Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Walking Through this World; ...Do the Math.

I was thinking today as I walked through this town about the things that are usually on my mind; some variation of "what does it all mean?", "am I seeing what I am seeing; is there more?"

I rarely think about problems because, well, because I don't really have any. You have to manufacture problems. You have to create them. They don't just show up uninvited. They might show up well beyond the time you created them in and leave you wondering how they got there, but you created them. Sure, there are challenges but that's just a balancing act, a form of juggling, surfing or reaction-mind; poor or accomplished.

I don't wonder if someone loves me or, "will I be famous, will I be rich?" "......que sera, sera."I have wondered in recent times about impending change in the world. But the world is a system of change. Whether you view it through the available media, personal observation, or meditations on the I Ching, change is the cornerstone (can I say that?)

So I was walking and thinking about the people I passed- here and at distant removes; the direction they were headed; not in that moment just, but overall. I knew that their minds were filled with the business of the day and problems, expectations, hopes and the chronic incidental rapid fire sex repetition images of attraction and repulsion and the usual reflex back to self worth and image consciousness. Everybody is selling the idea of their fuckability factor on some level. Of course it includes the common value agreements of what they consider to be valuable and real. Often they are neither, ...quite often.

In the process of this I wondered if they considered distant ports of call, the locations outside the sensory spectrum provided by the temporary physical housing. I wondered if they knew where they were going and how everything they did worked to manifest the result. It's doubtful such thoughts trouble or interest most people. They're too busy, even if that involves nothing more than day dreaming.

While I pass I am most aware that I am, in fact passing. Had we the feature of time lapse photography in a personal sense we would realize we walked through a cemetary. We would see everyone was dying. This brings up that chronic connundrum of what they are living for. I used to ask people. I stopped doing that. IT was amusing while it lasted.

It did occur to me then though that someone who was aware that they were passing, who knew they were disappearing, could be of real use in a world where no one thinks about it too much, not immediately useful but more like an idea of something. Because eventually they will come to a place where they will be compelled to think on such matters.

It's hard to be held in the thrall of the world when you know what it is. It is nearly impossible to escape it if you don't know, only grace suffices for that.

They've got guns now that can shoot around corners. How do they do that? It has to involve math. If you think about it you realize that everything involves math. We can reach around corners, go places we can't see and compute accurately what conditions exist. We can build things that build things with math. Math is magic.

So it is possible to know where you are headed, what will happen, even what it all means through math. You can look at people and situations and often gain a precise understanding of what the results will be. The world of money and politics and war; the world of science and religion can all be understood by some application of math. We've all heard that one and one is two and we have seen it applied to situations where math was not the point. "Does it add up?" "Does it make sense?" These are the same thing.

It is unfortunate for those who do not allow themselves the opportunity for objective thought. Many people cancel out this facility because it compromises their desires or aggravates their fear. Certain doom awaits due to poor calculation, but interference is not possible. One might even get hurt. Things must take their course. When stupidity becomes a virtue and when self-interest is applauded as a valid and virtuous course it serves the wiser soul to retreat below the surface, move out of reach.

I've no confusion about catastrophe. I don't wonder about recurrent hurricanes, plagues, famine or the gamut of tragic event. It's all math. It should be added that since there is only one mind in which we all share, that critical mass often provokes erruption. It's like a cold sore manifested by stress. Pressure creates heat, whether that be natural or social. It's all math.

But this is a world of bad mathematicians. Instead of seeking the result of accurate computation solely for the truth it gives, the intention is to cook the figures to reflect a desired outcome. Well, if the figures are wrong the result will be wrong. Still, if you are an embezzler, a thief, a demagogue... or driven by the will to power, you believe that the figures can be adjusted after, or not at all; you're out of town no doubt at that point. The idea that you can get away with anything is also poor math. But the short term is now in full control of the long term. Think of it as driving a hundred miles an hour but looking at the road directly before you, not the road up ahead, and forget about the road behind.

Like I said, if the math interferes with what you want to believe, then you will make adjustments not based on reason. It takes a lot of small deceptions to make big deceptions possible. At the base is an intransigent stupidity, a luddite indifference to common binary honesty. It serves to follow that higher math is affected as well.

For all of us who do not think we are seen as we are, if not by the surrounding crowd, certainly by the eye of the mind of the great mathematician who contains us, you've got a wakeup call. And regardless of how terrible that may be it is really an act of compassion. Nothing but pain will serve to crack the carapace of self-will and appetite run wild. Yes, it is for your own good and ironically it just might hurt the parent more than it hurts you (remember being told that?)... surely the Bible has given some precedence for this.

If you can't think for yourself, someone will do your thinking for you. Even here, even the stupidest of us might find escape by choosing who does that thinking. Once again though, the small pain of growth and change is too much to accept and the far greater pain of forceful awakening is required.

They say it's not in your hand but I submit that one critical feature of it really is in your hands. Do the math.

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