Solar Rejuvenation Project

Objective

I am Lumara, Superior Astrophysicist for the Apharchel, and I have been invited here to talk about the Sun.

I am supposed to tell you how elven patience and intellect have saved us all from star-death. It is true that our observations over the millennia were instrumental. No human has observed any natural phenomenon as completely, as thoroughly, or for as long as an elf. Many of my kind believe that makes humans lesser, without considering the limited life-span of a human.

To make it clear to my kind, humans spend a higher percentage of their lives in pursuit of their work than we do. The fact that they spend less years in devotion to any one cause is not an indication that they lack dedication or concentration. It is to the contrary; the fact that they spend the majority of their limited lifetimes in pursuit of their work indicates a higher sense of obligation and and duty. If we were to compare one of our lifetimes to one of their lifetimes by life stage, we would appear less studious, less serious, and quite frankly, lazy.

We are given the luxury of time. We have far more time to idly contemplate things like the life-cycle of our home star. It is something that we take for granted, that we will get farther in a problem over the course of our lifetimes than a human will. It's simple arithmetic. We have more time.

When I first began working with humans, I still believed all the myths that I had been taught as a child. 'Humans are stupid.' 'Humans lack concentration.' 'Humans are disorganized and sloppy with their work.' 'Humans spend too much time playing and socializing.' I called them myths, because they are nothing more than excuses of rigid minds confronted with a people who are of a far more dynamic approach to existence.

When I met the humans that I was to work with at the Northern University, I was at first shocked at how short their education was. I was convinced that I would have to play teacher, and fill in gaps and expand their knowledge significantly, before we would get any work done.

I was mistaken. Humans spend just over ten years on basic education, while we spend an average of twenty-five years. We then spend another twenty years in our specialty educations. Humans spend between two and eight years in theirs. Between two and eight years. That's all, and yet at the end of that time, they are just as capable and learned as we are at the end of ours.

Humans are far from stupid. It is true that most humans never achieve total mastery of any subject. It is true that most elves do master one or two subjects in their lifetimes as a standard. It is also true that humans learn much more quickly, and that a human could master ten or more disciplines in the span of one of our lifetimes, if they were given the time. They are much better at assimilating new information, and applying it to their lives. Any elf who has worked closely with humans for any amount of time will verify that this is true.

I had been told, before accepting this position, about human customs and physical needs. Humans can survive on one meal a day, but it is healthier for them to eat a minimum of two. Most humans prefer to eat three meals in the day, and to eat smaller portions of food between meals. Humans cannot go without sleep for days at a time without severe mental and physical impairment. The recommended average is eight hours in a day, but in my experience, most humans average about six hours of sleep per day.

It isn't surprising that most elves believe humans to be constantly distracted. Up to a third of their day is spent sleeping, and they eat constantly. They really do, but they don't eat like we do. Of course, the mechanics of it are the same. I don't mean to imply that they eat with their ears or some nonsense, just that their customs around food are different. They have to be.

It is common for them to have a great meal that they consume in groups, much like we eat our daily meal. For most, this is the evening meal, eaten in their family groups, or with groups of friends. As with our daily meal, other activities are set aside to focus on the food and the company. The other meals are far more casual, and you will find no equivalent in elven culture.

The morning meal is often consumed in a rush before leaving the home, or on the journey from home to work. It is quite terrifying to be in a car with a human who is simultaneously driving and eating an egg sandwich. They drive at such speeds that any prudent elf would focus his entire awareness on the act of driving itself, or risk grievous injury or death. Humans aren't better drivers than elves. They almost collide their vehicles constantly, even when not simultaneously eating while driving. I thought that perhaps humans are capable of eating without being consciously aware of it, but that isn't the case either. My driver, David, constantly commented on the taste of his breakfast, trying to convince me to try the delicacy the next morning. It is a misconception that humans lack concentration, as even while multi-tasking, they are generally able to focus on their tasks with ease, for hours at a time.

The mid-day meal is spent with colleagues, or like the smaller meals, eaten while working. It is thus also incorrect to assume that humans spend all their time eating.

Some may argue that humans are incapable of doing things one at a time, and this shows a weakness of will, but there are a large number of humans who purposefully avoid multi-tasking, and do focus on one task at a time. There are entire philosophies build around mono-tasking. They rise and fall in popularity, but that is due more to economic pressures than to human capability. Still, there are humans who actively choose to spend their lives in this way, and their lifestyles are not very different from our own. They tend to live within religious enclaves, where mono-tasking is encouraged even in times of economic difficulty as a show of faith, so much of their time is devoted to religious and ethical contemplation, much like our religious scholars.

I used to be appalled by human workspaces. Several books or papers open on the desks, with something else on the computer display. Notes taped to computer monitors, pinned to walls, and constant phone calls and e-mails. Compared to the average elf, the average human seems to live and work in a constant state of chaos.

Over time, I learned to assess these spaces differently. The papers are spread out over the desk so they can see all of the information at once, and the books are all open to fact-check and cross-reference information from the papers. The computer display is full of conclusions about this material, as well as new ideas. Information is refined, corrected, and integrated, all at the same time. There is a 'method to the madness,' as humans are fond of saying. The organization is different, and geared towards the human capacity to concentrate fully on multiple things at once, but it is not lesser. Their work quality, when finished, is equal to ours. Many who see human work assume that we are given the exceptional examples, but I want to assure every elf here that we are not. The lectures, research papers, imported foods and drinks, and even the manufactured physical goods we, as elves, have access to are not exceptional among humans. They are common. The belief that human work produces lesser results is pure dogma.

I was quickly impressed by my team. The research we conducted is invaluable, and our experiments, as you all know, resulted, eventually, in success. There were pitfalls, but that is the nature of science. Every mistake is a new lesson, and humans are eager to learn them. They are more apt to try, even when success is not assured, and that, to them, is key to learning. Many elves think it is foolhardy eagerness, best left to children and idiots, but I personally believe that it is the method and the reason for how humans have caught up to us technologically, despite their civilization being half the age of our own. Eventually, they will surpass us. Argue against it all you like; it is inevitable.

We spent four decades on our research. Not a short period of time, even for elven standards, but the goal was worthy. Our sun was about to begin the next stage in the life-cycle of stars. It had burned most of it's hydrogen into helium. If it had burned all the hydrogen, fusion would cease, and gravity would cause the star to collapse in on itself. The increased pressure would cause fusion to occur again, but this time consuming the helium in the star, and the energy from the fusion would cause the star to expand greatly. Our star would consume Mercury and Venus, absolutely. Estimates differ as to whether or not Earth would essentially skim over the sun, or also be swallowed by it. Either way, all life on this planet would be incinerated. Our challenge was to reverse the fusion of hydrogen to helium, to put off that next stage of stellar development until we could begin settling planets that orbit younger, safer stars.