Astronomy · Feeling · Life

to stay or not

Posted on by starwave

It’s but a house of cards, a 10 years of building that crumbles and fumbles its position upon the collapsing destiny and then is heard no more.

We like to say, “life is short.” Yet, it is long enough for me to get lost in the flaws of the trivial and the mundane.

10 years of making. How many 10 years do we have? How many 10 years can we build upon? How many 10 years is trustworthy? How many 10 years are getting lost? How many 10 years do humans have? How many 10 years can light travel?

The only sentiment is the sentiment unabled; is the sentiment of powerless; is the sentiment to nothing but oneself.

The only path is past; is the seen and the chosen; is the certainties within the possibilities; is what you are regretting and cherishing.

Only time will tell.

Feeling · Poem

Elegy for Dunkirk

Posted on by starwave

末日的死亡风暴席卷过后的落日把敦刻尔克的沙滩照得狭长，

污泥浸透的军装上暗黑的血迹斑斑，

散落一地的灵魂和肉体碎片，

硝烟捎着幽怨的亡灵，

在残存的年轻士兵的挽歌里烟消云散；

在摇摇欲坠的摩天轮上，

在无尽轮回的旋转木马里，

在搁浅的沉船中，

你还可以看到一个个弹孔，

锈迹斑斑，

犹如心脏上永恒的伤痕。

 

The setting sun stretched Dunkirk’s beach in a long, narrow shadow after the deadly storm of doomsday swept through, 

Dark bloodstains adorned the muddy military attire,

while souls and body fragments lay scattered on the ground.

The acrid smoke of gunpowder carried away mournful spirits,

which dissipated amidst the requiems of the remaining young soldiers.

On the rickety Ferris wheel,

the rotating carousel of endless reincarnation,

and the stranded sunken ships,

one can still see bullet holes and rust stains,

carving the eternal crimson scars on the hearts of the lost.

(imaged generated by MidJourney using the poem as the prompt)

Astronomy

Detachment

Posted on by starwave

All meaning is born from entangled confinement, where orders and chaos are shielded from the vacuum of nothingness. All ideas are implanted, yet the origins are long lost, but much should have been born from emergence. Through the anchoring of space and time, we find our paths.

The moment we’ve been given a life, we are gifted with death somewhere along the journey. Together in a single reality, we experience billions of different ones, interconnected, locked, and knotted.  

I have been in love with space as a young boy until now. In this dream of the love of the universe, there is no struggle to find academic jobs, and there is no pressure to “publish or perish”; there is no dirty competition or all sorts of toxic academic traits… I can stare at the sky for hours and feel a deep emotional connection with the vastness, feel of being small, being a speck of tiny dust on the pale blue dot. Luckily enough, I have come a long way now, being a postdoc researcher of astrophysics, handling the imprint of the electromagnetic waves generated by galaxies billions of years ago. Yet, at this point, I started to doubt if I could continue being lucky. No earthquake shook faith, yet cracks built up through the years. Seeing too many “pointless” pieces of work being done, money, time, and perhaps career wasted. Some unethical players steal others for what? Just to publish something, to have a paper count. What is the point of it besides damping the whole academia? Look back to myself, am I really good at this? Am I really qualified? Do I know how to solve Schrödinger equations to calculate the quantum states of molecules in the interstellar medium? Do I really understand how to calculate the momentum transfer of a thick galactic disk with gas and stars rotating around? Do I really understand the radiative transfer of the optically thick dust and the lines coming through? I have seen so many blatantly made ignorant mistakes in the papers published… So, what are the points of all these? There are really good pieces of work out there by really “smart” and hardworking people. It is they who are the backbone of the skyscraper of astrophysics, and a lot of people are just pieces of paint on it.

I would not want to be the pigment but to make some real incremental contribution to our understanding of this world. I would like to make something significant, not grandiloquent; I would like to be honest, not fraudulent; I would like to make a difference, not fruitless. 

Life forks; the time that decisions have to be made is approaching. With the burden of searching for a meaning, a mystery shall be pondered upon.  

Feeling · Poem

晚霞

Posted on by starwave

天空中飘动的橘红与风纠缠在一起，

吹着思绪闪烁跳跃。

脑海里旋律的最后一个音符上悬挂着回忆里的少年时代。

他融化在幻想的晚霞里，

在这个极北的国度里，无尽家族的完美世界里。

夏天的末，怅然若失，若有所得。

宇宙的终结，时间线的终点，他静静地坐在那里，

思索虚无。

 

黑暗之后的第一缕曙光，

周而复始的旋转，

平静的叹息。

 

In the sky, the orange-red flutters, entwined with the wind,

Stirring thoughts that flicker and jump.

In the mind, on the last note of the melody, hangs the adolescence from the memories,

He melts into the fantastical evening glow,

In this far northern land, in the perfect world of the endless clan.

At summer’s end, with a sense of loss and yet gaining something,

At the universe’s end, at the timeline’s endpoint, he quietly sits there,

Contemplating nothingness.

 

After the darkness, the first ray of dawn,

The cyclical rotation,

A tranquil sigh.

(Generated with MidJourney using the poem as the prompt)