Non-Mandatory

The world only has as much importance as you give it.

The Gemstone Unpolished

Evolution is a remarkable beast. It surrounds us completely and yet to see it distinctly is impossible. It bestows upon us gifts that have allowed us to rise from the inorganic matter of the Earth. From a handful of molecules, evolution was birthed into this world as, truly, an infant. Many believe this infancy was simply a self renewing pool of chemicals, others a primal RNA, and yet others claim we can never know. While man cannot, and perhaps will never, understand how the birth of life itself came to be, we can relish in the fruits evolution has bore. From the primordial ooze we were given the Archaebaceria, the Prokaryotes, and eventually the wonderfully more sophisticated Eukaryotic organisms. Of all her ancient lineages, it is no secret evolution prized the Eukaryotic cell. She embraced the nucleus as the jeweler embraces a wonderful, yet unfaceted, stone. The nucleus bore possibility, wonder, and the potential of a masterpiece. But observe most gemstones and you will find a flaw, whether in the workmanship of the faceting or the stone itself, that blemishes the otherwise perfect. What is the perfect gemstone? What size is it? What color is it? How does it reflect light?

With man, evolution sought to answer these questions. What size? Roughly six feet, give or take, she decided was optimal. What color? black or white, depending on the surroundings. Man is a stone that changes his color to the situation. How do we produce our luster? Physiology is a vast, and utterly amazing field that explains the intricacies of man's facet. So are we not the perfect gemstone? Unfortunately, it is not so simple. Despite the infinite wonder of evolution, the meticulous polishing, evolution is a process that cannot reach completion. Though you may polish the largest blemishes from the surface, there are always smaller ones waiting... spoiling your perfect reflection. We are no different. When her two sons collided, evolution gave both their own weapons and bid them to an internal struggle; as prokaryotic organisms have evolved to invade our bodies, we evolve to remove them. As man breached the twilight of his lifespan, evolution worked meticulously to lengthen it. The problem, of course, is that as I have said, evolution is not a goal it is a perpetual state. It is a function of time, and simply put there was not enough time for evolution to finish her greatest creation. Instead, we have simply come to be a gemstone unpolished, magnificent in so many ways and yet unavoidably flawed. Cancers, viruses, and age all tarnish what evolution worked so hard to perfect. We struggle mightily to finish what she started, but so far our attempts seem so incredibly feeble. How can we possibly hone in our short decades what evolution built in millions of years? How will we ever imitate a heart, a single simple motor, that runs unwaveringly for 100 years? Or a joint capsule that absorbs every step you take with virtually no wear? Perhaps some day, our guided approach will bring us closer to that perfect organism. Until that day, we will remain incomplete... a work in progress. We are the statue half chiseled, the painting half painted, a story without an ending. A gemstone unpolished.

The Shackles We Carry

Man is limited only by what he knows,
and motivated only by what he does not.

Head in the Sane Sand

Maybe I just need someone else's hands to cover my eyes.

i

At one point or another, high school mathematics eventually exposes us to the nebulous constant known as i. For many math students i is often the numerical equivalent of Schrodinger's cat or relativity; it is a concept that is easy to know but quite difficult to fully understand. How can a cat be both alive and dead? How is it possible to travel back in time? With i we are presented the conundrum of finding the square root of a negative number. That is to say, for the mathematically inept, what number when multiplied against itself will produce a negative number. In short, there are none. A positive upon itself yields a positive, as does a negative. This at one point imposed a frustrating impasse for mathematicians, as many advanced formulas incorporate negative square roots. The solution? An imaginary number, one that by definition does not exist, to hold the place of this defiant expression. As long as one can cancel the two i's out, there is no harm nor foul to an equation, and a real number can be achieved. Truly, i is a useful tool for man to understand and overcome the impossible.

We have not restricted the use of such tools solely to the numbers that construct our physical sciences. In fact, they are all around us. One, however, stands above the rest. It is universally accepted by many to fill an impossible void, all the while never truly existing. As i holds together advanced mathematics, the invention of which I speak is the glue that keeps the world from crumbling at its base. It is god. In a world where existence looms as impossible expression, a figurative X^(1/2)=-Z, god is the imaginary constant that gives us a real number. He, she, or it, allows us to bypass the infinite sea that is existence. You will never see a soccer mom melt down on the side of the road because she has sought to understand the universe. She is able to solve this unsolvable equation because, to be honest, she cheats. God is her i, god gives her a literal and figurative solution. And as long as he is canceled out, as long as his existence is never truly proven, no problem arises. That is to say, because the idea of god cannot be undeniably proven nor disproven, we never truly have to confront his falseness. He simply exists to get us through our problems, a silent guide to lead us blindly through the troubles we would rather not face head on. He is our i. i help us if he is solved.

