The Imagination of Infinity
Hello? Is anyone here?
I’m stuck on small things that don’t matter. I think for a moment that I ought to buy radishes while I’m out walking by the market, and I’m gone for hours. I sit in front of a mirror wondering if my hair hasn’t gone a shade lighter since I last checked, and then the sun has set and risen again.
I forgot to take my medication this afternoon. No matter, it was only a precautionary medication, against some imagined infection that may have taken place after I sleepwalked into a restaurant and fell on a ketchup bottle, which exploded. If I’m not hospitalized tomorrow, I’m finished taking it altogether. All it seems to be doing is making me perpetually exhausted. And, I presume, stuck on things.
A stranger sent me a message, which made me laugh. ‘Hey man, I liked your journal. You should start writing again.’ He mentioned something specific from it to indicate that he had actually read it. Then he tried to sell me enhancement pills. Those robots are getting smarter. Once, I was a writer. I was a writer, once. Do I like it better as a forethought or an afterthought? As a forethought, it seems nostalgic, thoughtful. As an afterthought, it seems cynically amused. I’m not certain that I feel either of those more than the other right now. Once, I was an optimist. I was an optimist, once.
The last three months were an experiment to try living in the present. Every few days I would proverbially slap myself in the face and exclaim, ‘Wake up, your life is passing you by!’ But then I would think, how much time had passed since the last time I told myself to take a look at my life, and it truly wasn’t so very much time at all.
I write, still, but I write for myself. I think I always wrote for myself, only that I’ve been selfish with it lately, and not shared. No reason, except lack of time and effort, which hardly seems valid now that I think about it. I am one step toward reconciliation. Once, I forgave myself. I forgave myself, once. Now there’s a case. That one seems reversed, the first construction having a darker tone than the second.
I gave in and swallowed the two small, orange pills, right here at my desk. I don’t like the idea of disobeying authority when that authority is a doctor. Come to think of it, I don’t know that I’m much about disobeying authority at all these days. It all comes, I suppose, of approaching the birthday that will take me out of being considered teenaged. So I’ll fall asleep amid a sentence and accept it. Worse things have happened to me. Once, I was nearly pushed off a building by a falling snowman.
-----
I’ve walked eighty thousand paces in a single direction, looking for the infinite. I didn’t like how the estimated time of arrival looked.
Kevin: What the devil… has my vision gone blurry?
Universe: No, it’s reality. Reality has gone blurry. You’re supposed to keep walking until it becomes clear.
Kevin: But how will I know when that will be? I need that little number in the bottom left corner of my vision to tell me how long it will take. Except I can’t see it until I’m there. Am I reading this correctly?
Universe: You’re not reading it incorrectly.
Kevin: I’m going to pretend the number is negative and that I already arrived in the past in some other incarnation.
Universe: Works for me.
Does infinity exist in any form of reality? Or is it strictly a theory?
Correction - infinity only exists as a reality as an infinitely absent quality. Something can never exist, and that is infinite. But infinite time, space? All some crazy notion we take from extrapolating our five year-old mind’s revelation that we cannot physically count to the highest number, and it’s not because we won’t live long enough. So nothing in any form will preserve anything forever.
Curtis: Suppose the rain were coming down constantly, over time more and more acidic, and eventually it began eating through umbrellas. What would we do?
Beatrice: Start an umbrella business. There would be quite the market for a new variety of umbrella.
Curtis: But after that? The rain is going to become gradually more acidic until it is practically death falling from the sky.
Beatrice: Even better! We have a product that we can be continually improving, something people will have to keep buying replacements for because their current models will be obsolete. I like how you think, let’s start burning some sulphur.
Curtis: It’s not just umbrellas, though. Everything, concretes, metals, they’re all eventually going to melt away. Nothing to hide under any longer.
Once, I believed in the permanence of history. If only, thought I, I could place my name in the history books, I would live on long beyond my death and never worry of disappearing forever. Because surely, at the end of it all, if the apocalypse does, in fact, descend upon us, humanity will package itself into a time capsule, full of its history, and artefacts, and knowledge, that will float around the galaxies until it is found. And it was simply a matter of making my way into that time capsule. But assuming the capsule is found, those that discover it will not exist forever. And they may preserve themselves, and some scrap of humanity with it, but there is nowhere for it to go that is not temporary. In the end, there will be nothing for it to hide under.
The trick, then, is to alter some sort of physical law, unchanging through all of time and space, to include us in some form. So that, for instance, light at a certain frequency passing through a certain medium produces a vibration which, when transposed somehow into written word, spells out the history of Scotland during the Renaissance age. This on principle poses a number of problems, not the least of which is changing the past. But it’s a start.
Kevin: Universe, can you change the past?
Universe: Sure, why not.
Kevin: Universe, preserve me in time!
