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