Sunday 2 September 2001

Pic of the day: Seen from an angle different from all angles in this universe..

Sparks

'Pointless, pointless! Everything is pointless!' Those were the words I thought, as I walked the road up the hill. The sky was partly cloudy, but it was still bright at 8 in the evening. I had already taken a walk today, but my body was restless again. I usually move about quite a bit on a normal day. Besides, the day was wasted. All days were wasted. The fools rule; men halfway between me and the chimps are paid to lord over me. Yet what difference does it make? In 120 years we are all dead. I, you, the wide-eyed children. We may be remembered for a while, but never understood. And then we are gone forever. Most people even work actively to shorten their life through applied stupidity. Nothing lasts. All is pointless.

'Pointless, pointless! Everything is pointless!' Those were the words I thought, and for your convenience I even thought them in English. And then three young women came panting up the steep side of the hill and entered the road in front of me. They were decently clothed, but I could see from the way they moved that they were young, college age or so. And then I smiled, even though I had no idea who they were, and even though all things are pointless.

***

While I now wondered over this, I passed three small children. Not quite toddlers, they may have just started school. One of them was standing on a high place blowing bubbles, and the other two were chasing them. But there were more bubbles than they could catch, and some of them drifted my way. In the sunset, they shone in bright and wonderful colors. Each of them was different, and each was also changing all the time.

Such are our lives, are they not? Some are larger, some are smaller. Some are glowing with colors, while other are more drab and ordinary. We drift here, we drift there. Some go higher, some stay near the ground. We are all different, and yet we are all changing. The one I am today is not quite who I was yesterday, and not quite who I may be tomorrow. And one day tomorrow doesn't come. Our lives are so much slower than that of a soap bubble, but we are finite like they are. Unless there is someone greater than us to remember us, we will be gone as surely as they. Yet the children enjoyed the sight of the bubbles, and strangely so did I.

As a child I would often watch a campfire. The fire shifted and flickered, and sparks rose and separated from the fire, yet carrying a part of it. They rose up, up, reaching out to the stars that shone like bright sparks in the sky. But they never reached the stars, I noticed, and it saddened me. I wished that one of the sparks would reach the sky and become a star. But they always went out before they came that far.

Now I know that also the stars have a finite time. It is much longer than that of a spark, but they are bound by the same law. And so are we. But as long as the fire burns, new sparks will rise. Some burn more brightly, and some rise higher; not always the same. And they go out, but there are always new. And the children leave, but new children come and watch the sparks. And the stars burn, and die, but new stars are born.

The universe itself will die one day, the last glowing ember turned to ash. Darkness, icy cold and stillness will reign for eternity. Yet if it is as it seems, new universes are being born too. Perhaps some of them will be made by sons of man, eons into the future, if we avoid destroying the little dust mote we share now in our species' infancy.

***

I do not think all universes are created equal. They are probably as different as the soap bubbles, each with its very own flavor. Most likely, the laws of nature are dramatically different in each. The greatest challenge to enter another universe may not be getting there, but even knowing that we are there. For instead of matter and energy as we know them, there may be other units that relate to each other in the same way that mass and energy do here, but do not interact with the mass and energy of our universe. Some of them may occupy this very space and time where we are now, and we would never know. It seems that all mass in our universe consists solely of particles that interact with the unseen "Higgs boson". There may be other worlds sharing this space that have another carrier of mass. Other carriers of energy. Other dimensions. Our time may be their north-south axis, or something.

If our descendants are ever able to transform themselves into different dimensions, it will be the greatest challenge ever. Could you live in a world where you smell light and hear taste? How much harder to be able to wander freely through time, but slide mercilessly toward the north no matter what you do.

Perhaps there are already entities living along dimensions other than our own, or in worlds of more dimensions. Who can watch any time and place in our universe at their whim. Who may be admiring the beauty of our short flickering life, the way I admire the soap bubbles and the sparks and the passing beauty of youth and sunset. For who every moment can be seen again and again as often as they want, preserved in the immutable transparent crystal of time.

Do I just create hope where there is none? Am I just producing meaning where all is meaningless? Who is to say that, seen from an angle different from all angles of our universe, this meaning might not be as real as the ground we walk on or the lights in the sky. Who knows whether, from some other point of view, our entire universe may be invisible: The planets and stars, matter and energy ... and the only thing from our universe that intersects with that other is THOUGHT, or information. (It is not unheard of: Already in this world, it happens over the Net.)

Freely suspended in the emptiness, swirls of emotion; whirlpools of despair, bright bursts of hope, glowing rays of love; a lattice of understanding, beams of courage.
Sparks that remain in the sky when the stars have gone out.