If The Stars Only Appeared Once Every Thousand Years

While staring up into the night sky, you might be struck by the magnificence and great number of the stars that adorn the heavens. I won't go all Louie Giglio on you and spout facts of how gigantic our universe is, I won't even talk about specific stars. I simply want to ask what it would be like if stars only came out every thousand years. To quote Ralph Emerson, a 19th century poet and lecturer:

"If the stars would appear one night in  a thousand years; how would man believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their smile."

In a short story by Maurice T. Brackbill titled Once In A Thousand Years, the idea is eloquently expanded upon, trying to guess how people would react if the stars only came once every thousand years. Here is a brief summary of the story (by the way, it is one of my all time favorite short stories, right up with The Land Of The Lost Socks and Tales of Napoleon the Stub): Stories of the stars are passed down from generation to generation. When the calculated time approaches, the people are separated into two groups: The Pro-Stellarists, who believed that the stars coming was a matter of historical and scientific fact, and the Anti-Stellarists who believe that the stars are simply a myth. There would be much debate about who was correct, although the majority of the population agreed with the "Pro's". In preparation for the day when the stars come out people travel to places where it is expected to have no clouds. The government would outlaw lights except with permission, so as not to disturb the sight of the stars. Hospitals wheel the sick onto balconies, prisoners in solitary confinement are allowed a few minutes under guard in the courtyard, those on death row that are sentenced to die a few days before the stars come out are given a stay of sentence, all so that the stars can be seen in all their glory.
And when the star arrive, the spectacle is excitedly witnessed by all. But, when the last star disappears from the night sky, it is wished that they could see it just one more night, and how amazing it would be if they came out every night. Alas, it is not so, and it will be another thousand years before the stars are seen again.

 Yet, the stars do come out every night. We are privileged to partake in them at our leisure. And yet do we? They have become so commonplace we hardly give them a second thought. You have to wonder. If the stars did only come out once every thousand years, (assuming we were lucky enough to live at the point when they came out) as a whole would we humans appreciate them more on that once occasion than we do now, when they come out every single night? Or have we so taken them for granted that we do not recognize their wonder?

Search Engines

Search engines: The tools that help make navigating the vast interwebs possible. As most people are these days, my search engine of choice is Google. It finds what a need in a simple and easy to read format. Not to mention that I adore Google's other ventures, such as Gmail and Google Chrome. But recently I've tried to get into the habit of using GoodSearch. This engine, powered by Yahoo, has a great concept: for every search you make, GoodSearch donates half of the revenue made by the search (approximately a penny) to the charity of your choice. The charity that I chose is the "Office of Letters and Light", the non-profit organization that runs the National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo) website. Okay, a good cause, but not quite feeding starving orphans in Africa. Okay, I'm sorry. I want to help them out, but I'm too stingy to make a donation. So I use a search engine instead. Sadly, because of the fact it is powered by Yahoo, it is very annoying to do searches. Which means occasionally I waste time switching to Google and then switching back....

Camp NaNoWriMo

Besides my daily writing with Ryan, I figured that I would have a rest from frantic writing until November, when I am writing a 50 thousand word novel in a month as part of National Novel Writers Month. Well, I was wrong. Apparently there is a CAMP version of NaNoWriMo, which means I will write ANOTHER 50k novel in a month. Which means I will be writing two 50 thousand word novels in two different months. So, including Camp NaNoWriMo, normal NaNoWriMo, and the novel I am co-authoring with Ryan, I will have written three novels this year. If it all works out, anyway. This year alone I will have written many times more words than the rest of my life COMBINED. That's a scary thought.

My Thoughts On Romance

Hormones: Despicable creatures that attempt to alter one's perception of the world. Luckily, if one has been in the routine one's whole life, they can easily be ignored.

That pretty much sums up my view of love. As I progress through the teen years, more and more friends begin "relationships". I of course see it as quite silly. First of all anything of that sort, either courting or dating, is usually meaningless in the teen years. Try college, guys. Or even better, stay single your whole life. Wouldn't that be cool? I'm probably the only person I know that has (and still does) seriously considered being a hermit in the wilderness. The only hindering factor right now is that I couldn't bring my laptop. Perhaps if I found a quaint cave near a McDonalds...

And what about on Facebook? On your profile there is an "interested in" option. You can either check the box for "Men" or "Women". Now the fact that you would even be able to check the same box as your gender completely disgusts me, but that's not the point. I, and many other people, simply don't check a box at all. But why isn't there third option that relays the idea that relationships aren't your thing? Why do they assume that you want one?

Still, my kind isn't that uncommon. There are plenty of teenagers out there that agree that relationships, proms, dances, crushes, break ups, they are absolutely ludicrous. But, eventually they will "mature", so to speak. Join the rest of the population in thinking that romance isn't actually bad. But, what about the holdouts (like hopefully myself)? It's easy to say now that you never plan to get married, but how many people will actually stay that way? I am deathly afraid of the day that I'll wake up from bed and think "Hmm, I think that my zero-tolerance relationship policy is odd, I think that I'll change that." Perhaps I am too young to make an opinion. After all, how many people believe the little boy that says that "Girls are icky" will stay that way is whole life?

So, drop me in a inhabited stretch of jungle with my laptop, an internet connection, and a companion cube. Then I'll be all set :)

Art

I can't draw. Literally, not at all. I can do stick figures, but they aren't that very good so I doubt that they count. Do to my inability to draw even a straight line, I don't do art that much. On the other spectrum, I have several friends that can draw life like things very quickly, in any situation. In the meantime I sit in the corner and groan about my lack of talent in this field. But, as anyone will tell you, there is more to art than just drawing. Someone who is really "artsy" might say something along the lines of it being a way to express one's creativity. Thus it is not confined to things that you feel, see, and smell. How about art with words? Writing? A common adage is "A picture is worth a thousand words". I disagree. A picture can put you into a scenario, thrusting you into what the creator envisioned, and making it seem real. But a well written selection of words can do so much more. It can explain feelings, emotions, pulling you into the world that the author is describing. People, places, things, they are all wondrously and intricately put together into what we call a story.  If done correctly, good writing allows the reader to use their imagination to explain all the wondrous things that they are reading about, instead of it being set in stone with a picture.

More artsy than I intended... And no, I did not exaggerate the descriptions of my artistic talent. It's sad, really. 

Mock Trial: Revisited

Thinking about Mock Trial again. Yeah, I can't wait until it's that time of year again. I know I have said before how great the memories were, but it is worth saying again. Yet I can see this year as being as good, or possibly better. I've talked with some of my friends that weren't part of it last year, and they have expressed want to do it this year. Our coach was great last year, but at times things could be...frustrating. Sadly I don't think that he will be able to be back this year, though :(

This thought probe into Mock Trial came again when I looked at a case my brother is doing (he's doing a mini Mock Trial, in addition with some other things, in a summer program). Reading through the law, the witness statements, and soon the evidence (didn't get that far yet). The thought process starts churning again and ideas of how to do things and how the case should be presented from a particular side; ah, good times :)