Futility

Once you see the world in a different light, it's hard to go back. We are hand fed an outlook on life that is designed not to read between the lines of the universe, but simply to look at the pictures. This is for the safety of both ourselves and the world around us. It is the symphony of clockwork, completely self driven, self motivated, and self preserving. It has erupted from the minds of few to conquer the minds of almost all, and shows no signs of stopping its relentless crusade. It is the psychological moat that encircles our entire world, keeping us from harm while preventing us from freedom. Few attempt to cross its hazy channels. Some make it half way, only to discover that the water is too deep. They usually return, more fearful of the depths than ever. Sometimes they reach the point of no return and simply allow themselves to be cast back with the tide, altogether forgetting or perhaps intentionally escaping that which lies outside their own comfortable havens. Some attempt to cross and straight out drown, desperately attempting to comprehend the bottomless darkness before they are consumed by it. They are a reminder to us all of the Pandora's box we open by attempting to jump from the edge and find our way back.

Then there are those who accept the murky waters. They understand that you cannot cross the channel, you can only exist within it. They realize that success is not reaching the other side, success is simply acknowledging that the other side does not exist. It is an awkward place, to be sure, to find oneself lost in the water. On one side you look to the infinite horizon. It shares no answers, and echoes back only the questions you thrust upon it. On the other side, you see the world you left behind. You see the people who go about their lives oblivious to the moat that protects them from such troubled waters. But they never seem the same from those cold waters. They don't seem to even be real people anymore. They are simply the gears of the clock, each churning his or her own little revolutions, as they power their own little machine. What would you give to go back to that? What knowledge would you desperately upheave from the meticulous scribe that is your memory? Is it better to be a cog in the clock that tells the incorrect time, or the onlooker who knows it runs slow?

Eventually, turmoil turns to chaos, chaos turns to sadness, sadness melts to indifference, and indifference matures to understanding. You understand that in the end we all return to the bottom of life's boundless sea, regardless of whether we turn the clock or attempt to cast stones into its mechanism. The sea does not show mercy to those who attempt to understand it. It simply is. It is the wide mouth of time consuming the victims of fate. It is the empty wave that steals us from the shore. It is the monster that hides in the shadows of our understanding. Man, woman, or child, it marks you from the day you are born until the day you are unborn. And upon that day when your hourglass has lost its last ounce of sand, in an instant time will erase you. For a moment, however, the world will unveil its secrets to your eyes alone and you will weep your final tear as you embrace the fabric of the universe. And in that moment, that fleeting fraction of an instant, you will understand that it matters not in the slightest where you spend your days, whether they are wasted in the sea or relished on dry land. The last thought that transverses your fading mind will explain more than a lifetime of worthless neural impulses...futility

Wait and Hope

“[U]ntil the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words,—‘Wait and hope.’”

-Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo


Wait, hope. Every word ever spoken condensed into two. Dumas understood this over a hundred years ago. But how long can you wait when hope is out of sight on all horizons.

Butterfly

It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.

- Chaos Theory

It is amazing the profound impact that a simple action can have. They say a butterfly can flap its wings and across the world chaos ensues. Ten years ago a butterfly flapped its wings. Ten years I ignored someone who genuinely needed help and days later chaos ensued. At the time it seemed a trivial act of indifference, something I've done a thousand times over. But we can flutter our wings our entire lives and never know in which instant we threaten the world, surely I had done so before and have done so since. This time was different though. In a moment identical to any of the billions we watch fly before our eyes, I made a mistake which has come full circle to cast my own mind into disarray.

Six years ago the typhoon hit. And while I can't help but call to my defense the countless variables that twisted that simple flutter of wings into a nightmare, I wonder now what my role was. Can I be held responsible for the oscillations that transcend the boundaries of the world unknown to myself? Can I plead ignorance to the violent winds that time has carried forward? Perhaps I should have recognized the signs and held fast, playing the skies with caution instead of carelessness. Or maybe I had nothing to do with the typhoon at all, and simply added an ounce of of movement to an insurmountable force. I'll never know for sure. The damage has been done and I can only speculate from the wreckage. And that is exactly the problem I am facing today.

Ten years ago a butterfly flapped his wings. Six years ago the typhoon hit. Today the sky seems one star darker.

Always remember, never forget,
MDR