Light — Its Bright, Dark, and Other Sides
Ordinary Light for Extraordinary Living
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Feb. 19, 2021 5 min read
Healthcare workers as Prisms: We spread or focus light so that people can visualize better. The quality radiates from the purity of the source and reflects the clarity of our core. And the emergent beams serve only to illuminate what the readers must see for themselves.
“As we work to create light for others,
we naturally light our own way.”
Mary Anne Radmacher
Nerd, Not Inert: A science nerd like me lives on factual data. Yet, facts are generally dead on arrival, whereas wisdom keeps life alive. In living, I begin with facts and strive for flashes of insight at the end.
So, let’s begin with some fascinating facts about ordinary light. And let’s try to gain a few extraordinary insights to brighten our lives.
. . .
Weird Science: Even if light shoots out from the front of a warp-speed rocket, it still travels forward at the same constant, absolute, maximum light speed as coming from a standing lighthouse. Never faster. Or slower. Science offers the weirdest correction for our distorted vision of light.
“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light
with the possible exception of bad news.”
Douglas Adams
Mind-Bending Light, Light-Bending Mind: Einstein proved that when anything goes at or near light speed, time slows and space shrinks. So, the only two factors involved in speed—time and distance—cancel each other out exactly. That’s how light keeps its unique cruise-control top speed no matter what.
Stranger than Fiction: Anything else that speeds up gets heavier. At light speed, it gets infinitely massive, so it can’t even move. Light is the only thing that can travel at light speed, and yet light itself is weightless.
INSIGHTS:
Travel light and cruise in the incredible lightness of being. Even time and space are not set in stone, so why should our preconceived notions be? Don’t keep rushing at maximum speed. Life would get too weighty for you to move. Shine like a light and go weightless.
“You have to find what sparks a light in you so that
you in your own way can illuminate the world.”
Oprah Winfrey
. . .
Weirder Science: In Physics, there is no longer any dispute that light moves as waves, like ripples. Neither is there any dispute that light flies as particles, like bullets. So, which is it?
Stranger Than You Can Think: If you use a wave detector to check it out, light will roll out as ripples. If you use a particle detector, light will shoot out as bullets. And before you switch your detectors on, light can be either or both waves and particles at the same time.
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Reality Check: What we see depends on what question we’re asking and how we’re setting it up to find out. The answer can be just what we want to see.
No Peeping: We are not merely outside voyeurs of a reality show. We are partakers and part-makers of whatever reality that we are checking out. We cannot look into anything without affecting how it turns out.
INSIGHTS:
If you say, “They look so different. No way we have anything in common. I can prove it.” And you will.
If you ask, “I wonder if our new neighbors need support in these tough times, just like we do? Perhaps we can help one another now and then?” Now, you have a fair chance.
. . .
Narrow Vision: The human eye only has the bandwidth to see about 35 parts in a million within light’s electromagnetic spectrum.
Dim Wits: We are in the dark on about 95% of the stuff in our universe. We estimate 2/3 of that is some kind of anti-gravity force that keeps everything from collapsing upon one another. We call that Dark Energy. The other 1/3 is an invisible entity that is strong enough to bend light. So, it must be massive. We call it Dark Matter.
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Anti-science: It takes the dimmest of lights to abolish total darkness. The Principle of Reversibility of Light, in a way, does not apply here. Darkness, no matter how vast, cannot block off even a tiny candlelight.
Non-science: Everybody knows a nightlight cannot keep the closet monster away. Even a Hollywood floodlight couldn’t. But a parent’s gentle hand to close the kid’s eyes can. Science will never see that.
“At times our own light goes out
and is rekindled by a spark from another person.”
Albert Schweitzer
INSIGHTS:
Since we’re smart enough to detect more light energy than our eyes can see, maybe we can also acquire more intelligence than our brains can think.
Intuitive knowing does not come from knowledge. After we scrutinize it with intelligence and validate it by experience, it can become a guiding light.
. . .
“Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.”
Maya Angelo
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RAYS OF HOPE:
It should be evident to us now that our knowledge of anything is limited, whereas our ignorance of everything seems limitless. Humans at least have this one thing in common.
Our limited knowledge is what moves us towards the spark of unlimited potentiality.
We are aware what is essential is invisible to the eye. And we can exercise wisdom beyond what facts allow our eyes to see and what neurons enable our brains to think.
Suppose we don’t lock ourselves in our separate slivers of bandwidths. Suppose we shine lights for one another—in our different wavelengths that, together, cover the entire spectrum, and with the intensity of our brightness from within. Then we shall all get to see with better illumination. We may even get enlightened.
WRITTEN BY
Tak C. Poon, MD, PharmD, ABHIM, FACC, Preventive Cardiologist, now developer of a non-profit wellness blog and a lifestyle habit-forming app at www.metacardio.org, and confessor of lessons I have learned in life.