Frozen and the Pleiades

It's just after 10pm and my favorite episode of House, M.D. is on. It's titled Frozen and guest-stars Mira Sorvino. Very good ep. It's the third in a row on the USA Network tonight. I seem to watch all my TV in marathon form these days. One episode of anything just doesn't cut it.

I also just took the dog out for her night-time tinkle. It's a cool, crystal-clear night in Western New York; the best kind. The stars are out and shining bright. I saw one of my favorite constellations, the Pleiades (or the Seven Sisters). It's a cluster of beautiful, distant stars. One thing about the Pleiades, however, is that it's just at the limit of human visual acuity (or at least my visual acuity).

Human vision uses different receptors (rod-shaped and cone-shaped) on the retina. Cones function best in bright light, rods in low light. The center of our vision is predominantly cones and the periphery has more rods. What all this means is that when we look in the night sky, the Pleiades pops into our vision at the edges. When we focus our eyes on it, it fades from sight. When we move our eyes to the side again, it pops back. This back-and-forth is due to the distribution of rods and cones on our retinas.

All of this is fascinating enough, but it's also a great metaphor for some thinigs we encounter in life, things that seem to retreat from view just as we concentrate our attention on them. Some things in life we are destined never to see straight-on. We need to learn to use our peripheral vision, to see the "Big Picture." Ironically, some things can only be seen against the landscape of a greater whole. When we put them under scrutiny, they disappear.

Anyhoo, that's the end of my philospohical musings for the night.