The moon

You can’t change who you are, but you can change what you have in your head, you can refresh what you’re thinking about, you can put some fresh air in your brain.

– Ernesto Bertarelli, Swiss entrepreneur active in the fields of business, finance, sport and philanthropy

I normally start my morning walk at about 5.30 am. It’s really dark at that time, with only the streetlights to brighten the pathway as I walk. It’s really such a nice time to walk – no one hassles you and you have the whole road and neighbourhood to yourself and I do a whole lot of thinking about life, work and myself then.

Recently in my walks, I have been observing the moon and was struck by a truth bomb – well, two truth bombs in fact.

My school teachers and science books taught me that the moon has no light of its own. That the only light it shows is light reflected from sun, which is supposedly on the other side of the globe.

My observations disagree though.

The moon was bright today, and full. But the light emanated from the moon, because only the space around the moon was illuminated and not the entire sky. If the sun’s rays were hitting the moon and the moon was some kind of mirror that reflected the rays then the entire sky would be bright because the gigantic sun cannot possibly be funnelling its rays on just one pinprick of a ball.

Look at image 1, taken at 6.55 am, and image 2 taken at 7.06 am. The sky is still dark, but only the area around the moon is bright. At 5.30 am, when I started walking, the moon’s aura was just a halo around itself, amidst a much darker sky.

So, Textbook Lie No 1. The moon has its own light. No, it doesn’t and it is in no way merely reflecting light from the sun. It emanates its own light.

Then the sun started rising and the sky started having those wonderful reddish orange hues kissed by the sun and eventually that lovely morning blue we see when the sun starts peeping out.

Image 3 – the lovely sunrise. But holy moly, the moon is still in the sky. So, in one field of vision, across the KL sky, I can see BOTH sun and moon.

‘Science’ in school taught me the sun and moon are on opposite sides of the big round globe which is why we get night and day. But I saw the moon on a sunrise!

Thereby, Textbook Lie No 2. The sun and moon are NOT at the opposite sides of the globe. Day and night are happening on the same plane, which is why we get to see both entities in one sky.

It is almost as if we are on a flat plane, and the sun and moon are both doing semicircle dances around it, so we can see both of them at the same time.

So, why are we taught rubbish at school? Why did we accept whatever our eye and mind can see is not true?

The scariest part – if even these fundamentals of science were taught so wrongly, has my entire education been a lie?

I graduated in Physics and learnt to apply equations to everything. I even know the equation for gravity F=GMm/r2 by heart, but I cannot wrap my head around the simple fact that a ball can have tonnes of ocean water stuck to its underside because…well, gravity. The magnitude of gravity to keep so much water stuck tightly to its core and never leaves a drop to float down should be staggeringly high, so high, that lifeforms would not even be able to walk, let alone have a butterfly in Australia fly against the magnitude of such gigantic gravitational force. But duh, the textbooks say it, so it must be right.

The arrogance of a mere ‘nobody’ like me to question what the ‘experts’ tell us, right?

But question we should. Question everything, everyone. Challenge the status quo, and ask why until you are satisfied with the answer. That is what makes us humans amongst the NPCs.

I believe we have been dumbed down. As a collective, our constant bombardment from all sides – television stories, ‘authorities’, schools, universities, mainstream media on ‘information’ which seems day by day to be more propaganda and actual information has made us numb to using our own senses and question the contradiction between what we see, hear and feel to what we are told.

The truth is everywhere, but mostly it is inside us. I do not believe the history they tell us anymore. History is always written by the victor to diminish the vanquished, by the controller to control the masses

We were once lions of men, and we shall walk that path again. When everyone is too eager to be sheep, be a lion.

For the lion never loses sleep over the opinion of sheep.

The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at [email protected]