Turn It Off

I heard a recent statistic I found somewhat disturbing: almost 90% of Texans live in areas with so much light pollution that it is impossible to see the Milky Way at night.

You may or may not have encountered the story of confused citizens of Los Angeles placing 911 calls during a blackout reporting the weird cloud in the night sky. This “cloud,” of course, was only the Milky Way, which some people were only then seeing for the first time in their lives. 

I count myself privileged to be able to frequently travel to far West Texas, one of the increasingly precious regions of the country where the night is truly, completely dark. Standing outside at night with no flashlight, the darkness is void-like in its depth; a shade or two darker than black.

As time has passed, it has been impressed deeper and deeper into me how important this too often overlooked aspect of our experience is. Even more recently, I’ve realized how analogous the problem of light pollution is to the tyranny of sensation under which the majority of us are living.

Our society is perpetually “wired.” All of us, one way or another, find ourselves in an ever more cyborg-like relationship with technology. Naturally, a civilization as hopped-up as ours would find darkness inconvenient and uncomfortable. Everything from streetlamps to driveways to skyscrapers to cars exists in a state of enforced quasi-day. 

For the vast majority of Americans and increasingly the world, long gone are the days of going to sleep with the sun’s setting and waking at its rising. Why rely on the sun when you’ve got serviceable replicas all over your house and in your pocket? We have all but banished the shadowy threats that once lurked just beyond the firelight and repudiated the need to be in tune with the rhythms of days and seasons.

As I alluded earlier, I find the concept of light pollution to be a striking visual representation of something all us moderns struggle with mightily. If any of us were to so choose, we could live every second of every day suffused with external stimulation. Music, podcasts, audiobooks, videos, movies, soundtracks, white noise: all layers of fuzzily translucent paint which we’re continually slathering across our moment-to-moment existence.

This is not to argue any of these things are inherently harmful; the predicament in which we find ourselves is one of quantity, of omnipresence. 

Are we actually enjoying the content to which we listen and watch? Is our listening and watching out of intention and purpose, or out of compulsion and boredom? Do I really need to leave that light on when I’m not there? 

There is a real difference between relaxing and merely inducing numbness. These are all ideas that I’ve found intensely edifying when applied to my own life. You’ll realize, perhaps with some surprise, how much your brain has become conditioned to an elevated baseline of stimulation once you do something as simple as driving home in silence instead of instinctively engaging your playlist.

Darkness and quiet are God’s as truly and as completely as light and music. An absence is not necessarily the same as a lack. Materialistic culture continually preaches against these truths, but I think some people have begun to reach their limit. Along with more interest in refilling our rapidly draining night skies, a proliferation of apps and programs can help you manage the amount of time you spend in front of a screen, also known as “mental light pollution” (a term of my own invention).

Let this be an encouragement to you: We can know simply by looking at creation that if there is truly a lack, God will fill it. Turn something off, whether that be unnecessary light or unnecessary noise. Who knows? At the risk of sounding saccharine, maybe you’ll find a strangely beautiful cloud that you never saw before.

Walker Price earned his degree in English from UT Arlington. He attended St. Andrew Catholic School and Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth.