Stars

Stars are pretty awesome. I don't just mean 'awesome,' but AWE-some. Full of awe 'n' all that. Let's put that on the table where we both can see it. You lookin' at it? Good. Now get a blanket, some pillows, let's make a fort! While we do that, I'm going to talk about stars.

They're pretty much the pinnacle of an organized society. Every year, you can chart their locations. They move in a graceful, perpetual dance upon which our entire system of navigation is based. In a very real way, it was these objects of the future (In that we see them now as points to one day get to) that helped us spread ideas and get where we are. That is a beautiful irony.

Even the way they die is amazing. When a star collapses, its elements are actually absorbed into another star. Now you could chalk this up to stars being greedy bastards, but I think it's pretty cool. Even in death, their remains are gathered up and continue on through the great dance.

Stars are sort of used as a theme for one of my favorite characters in theater/literature: Inspector Javert. He has an incredibly rigid justice code and hounds the convict protagonist throughout the story even when he attempts to start a new, honest life. The stars are his inspiration. "Scarce to be counted, filling the darkness, with order and light, you are the sentinels, silent and sure, keeping watch in the night."

It is this view of absolute justice that brings him at odds with the protagonist, Jean Valjean. At one point, Valjean, undercover amongst a group of student revolutionaries, finds that Javert has been captured for spying, and Valjean volunteers to execute him. However, he refuses to vindicate Javert's view of "once a thief, forever a thief." And lets the inspector go, knowing full well they will meet again, which they do, in the sewers of Paris. Valjean is taking a wounded young man to safety when Javert catches up with him. Javert finds himself doubting his convictions and lets Valjean go.

He realizes that his uncompromising world view is at odds with what he has done. He cannot reconcile the image he had carried through the years of Valjean as a brutal ex-convict, with Valjean's acts of kindness. Javert can be justified neither in letting Valjean go nor in arresting him. He is faced with the choice of being either lawful or immoral. For him morality and the law have always been one. He cannot accept that Valjean is both a criminal and a good person, and, unwilling to live in such a world, throws himself into the river Seine. One of my favorite lines in the musical comes from him at this point: "I am reaching, but I falll, and the stars are black and cold."

Going back to stars themselves, this goes to show that, for all our romanticization, the stars are nothing more than masses of plasma and hydrogen, as is our own sun, which humanity once revered as a god. And there I go again. But, then again, I am, as I like to put it, a Hopeful Romantic. I think a lot of people mistake optimism and observance of such things as "hopeless" romanticism. But progress without insight is worth nothing. I mean, there are no great hymns to the wonder of wireless phones (Although that would be pretty ridiculous. We already have ringtones).

In any case, I just wanted to share some musings. Tonight, do me a favor and look up. See if there's something there that you haven't seen. Or something about the things up there that we take for granted.

Hopefully, our fort is done by now. I'd say it's pretty rad. That star thing at the top is pretty cool. Oh snap! Look out! Pirates! Everyone inside the fort! AAAGGHHH