Sirius

And there wasn't a cloud in the Northern sky. Sirius and it's better half seemed as one, challenging the remainder of the mortal universe to better it. Humans, apparently, didn't get the drift. The Eastern world studied it by remembering it in school, and the Western world bothered only to study it in astro-physics major classes. 

Sirius may well be a classic example; the brightest star in our night sky, existing in a binary form, whose union was proclaimed by generations of stargazers. Until the science of telescopes far too complex to help anyone's daily life declared, as a result of careful observation and analysis, based on axioms nobody was going to prove, that it was indeed 2 stars.

The educated world functioned way too predictably. They had in their minds, a dominant logic of a world governed by reason. Deviation from the common startled them, made them uneasy. They were happy dispelling myths and questioning presets from an earlier generation as progress against lack of information and too little analysis. They wanted to get it right so bad, that they forgot what the wise had followed.

And there they stood, at the end of the tunnel of darkness, finally stepping out into the light, realizing that their eyes had been accustomed to the dark awhile now. That in the light, the world didn't seem as beautiful anymore. That inherent flaws were now visible; greed, envy and cruelty. Things that the darkness knew all too well, and feigned ignorance about. 

The light had changed the world as they knew it. They had yearned for it from time immemorial and now, when they had achieved it at long last, it didn't seem as utopic as they had imagined it to be. Unfortunately, as time went by, they realized that they wanted to go back. Back to a place where the quest was what drove them to wake up everyday, instilling in them a sense of purpose.

Now there was just a void. And the inevitable truth dawned on them. That going back was not an option. So there they were, at the pinacle of the place where they worked to get to, not knowing why they came there, wanting to desperately go back. Civilizations progressed in technology, in efficiency, but not in their needs. Their needs were just as basic as their ancestors'. And yet, they thought themselves superior, assuming knowledge to be the mana that reinforced their status. Yet, they didn't consider even once, that someone somewhere long before them, had the option of taking their path, and forfeited it knowing it wouldn't leave them any wiser.

A false sense of achievement from a discovery that was made long ago. Analysis and information that deplored their standards of living, yet gave them a sense of accomplishment. Conditions worsened as minds went overboard analyzing and seeking information on every stone unturned, in every sphere of life. Until  there wasn't anything left to discover. The entire predictable world was all captured as knowledge and celebrated. 

And still, they all ended up worse than when they had started. Sirius was better off as one star, the brightest in our night sky.