It just intrigues me how we as a race have certain things just programmed into our brain. You would find the most brilliant minds, the most advanced astrophysicists point upwards and use the word sky. What is the sky? It does not have a material or physical existance. It is pretty much just the creation of our minds. An expression for what we didnt know a century or two back. Its nothing but space with some refracted light when we are facing the sun. My point, till this point, is that what we call the sky is not really anything but a big void which was envisioned by our forefathers as an envelop covering the Earth. We now know that the world is neither geocentric nor human-centric.
The concept of sky can be treated in two different manners. One is the ambitious/philosophical/moral of the story way and the other is as an exampl/idiom/similie for the concepts that have traditionaly been handed down. All of a sudden this peice seems to be taking some direction, I am going to examine both of these point of views in the following space.
First the more philosophical side of things. Ever young red blooded person in the world has the ambition and the desire to touch the sky to reach the zenith. The way I interpret the Sky concept makes me modify the ambitious statement a little. Rather than trying to touch the sky, I would like to be the sky. To engulf the entire world even if I am just a concept. The sky has no physical existance, but still engulfs the earth in our eyes. It is the onething that is omnipresent and above everything, desppite the fact that it doesnt even exist. The point here is that the sky, which has less matter in it than my little finger, is an undeniable presence even though it doesnt exist. Thats what I want to be. Someone, who just by the virtue of the thoughts people have about him, of the way people think about him, exists in a larger than life, much much larger than life manner, and beyond that it doesnt matter if I exist or not. I was earlier talking about Jim Morrison, a guy who could have done this, if he had cared to, another example, Kurt Cobian, another example, Jimi Hendrix, and in my world the ultimate example, Mirza Ghalib. He doesnt exist, I am not sure if he even existed, or wrote his own work, but I have read everywhere that he did, I have been told that he did. It has been programmed within my brain that all those thoughts and expressions came out of that larger than life mind. Maybe the reader here can not relate to these examples as much as I do. Let me give you two more convincing examples, Mohammed and Jesus Christ. Whatever they did, they were able to become the sky, to leave thier presence as an engulfing one for their followers despite the fact that they dont exist anymore. The sky still wins in comparison as by itself, it never existed in the first place. We as humans might not be able to deny our existance, but can definitely try to be an overbearing presence past our existance.
Now for the more concrete and almost scientific analysis of the sky concept. The big question the sky concept raises is what else has been passed down the generations which we have beleived despite there being blatant proof staring us in the face denouncing the beleifs and what we sometimes dismiss simply as "a manner of speaking". The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Yes, right now you see the not so important technical deficiency of that statement, but you would not see it if your mind wasnt already geared in the direction I am trying to take it further on. The fact that the sun doesnt actualy rise but appears bue to the Earth's rotation is pretty inconsequential to our daily existance. On the other hand there are concepts that directly affect our existance. Why does a majority of people in America, supposedly the most advanced nation in the world, beleive that the earth is only 5000 years old? Why are there "facts" we beleive in, which can easily discredited and we know they can? Let me attack the concept of God here. I am not promoting atheism, I dont care if I was, but I am not. I am attacking hte way we think about God. May be he is not as omnipotent and omnipresent as we think of him to be. May be that is just what has been programmed into our brain by hte stories passed down the generations. Think about it, the definitions of Gods, their activities, their powers, shape, characteristics have all changed with time, as we have come to know more about our surroundings and the earth itself. Somethings havent changed, rather we havent let them change, because they provide easier explanations like the sky. You dont need to explain to people why the sky looks the way it does or what it is and where it is, but if you talk about space, ahan, not only can you explain things but you also have to. The unchanging features of God provided those explanations that we have turned a blind eye to, like space not sky. Just like the sun rises example, there is no need for explanation because on the surface its pretty simple to understand, you see the sun come up and the sun go down. When somethings stares us in the face and belongs ot a religion that has gone out of fashion we laugh, but we dont care to think that a couple of centuries from now people would be laughing at us for similar reasons. It wa easy to replace Zeus's weapon with transfer of charge between clouds, it was easy to replace God's fury with hot molten magma from the Earth's core, but we havent been able to replace the untested and un ratified concepts that have hounded our beleif systems for years now.
Can you think of more examples that fall under the sky concept? Things that dont exist but due to centuries of acceptance have become a part of our beleife system and our brain. If you do think of something do leave a comment so that it can further the discussion.
