chapter 1: the world has no ends: the universe has a hole
it was big news today that a void was found in space; a giant bubble of emptiness stretching billions of light years in every direction. what i found more newsworthy was the everpresent inability in humans to hold onto the idea of nil. and thinking about the universe, picturing it in its entirety inside my head always places me at a vantage point outside of the universe. in an emptiness that shouldnt exist. and sometimes i imagine my own mind with the same vastness, except i cant picture anything outside of a spanning darkness that continually manages to spill itself just ahead of my own thoughts. so i find myself groping in darkness. in an emptiness that does exist.
ive lately spent much time in that place, because an influencial portion of my life may leave me soon. the effect may be similiar to the impact that shattered earth a moon. after the devastation i may find myself still affected by a light that pulls at me somewhere in the unreachable sky. the truth is this influence will always have some gravity with me, its only the source that is waning abruptly into that darkness of nothing. and i told my younger self that i would follow it to the ends of the world. but the fact is the world does not have any ends. as columbus proved it will only leave you where you began.
and this has me thinkings about boats. my whole life ive never understood how the ancients managed to keep them so watertight that they stayed afloat. but now i understand. they would nail the boards together tightly, then let the boat sit in the harbor for a few days to allow the seams to swell tight. and like any good boat, thats what i must do to keep myself from sinking. im closing up inside, feeling less and less, knowing only the rigid tenderness of nothing at all. i fear right now is the brush sweeping the sunlight off the pavement of my heart.