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I read – not for the first time – I read about a character facing a huge and terrible Truth. That the darkness is vast, and always wins in the end. That entropy is inevitable. That might does, in fact, make right … and the universe doesn’t care. That that is just the way it is. That nothing we do really matters, no matter how great the deed, how noble the dream – time will first corrupt and then forget it.
And this is true.
Every bit, every word, no matter how desperately we want it to not be – it is.
And when I see this truth is stories, it is often presented by a character who has owned that truth – perhaps they have become an agent of entropy, perhaps they have decided that since might makes right, they will be mighty in the short time they have, and those it hurts, well, they don’t matter anyway, because nothing does and because if they had just faced the truth instead of lying to themselves to keep the comfort of their pointless lives, they might have won another day from that vast, uncaring dark.
The character it is presented to is always floored, stilled, paralyzed by the obvious and simple Truth of it, the Truth we shy away from, the Truth that spawns religions in denial of it.
But it’s still True.
But … every time I think of it, I also think of the night sky. Close your eyes and picture it – what do you see?
I see stars.
Billions of them. Tiny pinpricks of light in the darkness. And it is dark and endless and eternal … but we don’t notice that, so much as we notice those tiny little stars.
No, I can hear you saying. No, stars aren’t tiny – they’re huge, vast and burning.
Well, yes, but look – they truly are just as you see them. However big a star is, they are still just a tiny prick of light in The Black. Each of them, compared to the vast and endless Nothing surrounding them, is not only unimaginably small, but incredibly alone. Lightyears from it’s nearest neighbor, burning, consuming themselves alone in the dark – from a star, every other star looks just the same as it does to you – tiny, and distant.
And yet … and yet you were right, weren’t you? They are huge, and vast, and they burn with Light and Fire. Powerful beyond comprehension. You, me, everyone, every element, any other life that is out there – we’re all born of their great power – their light, their heat, their matter, the elements forged in their cores. They gather planets around themselves and on some of those planets, life, Life , basks in their Light, their Strength, their Beauty
And so, when I think of that terrible Truth, I think, I want to be like a star.
I would like to think that I am huge and strong, burning brilliantly against the dark, gathering others around myself, Life nurtured by my Light.
Maybe I am.
Or maybe I am only a tiny pinprick against The Black, alone in the Dark, consuming myself to shed a light that no one may ever see. But maybe, just maybe, someone will see it. Maybe someone unimaginably far from myself, lightyears away, someone I’ll never know. Maybe that someone will see it long after I am gone – every star burns out, but their light, light cannot be destroyed, only diffused, their light carries on long after they are dust. Maybe that light will be nothing more to them than that tiny pinprick, but maybe they will look at it with hope and wonder. Maybe they’ll focus on it, and not the Darkness that surrounds us all.
Maybe that’s enough.
If that is all that any of us ever are, isn’t that enough?
Even if all our fighting against Entropy is, in the end, futile and hopeless, still, I would fight, just for a chance to be that for you, that tiny point of Light in the Darkness that just maybe, you might see, and know that the Darkness, while True, isn’t all there is.
Isn’t that enough for anyone to fight for?
And on days when it isn't.
On days when the truth seems crushing and the darkness is just so big, so much bigger than me, and all around me and I am alone, I think of the stars, and I wonder if they know.
If they know that they are tiny pinpricks, alone in the dark.
And if they know that they are huge and fierce and glorious, shedding light and warmth and life, lighting up whole skies, one of billions, all beating back the darkness, giving life and hope to the uncountable wealth of life they nourish, each of which is, itself, another point of Light.
Because those things are both, also True.