Straw Men

How would you feel if you spent your whole life tearing down straw men?

Standing there in a field full of the world's fallacies: Science, religion, disorder, the individual mind.

Feet covered in straw as you gaze upon the horizon for the first time since you were young.  How would you feel to know that all of the truths you have encountered along your quest for knowledge were the dissemination of lies put in front of you, not by nature, not by mankind's collective ignorance, but by storytellers and misfits.

Today I saw the periodic table in 3 dimensions, crudely, via rounded paper.  We want to put so many truths down on paper, in 2 dimensions - right or wrong, black and white, peace and war, love and hate, atheist and theist - but we're never satisfied by 2 dimensions.  Neither is the periodic table.  Try it, cut it out and fold the edges together noble gases to the alkali, and you will see how god created the universe.  Not on a flat surface, but along the edges of a sphere.  God didn't intend for discrete edges of stop and start, he created his elements one after another in a cycle that spirals like a trek across the globe.  And how essential is the north pole of the periodic table, Hydrogen and Helium, the stars upon whom the rest of the globe, and our globe, is contingent.  Then the particles seem to break down around the equator, they decay, they have minute half lives.  I wonder if that is where anti-matters periodic table ends too, at the equator of the periodic table, and it mimics all that we know about matter in reverse.  Maybe there's a link between antimatter and radioactive decay which would explain why there's an equal amount of hydrogen antimatter in the universe but we don't see any of it reacting with hydrogen.  Maybe they can't, being on the true polar opposite sides of the universal periodic table.  Madness? Only if you'd like to continue tearing down straw men.  You want to believe that God came down and said, "I think I'll make this universe out of 4 forces."  You want to believe God likes to knit, so he packed away the stitchings of his creation into what 7 or so tiny dimensions we'll never see, but from our perspective all we can see is a warm cozy universe made of 3 dimensions, err 4 rather - can't forget about time. Nothing arbitrary about that.  The big bang proven, they say, because they found what they were looking for, quakes in the cozy fabric, wrinkles in the cosmic sweater, proving it was once washed in warm.

On they go, spinning us through the cycles of their ignorances and inadequacies.  And we, the people, are just supposed to follow suit and sift between their theories.  But not just the scientists - at least the scientists are actually trying to see the end of the universe.  And like with trying to see the end of the horizon, at least it has the positive byproduct of taking in the horizon.  Then there's your so called religions. You know the ones given to you by people who disagree.  You ever walk up to two children who have been fighting and ask them who started it? Do you ever get one answer? Does either child actually believe, let alone concede that the other person might be telling the truth?  You ever walk up to two religions who have been fighting and ask them who started it all?  Do you ever get one answer? Does either religion actually believe, let alone concede that the other religion might be telling the truth?  But you want to believe their fables. You want to believe that God only endows men with his message, and the only ones who have ever seen him are all dead.  You want to believe He needs woman, but only for her womb and otherwise only for her fragility. You want to believe that the many carry the responsibilities for the few, and that there was a spot of earth given to you by the one above for your feet and your feet only.  You would spill blood, spread animosity, create division, teach hate shrouded in self-love, all so that no man move your feet from your beloved earth-spot, forgetting entirely what feet are for.  You would actually convince yourself that God is as petty as you, concerning himself intently with race, creed, gender and heredity, any more than he did with any other living species, because in the grand scheme of things your bloodline's relative exposure to sunlight and atmospheric pressure is a big deal.  Worse still, you would reduce God to the devil, and only see his influence or his plan when things go wrong, instead of in every other moment that has been tremendously right.

You think God will bring upon you plague but not every moment of life.  You think he cares about your peace but leaves you to commit war.  You think think he gave you the benefit of a planet in balance when instead he gave you the responsibility to balance it.  You will die.  You will die on this rock and you will be forgotten.  You'll be remembered too, but then they will die and you will be forgotten.  Nobody will remember your voice.  Record it - that technology upon which a copy of the sonar vibrations of your vocal chords created were recorded, those too will perish.  The visual phenomenon of experiencing you will become shrouded in mystery and at best folklore.  Your scent is a fable, told each day in a new way, and tucked away into the stigmas and insecurities that held you back from certain liberties is yet another truth, very few will know your taste and touch. You think that you can knock this universe out of whack with your loudest thud but you won't so much as move this tiny globe any more than anyone before you.  You think you create disorder, to the system, to history, to your relationships, to the grand scheme, but you don't.  If disorder is all that you are after then it's safe to say that you don't even create.  All that manifests as a result of your activity will return back to the gentle stillness of universal cold.  The cold, by definition, is order, and is everywhere.

