I am a stargazer

[thePuma]

When I was little boy, my parents bought a book about nature. It taught me many things, from collecting rocks to watching birds. Suddenly I wanted to be a biologist or a geologist. I wanted to travel the world, camp in the woods, watch the colors of the world.

 

Then my parents bought another book about scientific facts and discoveries. With it I learned a lot about physics, from gravity to electricity. I was sure I wanted to be a scientist. I wanted to make cool inventions like the transistor or the telescope.

 

Then my parents bought a computer. I started designing and programming. Everything could be created and tested virtually, without any consequences to the real world. I was going to be a great computer and software engineer. It was so cool to build anything out of nothing.

 

Sometime after that, my sister started studying nursing and I read several of her books. Being a nurse was so cool. It was like being a biologist, a scientist and an engineer all at the same time, fixing ailments and creating wellness out of nothing.

 

Time was running and I had to make a choice. I chose to be a nurse. I wasn’t completely happy with that decision, but I couldn’t spend the rest of my life looking for a career.

 

I graduated. I got a job. I got married. My wife and I, we’re happy together but we still think we’re not ready for parenthood.

 

Now I work as a full time ward nurse. I get to help a few people, some go home better, some die. It’s a job where half of my effort disappears with people. It’s an OK job. I do for people whatever they need at their worst moments in life but, sometimes, people go and I’m left with doubts.

 

Every day I need an escape plan to forget the hospital.

 

I used to come home and take care of my garden. I sowed all the grass, planted some trees and grew corn, tomatoes, watermelons and peppers. Due to some awkward and heavy tasks in my job, when I get home, my back and legs are in pain, so I don’t garden that often anymore.

 

I had great fun playing videogames, imagining that I had free will, being a space soldier, saving the galaxy, romancing an alien. In the end, videogame writers managed to spoil five years of fantasy. I no longer play videogames. I find them repetitive, unrealistic, limited.

 

It was time for a real hobby. I was going to be an amateur radio enthusiast. I bought a radio and started logging broadcast stations, ham operators and utility signals from all over the world. Very soon my radio died due to a static discharge on a very tiny chip. Shortwave stations around the world are dying too due to budget cuts.

 

Religion is dead. People no longer gather together, there’s too much of everything – too many options. Technology is not connecting us, it is scattering us.

 

Now I go outside at night leaving everything behind to look at the sky. I no longer look at it with the same awe. It’s just a huge black unknown filled with opportunities, wishes, dreams. It makes me feel unique but forgotten, unused.

 

Suddenly, I understand. I am a stargazer. I am not meant to create, develop or imagine. I am only supposed to enjoy all that is around me. Time will pass. Generations will come. Everything and everyone will be replaced and forgotten. I'm just a forgotten stargazer.

[radioteque]

I really enjoyed reading this.

 

Perhaps writing is your calling?

 

Sounds to me like you could write a great plot for either a novel OR the new generation of gamers. Who knows?

[thePuma]

Thanks for the kind words.

 

I've thought about writing before, but.. it's not really my thing. This was something that I just had to put out there..