Life.

I suppose I should start writing again.

The past few months have been a blur, thankfully, because if I stopped to pay attention to what I actually want, I wouldn't know what to do. I've barely had a moment to breathe, but I do now, and I realize how stagnant this air is.

I've become a bit of a workaholic because I need distractions. Anything. I need to do something that distracts me from several things that have been on my back for a while now. Because as soon as I stop, they rise from my subconscious and fill my mind. The only solution I've found is distraction. Anything to just make it go away, at least for a little while.

What is it?

Dread, fear, frustration, anger, paranoia, loneliness, a writhing potion of pent up bottled emotions that I don't know what to do with. I just sit and struggle with it until I think of something better to do. It started when I learned about how the universe will (probably) end. It's called Heat Death. In about 10^100 years, particles will be too far from each other to interact, there will be no transfer of energy, no activity, no information, and nothing or no one to observe it. It is the inevitable conclusion that the universe will come to. A complete dilution and deletion of everything anyone knows, has known or will know. Any impact any of us have on the universe will ultimately disappear.

When I learned about heat death, the concept of mortality really hit me. For the first time, I truly realized that my time, influence and experience is finite. I always had a sort of vague sense of  this idea, but it had hit me with a new clarity, and filled me with a sense of urgency to the point of fear and panic. I was filled, and still am, with this overwhelming yearning to mean something. To have a permanent impact on the world, to defeat death, and somehow have my influence break beyond the confines of this doomed universe.

Yet I know this is impossible, so all I am left with is this frustration, this overwhelming insignificance, this overpowering dread. Every night I lie in my bed, knowing that I will be forgotten. There is a point in the future where my name will be spoken for the last time.

I want to explain this to someone, but I also don't want to ruin anyone's day with my problems. So I write.

Beyond this existential depression, however, I find comfort in humanism. I've found that I not only like culture, but the very idea of it. Everything man-made, I embrace. There is such a variety of life that never fails to bring a smile to my face. Every painting, every song, every poem, every building, every car, every street, I look and I can't help but connect with the human that made, designed, lived in, drove in or on them. Humanity is beautiful because despite what everyone wants to believe, there are so many good people out there.

I want meaning in my life, and to leave something behind. Though I may not have the means to do it, I know what I want to leave. I want to tell the world to live.

The Man Who Rules The Universe

On January 1st, 1980, Pan Books published Douglas Adams's Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the second book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Chapter 29 of that book features a minor, but fascinating character: the Man who Rules the Universe. He lives with his cat in a ramshackle hut on a desolate planet hidden and protected by a field of Unprobability. The most interesting feature about this man, however, is that he believes in nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even the things he perceives with his own eyes.

Most would call such a man insane, and that was clearly Adams's intent. But the fascinating thing about this character is that, in fact, he isn't. On the outside, the man is as he appears, weathered, rough and quite out if his mind, but underneath this facade is a sort of bemused, resigned but very perceptive intelligence. His insanity seems more like something to pass the time in the isolation on his lonely planet rather than an actual degradation of his psyche. My reasoning for this is as follows; the man seems to know exactly what is going on. With apparent awareness of the situation, he distracts Zarniwoop, allowing Trillian and Zaphod to escape unnoticed, then deliberately locks Zarniwoop out of the house and ignores him. These very calculated, specific actions lend evidence to the idea that the man who rules the universe is not only at least partially sane, but has an awareness and understanding of the world beyond his apparent doubt of everything he perceives. The way he acted, the actions he took imply that the man knows the consequences of the actions he took, and the consequences of the trio's presence on the planet.

The man's entire reality exists in a duality of doubt, and actions contradicting that doubt. His life symbolizes the somewhat bittersweet truth that every philosopher, every conspiracist, every human on this planet must face.

We are trapped by our experiences, they are inescapable, we can doubt them all we want but in the end, we must live our lives as human beings along with the rest of the world. We have no choice but to interact with the world under the assumption that it is real.

But is that such a bad thing?

Our lives, no matter how much we doubt them, are quite beautiful. Every day we have the chance to learn something new, something fantastic, to meet new people, to discover new places, to have some fun. Our lives, have the potential to be quite enjoyable. The Man who Rules the Universe can find excitement in everything he experiences, because he can experience them in a new way every time. He lives with his cat in a ramshackle hut on a desolate planet hidden and protected by a field of Unprobability, yet he can find something to do, something to enjoy every single day. What excuse do we have for stagnancy?

I say enjoy life, all of its doubts, assumptions and beauties.
After all, it's all that we got.

I bid you welcome to the Man Who Rules The Universe.