous,

flaming balls of gas somewhere I will never go.

Some people think that the “sky” is a manufactured mechanism the

United States government came up with, but that is one of few

conspiracies I find hard to believe.

I do believe that the sky is a sky and not a “sky”,

but, at some point, I must realize that not everyone is going to see

things the way I do.

But that’s what great about Space… or the sky. Everyone can see it.

No matter where you are, who you are, what you are, if you have

working eyeball mechanisms, you have the ability to see something

everyone else does. Maybe not the same section or the same type of

sky, but we all have it.

So if you will allow me, let me provide you with a short

science/history lesson.

*****************

In space, there are bits (which we would probably call giant pieces)

of rocks and frozen ice floating everywhere. When gases exploded

out of a newly formed star, swirling around it, the gases pull these

floating rocks and frozen ice together so quickly and with such

intensity, that they melded together, becoming a planet.

Shortly after the formation of our planet, our moon was born. But

no one knows exactly how. Our lovely friends at NASA say that a

planetesimal (a forming planet) approximately the size of Mars was

traveling in an orbit that crossed paths with Earth and that the

impact of these two balls of rock, metal and ice, crashing into one

another was at least 100 times the force of the meteorite that is

said to have whipped dinosaurs from the face of our planet. When

this planetesimal side-swiped Earth, it caused chunks of the Earth’s

crust and mantle to break off. The heat that erupted from the

impact melted these chunks together, and formed our moon. 2

2 SSERVI. "NASA Scientist Jen Heldmann Describes How the Earth’s Moon Was Formed." Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. SSERVI, n.d. Web. 16 June 2014. <http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/nasa-scientist-jen-heldmann-describes-how-the-earths-moon-was-formed/>.

The moon may seem like a foreign rock revolving around us, with us,

but it was actually once a part of us. A part of us that was ripped

away billions of years ago, yet has never left us.

*****************

Whether you believe the sky was manufactured by the government or

that Christ died on the cross for your sins or that Buddha attained

enlightenment from meditating under a Bodhi tree or that technology

is ruining our youth or that your house was built on top of a sink

hole and it is going to collapse into the earth at any time, can you

really tell me you don’t think that this story of the moon’s

creation does not make you feel so miniscule and fragile and amazing

and powerful and beautiful all at the same time?

I like to think it made Plato feel that way.

A giant rock crashed into another giant rock and this udder

destruction created this other giant rock that become the giant rock

you’re from’s life partner? Became something that our giant rock

couldn’t function without?

A giant rock that you would die, or simply just not exist, if it

didn’t?

Maybe it’s just me, but this puts it all in perspective.

I don’t give a fuck what town your from or what color your skin is

or what kind of beer you like to drink (okay, I might make fun of

you if you drink Natty Light), we came from the same thing

whether you or I like it or not.

And all the destruction we are constantly being thrown into and

colliding with is going to keep creating a beautiful mystery that we

will never fully understand.

I’m not perfect.

I’m not always right.

I will always contradict myself.

And so will you.

But sometimes I feel like we are all tied to the floor of a cave.

And not a "giant, government manufactured sky” cave,

It’s much more complicated than that.

But I think when I saw the moon tonight

And saw it implode and reassemble itself again

A grain of moondust fell into my eye

Disembodied starlight.

And suddenly I think we are all much closer now.