Whatever you do, don't look up

 Perhaps one of the most unsettling and life-altering experiences which a person may experience involves an empty field at night. Instead of letting their gaze wander over the ground, or use a torch to light up the path in front of them, they let their eyes adapt to the faint light before they raise their gaze towards the sky.

Assuming it is a largely cloudless night, the lack of the deceiving effect of refraction and scattering, from when light from our nearby star blasts the atmosphere above us, will be most apparent. Instead of a shade of blue or grey, our gaze is instead met with pitch-black darkness. As we keep looking, slowly our eyes can resolve more and more features in the night sky. Until suddenly the Universe opens right in front of our eyes.

The experience of looking up at the night sky and seeing countless stars, the Milky Way and so much more is a special one. It's not unlike when an astronaut during a space walk takes a moment to look away from the Earth and sees this endless expanse of the Universe right in front of them. And you, as the watcher, just a very small part of it.


This will often come with the realisation both of insignificance and that the only place where we humans can realistically live in this Universe is within this narrow sliver of a biosphere on a planet in a remote and mostly barren part of the Milky Way. Even so, our imagination may begin to wander after such an experience, questioning whether maybe humankind will be able to venture into the depths of not just our solar system, but also beyond.

Although we have looked at many features we can discern in the night sky, and we have sent a number of spacecraft equipped with powerful sensors and cameras to take a closer look at the rest of our solar system, there are still so many questions that are left unanswered to this day. Perhaps the most pressing of which is whether we are truly alone in the Universe.


It might be that there truly is no other life in this part of the Milky Way, and maybe not even planets which would be suitable for humankind to live on. All of these are sobering thoughts, but yet it's also essential to remember that all of this is speculation. It hasn't been more than about a century since we gained the ability to really take a look at nearby planets in great detail, the feat of which resulted in the dispelling of many fantastic ideas and hopes for what these worlds might look like.

In the sobering shade cast by those decades, the notion that the Universe out there would be teeming with civilisations much like our own would seem rather preposterous. Mars nor Venus are home to prospering civilisations, but are hellscapes in their own right, either blasted by radiation or baked by enormous temperatures and pressure.

Is there another welcoming home for us humans out there, or will we be spreading out into the quiet darkness of space, carving out niches where we can, but never truly belonging anywhere but on Earth?


All of this is just idly speculation and vague questioning, of course. The only way to figure out the answers to those questions is to face the challenge head-on, to develop better and faster ways to explore the secrets of the Universe. While nobody is forcing us to do so, the very human trait of curiosity does.

Such are the dangers of looking into the depths of the Galaxy itself: the hazards of which have led for thousands of years to people questioning the nature of this Earth, what is out there, humanity's role in its functioning and inevitably the meaning of it all. While the point of our actions on this planet would often seem questionable indeed, there can be little arguing about the statement that for humanity to truly learn its role in the Universe, it will have to look for these answers out there.


Keep looking up.


Maya

A non-binary body is a body too

 Dealing with a non-standard body is not easy. When society has decided that you are either male or female, and biology largely concurs with that sentiment at least from a reproductive point of view, it's a tough point to argue. But here I am, with a body that is both, and neither. How much of that really matters to me today, after so many, mostly unpleasant years?

I'm still grateful that my body finally sorted out this whole 'puberty' thing at last, after getting stuck in some weird standby mode for over a decade. Having had those changes towards an adult female body, it's interesting to note the remaining male characteristics alongside this, even if this pertains essentially just to the genitals.


Most recently I have felt this sense of longing, back towards the less complicated state of being 'male'. In some ways I guess that this is because of the added complexities of a female body, from monthly cycles to having those lumps of mostly fat dangling from your chest, serving mostly as a painful spot to bump into doors by accident, it would seem.

Even so, I don't feel any antagonism towards any part of my body. For me I think the biggest part of the experience was actually getting to know my body, to finally have that meet-and-greet and to be able to compare our mutual notes on expectations and requirements. Gone is the external pressure of many years ago inflicted on me by society, of conforming to one or the other body type, with the lure of having an 'Awesome Genuine Female Body' as promised by the transsex ideology.

The strong notion that I had to choose, that somehow my brain 'knows' whether my body has to be a Genuine Female or Genuine Male body. That pseudo-scientific notion has been well and truly shot down at this point. Not just by scientific studies, but also by my own experiences. My brain just contains my personality, my memories, dreams and hopes. And an appreciation for having a healthy body.


Does it matter which genitals this body has? Not really. That neither side is fertile doesn't bother me either. It does not reduce the value of my body, nor that of me as a person. A healthy mind in a healthy body. That's really all that one can ask for.

Most of the problems only appear with societal and cultural traditions, which I have largely resolved for my own purposes by being registered as 'female', to match the mostly female phenotype of my body. Yet I still get annoyed at the widespread discrimination between the sexes, even when it makes zero sense to do so when it doesn't concern the physical characteristics. Like, giving preferential treatment to either, or by essentially forbidding that either doesn't get to wear certain clothing items, or even like things that have a particular colour, or things that are 'cute'.


I'm not male. I'm not female. I'm both. I'm neither. The liberation of being able to let go of the madness of too many years and literally just accept things for how they are is immense. The realisation that the only authority I answer to whether my body is okay, and whether clothing is okay on this body, is me.

That whatever preconceived notions society has about what behaviour is 'proper' for someone with my gender designation and social status is absolute bunk. I'll decide that myself, thank you very much. If that gets me a called a 'tomboy' and such, then so much the better. I'm still that 'boy' who grew up doing 'boyish' things because they were fun, and I carry zero regrets for having a good time.


The short version is that society can basically stuff it when it comes to dictating to individuals what they can and cannot do or like, as it pertains to themselves. Society doesn't teach you how to be yourself, or how to be happy. Those are things that you have to figure out yourself, with the experiences by others potentially helpful in that discovery process.


Maya