I went camping in Wales this weekend & captured this shot on my iPhone of the stars I was…

I went camping in Wales this weekend & captured this shot on my iPhone of the stars I was pretty impressed with.

You forget how many stars are up there when you live in London. Light pollution turns the universe into a handful of dots. But get far enough from the city, and suddenly the Milky Way blazes overhead.

For most of human history, this was every night.

It's no wonder our ancestors were fascinated by the stars. When darkness fell, the sky became both entertainment and encyclopedia. Navigation system and calendar. Story book and temple.

With so much signal and so little distraction, humans didn't just see stars. They saw patterns. Stories. Gods. Destiny.

The Greeks saw heroes. The Aborigines saw a river. The Vikings saw a tree connecting worlds. Same stars, different stories, but always meaning.

We spent 200,000 years with the cosmos as our nightly companion.

Then, in just 100 years, we edited it out.

Now in London, I see maybe 20 stars on a clear night. The rest hidden behind our own brightness. We've literally outshone the universe.

And maybe that's the trade-off. We swapped infinite mystery for infinite information. Traded wonder for WiFi. Chose convenience over cosmos.

What else have we edited out in the name of progress?

What other signals are we missing in all our noise?

Our ancestors navigated oceans by those stars. Built monuments aligned to them. Timed their entire lives by their movement.

Now we can't even see them.

We've never had more data. But maybe we've never had less signal.

The stars are still there. Still broadcasting their ancient light.

We just forgot how to look up.

Also, shoutout to my two failed attempts at GCSE Astronomy - got a D both times. Nice to finally be putting that talent to use 😂