We Are, Not Alone

Have you sat on a cliff overlooking an ocean or a sea and thought about the massive size of our planet in relation to your body, how the waves that'll knock you over if you were standing on shore look like tiny, almost imperceptible ripples on the surface of the water? The inertia behind the particles of water? The inertia behind the spinning of the planet on its axis and its orbit around the Sun?

We call one revolution around the Sun 365 days because of the planet's axis spin. Have you ever set a gyroscope in motion and counted its number of revolutions around the axis? How many revolutions does the gyroscope take before it perceptibly slows down and then topples over?

The finite.

Counting votes. Counting vessels. Charting maps. Mapping family histories.

Tonight, I float, tethered to the planet but not strongly connected to any one feeling or issue associated with my species. I call this condition "freedom" despite my brain and upper body coordinating to stay within one set of grammar rules to document this moment on an electronic typewriter.

I believe with all my heart and soul that this is my planet, here for my nourishment and entertainment. I have no place else to go. So, while I sit here and think about my interactions in moments yet to be, I ask myself how I want to be nourished and entertained.

Does a population fully connected and productive in the global economy add or subtract to my image of the perfect world for me? Are war and poverty chronic conditions of our species? If we are like drops of water in the ocean of us, are we leftover waves from unseen pebbles dropped in another section of us, so complicated in our wave pattern interaction that we can never truly reset the whole globe into one set of beliefs or mutually beneficial actions?

What am I missing in my complete understanding of the myriad motivations of our species that make naysayers and doomsday predictors so popular? Do we simply bury and forget the innate sight of our ending, extending death of self to catastrophic proportions for our family, group, culture and/or species? I know I have asked these questions already. I know I have answered them. I know I am like my species and mercifully forget what I already know so that I don't know how much I repeat myself.

Time to get past this repetitious philosophy again and bring humour back out, a cycle I thankfully repeat when my philosophy starts looking down into the abyss, the bottomless pit of impossibly probable answers to questions I know better than to ask myself.

The Book of the Future sits here beside me, opened to the next chapter. I know where we're headed. I know the happiness and joy we'll find. I know the things we'll repeat that I didn't bother to keep up with the last time we repeated them. Why look at the future with dread? Why the dire predictions? We know we're going to repeat ourselves. Why not look at the fun and meaningful insight we'll gain?

We are not alone. We are our own aliens. We are our own angels and devils and gods and goddesses. We have this grand universe here before us and we let this wonderful gift to ourselves go to waste by arguing over who gets the last peanut or grain of rice when there's a field to be planted. We talk about how other people let us down as if we expected something different to happen with the next person we elevated to the status of perfection. Everything in front of us is fantastically imperfect, the flaws and dents and scratches there for us to thoroughly enjoy.

I float here in the moment, my back ache and overweight belly telling me I'm here in a particular place in time. I call this moment ecstasy, an epiphany of grandeur that I would not trade for the riches of the world. I celebrate my imperfection and say the world is mine because I am yours. My eyesight worsens, my memory leaks, my skin wrinkles and my fascination grows closer to infinity.

I am thankful for all of you, wherever you live, whatever you do, whomever you call your image of perfection. We are all imperfect and by our imperfections we depend on one another for creating this moment that will lead us to the next stupendous moment that will open us up to opportunities we couldn't have had the moment before.

In my thoughts I am standing on the edge of the Cliffs of Moher looking west toward the setting sun, individual drops of ocean water impossible to detect, waves barely visible. In my thoughts I am riding in the space shuttle looking down at the globe spinning beneath me, political borders impossible to detect. Our planet is not perfectly round and it wobbles sideways on its axis - because of that, we live. We are here because the universe is imperfect. Understand that and you'll understand your perfect place in the universe. Contradictory? No, just a matter of semantics. The truth, as they say, is outside these words which are an imperfect set of symbols describing what we're doing in the moment.

To know what's going on you have to get away from these words. Whether you figure out what's going on with people around you or away from other people depends on who you are. I know people in both thought patterns. Some find themselves, who they are, in groups. Some find themselves in quiet places alone. Some of you already know which one you are. Some of you will have to spend a long time experimenting to find out. Either way, accept the moment and what's going on with you at the time. The discovery's in the journey just as much as in the destination, if not more so.

How much does an ocean wave "enjoy" its travels before it hits the shore? It is. It does not know how else to be so there is nothing to enjoy in its being what it is. We are the same, are we not? Don't think about being you. Just be. Then you'll see. You are, not alone.