The stars in the sky seem to be flickering, like static on a television set, you know? Every time I look up into the sky on a clear, crisp night, I see them there, and they are beautiful. However, lately, it's been nearly impossible to find a little light in the sky that is actually a star, as opposed to the light on a plane, jet, and so on. This is frustrating. What's going on here?

Think of all the lost wishes there are floating around in the universe! It's wish upon a star, not wish upon a helicopter light.

I want to look at the world and see truth, reality. When I look at the sun am I just seeing someone's super gigantic flood-light that they left on in the backyard? I'm beginning to wonder..

are there even any real stars left?

A long long time ago, no one can remember when, the universe did something quite odd, it came into being. Standard cosmology indicates that in the past the universe was hot. The energy density contained in radiation matched that contained in matter. This equilibrium was momentary. The initial conditions produced an expanding universe. A cooling universe. Today the average temperature of the universe is a fraction above 2.7 Kelvin. At this temperature the photons are microwaves. Microwave radiation can be picked up by a television set as static. When you get a page of static about half of the signal is coming straight from the Big Bang. There are fluctuations in the signal. Although these fluctuations are on the order of 10 exp -5 of a degree Kelvin, if you wish, you can choose to think that your television set is flickering to the beat of the Universe. The universe is flickering like my television set.