Saturday 23 December 2006

Pic of the day: Flogged onward by the unrelenting demand of my readers, I keep sharing all that I know and some that I don't. (Screenshot: Midori no Hibi.)

Slowly forward

I notice that for the last couple years, there have been a lot of "fast forward" entries, not least at this time of the year. While not pure placeholders, the very name implies a kind of disinterest. And this is not entirely untrue: I have often felt that I had things that I rather would want to do than write this journal. Not necessarily more important things, though occasionally this happens too. Usually more fun. (Computer games come to mind, as does writing fiction at times. In some cases even watching anime.)

I also notice that there hasn't been much of that this year, even though I was frightfully behind on my journal at the end of NaNoWriMo (a.k.a. "the month formerly known as November"). I won't boast that this is my best writing ever. It isn't, or at least most of it isn't. Much of it is fluff, perhaps too much of it, but it is my fluff. I think of it as non-compulsory reading, for the few who either happen to share some of my interests or are just curious as to what kind of person I am. The gray entries, on the other hand, are "compulsory reading" in that I firmly believe that each of them has the power to improve the life of someone. Not necessarily of everyone, though a few of them have a pretty broad spectrum.

Of course, I am not a god. I make mistakes. People who disbelieved my predictions for the American economy have been able to make a goodly amount of money by by borrowing and investing rather than buckling down for the recession that I predicted. But the fundamental laws of economics have not changed. What happened was that the US government borrowed unimaginable amounts of money and threw on the would-be recession, delaying it by several years. But this money must be paid back with interest at some point, probably starting right after the end of the Reign of the Dunce. The nation may still rise again after that, but I am no longer counting on it.

When it comes to the human soul, however, even President Bush has little power. (As seen by the results of his pro-abstinence campaigns, for instance.) But there are other forces at work. Over the last year I have more or less randomly become aware of other people also taking a keen interest in the human psychogenesis, people far more ambitious than I. I still think the changes will be slow. But then again, it is only a few years ago that I started to consciously believe that there would be changes at all. It is only months since I got the tools of the mind that I use today. Who knows what I will think in a year, if we are still here.

Yes, apart from the possibility of my own demise, not that I have seen any sure signs of it, there is still the risk that the planet could fall into a man-made black hole in November next year, when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland, will start its attempts at creating such a particle. If that happens, it goes without saying that all I have written, all I have done, all I have lived, all I have ever been will be utterly futile. More completely erased than a house burned to ashes, more like writings on a blackboard wiped clean, our very existence will be negated in that case. Nothing we did or were will count for anything at all. In a very real sense we will not even have existed, as the very atoms of our planet are taken beyond the laws of not only space but time itself. But I will not spend much time writing about this. It is beyond my power to stop, and the outcome is not certain in any case. On the other hand, it is certain that given enough time, we are all forgotten by the world anyway. The question is what we do in the brief span of time when we dance, like dust motes, glittering in the beam of light.

And I do live this life, and I share it with you. Some of you may do more interesting things, possibly even think more interesting thoughts. But unless you tell me, I will never know.