A Thought about Gravity

There is a thing called gravity. It pulls my leaves to the ground after they have drifted through the atmosphere and pulls the rain from the clouds. It gathers together the children of humanity and keeps them from drifting off into the outer limits of their imagination.

Some people try to escape gravity. They invent ways to fly on the wings of the dawn, and blast through the thin layer of life surrounding our planet to drift into the blackness beyond. Others, simply dream about a life without gravity and gaze at the stars for ages. They watch the stars rising in the east, and they stay up with the full moon to watch them set in the west. They the sky's patterns and paths and determine when a star is new and when it is old, when the planets align and when they travel their courses without interruption. As they gaze into the black, they find something new.

Black holes materialize out of the dark. How humans determine an invisible object beyond the limits of their vision, I do not know. They watch the black holes until they have determined how they govern the universe, and they share their knowledge with the world.

Black holes are not really holes at all. They are in fact, a point--something like a dot. This spec of dust floating through the galaxies seems innocent enough, but why does it trap any object brave enough to cross its threshold? They call it an event horizon, and claim that if anything were to cross that line--be it dust or creatures or light--it would never come back. And they say it has to do with gravity.

Say you were on the surface of a black hole and were able to stand upright while maintaining your usual shape and form. To leave this point, you must jump with enough speed to overcome the force of gravity and cross the event horizon. This however, is something you cannot do. The point loves you too much, and it will never let you go. You look out to the sky and see all the beautiful things there, but you cannot reach them. And it is for the best.

You see, the black hole knows something you do not. Although it is much smaller than you, it has the mass and life experience of a great grandfather star. It has been through the universe and knows that only darkness stretches into the outer edges and fades into nothing. It knows you cannot survive in darkness.

So, this black hole keeps you enclosed in its event horizon. It holds you close and never lets you go. I suggest you get to know your great grandfather star. You may come to love him and realize there could be nothing better.