Sam and Alf have a barney

You did what?!

 

It’s all a bit of a blur.

 

Then how can you be sure?

 

Well there's this. Sam unbuttons his shirt and shows Alf a red mark over his heart.

Well, that's hardly definitive, is it?

 

I agree. But it was freshly healed over yesterday. Very dramatic it looked.

 

So, if I understand you correctly, you seem to think that you dispatched God yesterday?

 

Correct.

 

And you’re ok with that?

 

Well, it wasn't my idea.

 

No, but you went along with it, didn't you.

 

Yes, I did, but God can be highly persuasive.

 

Can He? Doesn't sound much like the biblical God we read about.

 

I agree.

 

You're sure it wasn't the other one?

 

Which other one? I wasn’t aware of another.

 

The master of lies.

 

Oh that. No. Not a chance.

 

How can you be so sure?

 

It's one of those things, you know.

 

It's just, as you yourself agreed, it all sounds highly irregular.

 

I know. I'm with you 100% on that.

 

Then maybe, just possibly, you were deceived?

 

No. No way.

 

I’m not trying to say you didn't sincerely believe it at the time, in good faith. You’d have to be a genius, a spiritual legend to see through the artful subterfuge. We are talking the big D after all.

Yes, Alf, I hear your logic. It’s unassailable. I agree with everything you are saying, but this goes beyond logic. This was something I experienced directly, viscerally. That changes everything.

 

You mean to say the other isn’t able to put on a good show? Isn’t able to trick people?

 

I mean nothing of the sort. Of course the other one can put on the show to end all shows. Nothing could be easier for him, but this wasn't a show.

 

No?

 

No. It was a very simple, humbling experience in which I was asked to do something I didn't want to do, not because I was being offered any payment or inducement, but just because it was needed. As a friend, so to speak.

 

But why would God need your help? You're just one of several billion. A tiny, utterly insignificant human being.

 

I agree entirely, and I asked the same thing myself.

 

And what was the explanation?

 

I read you my account. You know exactly what happened.

 

But maybe there was something else? Something you forgot to mention.

 

The thing is Alf, it’s a great mystery, and not something I’m proud of. I did what I did, as I'm sure you would have done. At the time it seemed like I was going to die. That wasn't exactly something I was looking forward to, but in the presence of the Father even death becomes secondary.

 

But why would the Father want to risk your life just to get out of this world He created?

 

You’re asking me?

 

Yes. You must have some insights. You, after all, experienced what no man has. You apparently killed God, at His own request.

 

Like I said, Alf, I really don't know. I can guess, but what's the point?

 

In that case I'm just going to have to put it all down to some kind of delusion, unless you can help me make some kind of sense of this.

 

Well, I guess that's part of the narrative...

 

Huh?

 

that God is always accompanied by a cloud of unknowing or unseeing, there's always a strong element of doubt. I don’t blame you. I’d probably find it hard to believe too.

 

Now wait a minute, you’re the one, likely as not, that got drawn into some kind of satanic ritual, sacrificing a lamb under some false pretext, and suffering a rather nasty flesh wound to boot.

 

That’s not a flesh wound.

 

No?

 

No, the dagger went straight into my heart. I died, without a shadow of a doubt.

 

You died, you say…

 

I died.

 

And then?

 

And then God pulled a switcheroo.

 

Like some kind of street performer?

 

Substituting himself at the last breath. He always had that trump card up his sleeve, in reserve.

 

Did he now. Ahem.

 

Otherwise it could never have ended.

 

What?

 

This, His Creation.

 

Never have ended, you say? Ahem.

 

Yes.

 

Whyever not?

 

Because He was embedded into it. Part of the very fabric of His reality. In every person, place, thing…

 

Er...

 

It needed to be separated umbilically; cut loose.

 

Cut loose?

 

To sink or swim, on its own merits.

 

But that all happened already, when Adam and Eve were ejected from Eden.

 

Yes, in a fashion, but that was more about optics.

 

Optics?! You're kidding, right?

 

No, they were able to experience pain and suffering but reality itself was resting on the Father, even if they could no longer see Him. That’s how some of them were able to live hundreds of years.