I handed him the drawing, indicating where in physical law my name was to be etched forever, somewhere in the radio frequencies. On occasion, I forget that The Universe and My Universe aren’t technically distinct, and My Universe does not indicate possession. In fact, My Universe feels obligated to kick me when I make such a foolish statement as this.
Universe: Preserve yourself, you dimwit.
I’m preserving other people all the time. I think about times past, conversations years old, people I haven’t seen in longer than I’m aware. Do they think about me? I regularly place my name in online search engines, just to see what comes up. I’m aware it’s not a contest, but I still want to win. I want someone to walk up to me, and explain that I lent them a dollar one time for their lunch at school ten years ago, and they’ve been thinking about it ever since, and decided to buy me a sailboat. Or if they just paid the dollar back, that would be fine also.
I’d like a lot of things to happen to me that probably aren’t going to happen. I’m aware of this, still I think about it. I’ve accepted the low chances of becoming famous, and even denounced many of the benefits it might entail. Yet I would still welcome it. I know the ship has sailed on that loophole to fame known as doing something slightly above average at a particularly young age, but I still have time to blind or deafen myself. What would you destroy to get what you want? I say, show me a button… but let’s not go there.
Maria: Pardon me, do I know you?
Kevin: Perhaps not anymore, but ten years ago you lent me a dollar, and I’m here to give it back, seeing as I never forgot it. I wanted to buy you a sailboat, but sailboats are so very expensive…
Maria: Hold on, if you never forgot it, what took you ten years?
Oh no, I hadn’t played the scene out that far. I just thought that, if no one was going to repay their debts to me, I could repay imaginary debts to other people, and convince myself that everything was settled since the scene had gone through as I imagined it would.
Maria: What’s your name?
Kevin: I’m sorry, I may have confused you for someone else.
Maria: What’s your name? Hey! You handed me this dollar, don’t go trying to swipe it back!
Kevin: I’m sure I don’t know you, really, I picked you out randomly on the street. I’m an actor, I’m not in the habit of paying people to perform, now if I could please have my dollar…
Maria: What’s your name?
Kevin: Kevin Liadov.
Maria: Well, Kevin, I hope you’ve learned a lesson here.
Thanks to the stranger on the street with my dollar, I’ve learned that people are greedy. Also, everyone is suspicious, so no one accepts unsolicited gifts. In addition, what I may want terribly much may not be all that desirable to another. Finally, if you’re entering a foreign or dangerous situation, practice responses to questions you might be asked. For someone who talks to himself all the time, to think I’d have made such a mistake, it’s embarrassing.
-----
(also posted to kevinliadov.livejournal.com - add him!)
I’m stuck on small things that don’t matter. I think for a moment that I ought to buy radishes while I’m out walking by the market, and I’m gone for hours. I sit in front of a mirror wondering if my hair hasn’t gone a shade lighter since I last checked, and then the sun has set and risen again.
I forgot to take my medication this afternoon. No matter, it was only a precautionary medication, against some imagined infection that may have taken place after I sleepwalked into a restaurant and fell on a ketchup bottle, which exploded. If I’m not hospitalized tomorrow, I’m finished taking it altogether. All it seems to be doing is making me perpetually exhausted. And, I presume, stuck on things.
A stranger sent me a message, which made me laugh. ‘Hey man, I liked your journal. You should start writing again.’ He mentioned something specific from it to indicate that he had actually read it. Then he tried to sell me enhancement pills. Those robots are getting smarter. Once, I was a writer. I was a writer, once. Do I like it better as a forethought or an afterthought? As a forethought, it seems nostalgic, thoughtful. As an afterthought, it seems cynically amused. I’m not certain that I feel either of those more than the other right now. Once, I was an optimist. I was an optimist, once.
The last three months were an experiment to try living in the present. Every few days I would proverbially slap myself in the face and exclaim, ‘Wake up, your life is passing you by!’ But then I would think, how much time had passed since the last time I told myself to take a look at my life, and it truly wasn’t so very much time at all.
I write, still, but I write for myself. I think I always wrote for myself, only that I’ve been selfish with it lately, and not shared. No reason, except lack of time and effort, which hardly seems valid now that I think about it. I am one step toward reconciliation. Once, I forgave myself. I forgave myself, once. Now there’s a case. That one seems reversed, the first construction having a darker tone than the second.
I gave in and swallowed the two small, orange pills, right here at my desk. I don’t like the idea of disobeying authority when that authority is a doctor. Come to think of it, I don’t know that I’m much about disobeying authority at all these days. It all comes, I suppose, of approaching the birthday that will take me out of being considered teenaged. So I’ll fall asleep amid a sentence and accept it. Worse things have happened to me. Once, I was nearly pushed off a building by a falling snowman.
-----
I’ve walked eighty thousand paces in a single direction, looking for the infinite. I didn’t like how the estimated time of arrival looked.
Kevin: What the devil… has my vision gone blurry?
Universe: No, it’s reality. Reality has gone blurry. You’re supposed to keep walking until it becomes clear.
