Some days ago, I started a challenge to write, using lines from songs I like. The goal was to help me get back my confidence as a writer. I’ve been publishing the results on my newsletter but I like this one enough to share on a more public platform.
This song is called “Jupiter” by Sleeping at Last.
Fun fact: If you listen closely on this song, you’ll hear some radio static that NASA recorded of Jupiter’s unique storm systems. Ryan O’Neal is one of the most brilliant artists/songwriters to have ever existed.
“Wrote it down in the summer of 1610
Just a secret under lock and key until then”
A reference to Galileo Galilei’s discovery of Jupiter’s four moons. It was this brilliant astronomer who said, “Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.”
Maybe we spend too much time trying to find meaning when we should simply appreciate beauty. Maybe there is purpose to existence, maybe there isn’t. You won’t find the answers outside yourself. Such answers are custom-made. Hold a telescope to your own soul.
“While collecting the stars, I connected the dots …”
Did you know? In ancient civilizations, both Greek and Roman, Jupiter is named after the king of gods. Known in Greek mythology as Zeus. And Jove, (now Jupiter) to the Romans. Maybe for its size or for its age or for its brightness, which makes it the third most visible object in the earth’s sky.
Hail Jupiter, king of planets, ancient of days.
Now let’s talk about how Jupiter, bright as it is, is only visible at night — like Earth’s moon. And Venus.
“I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
— Galileo Galilei
I know darkness well. I’ve stumbled in it and hurt myself a couple times. I lived in fear of it. Then I befriended it.
You see, “even darkness has its uses”
— The Ancient One in Doctor Strange: In the multiverse of madness.
Darkness brings calm. And quiet. A longing for rest. And an opportunity to see beauty that is otherwise hidden by too bright light.
“I don’t know who I am but now I know who I’m not.
Just a curious speck that got caught up in orbit. in orbit”
I am definitely no Jupiter. There is nothing grand or notable about my existence. Jupiter has a “great red spot”, a mere blubber on that planet that is larger than Earth!
When you contemplate the universe, and perhaps, the possibility of a multiverse, you realize how infinitesimal you really are.
“Make my messes matter
Make this chaos count”
Isn’t this what we truly desire in our frantic search for meaning? We want to know that even our smallness is beautiful. We can live without the knowledge of Jupiter but we want to know that our decisions and actions — small as we are — ripple in time. And maybe, beyond time. That what we are now isn’t all there is to us. That we can be Important. Remembered. Or even immortal.
But maybe our immortality is in the way we love, the things we live for and the things we create.
Isn’t this why we try, in this ever chaotic world?
Here is my extant conclusion:
Existence is chaotic and often belabored with needless suffering. But, by Jove, it is beautiful and breathtaking.
“Let every little fracture in me shatter out loud.”
Originally published at https://www.getrevue.co on May 22, 2022.
