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Bored and Crooked: Look up at the stars

Hello Reader,

A short letter from Tucker

I've been trying hard to not look at my phone this week. I think overlooking at my email and socials is doing something to my brain. I feel like I become melted. Frantic. Content electrocuted. An over saturated watermelon. Something.

Bu now, I prioritize my texts, my kiddo's daycare app, and phone calls, and trying to take a break from everything else. Or rather, I'm trying to set a time to look at email and apps rather than opening them up every free moment. I'm trying to schedule a time to read the news. It has been helping. I do feel like I get more done.

When I've looked at the news, it has been hard to ignore the Artemis II mission — the sheer wonder of sending folks around the moon and back. It's incredible, even if I fundamentally don't agree with the idea that we should colonize the moon, let alone Mars. I'm one of these people who think we should figure out the health of our planet and fellow humans before we figure out the extremely difficult quest of managing people's health on other planets.

We evolved on earth, we were built for earth. Think how hard it would be to give birth to a child in space? To manage an open wound? How about avoiding space radiation? Beyond my basic health questions for long-term space living, I don't think it will be easy to sort out geopolitics, resource management, laws, and money. For more on this argument read A CITY ON MARS: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?

Something good that sticks with me around the Artemis II mission is the wonder. Looking at the NASA images reminds me of the inverse of looking at images of Earth: stargazing. I'll never forget a summer night while I served in the Peace Corps out in Mongolia. I was out in the Gobi Desert camping. Not a town for miles. The huge spill of stars sprayed along the inky black, no moon —— from my memory. I saw shooting stars dip and surf across a crowded canvas full of distant worlds. When I see earth from Artemis II's photos, it looks awfully black around the earth, but getting outside and looking up in a place free of much light pollution, will reveal the stars. There is more our there than just void.

For me, it reminds me that the universe is a big-ass place: tons of burning fire out there. It feels like the cosmic opposite of looking at my phone-sized email.

Beyond poetic wonder, which is important, starlight can be great for your health, even necessary for us as a species. Even though we are charging through an over-century-long experiment of city lights blocking out access to stargazing. One study I found discovered that a certain amount of darkness can promote healing.

If nothing else, it puts you in the moment. Enjoy the fresh pictures from our human astronauts, but not the worst idea to enjoy the light from the earth seat, looking out at other worlds. It bring calmness and wonder.

Ideas, Resources & Links

​The Case for Handwritten Letters from NYT. I feel like there's a movement to go analog in everything. Like creating a room to escape modern technology. I'm onboard to an extent. Writing letters is 100% where I'm on board as a way to connect with others, slow down, and create real, tangible mementos to save.

Stuff I made this week.

Technically from a couple weeks ago, but I loved having this Death Doula on a show I produce, Nite Lite. I have been reading about the growing trend of death cafes across the US. So, I found a local Wisconsin-based death doula who helps run death cafes to come on to talk about it. Fascinating stuff. I think more people should be able to talk about death. And for the brave, as Rebecca Petrowsky of Deathwalker Doula Services mentions, consider having a living funeral — it will almost certainly be a better way to celebrate your life with the ones you love.

​My new website! This has taken a lot of my free time. It's a work in progress, and I almost went with AI to make my site. But, alas, because it's a work in progress, and will need lots of maintenance and changes over time, I decided to use reliable Wordpress to maintain and sustain the important personal website.

Song of the week

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