There is something jarring about skyscrapers.

Most people have a fear of heights, I know. A lot of friends I have get squeamish just being on those glass elevators that look out over the city. I'm not particularly fond of them, either. However, what I don't like about skyscrapers fits in its own category entirely.

Perhaps it's the way they jut out from the rest of the buildings? That unnatural way they have come to be so tall among their shorter peers, and for what reason? At least in nature, trees grow to be hundreds of meters tall for the purpose of reaching the sunlight so they can photosynthesize it into nutrients.

Skyscrapers have no use for sunlight nor nutrition. Construction workers don't put solar panels on skyscrapers, they end up on stoplights and cars and residential homes and other things closer to the earth. Who would put a solar panel on a skyscraper, after all? No... skyscrapers—and the people inside them—have no use for sunlight. It's all artificial. UV lights installed in desk lamps. Blue lights and heaters for potted plants. They have little use for nutrition, as well.

Looking up at a skyscraper, you cannot fathom how tall it is. That's another disconcerting thing about them. Even looking all the way at the top, your mind parses it as a two-dimensional object, as if you're looking at a paper cutout of a perspective shot of that mammoth building.

I can't process how large the sun is, either. It's so far away. It's so bright to look at. I can hardly manage to look up at skyscrapers when the sun is out. Even on cloudy days, as I peer up at the heavens, the dim light strains my eyes.

I'd rather not look at the sky. I think I'll remain looking at the ground. I'm safer when I'm closer to the Earth's core.