Truth

As he sat there, alone, he finally knew it.

It was written in so many details of the world around him,

But with the mild subtlety

Needed to keep away the truth.

At least for long enough.

And it had been long enough:

The desperation of not knowing,

The vibrant thoughts of coming closer and closer

Only to find out he was on the wrong path.

Yes, he used to think that his life was like a boat

Heading towards an unknown destination.

And yet it was only unknown because he wasn’t heading anywhere

And there was no boat.

And so, as he sat there, on his own,

Finally knowing the truth about the entire world

- which wasn’t a world

And thus, ultimately, had no truth in it -

It was as if he wasn’t alone at all.

He still had

. ?

Summer

Yes, it was finally summer again. The Sun would whisper at him for hours, gently warming up his skin. And he would smile. He wouldn’t mind the sweat, nor the - sometimes unbearable - heat. No, when the sun was out and it was summer time, there would be nothing - absolutely nothing - keeping him away from filling fulfilled.

The view from the top of Mauna Kea

Mauna Kea is an amazing place. During the day, it will give you 360º breathtaking views over the clouds, Maui, Mauna Loa, Hilo, or even let you see the Big Island getting bigger in real time, as the lava hits the Pacific towards the South-East. Of course, with great views sunsets and sunrises comes great tourism potential - and as soon as people realized that, they started making quite a lot of money taking tourists up to the Mountain to watch the sunset. Which, I guess, is great for the tourists, but not quite as nice for the sunset spectacle - as having dozens to hundreds of excited people with their cameras and their flashes all over the place takes a little bit of the magic.

However, once the darkness comes - or, rather, once the sun goes away - Mauna Kea regains its magic and silence. That's when the telescopes open their eyes to the sky and start starring, and starring, and starring. And when you walk among them, beneath the dark sky and let your path be illuminated by thousands and thousands of stars overhead, there really is no doubt about how special this place is.

Inevitable

There is no such thing as destiny (?). No such thing as what we are meant to do. There is definitely not an activity or profession that fits us. Seriously, just look up, from where we actually came from: do you really think they had any plan for what we would turn out to be?

Because we really are all made of stars

You can try to deny it - and tell yourself that astronomers are not that smart and that, ultimately, they are wrong (or just not completely right) about a lot of things in our Universe - but there's no escaping from the fact that we are all made of star's trash :P

Palavras

Há quanto tempo não escrevia ele uma palavra a sério? Meses? Anos? Há muito, pensou João, quando finalmente pegou numa caneta esquecida e voltou a tocar no papel. Há mesmo muito tempo que não escrevia. Há tanto tempo que parecia que nunca o tinha feito. João tocou no papel e tentou escrever, mas não saiu nada. Pensou, por isso, que a escrita talvez fosse como um motor - saudável quando exercitada e cuidada; mas que, quando deixada ao abandono durante demasiado tempo teima em pegar. E as palavras custavam a sair naquela tarde de Verão. Mas, ainda assim, João sentia (ou pelo menos tinha a esperança de) que, ainda que adormecidas, poeirentas e enguiçadas, as palavras não estivessem, de todo, mortas. Como se nunca tivessem partido dos seus dedos, dos seus braços, da sua mente. Afinal, as palavras eram tudo o que ele sempre fora, tudo aquilo que o definia, a si e ao seu mundo. Sem as palavras, sem a escrita, sem as ideias na sua mente, e sem as personagens que outrora criara, o mundo não teria mais sentido. E, por isso, mesmo sem escrever há anos, mesmo sem se lembrar de como era sentir as suas mãos sobre o papel e a tinta a beijar o branco de infinito de possibilidades do papel, João sabia que, enquanto estivesse vivo, as palavras nunca partiriam definitivamente.

Mauna Kea, the tourism, the "W" word and the "economic crisis"

Mauna Kea is not just the highest point in the Pacific, found within the most isolated group of islands in the World. It's not just the best astronomical site on Earth, home of some of the best and larger telescopes in the World, allowing us to probe the distant, young Universe and at least hope we can understand a bit more of our origins. However, closer to the stars, above the clouds and most of the atmosphere, Mauna Kea is much above any of the "highest" or "biggest" journalistic description. And yet, within the context of the "economic crisis", instead of being seen like one of the most valuable, impressive and sacred sites in the world, Mauna Kea seems to be starting to be seen as a burden, something that governments and research agencies seem to be willing to get out from just to save a few piles of green paper.

Every day, more than a hundred of people drive all the way up from sea level to Mauna Kea with very different motivations. On the one hand, bus drivers take the excited tourists, eager to see the sunset above the clouds at more than 4 km height (eager enough to pay hundreds of dollars per person for a simple afternoon or morning visit). On the other hand, professional astronomers, telescope operators and students make their way up to provide the quality observational data that we need to understand how the Universe, their galaxies, stars and planets formed and evolved. The differences between the two "groups" are actually quite striking: it's not just the clothes, which clearly help to distinguish both, or the fact that most tourists either come on 4 wheel-drive buses or on (very unsafe) two-wheel drive cars (and dressing like they were ready to go surfing at sea level...). The greatest, most striking difference actually comes from the current "economic climate": while the tourist business is on an unprecedented high, and keeps growing - despite the inflated high prices per person - the astronomy "business" seems to be breathing a much more rarefied air and the most important word, here, seems to be "withdraw". Now the paradox is even clearer when one realizes that actually, at least a large part of the money that tourist companies are making comes directly from the telescopes. Mauna Kea is an impressive site, but the largest, most sophisticated telescopes in the World siting on the top of it make Mauna Kea more than a nice place to visit; it makes the mountain unique and worth paying the 200$/person. So why do these two worlds (of tourists and astronomers) keep living their lives as if they had nothing in common and how long will it take for them to realize that only together will they be able to survive and get the best of both worlds?

Why astronomers can (but shouldn't) do finance!

Tic-tac

Tic-tac, tic-tac. The world never stops. Even when we stop, or when we try to stop. The all-might time is always there, reminding those that can listen to its whispers about the inevitability of the future, and, most cruelly, of the end. Thus, faced with reality, we can't help but thinking that life, whilst being an inspiring torch on the world of impossible-things-made-real, is nothing but a precious thing we have somehow managed to borrow; indeed something so special and valuable that sooner or later we will somehow fail and have it taken away from us all-together. And yet, even if life itself has no meaning at all, and even if it will always be taken away in the most cruel, sudden ways, we can always look up, way past ourselves and into the light and heat that populate the night sky which we call stars - for those are the reminders that no matter the distance, or whether they are already gone, we know that because they mattered so much, they will always be a part of us, for they are the reasons we are who we are. Life is a tic-tac in a clock and then it's gone, and yet its memory and influence lives forever, as long as there are stars, as long as there is live, as long as there is hope.