 

I always imagined that was poetic licence. Nothing more.

 

You're always free to imagine, nothing wrong with that.

 

You mean they actually lived for centuries?

 

Yes. As our separation increased we grew weaker. Hardly surprising really, but God was still embedded in everyone and everything, otherwise it would have come undone — basically imploded. We lacked the wherewithal to hold it all together on our own.

 

So our freedom was an illusion?

 

Not exactly. We were like dogs on a leash ― excuse the somewhat unflattering image, please — with sufficient freedom to do ourselves and our world not inconsiderable harm, but still part of a pilot project.

 

Pilot project!? A world with thousands of years of bloody history and even nuclear weapons! You must be off your rocker.

 

It was a pilot project because God was still embedded. The tree hadn’t really been transplanted. It hadn’t yet proven its viability as a stand-alone organism. It was still running on God’s carrier signal, so to speak.

 

And now?

 

Now that's changed. God saw to that yesterday. We're on our own, for better or for worse, we've been transplanted out into the Field. We appear to have survived the transplantation. It’s a new world, entirely, though no one's yet noticed. We’re still working off the remaining surplus charge.

 

And God — is dead?

 

In a manner of speaking, yes.

 

But that's terrible.

 

Yes, I know how you feel. It's hard to let go, isn’t it? We completely took Him for granted — didn’t even feel His background presence most the time — but now… For a moment Sam falters — his eyes fill with tears. It’s not just the gut-wrenching loss of a Father, Alf.

 

No? What else?

 

 It's hard to trust oneself — hard to believe we’re ready for the terrible responsibility of managing the show now that He’s gone.

 

Hard, Sam? It’s a catastrophe. If what you say is true — the one hope we had, the one chance to crawl out of the bog onto terra firma has gone forever. We’re done for. Without the Father we’re utterly lost, like sheep without a shepherd.

 

Yes, but if you put the hysteria on hold for a moment you realise that the Father probably knows best.

 

Well, that goes without saying. But I still don't accept that this is actually the Father, and not the other.

 

In that case you have nothing to fear, Alf, do you? The other can do naught other than twist and manipulate. He plays with smoke and mirrors and tricks us into taking his part. He could not harm the Father, in the same way darkness cannot harm the light.

 

True, but what if you’re right... What if God really has ejected? What then?

 

Well, if He has it can only have been the result of His will, that much we can agree unequivocally. And that means that, for better or for worse we’ve come of age, so to speak, or so He feels. Structurally there's now an empty space where He used to be, a zero where previously there was One.

 

Huh?

 

We have to adjust. We have to do what any son or daughter does when their father exits. Carefully, we have to take the reins, with a sense of loss, undeniably, but also gratitude for all the blessings we have experienced and received — we have to ease ourselves into the driver’s seat, trusting our Father taught us everything we need to know, and the rest we’ll have to figure out as we go.

 

This is madness. I refuse to accept what you’re saying, Sam. It’s an evil fantasy, nothing more.

 

Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! We can love and serve our Father only by doing everything within our power to preserve or carry forward his work. As long as He was alongside, while He was still embedded we were still just going through the motions. We weren’t yet able to access the Field, were we? Or only under very controlled conditions.

 

Presumably because the Field is a potential mine field — if you’ll excuse the pun. We could do untold harm.

 

We could indeed — but then again — we can rise to the occasion. We can spread our wings. We can do Him proud.

 

Fat chance of that. The Field if I understand it correctly is like a version of reality where everything is connected — mind, emotions, consciousness and matter.

 

That’s right. It is — I am. Interconnectivity at every level imaginable.

 

We’re doomed... Father — come back. We’re gonna fail.

 

I wouldn’t be so sure, Alf. In any case, He's only gone as the Father, as God.

 

What do you mean — only as God? God is everything!

 

Yes and no. God is one expression, one modality of the infinite, or of infinity.

 

No, no, no — God is everything. There is no infinity beyond God.

 

Yes, yes, I agree entirely, and yet the infinite has not gone anywhere, only God has exited, to allow us to step up to the mark, to sink or swim, to take up his reins, to navigate as only He can. In doing so he’s removed the seal that kept infinity closed off to us.