So who are you, beyond the sensory fiction you at best co-authored.  You think you make an impact on your own, but are you an impact without others?  We discussed the effect you have on this rock.  Carve your name in stone, bury yourself within the rock, do as you please, all of that is decay.  You are nothing without your effect on me.  And today I am awaken as to what is worth my movement.  Not your science, not your religion, your desire for disorder or pitiful belief that your mind is important.  Your mind is only a vessel to reach me and mine and the rest of us connected, should you choose to block yours off I will still reach the end of knowledge without you.  It wouldn't even be a detour for me anymore, you're not in my path.  I am done with the lies that have lead me to your vessel in the path.  Out there, likely as far from you as possible, spatially and mentally, is a whole other realm of truth.  You can't even conceive of it.  I'll admit, I hardly can either.  But I've started to.  I remember what my feet are for, and I've lifted them from this field of straw and am happy to see they have not atrophied.

This is not a good bye, just an I'm not here.

Along Four Shores

If I gave you an unlimited budget to travel to the most beautiful place in the world would you know where to go?  Or would you obscure my benevolent request in misguided sentiments, shovelling me grandeur about the beauty of your beloved?

If I begged you to bring me the most beautiful person you know, would you know where within their character to search? Or would you waste my time upon a specimen of overshadowed eyes and undershadowed iniquities?

Do you remember your happiest moment and why it was just that? Or have you lost all appetite for happiness save sensation?

If I asked you who you are would you describe yourself from the outwards in or from the innards out? Or better still from your identity to your thoughts or from your thoughts to your identity?

Would you know where to start if I asked you to journey any of these four great voyages? Or have you told yourself where the voyages end without having ever left the shores.

Let me tell you something

Let me tell you something, Papa
Let me tell you something you cannot tell me
Laying there without words and expression
With a thousand things to say and nobody to hear them

You see us and you worry
All this time we spend here looking over you
We should be out living life, making it as great as yours
You didn't work so hard to see us throw away so many precious hours

Let me tell you something, Papa
Let me tell you, you have lived a great life
I don't have to tell you that for your benefit but for mine
I should know, before you go, that you are happy and regret nothing

You wish for all of us to go, go live our lives and leave you be
You'll be fine, we know, it's pretty comfortable where you are
But I know a secret; you love seeing all of us
Your pride and joy was seeing us grow, and you still get to now

Let me tell you something, Papa
Let me tell you, you gave us everything we needed
Each and every day you worked so hard, and it worked
We are lucky, we were not left growing up without a father

You want to know that you gave us all the tools to survive, you did
You hope we remember everything you told us, we do
Because you can't tell us again, and again, and again, like you used to
What I wouldn't give to hear you tell me again, and again, and again

Let me tell you something, Papa
Let me tell you, though I know you're not going to like this
I'm sorry, for all the times I disappointed you or made you worry
For any harsh words we shared and any secrets I kept from you

You want me to know I shouldn't carry a heavy heart
That all is forgiven now and already was before
And you're sorry too, for the same reasons
And for this too, you're sorry you didn't listen to us about your health

Let me tell you something, Papa
Let me tell you, you're wiser than all of us
Nobody knows how many days they have saved up
But you know exactly how many days you have earned and spent, happily

You wish you could enjoy your time off now, but you never were good at that
You want to be able to hold us and kiss us but you can't
You want to see the weddings and the grand kids
But please don't fret or be sad, no happy father lives to see his child's every joy

Let me tell you something, Papa
Let me tell you, though you're not going to see all of them
Your loving wife has given you today, what all wives give everyday
A chance to see a few more of life's miracles than you would have without her

You want us to take care of your angel because you can't now
And we will, we know it's different but we will try
You know her, she still wants to take care of us
So we'll take turns honouring you while we take care of each other

Let me tell you something, Papa
Let me tell you, because you can't tell me, that you're still here
Just as before, we feel you when you are in the same room and when you are not
But it's so much nicer when we are in the same room, so that's why I'm here

You want me here, just admit it, let's not waste time lying about it
Let's just sit here, you and I, watching your favourite dramas
And let me explain my dramas to you while you watch and ignore me a little
Let me tell you something more, Papa, I live for these moments with you.

--
You called me Beta and I never got to repay the gesture, I hope this is a good start.