Star-stuff

Star-stuff by barbie byrd

I recently learned how stars are made. In conversation with a friend, who is far more versed in the subject, I found out that nebulas—vast and dense swirling clouds of interstellar gas and dust—are where stars are formed. He called them “star nurseries.” But that really has the wrong connotation. It seems to say that there is some gentle process that nurtures and develops these young stars, but in fact it is a freezing swirling, crashing chaos that leads to a release of kinetic energy and fire and eventually a fusion reaction. There is nothing gentle about this.

Education, for me, has been a lot like this process. I entered college (for the second time) and felt as if I were surrounded by organized chaos. Everywhere I turned I was presented with concepts and ideas I had never considered. I felt like one of those inert particles, blasted on all sides by the pressures of academia. The coalescing of ideas and information was palpable, and sometimes overwhelming. I think the better analogy would be “star mines.” Particles collapse inward under their own gravity, eventually leading to the blazing, burning object we see in our night sky, just as a diamond forms from carbon after millions or billions of years of intense pressure and heat. With exposure to extreme forces a new thing, beautiful and complex, is born. When education works, at its best and most humbling of moments, it seems a lot like the formation of a star. Immersed in new and challenging material, surrounded by ideas unique and interesting, the mind can formulate something new, something intensely beautiful and exceptional. It seems half magical, and yet it isn’t. It also isn’t simple. It’s chaotic and intense and tremendous. It can be full of elation and it can be devastating; but with time, we mold ourselves to the pressures, we find ways to fit our minds to the information swirling around us, and if we are attentive, and sometimes a bit lucky, sometimes we make something astounding.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star-stuff.” —Carl Sagan, Cosmos