Why Build an Observatory?
What Am I Even Doing?
What am I even doing?
Just a few minutes ago I walked over to my office under the observatory dome to write an essay. I looked up at the silver monstrosity in the front yard and thought, “Why am I doing this?”
I don’t know. I like outer space. I like thinking deep thoughts. I like connecting dots. I like sharing wonder.
But what’s with the dome? The little essays?
I’ve got food and shelter pretty well taken care of. That leaves opportunity for other things. Fatherhood, relationships, career, hobbies. Finding meaning in the time that I have before it all blinks away.
If you don’t stay occupied, the existential dread starts kicking in. TV works, I guess.
But there’s something about not knowing that eats at me. That I’ll live and die not knowing most things. There’s no winning, no “enough.”
Lots of people collect. Birds, stamps, cars, mountains.
Other people build. Cabinets, birdhouses, quilts.
I do both.
The more I collect, the more sense I can make out of it. The more I build, the more I can leave behind.
I can’t help but collect knowledge. Lately, the learning feels useless unless it finds a way back out. The little connections that feel like fire in my mind get lost if they stay inside.
They’ll die with me if I don’t externalize them.
I gave my wife a bumper sticker that said “Eat well, exercise, die anyway.”
Collect knowledge, create artifacts, die anyway.
Is it just vanity? Maybe a little. I’d do this without an audience. I’m pretty sure of that.
I don’t tie flies for other people, and I didn’t spend 300 hours building a model HMS Beagle for anyone else, either. I aquascape and keep dozens of houseplants because I like thinking about those things. I like what I think about when I’m doing them.
But why an observatory? A behemoth in the front yard—not a house on a lake.
Still hard to say. I built it bigger than it needs to be. Big enough for a crowd. A place where people come and say, “Whoa.” A place where I say, “Whoa,” right beside them.
The night sky is there. It’s always there. It changes, but not in the way humans usually think of change. It’s big, but not in the way we usually think of big.
The stars are as real as the keyboard I’m typing on, but as different as anything I can fathom. They both follow the same rules. The grand and the mundane, squished together and constantly begging for my attention.
A backdrop for thought.
Everything we think takes place among the stars.
I can dive deep into my data and come back with stories.
Watch a sunset alone. Wow.
Watch a sunset with someone else. Even better.
Maybe that’s reason enough.
What I’m Reading: Wonderful Life by Stephen Jay Gould
You sound like you could use a Zettlekasten slipbox. The mind's great for processing, but relying on it as a memory-safe is like preserving water in your fist. Besides, you're a medical doctor - by now your brain's got to be full. Mine would be struggling just from holding on to that much Latin.
I love what you write, Kevin. I resonate with the sense of wonder you have for the natural world. When I was in Montana, Glacier NP a few weeks ago, I had the second best day of my life (first is wedding, of course, that's the right answer). I could not believe what my eyes were seeing in the mountains. I was blown away. I'd love to stop by your observatory when I visit Montana again, I want to see the stars.
I wonder if the sense of awe we have means something. We exist for a blink of an eye in the cosmic timeline. Does our existence matter? Do what we accomplish matter? It seems like all of crave for something permanent, eternal, something that lives on even after we die.
I like this quote by C.S. Lewis
"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
May you continue to find wonders in His creation.