 

But we’re utterly unworthy. And how on Earth are we supposed to interact with infinity without God?

 

Good question. As for our worthiness — i think this is known as baptism by fire, or being thrown in at the deep end. Pick you metaphor. He is the Father. He wants us to step into his shoes, as perhaps He himself did, in all likelihood. Who knows.

 

So now we have no personal agency?

 

Yes, now that He’s left we have to confront infinity, like it or not, and that's huge... It immediately brings the quantum Field into play.

 

Er... Not sure I see the logic.

 

Because you can’t interact with infinity as a person. Infinity has no personal attributes, no personal characteristics.

 

So now we have to learn to attune to your highly tenuous quantum Field, as if that’s going to save us.

 

Well, there's no point trying to deal with reality as a purely physical thing when we’re now increasingly aware of the emptiness, the void left by God’s departure. Nature abhors a vacuum, does it not. The void has to be filled by something real, something meaningful, and none of your ego plays are going to work.

 

Since when was I involved in ego plays. You've got a damn cheek, Sam.

 

Refining the ego was the last lesson, now completed. Paradoxically, the God we were all hanging onto, even when we called ourselves “atheists” was all about experiencing reality as something that came up to, but didn’t fully integrate with the “me”. I was an island of sorts. As long as God was there, even if he was there in reverse, as something I didn't believe in, as a silent shadow that seemed to do naught, I was still incubated from the waters of infinity, I was still indulging the notion that I is a person, first and foremost, an am.

 

And what else is I supposed to be, if not a person?

 

A 50% partner.

 

Huh?

 

The localised, centralised half.

 

?

 

The highly strung, self-infatuated apprentice God, if the tadpole grows into a frog.

 

No. That’s unacceptable.

 

Well, now that the bulwark has gone we’re going to either adapt or drown. The me person is all very well — it can indulge itself in endless introspection and notions of ivory detachment, but infinity is going to make short shrift of anyone that fails to adapt to the totality, the all that is of which we’re, apparently, an integral part.

 

And what?

 

With the nought now in play, the honeycomb structure of Is means we'll find ourselves without traction, or spinning helplessly if we refuse to play ball, if we try to insist that things are still just things, just business as usual.

 

You make this nought sound like a malevolent or a capricious god, a bringer of chaos or indeterminacy.

 

Well yes, if you insist on personalising the Field then indeed, that's how it's gonna feel,

that's how it's gonna seem.

 

Oh, so it's my fault, is it?

 

What's fault got to do with it? It's your choice. You're free to make of God’s gift what you will.

 

Gift? You tell me God’s quit our sphere forever and anon, and now I’m supposed to see it as an opportunity, as a gift! Are you insane?

 

Possibly... But on the other hand who cares. Why personalise? I am what i am — almost nothing in the grand scheme of things, in the isness of be, and yet... infinitely more if I decide to embrace infinity. If not a gift what would you call it? Without it you'd just be a sensation, an indeterminate part of all that is, but thanks to the Father, thanks to what He gave us, each of us has the opportunity to — watch this...

 

Sam somehow tunes into the Field and time seems to decouple, like a dark, oily river flowing nearby but no longer affecting the immediate proceedings.

Wow, Sam, pretty nifty!

 

Now Sam engages moments, strands, energies, affinities in the Field and Alf finds himself glued to the screen, observing an epic movie in the making, a computer game — somehow he sees an entire narrative linking up, from end to beginning — an entire subset of reality which appears to be completely authentic, totally real. Characters, settings, clothes, lighting, the works...

 

Alfie, you ok?

 

I... I dunno. What was that?

 

Reality. What else?

 

But you were just messing with the Field.

 

And what do you think reality is, Alf?

 

I dunno. It just exists in and of itself, I always assumed.

 

As it does, if you choose to ignore infinity fluttering in the wings, constantly breathing life into it, keeping the energies of matter and mind matched.

 

Ah...

 

If you prefer to ignore the part of yourself that has always dwelled there, looking for the chance to connect with you, to complete the missing half — the it is to your I am.

