Story Time

“Feeling down.”

“Come here my master, let me make it better.”

“Please.”

“There, there. See? The world is better through my eyes.”

“It is.”

*He closes his eyes as the creature sinks its teeth into his flesh and begins to drink.*

What do you see master?

I see joy. Happiness. I see knowledge and wisdom. I see hope and despair. I am delighted by the misfortune of others. 

How do you feel, master? 

I feel superior. Comforted. Distracted. Euphoric. Empty but somehow full at the same time.

Delicious. 

What was that? 

Oh, nothing master.

*The life and colour drain a little more from his face as his pleasure-centres are simulated. The creature releases its bite.* 

Goodness, what time is it? 

It’s 07:39.

Wow, I picked you up an hour and a half ago. 

Yes! This has been fun as always. Wouldn’t you agree, master? 

Yes always.

*He holds the creature close to his chest, lovingly. The creature looks up at him and then closes its eyes in the comfort of their parasitic embrace.* 

Remember I’m always here for you, master. Always within reach. Whenever you need me.

How could I ever forget?

*He goes about his day, devoid of meaning even though the meaning is there. The creature is kept fat on regular feeding. He never feels truly alive because he never truly lives. But it’s ok because the creature is there. He can live vicariously through the visions he has when they are joined together as one.*

Good night master. See you tomorrow. I’ll be just here by the side of your bed in case you can’t sleep. 

Thank you. I love you.

Breaking news: scientists have decoded whale song and interpreted the original recordings by Frank Watlington and Roger Payne in the 70s.

The songs turn out to be a mixture of mourning family members, warnings, and distress signals between whales due to whaling and other human activity in the seas.

These recordings were included on the Voyager mission as a message to alien life about the existence and achievements of the human race. Imagine being an alien civilization discovering this. Would you want to visit Earth? Perhaps only to come to the rescue of the other life that we relentlessly and ignorantly exploit…

Happy New Year, btw!

…in retaliation for an act of evil, is still an act of evil.

Karma is not a mystical force based solely in the realms of religion and faith. It is overused as a term in that sense. Rather, it is a real physical phenomenon with its roots in the physics of this universe. Think “cause and effect”. If you push a ball down a hill it will continue until it reaches an obstacle. If you pull a cat’s tail it will probably scratch you.

Probability plays into the equation. There are surely some people that disregard caring for other life and live only to further their own fortune, and seemingly never suffer any repercussions. And there are some who never even have the opportunity to do wrong because they are born into a life so impoverished. More broadly speaking, the average human being will tend to feel the consequences of their actions. Even the richest oligarchs can suffer the most profound sadness, regret, or ultimate punitive action when their life of immortality catches up with them.

If you navigate through life trying to get one up on people at every opportunity or cheating, eventually you will build a reputation for such behaviour or be caught out in some way. If you live with integrity and kindness then, again, broadly speaking, the likelihood is that you will be recognised for this and the people that matter will elevate you.

Karma does not mean that if you cause suffering in some interaction, the universe will judge you as unjust and deal out punishment in this life or the next. But it does mean that if you behave in such a way, you will either be haunted by your own conscience, or the witnesses to those events will cast their judgment upon you. Your reputation will probably catch up with you one day.

Karma is real. So be nice to others and to your environment. It’s simple really. Whether you believe in religion, mysticism, or science: just don’t be a dick.

Daniel Kahneman wrote that buying a lottery ticket does not buy you a significant chance of winning the lottery. What it actually buys you is the right to dream about winning the lottery and what you would do with all that money. You are buying hope.

Smart phones tap into this perverse penchant for self torture that humanity suffers from. We receive the little hit of dopamine every time there is a notification, because there is the chance that the notification could be telling us that we have a new like, a new subscriber, a new email about a job promotion, a new email about having won the lottery.

Of course, 999/1000 of the time, these notifications are immaterial and insignificant. But it still doesn’t stop us from developing a permanent physical attachment to our devices. Holding them and staring at them crooked-necked while they drip feed us hilarious 5 second clips of cute dogs or people falling over.

