The Moon: An Experiment.
If you’re like me, you’d like to try an experiment.
1. The moon is a logical failure. It’s the product of applying logic and science to what is by all rights, strictly the purview of the poets. It is logic and its derivatives that allowed us to understand the moon’s movements. It is logic that allowed us to land on the moon. It is logic that will allow us to colonize and utilize the moon. But the moon does not exist in the world of logic. It exists in the world of whimsy and nonsense. Nearly 50 years ago, we used our logic and pulled it from poetry into empiricism. It is still poetry at its core though. That’s why the moon continues to be a battleground. Logic will fail when applied to the moon. Poetry never will.
2. The moon is a typical bath. We can rely on the consistent comfort. On days that seem to be fracturing at the core, there is serenity to be found in a typical bath or the glow of the moon. It is a serenity that will go underappreciated because of its commonality. Except in the most extreme situations, this brand of serenity is available to all of us leading to a rare occasion when we stop our fracturing world with such a simple tool. A typical bath or the moon, sometimes the only counter to chaos is simplicity.
3. The moon is a suspicious computer. There are methodical and systematic functions it constantly executes. Between controlling our tides, diverting asteroids, stabilizing our axis, and a host of other cosmically scaled services, the moon provides most of the regularity that this planet enjoys. Why? What does the moon think we’re up to? Does the moon think we’re incapable of taking care of ourselves? Or does it simply not want anything interfering with the experiment it has been monitoring since it first exploded from the earth and started running. It looks at me every night and I can’t help but feel judged.
I’m a fan of the podcast “Start With This.” It focuses on the writing process and extends much of the advice and collected techniques to other creative endeavors. I highly recommend it for anyone remotely interested in creating. It is put together by Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink, the creators of another podcast I’d recommend, “Welcome to Night Vale.” Every episode they assign something to consume, and something to create. This article is the result of the most recent assignment.
This specific activity is based on the idea that the only four-letter word used more than “love” in literature, is “moon”. The goal is to take that commonplace trope and express a different perspective of it by writing three paragraphs that start with “The moon is a [adjective][noun].” The catch is that the adjectives and nouns can’t come from you. The writer must flip through a book at random or use a random word generator, or some other randomizing mechanism. In this case, I used a random word generator and come up with “logical failure”, “typical bath”, and “suspicious computer.”
This seemed like a worthwhile activity for a lot of reasons, specifically the approaching 50th anniversary of the moon landing. More than anything though, I was intrigued by the opportunity to force a different perspective upon myself. As was mentioned in “Typical Bath” the moon is such a commonplace wonder that it loses a good portion of its grandeur. If we can establish the habit of shifting perspectives regarding things we experience every day, we get to rediscover them just as frequently.
