A Safe Space

Since I was a child, I have always been infatuated with the absence of others. I never liked being in crowds, and being alone is like living in a vacuum. It conflicts with the intrinsic nature of the human experience: that everything we do has an effect. When I'm alone, I can say something and nothing will change. It breaks the imposed philosophical law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, as my words are absorbed into an Abyss that defies its name. Within itself it is everything that has, is, or will ever be. From the outside, looking in, one cannot help but try to fathom its depths. Yet the power of the Abyss lies in the inability to pry open its hinges, because it has none. It stretches and twists and folds and bends and never breaks. Outside the Abyss thought and words overlap and merge to form an ever-expanding Web of Noise. I hate the Web. Its many tendrils wrap and squeeze around any creature who draws to near to the edge of the Abyss. But the Abyss is by nature un-caring, one of my favorite things about it. It is the cold space that is warmed, for an instant by a pleasant or plain thought. These thoughts twist together until they are unrecognizable, but the Abyss is an infinity. There is always space for new things to be lost, as each thing before it forgets its identity and ceases to be. Unlike the dreaded Web, where the rate of growth is exceeded by the rate of contribution. In the Web, borders are pushed by the comingling and procreation of its contents. There is never enough space for the Noise to lie dormant, so each component stands on end, like iron filings under a magnet. The Abyss will never be full. It expands, as population does, geometrically. The thoughts and words cannot last long against the harsh chasm of nothingness that pervades the Abyss. This is why my bed is my favorite place to be.

When I am in my bed, I am at home in the Abyss. It's embrace allows for a sense of freedom, as any sense reason or logic can be swept of like nettles on a river. No thought is too loud or too big to dam the constant torrent of the Stream of Null. as thoughts touch its surface, they are drowned in the Streams black depths. Maybe the strong ones can struggle for a moment, but nothing can last forever. In my bed, I sit at the edge of the Null and watch as my supposedly meaningful stream of consciousness is swept into its undertow. The fear I once felt while staring into the Abyssal current is dwarfed my admiration of its sheer power.

When I shut the door to my bedroom, I invite the Abyss to come in and stay a while. Maybe this is why I've always slept with my door closed: It serves as a barrier to keep out the Web. The moment I turn off the light, I can always be sure that the Abyss has arrived. In that moment-between-moments, when darkness cascades down the walls, over the shelves, and seeps into the carpet, that the Abyss surrounds me. I am no longer required to maintain the strained facade of one who appreciates the Null. Just like my thoughts and emotions, my false countenance is wrenched into its selfless torrent (The Null, I have decided, must be selfless, as it is, by definition, without self).

Every time I feel the prongs of the Web dig in, I think back to my warm bed; a tiny, worthless speck on the edge an ocean of infinity.

Forever and For Always

I took this photo about three years ago. Yes, I took it. This is my cat, Neka. Neka is Japanese for cat, because my father, my sister and I don't seem to have a single ounce of creativity among us. I was bored, it was summer, and that was redundant. I found myself, as many a youth finds themself, taking somewhat self-indulgent pictures of my cat. Through persistence(luck), willpower(more luck), and unprecedented skill(a preposterous amount of luck) I captured a very, let's say, "novel" image.

This masterpiece is nothing more than me mashing the "take photo" button on an iPod touch. Seemingly as bored as I was, the cat was yawning. Mid-yawn, a miraculous thing happened. A picture so inherently, inarguably precious was captured by a boy with very little else to offer the world. In a cosmos so entangled, so random, and so destined for ever-increasing entropic forces, this moment-in-between-moments was allowed to be caught and trapped in a wafer-thin universe, all its own. More than anything else, this innocent feline's visage is a testament to the fact that anything is possible, despite ridiculously stacked odds.

Hundreds of millions of years of evolution, climate change, and erosion, allowed me to stand in that spot and entrap a truly wonderful thing. I could have been born without thumbs; New York State could have been an inferno, forever raging;  the Hudson valley could start and end in Wallkill. A literally infinite number of events could occur or not occur, instantly destroying any existence of this photo in the future. But an infinite number of things did not happen. One thing happened. This photo was taken, and no-one and nothing can ever take it away from me, from you, from everyone who has, does, and will ever live of this or any other world.

So allow that spark of innocence, that waste of time, that foolish pet peeve, any piece of idiotic, beautiful entropy manifested in an experience to survive. It will not grow. It will not whither. It will only BE. And maybe, just maybe, it can be captured. In story, song, poem, painting, play, voice memo, photo... All of these things weave together to form a metaphysical tapestry of arranged chaos, proving to anyone or no-one that no matter the odds, anything can happen.

This photo is a catalyst for future manifestations. Once it is seen, it plants a seed in the mind that sits. It will not grow. It will not whither. It will only BE.



The Power of Entropy