Little Princes

There's this really cool video called The Most Astounding Fact, that talks about the stars and some other stuff like the Universe.  In the video, the guy talking says that he looks up at the universe, and instead of feeling small, he feels big.  He feels this way, because the same atoms that make him up make up the cosmos, and the planets, and the whole entirety of freakin' space and time.  And It made me think a lot.  Because while it's true, what he said, I don't feel that way.  But I don't feel small either.

Well, that's not true either.  I feel like a little kid sitting at the base of a mountain looking up and thinking, I am never going to make it up this thing.  Because the reality is, I most likely won't ever go into space.  I won't ever feel as close and as connected to the world as this guy does, or as astronauts and astrophysicists and other people who have jobs starting with the word astro do.  And it makes me sad, because I live on a tiny speck in a sea of tiny specks, in like, the largest speck resort ever.  And i might never ge to go up to the roof of that resort and look out at the rest of the world while it sleeps.

Another thing this guy in the video talks about is connection, and how as humans, that is all we want to find, human connection.  It seems like an accepted fact that when you grow up, you'll get married and have children.  But, what if that isn't the kind of connection he is talking about?  What if he means connection with the world, with the stars and the planets and other spacey stuff?  What if he means connection within yourself?  It is impossible to tell what he means, just as it is almost impossible for me to think that someday I'll go to space.

In the song, "Space Oddity" by David Bowie, an astronaut goes off into space, and doesn't come back.  He's on communication, and one of the last things he says is to tell his wife he loves her.  But the very last thing he says is how planet Earth is Blue, and describes that the stars look very peculiar.  And then his circuit cuts dead, and inevitably, he goes off to die, somewhere in space.

 In his last moment of life, up in a tin can in space, He looked at the stars all around him.  And I bet he felt really close to them, and really close to the whole of space.  I bet he was really sad that his wife couldn't see it with him.  Maybe he was really sad that everyone else couldn't see it, too. Because it makes me sad that I won't ever see that.

It's every little kids dream to be an astronaut, at some point or other.  Maybe that's because, when we are so young and innocent and don't know much of the world, something inside us tell us that the stars are something that need to be seen, to be felt close to.  Even though, we know, deep down that we probably won't get to see them.

But, on the right nights, when I go outside, and look up at the night sky, I can see all the stars, like tiny beacons of hope, thousands of them, shining in the dark nights.  And I feel big.  Becaus I'm made of what they are made of.  And someday, when I die, someone else will go out and look at the stars.

And they'll feel the same way I did.


"This is Major Tom to ground control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in the most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today"

"I could tell an antique lie
full of all the things I want to hide
but that would only lead to the truth"

"Look at that speck.
That's home, that's us."