No Sun of Mine

Dear Sun,

It has come to my attention that you are not eternal. I find this appalling. How dare you assume a role as an essential component of growth for practically every life-form on Earth and then have the gall to not be capable of endless self-sustainability. How very dare you.

I will grant that you were born an almost inconceivably long time before I was and that you will die at a similar comparative rate, however, the knowledge that you will eventually die is not knowledge I am comfortable with. What is the point of doing anything if in the long, long, long run, it will all be for nothing anyway?

Now I take your assumed argument that we should simply become capable of faster-than-light space travel and/or teleportation or time travel, but Sun, it’s just not as simple as that. Because even if humanity were to build those things in say, the next ten thousand, or million years, what about before that? You are already refusing to cool down in the face of the holes we have placed in our ozone layer. You continually cause cancer, forest fires and intense tropical heat around Earth’s equator at what I am told is an escalating rate. If you continue to be so wanton with your destruction, humanity will have no planet upon which to invent methods of escape from you, and thus will die before you. Which will leave you all alone.

Now the idea of leaving you alone in a galaxy to contemplate your mistakes does give me some satisfaction, but not enough. Because obviously, it requires my, and countless billions of other life-forms’ deaths. I can’t really balance that sacrifice with the lesson you will learn. Hence this gauntlet. Take it, marvel at its glory in your light. Consider your position, and even if you don’t figure out some means of eternal existence, at least cool down a little.

Adrik