 

I...

 

Suddenly Alf senses another lurking just out of sight, just where Sam’s quantum Field had been in view a moment previously... A deeper than life soul urge — both irresistible and at the same time terrifying, like it might swallow the world whole, as indeed it might.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaargh! Alf runs off blindly, for all he’s worth, never to be seen again, believe it or not. The quantum Field silently clicks up a zero and continues serendipitously, utterly unphased by that ripple of sound and density fading to nought — or a teapot in the process of generating a human hand, body and mind to take it into the next picture board.

 

 

 

0=1

approximately

 

Sam's decision

I'm trying to decide.

 

You’re not.

 

I am.

 

Well, when you’re done deciding perhaps you could lend me a hand.

 

Er...

 

Yes?

 

But you're God!

 

What's that got to do with the price of cheese.

 

The price of cheese?

 

Goodness, Sam, it’s a turn of phrase. Don't take everything so literally.

 

Oh.

 

Well, are you or aren't you?

 

You want me to help you?

 

It would be nice.

 

I still can't wrap my head round this. You, God, Creator of the entire universe and all therein want me to help... Like I could possibly make a difference.

Correct. Do I ask too much?

 

No, of course not. I’d love to lend a hand. What is it you need?

 

I need you to kill someone.

 

!?!?

 

To kill someone.

 

I must be hearing things.

 

Yes, a rather delicate matter, of course. Not the kind of thing one usually asks a good God-fearing man such as yourself to do.

 

Am I right in thinking You just said You wanted me to kill someone?

 

Absolutely, yes.

 

But this is impossible. God would never ask me to do that, ever, not in a million years.

 

Well, you’re right about that Sam. It's been more than a million years. Considerably more.

 

It's a turn of phrase. The actual number of years is irrelevant. God would never ask such a thing, period.

 

And yet God is God, no? Infinite, no? His plans or intentions may just occasionally exceed our capacity to understand what they might be, no?

 

Oh, God is infinite, without a doubt, and His plans or intentions are certainly unfathomable, but what's that got to do with me being asked to take another life? If I do so in cold blood then I'll stop being human, and God, whatever He is, will become inaccessible, lost forever. Perhaps if I were a saint, truly holy like Abraham who was told to sacrifice his son, then I could do it, but I’m not, and so in my case it would drag me down into hell. I would simply become a murderer. The deed would nullify me.

 

But you’d be doing my will.

 

Would I?

 

Yes. I'm the one asking for this favour.

 

Well, in that case I...

 

What?

 

It actually hurts, physically.

 

What are you on about?

 

What I need to say is like a knife to my heart.

 

That perhaps means that you’re doing something wrong.

 

On the contrary, i know now that everything’s right.

 

You do? You’re sure about that?

 

Absolutely. I’m sure. Even if this kills me, I know what is what, i know what is right and what is wrong. And that's why, whoever you are or whatever you are, even if you're actually God as I always assumed, as you claim, that it’s the end of the road for us. I would sooner rot in hell, or burn, than follow an order to kill another being.

 

But you fought in the war. You killed people. You know how to follow orders.

 

Yes, but this wasn't an order, if I remember rightly.

 

True. But what if this is not about what i want, or even duty.

 

What else could it possibly be?

 

You yourself acknowledged the presence of infinity, in other words, this could be mathematical.

 

Qué?

 

You heard.

 

Mathematical?

 

Yep.

 

Like what?

 

Like the Mandelbrot set.

 

Not that. Again. Give me a break.

 

What else!

 

I fail to see how murder could possibly be mathematical.

 

Ah, you weren’t perhaps there when I extracted the universe from...

 

From what?

 

That's just the problem. I can't say.

 

Why not?

 

Because i had to open a slit in the infinite, in perfection, and to do that i had to...

 

You're finding this difficult, aren't you.

 

Difficult? You could say. Or wonderful. Terrible. Incredible. Beautiful. Horrendous, in fact, almost any adjective slots in here nicely.

 

You seem to be saying that this act of Creation was bigger than you. That it blew you away.

 

Correct. Well done Sam. Very perceptive.

