I couldn’t find an adequate word to sum up my experience of viewing the eclipse on Monday, so I'll make one up: millenialized.
On Sunday night, my dad sent me a picture of the homemade eclipse viewers — made from cereal boxes, aluminum foil and white paper — that he had spent a few hours making with my younger brother. I thought to myself, “how archaic,” as I had planned on waking up early to go grab the professionally designed eclipse glasses IU was handing out the next day.
However, I found myself wishing I could experience the simple pleasures of looking through a homemade viewfinder as I stepped outside at approximately 2:20 p.m. Monday. It seemed that every person around me was using a phone to take a picture of the eclipse through pre-made glasses, was Snapchatting the crowd outside or was laughing at funny tweets and memes on Facebook pertaining to the eclipse.
And as if all of this weren’t enough to make me resent the use of technology in this moment of universal solitude, as I was heading back inside, I heard someone say, “Dude, it’s so cool that so many people are watching the NASA video of the eclipse together.”
Sure, the NASA coverage of the eclipse is definitely a better view of the space phenomenon than the one through our silly glasses, but the cooler moment in all of this is the solidarity our entire country experienced on Monday.
In a time of national division and uncertainty, a source of light, quite literally, made us all stop what we were doing and look up together, no matter where we were, and marvel at this eerie, bigger-than-us element of the great beyond. And one could argue that social media now gives us the ability to connect and share common experiences in a different, easier way. Maybe I’m being too sentimental about human nature here, but there seem to be few experiences left in life that involve just being still. Experiences of being quiet, looking up and feeling small.
These experiences leave us with a feeling of human connectivity that a picture or video on a screen never could.
So, if I ever get the pleasure of being in a great viewing spot for an eclipse again, you better believe that I’m going to call my dad and ask him for instructions on how to build a cardboard eclipse viewer. Because let’s be honest, nobody really wants to see a low quality iPhone picture of a dot in the sky.
But more importantly, I am a firm believer that the moments that make us feel small have the biggest impact on bringing humanity together, regardless of division or circumstance.
ccarigan@indiana.edu
@carmesanchicken
