Stellarium screenshot. "... the Polestars can be seen."
It’s the day before the Great Eclipse of 2024, and this is my first real job “in the sunshine”, rather than my previous life of “living in the shadows”, so I’m feeling pretty nervous. Because my psychological state can have a huge effect on my work performance, I’m going over all my objective and subjective preparations for the big event tomorrow. It’s quite a list, but I only have to check off some of the boxes myself, as I have plenty of people handling the details, leaving me to focus entirely on my “One Job”, which is to make sure that the weather is as optimal as possible for the viewing of the eclipse here in Rochester, New York.
First I have to reassure myself that my capabilities will be under my volitional control, which is relatively certain, but could have huge or bizarre consequences in the unlikely event that things get out of hand. In order to give you a better idea of what the stakes are, I could refer you to John Brunner’s “Twin Tube Wishing Machines”, which is one of the cornerstones of my lectures in Experiential Quantum Phenomena, but if that’s just not at your fingertips at the moment, let me give a short but sketchy description: any damn thing can happen. The psychological states of the broader body of participants is the driving force in altering material phenomena with the quantum nature of sentience and subjectivity, but they can not only provide the driving force, but are the essence of the tone and direction which shapes those efforts. I provide a focus for that energy, and I can have a great deal of influence on the process, but I have to be aware that I’m dealing with subjective energies larger than any I might manage as an individual in any other situation: I’m riding on the back of a tiger, and hoping it’s in a fairly good mood. So, yes, I’m feeling pretty confident based on the whole tone and background of the event, pretty much a joyous celebration, as it was during the eclipse of 2017, but I have to be fully prepared to improvise a psychological response if something unforeseen occurs.
It's not like something totally unforeseen could actually occur, right?