Kevin: But how will I know when that will be? I need that little number in the bottom left corner of my vision to tell me how long it will take. Except I can’t see it until I’m there. Am I reading this correctly?
Universe: You’re not reading it incorrectly.
Kevin: I’m going to pretend the number is negative and that I already arrived in the past in some other incarnation.
Universe: Works for me.
Does infinity exist in any form of reality? Or is it strictly a theory?
Correction - infinity only exists as a reality as an infinitely absent quality. Something can never exist, and that is infinite. But infinite time, space? All some crazy notion we take from extrapolating our five year-old mind’s revelation that we cannot physically count to the highest number, and it’s not because we won’t live long enough. So nothing in any form will preserve anything forever.
Curtis: Suppose the rain were coming down constantly, over time more and more acidic, and eventually it began eating through umbrellas. What would we do?
Beatrice: Start an umbrella business. There would be quite the market for a new variety of umbrella.
Curtis: But after that? The rain is going to become gradually more acidic until it is practically death falling from the sky.
Beatrice: Even better! We have a product that we can be continually improving, something people will have to keep buying replacements for because their current models will be obsolete. I like how you think, let’s start burning some sulphur.
Curtis: It’s not just umbrellas, though. Everything, concretes, metals, they’re all eventually going to melt away. Nothing to hide under any longer.
Once, I believed in the permanence of history. If only, thought I, I could place my name in the history books, I would live on long beyond my death and never worry of disappearing forever. Because surely, at the end of it all, if the apocalypse does, in fact, descend upon us, humanity will package itself into a time capsule, full of its history, and artefacts, and knowledge, that will float around the galaxies until it is found. And it was simply a matter of making my way into that time capsule. But assuming the capsule is found, those that discover it will not exist forever. And they may preserve themselves, and some scrap of humanity with it, but there is nowhere for it to go that is not temporary. In the end, there will be nothing for it to hide under.
The trick, then, is to alter some sort of physical law, unchanging through all of time and space, to include us in some form. So that, for instance, light at a certain frequency passing through a certain medium produces a vibration which, when transposed somehow into written word, spells out the history of Scotland during the Renaissance age. This on principle poses a number of problems, not the least of which is changing the past. But it’s a start.
Kevin: Universe, can you change the past?
Universe: Sure, why not.
Kevin: Universe, preserve me in time!
I handed him the drawing, indicating where in physical law my name was to be etched forever, somewhere in the radio frequencies. On occasion, I forget that The Universe and My Universe aren’t technically distinct, and My Universe does not indicate possession. In fact, My Universe feels obligated to kick me when I make such a foolish statement as this.
Universe: Preserve yourself, you dimwit.
I’m preserving other people all the time. I think about times past, conversations years old, people I haven’t seen in longer than I’m aware. Do they think about me? I regularly place my name in online search engines, just to see what comes up. I’m aware it’s not a contest, but I still want to win. I want someone to walk up to me, and explain that I lent them a dollar one time for their lunch at school ten years ago, and they’ve been thinking about it ever since, and decided to buy me a sailboat. Or if they just paid the dollar back, that would be fine also.
I’d like a lot of things to happen to me that probably aren’t going to happen. I’m aware of this, still I think about it. I’ve accepted the low chances of becoming famous, and even denounced many of the benefits it might entail. Yet I would still welcome it. I know the ship has sailed on that loophole to fame known as doing something slightly above average at a particularly young age, but I still have time to blind or deafen myself. What would you destroy to get what you want? I say, show me a button… but let’s not go there.
Maria: Pardon me, do I know you?
Kevin: Perhaps not anymore, but ten years ago you lent me a dollar, and I’m here to give it back, seeing as I never forgot it. I wanted to buy you a sailboat, but sailboats are so very expensive…
Maria: Hold on, if you never forgot it, what took you ten years?
Oh no, I hadn’t played the scene out that far. I just thought that, if no one was going to repay their debts to me, I could repay imaginary debts to other people, and convince myself that everything was settled since the scene had gone through as I imagined it would.
Maria: What’s your name?
Kevin: I’m sorry, I may have confused you for someone else.
Maria: What’s your name? Hey! You handed me this dollar, don’t go trying to swipe it back!
Kevin: I’m sure I don’t know you, really, I picked you out randomly on the street. I’m an actor, I’m not in the habit of paying people to perform, now if I could please have my dollar…
Maria: What’s your name?
Kevin: Kevin Liadov.
Maria: Well, Kevin, I hope you’ve learned a lesson here.
Thanks to the stranger on the street with my dollar, I’ve learned that people are greedy. Also, everyone is suspicious, so no one accepts unsolicited gifts. In addition, what I may want terribly much may not be all that desirable to another. Finally, if you’re entering a foreign or dangerous situation, practice responses to questions you might be asked. For someone who talks to himself all the time, to think I’d have made such a mistake, it’s embarrassing.
-----
(also posted to kevinliadov.livejournal.com - add him!)