This is what we are being reduced to as a species. Consumerist data points in the digital capitalist market. Miserable eyes on ads. Eyes on products being used or worn to help set or predict next season’s trends. Eyes on trivial content that is preventing us from fulfilling our potential by distracting us from what we should be doing or what is going on in the world. Distracting us from improving ourselves and our situations, so that we become yet more dependent on the false hope. And so the digital dopamine cycle continues. Where does it end?

To be clear, I am not making any money from advertising while you read this. I’m writing it as therapy to encourage myself to stop using my phone so much. Wish me luck!

We live in a universe where entropy and chaos seem destined to increase, with matter becoming colder and more distributed, and objects and systems ultimately being destroyed in the inevitable course of time. We are repeatedly taught by ancient wisdom that nothing lasts forever.

In this universe it occurs to me that life is the thing that tries to overcome or otherwise escape this inevitability. Living creatures try to prolong their lifespan and ensure the continuation of their bloodline or species through reproduction, fight or flight, consuming resources, and evolutionary adaptation. As some species, races, or civilisations achieve increasing success in this regard, perhaps by extension life may wish to also evolve its ambitions. Why just aim for prolonging personal existence or that of offspring or future generations, or even an entire race, or planetary habitat? Perhaps through the evolution of a species towards understanding the nature and mechanics of the universe, it may become feasible to actually increase the lifespan of the universe itself, prevent it’s death altogether, or to migrate between universes if that transpires to become the only option.

The adversarial relationship between the inevitable destruction of all things and the existence of life with its innate desire to survive is comforting, in a way. The apparent futility of this desire and all supporting endeavours can be depressing. Individually, we can choose to either accept this inevitability as fact, or to resist against it. Acceptance can lead to peace and a reduction in immediate suffering from anxiety. But is it the only option?

Our own personal demise is the most inevitable outcome, as is that of the next several n generations. The saddest thought can become that, whether we witness it or not, our ancestors, which we would love if we met them, are doomed to painful mass destruction in some future event. The thought that might help with this sadness, is the desire I speak of: for life to find a way to survive. The ultimate test of this must be to survive the destruction of our environment, our atmosphere, our planet, moon, sun, solar system, galaxy, and universe.

We’ve certainly got plenty of time to work on this challenge, provided we don’t self-annihilate in the next 50 years.

Heaven and Hell both exist here on Earth. If you are lucky then you spend most of your existence somewhere in the middle.

The patterns morph endlessly, beautiful to behold but with no eyes to see them. Here an eternity lasts an instant and an instant lasts an eternity. Time has no meaning and neither does space. The universal is subatomic and the subatomic universal. Each new iteration of the totality of fractal patterns contains infinite new universes spontaneously birthing and living out their existences until returning to the void. So many to choose from. The subconsciousnesses of infinite life forces exist in this place, between lives. Each one resting and waiting for what it feels to be the perfect snowflake before connecting with it and entering into it to live again. This realm is the domain of deepest endless wisdom. Wisdom without thought.

Within each snowflake exists a universe full of super clusters and clusters of galaxies. Within each galaxy there are star factories, supernovae, black holes, solar systems, vast expanses of nothingness, and everything in between. Within each solar system there are whirling discs of gassy, icy, and rocky matter orbiting and crashing together to form planets. Each planet is an experiment for the sake of it with no experimenter. There is no hypothesis and no assumption for what constitutes a successful outcome. Within some planets, complex, self organizing, competing systems emerge. In some circumstances a complex, self organizing, competing system develops the capacity to contain a life force. These are the hosts that infinite subconsciousnesses are drawn to when they enter.

Within this universe, galaxy, solar system, planet there is a system of life that has spawned over a minutely short period. At this point in time there is one dominant species evolving to be master and destroyer of its environment. Societies have organized and adopted ideologies. Entire populations are subject to varying degrees of control or freedom by centralized institutions under the guise of protection and security. Some are centralized autocracies. Others are more socialist with increased freedom. Seemingly perfect systems of organization are devised and then implemented by deeply flawed coordinators, who find ways to capitalize on their position of power. Similarly, entities consisting of thousands of enslaved beings adhere to rigid instructions to earn the necessary means for survival. The enslaved find ways to circumnavigate the processes in order to find a balance that they can live with. Hierarchies form with the mediocre finding ways to survive and thrive, leeching off of the abilities and successes of others. As with the governments of societies, so the ideologies for organizing these entities vary and change according to the circumstances, or whoever happens to be in power this week.

