Forgetting to Breathe: What the Lost Night Sky Reveals About Mindfulness
Standing under a clear night sky feels almost mythical now. Every summer, my family and I visit the Catskills—a mountain belt in upstate New York. It’s far away from the city, the stars filling the sky in ways I hadn't seen before. It feels infinite, humbling, and strangely comforting. Now, in the metropolis of Singapore, I look up and see only a faint glow, the stars erased by light pollution. It’s as if we’ve traded the wonder of the universe for the convenience of city lights. And just like that, we've forgotten the stars. This loss of the night sky is more than just an environmental consequence; it’s a powerful metaphor for what we’ve forgotten within ourselves. In a world dominated by technology and constant stimulation, we’ve also lost the ability to reflect, to focus and simply to be.
Despite our obsession with documenting everything—photos, notes, and apps to track our habits—we forget the most essential things. We record birthdays but forget to call. We share a sunset on social media but forget to enjoy it in real time. In our attempts to hold onto memories, we lose the deeper essence of experiencing them. It’s as if we’re trying to capture life with a camera lens instead of truly living it. This paradox has seeped into many aspects of modern life. Sustained attention, once a cornerstone of meaningful thought and action, has become a relic. Like the stars lost in the haze of artificial light, our ability to concentrate has been obscured by the countless distractions of our hyperconnected lives.
Just as artificial light hides the stars, the overstimulation of technology clouds our inner clarity. I’ve felt it myself—moments when I've been scrolling aimlessly, clicking from one notification to another, only to feel a strange emptiness afterward. The same way light pollution robs us of the stars, this overstimulation robs us of our ability to think deeply, to be present, and to find peace within ourselves. The irony is that we now turn to technology to fix what technology has disrupted. Urban dwellers need apps or planetariums to simulate the night sky, and we need mindfulness apps like Smiling Mind to teach us how to reconnect with the present moment.
Mindfulness, at its core, is a practice of detachment–from distractions, from the incessant pull of the past and the future. Yet, apps like Smiling Mind attempt to package this ancient practice into something bite-sized, efficient, and on-demand. I downloaded the app during a particularly stressful period in my life, the second semester of junior year, hoping it would help me quiet my mind. The app was easy to use, offering guided meditation and reminders to pause and breathe. But I couldn’t shake the irony. How could mindfulness—something meant to free us from distraction–be delivered through a device designed to distract? That said, the app did help in small ways. Its reminders nudged me to pause during my busy days, to take a moment to breathe and reflect.
Reconnecting with the natural world and our inner selves is a challenge in a world built to distract us. But perhaps the stars can offer a lesson. They remind us of vastness, of mystery, and of the beauty in stillness. Mindfulness, too, is a kind of inner stargazing, turning our focus inward to rediscover the forgotten stillness within. Standing under a clear night sky, we feel small in the best way possible. It’s not about us—it’s about something bigger, something timeless. Mindfulness offers that same feeling, a way to step outside of the noise of our minds and reconnect with something deeper.
Both the stars and mindfulness teach us what it means to remember. They remind us to look up, to look inward, and to embrace the quiet moments we’ve been conditioned to ignore. But they also remind you of what we’ve lost and the work it takes to find it again. We can’t fully undo the effects of light pollution or the overstimulation of modern life. But we can take small steps like turning off our devices, spending time in nature, sitting in stillness; Like clearing the skies of our inner world, these practices can help us remember what’s been forgotten. After all, the stars are still there, waiting. And so is the clarity within us.