Light pollution.

Anyone who lives in New York City will attest that it's extremely hard to see a good starlit sky at night. Needless to say, there's tons of artificial light that reduces the contrast between the darkness of the night and the stars. All of the light that people have created competes with that of the universe. Of course, if one objectively compared the feeble amount of light that we conjure up with the brilliance of the trillions of stars in the universe, there would be absolutely no contest: our light is as nothing. But it's closer. It helps us do what we need to do, and so we get by without the natural light by substituting it with our own. It's much duller, but if we had never sat under a fully lit starry night, we'd never know the difference, so we don't know what we're missing out on. Besides, our light is easier to control. We can adjust the intensity, turn it on and off when we like... we can't do that with natural light. Sure enough, the greater light rises in the day, and the lesser and its companions at night... but we cannot control nor adjust it to our convenience. Artificial light it is, then. In fact, there is sometimes so much artificial light, that there's something called skyglow, when a city seems to be glowing or emitting its own light. When did we grow so accustomed to the artificial light and forget that there's a vast expanse of lights out there, if only we'd take some time away to wait for our eyes to adjust?

It must truly be pitch black for the best views of the stars to be seen. How willing are you to get away from every source of artificial light you've depended upon? Sometimes we find artificial light; as in a street lamp. Other times, we create it, as with a light switch. Either way... there is something that cannot truly be seen until all sources of artificial light are left behind.

What would happen if we turn off all of our lights and douse our fires? What would happen if we stopped down and around and simply looked up...? We probably wouldn't see anything at first. But we know they're there; the stars don't go anywhere. They don't appear one night and then cease to exist until we see them again. Neither existence nor appearance is dependent on our actions.

Look and we'll see. Seek, and we'll find.