When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
by: Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts, the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the learned astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

I sit down and try to write something meaningful from three hours of class. And after having explained the day's lesson to a friend later in the evening, I find myself no closer to the truth than I am now--only more distant and removed. Like the speaker above, I am overwhelmed by the innate complexities of a system I never brought myself to encounter. The pen scribbles ink onto a sheet of paper, but neither has existential significance without the other. Likewise, a pen does not serve its purpose without a mind to use it, and the ink is worthless unless it draws something meaningful. Naturally, these "somethings" are only important to us because we impose on them meaning--meaning that is inherently undefined and therefore utterly meaningless as well.

Like the speaker, I find little solace in technical intricacies: layers upon layers of systems upon systems of this and that, creating otherwise utterly meaningless content. The bear bones of the facts indicate that you and I interpret and analyze what we see according to our predisposed notions of what we're seeing. We're taught that a shoe is a shoe and not a car, and that such an instrument is used for bipedal movement (not necessarily for growing flowers), so that when we see a shoe we instantly think of one walking or running. Likewise someone tells us that the Statue of Liberty connotes liberty and freedom, so we buy into that and everything else our country stands for; but all of us really know it's just a statue that was given to us from the French.

With that said, I'd like to remind all of us that we do not have to be the defined, but rather we can be the definers. Perhaps stepping outside the norms of society may be daunting for some--if not many--and that is understandable. But all I am asking for is that we be true to ourselves as readers and viewers, to look up at the night sky for ourselves, and not for anyone else.