The City Dark

Blog for the City Dark





 

 

 

       I am more impressed with the notion that people are in their own little universe.  I like rejecting the notion that humans are the center of the universe but I also like the fear of the dark.  I like thinking about what humans get out of darkness and what is lost along with the night sky.

       The created passage I either agreed with or wanted to know about involves Tyson, Ann Druyan, Roger Ekrich and Ian Cheney.

 

 







 

        I will start with Neil de Grasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, as he summarized the humanistic values of the night sky: "You could live your life at home never looking up...[but] I...submit to you that you'll be missing a point of view, a cosmic perspective, because...you'll start thinking of your own environment as all there is.  And if that's how you think about where you are, then it rises to an artificial level of importance to you, whereas, when you look at the night sky and you realize how small we are within the cosmos, it's kind of a resetting of your ego.  To deny yourself of that state of mind, either willingly or unwittingly, in my judgment, is to not live to the full extent of what it is to be human" (qtd. in City Dark).  Nobody could have said it better as people move along in their own little world greedily devouring everything of substance an commercially destroying themselves without a thought.

        Ann Druyanm co-author of the bestselling book Cosmos, speaks of the last million years and how long we have been inside our air conditioned, heated little boxes of houses like hermits and so busy with the heere and now.  She speaks of it being like a dislocation.  I think it is a huge dislocation. Just recently, a dog friend of mine has been hurt and I have been taking him for walks.  I had forgotten what it feels like to see the moon going down, the owl hooting, and a rooster crowing.  When I lived out in the country, behind my house was more of the family land and it was always the most beautiful sunset over the backdrop of trees.  I think of that sunset out there often.

 

       Then there is Roger Ekrich, Virginia Tech historian that says, "The early impetus, as recently as three [or] four hundred years ago, for public lighting was crime.  Virtually every ancient civilization that has left clues of some sort, stone tablets or works of history, every civilization had a feaqr of the dark" (qtd. in City Dark).  I have a fear of the dark but in the years of history we all had different fearsfor different reasons.  Some reasons were seriously something to worry about while others were imagined.

        Then Ian Cheney, the director of the City Dark says, "There is controversy over whether more light leads to less crime, but there is agreement that light seems to make people feel safer, almost like it's built into our genes to move closer to the campfire or to the brightest city." (City Dark).  I  remember when Grandpa would build a big bonfire for Christmas Eve and how happy everybody was.  The older kids  shot fireworks, smaller ones got to do sparklers, and the adults did the big ones.  You could still see the stars in the sky back then, around 32 years ago.  I also remember nobody strayed to far into the dark either.  There was a pit across the road and there were lots of water moccassins, copperheads and other snakes and creepy crawlers back in those days.  I have an insane fear of the fog.

      This world needs a wake up call.  My cousin lives in Austin and they have amber lights tilted down on their street.  They also live in a cul-de-sac but you can still see the stars in the sky.  I am sure there are more cities changing the way the light is besides Austin.  Then you look at Tokyo and it is lit up like neon.  God help us all before we destroy ourselves.