journal entry
Canyonlands National Park, Utah
Janet Kuypers
1/28/98 (edited 4/12/23)
There were no towns around us for at least forty miles, and there was not a single cloud in the sky. It was absolutely amazing. We could see the Milky Way very clearly, and in the winter sky we could easily spot Orion, Scorpio, the Pleiades Cluster, and the bottom half of the Big Dipper, dropping into the horizon. I’m not sure if I have ever seen that many stars in the night sky before.
We were sitting on a white sandstone rock when he finally spoke.
“Looking up at these stars, doesn’t it make you feel so insignificant?”
My eyes must have been saucers, looking up at the night sky with a grin I couldn’t remove from my face. “Not at all. I could never think that.”
“How could you not?”
I told him that I can’t look at my life as insignificant, that if I did I wouldn’t want to excel in life and I wouldn’t have any reason to continue. I told him his statement implied after he asks “Doesn’t it make you feel so insignificant?” you should say, “Doesn’t it make you feel so worthless? It makes you wonder why you should bother.” And I told him that I cannot function that way, that I have to look at life through my own perspective, for this is my life, and it can’t be insignificant.
I told him I looked at these stars and thought that this was science, this was something I could chart, and learn from. I told him that the constancy of the stars in the sky comforted me: these were the same stars I looked at when I was a child. (Well, you know, unless a select few have disappeared from our vision during that time, but you get the point.) I told him that in my opinion, all aspects of science are beautiful, from minute organisms seen through a microscope to learn from, to astronomy and the night sky that seems so inherently beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. I told him that I loved the understanding we can gain about our world by studying other planets and stars and galaxies. I told him that I loved the fact that I was on one of those planets, and that I had this unique opportunity to actually look at and contemplate the night sky. Tiny or not, I have the mind to understand that I am connected, I am somehow a part of this amazing Universe, especially on nights like this when I am surrounded by so many stars. That could never make me feel small.
I don’t know if he entirely understood what I meant.
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