Il Penseroso, I suppose…

In the summer, when the sky permits, I have some favourite stars -two actually, although if I pretend to look away and concentrate on my peripheral vision, three, I guess. They are the ones that I can see from my bed through the skylight in the late evening. I track them as they slowly drift across the pane, flattering myself that I’m doing what Milton did so many years ago in his 17^th century poem Il Penseroso when he describes outwatching the Bear (the Ursa Major constellation visible over his head if he stared at the night sky). His poem was a study in melancholy, I think; my reflections are more a recognition of insomnial thoughts though: something to do until, like the stars, I drift away and forget why I went to bed so early again.

I admit that this is a renegade way of considering the night skies: neither seeking firmamental patterns, nor feeling much in the way of personal insignificance – I mean there are only two stars, eh? Okay, maybe three up there as far as my skylight is concerned; I’m sorry, but their drift is hardly humbling. Still, the two of them are like adult bedtime stories and their passage is comforting. I think their lack of pattern is sometimes a welcome relief for a pareidoliac like myself.[i] But on those occasions where I look away and see the third star (sort of), I have to admit that I try to fit them all into a coherent whole -a shape– although as soon as I stare at them in the attempt, there are only two again… That, in and of itself, is tiring because they become a reiterative reminder of life as depicted in Cixin Liu’s novel, The Three Body Problem -and of course I didn’t really understand much of that story either…

So, every night as I stared upwards at the two widely separated twinkles, I struggled to fit the two of them into some sort of a pattern -a simple constellation perhaps, or maybe two points on the outer circumference of a circle or something. But after a few attempts, I began to realize I was probably out of my depth and sought help in the usual quarters by kicking around in my phone apps to see what surfaced. Eventually I got an idea from one of them.

It would seem that visual processing is fairly complicated: there are several stages before arriving at an acceptable result. First you merely look at the edges of something, and from there build it up into a more comprehensible shape.[ii] It didn’t mention how many points constituted a shape however, but I gather constellations still require more than two… Each culture interprets the points differently of course -and especially cultures that have never met each other. But anyway, I live (and sleep) alone so I can’t canvass multiple opinions as to what only two dots would suggest to somebody who normally uses multiple stars. And, of course, most don’t confine their stargazing to a single skylight either, so my problem is likely a unique impediment to any kind of reasonable consensus, even forgetting about the sad number of stars involved.

I realized I could do with some more input, so I decided to frame it as ‘the two body problem’ and take it to the retired guys I meet for coffee on Wednesday mornings at the Food Court.

I brought extra napkins and a pen with me so I could illustrate the issue for them, but only Les, the ex-security guard, and Harry, a retired accountant showed up that day. I was hoping for a larger turnout so there would be some parry and thrust to the suggestions. In a way, though, I realized it was a fortuitous number to illustrate the problem: they would constitute my two stars -my unsolved two-body problem.

“Why’dya bring all the napkins, G?” was the first thing Les said to me as I approached the table trying to balance bagel, napkins and coffee. “You have another bad night?” he added with a knowing smirk on his face.

I’d told them about my skylight adventures last week.

I shook my head as I arranged a few napkins on the table in front of me. “Not bad, exactly,” I explained. “Just puzzling…”

Harry shook his head slowly, as if he understood what I must be going through. “The skylight again…? Why don’t you just move your bed, G?” he added as soon as I nodded my head and shrugged.

“Because what I see through it each night has raised an interesting question…” They both looked up from their coffees; there was finally something to talk about, I suppose.

“How many stars do you need to make a constellation?” They both glanced at each other about the word. “A recognizable pattern,” I clarified.

Les just rolled his eyes, but judging by the puzzled look on his face, Harry seemed interested. “You mean how many things do you have to group together to form a pattern…?”

I nodded. “You need more than one, obviously… but is two enough? Three…? More than three…?”

They both thought about it for a minute or so. Finally, Les pointed out that you’d have to have at least three: “To give it some shape if you connected them with lines,” he explained. “Two would just be a straight line, eh? No pattern there…”

But Harry, now fascinated, continued to stare at his coffee. “Makes sense, I guess…” he said, directing his words at Les. “But…”

“But what,” Les replied, shaking his head. There’s only one way to join two points -only one line.”

“But what else connects to them, Les? What other lines can we draw?”

Les shrugged. “There are only two stars, Harry… One line.”

A big smile spread across Harry’s face. “If G is looking at them, there are three lines, Les: one to him from each star. So voila, a pattern.” He was positively beaming as he looked at each of us. “Now we have a triangle,” he explained. “A constellation: the Triangle Constellation…”

Les shook his head. “I don’t think that counts, Har. G isn’t a star, eh? He doesn’t count…”

Harry’s smile spread even further over his face. “If G doesn’t even look, there is no constellation for him, no matter how many stars are out there. Somebody has to recognize there is a pattern and name it, right? The observer is an important part of the pattern. A sine qua non,” he added with a wink.

“So what does that mean,” Les asked, his eyes now staring suspiciously at Harry.

“It means I think we have solved G’s problem,” Harry answered as he risked a glance at me.

You know, I suppose he had. And I like the idea of being part of a constellation…

[i] https://musingsonretirementblog.com/2020/08/09/to-see-or-not-to-see-that-is-the-question/?

[ii] https://psyche.co/ideas/why-people-across-the-world-see-constellations-not-just-stars?

constellations, Il Penseroso, John Milton, patterns, skylight, stars

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	Il Penseroso, I supp… on To see, or not to see, that is…
	elizabethmiller58 on Did you notice?
	barryh on I spy with my little eye…
	Then come kiss me, s… on Tis time to fear when tyrants…
	Life in the centre… on Holier than Them

	Il Penseroso, I supp… on To see, or not to see, that is…
	elizabethmiller58 on Did you notice?
	barryh on I spy with my little eye…
	Then come kiss me, s… on Tis time to fear when tyrants…
	Life in the centre… on Holier than Them

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