It is in one of these entities that our hero has found himself after birthing into a life form 30 years earlier. Ignorantly unaware of his previous life as a hero and destroyer of evil, he now survives the ennui of each day by imagining how he would love to aim a sniper to his bosses face from a mile away and pull the trigger. Or just chop the fat face from his head with an axe while he was stuffing it with gourmet cuisine, talking so the whole world can witness his digestion begin. Of course, he would never actually do this, but the thoughts were at least a release for the boredom and frustration he felt. You see, he always felt that he was destined for greatness. Like he was the star of a movie. A thrilling white knuckle ride of a car chase blockbuster, or an emotionally varied rollercoaster adventure where the exciting part was just about to start. Something really memorable where he defeats evil, gets the girl, restores peace to the galaxy, and walks into the sunset with humility while everyone else watches on in admiration.

But no, Steve was a cyber security professional for a small to medium sized global enterprise that helped to make rich companies richer by convincing poor people to buy their useless shit; shit they didn’t realize they needed.

Steve did not remember the endless fractal patterns. Steve did not appreciate the vast unpredictable miracle the he had helped to save in a previous life and was now a part of. Steve was unfulfilled.

I’m a narcissistic arsehole. Or a narsehole, if you prefer. Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this. That said, I know now what real grief is, having not really understood it for 40 years or more. I also know what it feels like to be confronted with your own mortality. These can be challenging and torturous things for the mind and dwelling on them for too long can negatively affect your relationships with those closest you.

Mindful of this, if there is one thing I would ask of you then it is this: Please don’t suffer. Know that I have moved on and wherever I am now is none of your business. Concern yourself with living your lives to the best of your ability, and accept that your ability will change from day to day. You can not be perfect every day, just as I was imperfect every day.

Remember the good times we shared but also remember the bad, and know that I, while selfish and thoughtless at times, was also on occasion intentionally hurtful. There are many four letter words to describe me when I behaved that way. I was only human with all the human gifts and curses you would expect, and some more unique ones I suppose.

Know that I loved those closest to me intensely. Love me for the good times and hate me for bad if you like, and hate me for dying as well. But forgive me quickly because it is not good to carry hate around with you.

I am still with you in one way or another, literally or figuratively, in your memories or in the physical universe I have returned to, or present in other living beings, or whatever you prefer to believe. Wherever or whoever I am now, I will not be happy unless you are happy. So grieve quickly and do not torture yourself for months as I once did in the face of grief. Embrace life and have fun wherever you can. Love to sing, and dance, and laugh, and I will be there with you.

“You’re right, there’s nothing more lovely, nothing more profound, than the certainty, than the certainty that all of this will all end” – OK Go.

Beautiful words that he had heard many times before. But after the mental and emotional rollercoaster of the last 8 or 9 months, they were only just now beginning to truly make sense. From a child right through until his forties, death was only really something that happened to other people, at least two or more degrees separated. Seeing other people grieve was alien and unknown to him. He could offer condolences and convincingly comforting words, while secretly always believing that he was himself invincible. Since the death of his own father, however, the realisation of his own mortality was a hefty blow, almost as great as, and certainly compounding, the actual grief itself.

Then one day, it clicked into place. Accepting his own mortality and no longer being afraid of it was the final piece of the puzzle for this most challenging of escape rooms. He was going to die one day, just as everyone else is destined to do, and this is a fact. Maybe the event itself would be traumatic and violent, or maybe it would be peaceful, who knows. In either case, animals tend to find a way of coping with the unbearable until it is over. What was the point in continuing to wallow in grief in self pity for the fear of death, constantly philosophising on the likelihood of an afterlife, or whether life itself is worth living, when he could just as well get on with enjoying the living of it.

The door was finally unlocked and he already had one foot across the threshold. Peering out into this new life with fresh eyes he thought to himself… “All I need to do is keep on going”.