No vacancy

Watching the “Powers of Ten” and reading the last lines of Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” reminded me of an article I read about the Hubble Telescope discovering a new planet. The telescope snapped a picture of it 10 years ago, but it was hidden from view by the glare of the star in front of it. Scientists figured out a way to get around this and were able to see a gas giant, 3 times the size of Jupiter. I thought about this giant planet hurtling along an orbit somewhere, and the image of our own startlingly beautiful Milky Way, and it makes absolutely no sense that we could be the only beings in the universe. It would be a waste of matter and form. However, when we look to the stars, the vacuum of space can seem like only “silence and solitude” and therefore “vacancy”. This is somewhat like the old tree falling in the woods question. I think in the fast-paced modern world people are afraid of silence because it reminds them of death. It is as if life must be boisterous and loud and “in-your-face” to really be life. Your relaxation time must be just as filled as your work time, or else you’re wasting it. But life is waiting to be discovered in the vacancy of the moment. These are the flashes of stillness that allow you to hear your heartbeat; the seconds of solitude when you catch the faintest whisper of the breeze lazily sliding through the leaves, making them murmur to one another in voices just low enough to make it seem like an imagining. The silence can sometimes be the only reminder that you are alive, and not just an automaton, rushing, rushing, rushing, towards death.