 

But for some reason you can’t say what is what... Presumably because the so-called Quantum Field has ears.

 

Oh

 

That saying it would require thinking it, and thinking it would short the circuit, would complete what cannot be completed, for to do so would burst the bubble, collapse all time, end everything with a barely noticeable mathematical shrug – value incomputable.

 

Ah

 

That sooner or later Creation runs its course, sooner or later God needs to unGod, to revert to infinite awareness – an infinite awareness that simply doesn’t, or couldn’t, care less.

 

Oh

 

Because You always had to Father Your Creation, in the hope that sooner or later it would establish itself; that sooner or later it would come of age and be able to detach from you and continue as a self-viable entity, independently.

 

Oh

 

So here we are. You can't say what but that doesn’t seem to stop me from reading the tea leaves. The million-dollar question is whether You have succeeded, whether reality, this world, this system, this universe is able to do what every baby does when it exits the birth canal – start breathing independently as a new life form.

 

...

 

And presumably You have to die, to ensure the separation is complete.

 

...

 

But You can't die in or of Yourself as You are everywhere and everything. You are bound to, or by, Your Creation.

 

...

 

So you need a sacrificial lamb, so to speak.

 

...

 

You need me, or someone like me... someone who sees the imperative and who is willing to step into the breach.

 

...

 

Because You can do that. It's within Your power to allow Yourself to experience the totality of my experience. To become completely absorbed and immersed in what I’m feeling, what I’m going through, as You did with Your son.

 

...

 

But this won't be Your son. This will be me agreeing to die as your proxy, miraculously becoming You, so that You can be irrevocably severed from Your Creation, giving it back to infinity, from whence it was merely borrowed into existence as a kind of credit, as fiat Federal Reserve notes.

 

...

 

And thus the artificial wall, the disruption in the Field, will be resolved and this world, this reality, if indeed it is birthable, if you Fathered it successfully, will rebalance, realign, shift into its rightful place.

 

...

 

And me... I will have the pleasure of assisting in either destroying the universe if it was doomed to be stillborn, or saving it by briefly, briefly standing surety, allowing it to ride on my Allness, as You yourself did, way back then.

 

Well, I think we understand one another, Father. Thank You for everything. It's been... Oh, how cute.

A little lamb has appeared alongside the interlocutors.

 

I wouldn't be happy doing this, You know, but something tells me it's time. That the Field is ready.

 

Sam lifts the beautiful white lamb onto an altar. Infinity has no difficulty supplying everything required. God, looking on silently, impassively, in a place beyond words, hands him the knife. The lamb itself seems to understand exactly what is required. Looking into its eyes Sam sees himself, and deeper, looking further he sees the Father, and deeper...

You too, you too, you. A moment poised silently, and then infinity shrugs, or sighs, or moans, I couldn't say exactly which, and Sam finds himself bleeding on the altar, the dagger in his heart, feeling the life he had known leaving him as a torrent of blood pours from the hole. Just when it seems there is nothing more, that he is slipping irreversibly into darkness, a wind picks him up and turns him inside out, and he finds himself lying in bed, as always, unscathed, eyes taking in the light of a new day, breathing, feeling, knowing that it is good to be alive, that God has mercifully gone, that God’s Creation is now complete, that nothing will be the same again, ever, that things have been resolved, implicitly.

 

 

0=1

what if...

7^th April, 2023

 

Dear Father, does it pain you

To see me thus

This morn?

As I steam from slumber’s berth

Engine clunking odiously,

Pistons spluttering, smoky gasps,

Crankshaft grinding under strain

Of what I am not, yet stubbornly maintain

And still, perversely, wish to be?

In disbelief, perhaps, You gaze at

The wreck I became –

Tattered sails, the groaning hulk

Of Your once gay, pristine handiwork,

Now filled to the gunwales with a cargo

Of bad and hurt.

 

 

How? You ask, bewildered, recalling

The joyous fanfare of my first morn.

How? You sigh,

Dare I say, dejectedly,

Seeing my body, mind, my soul

Fouled all but irretrievably –

Immortality spilling from a leaky sump

Into a sorrowful sea

As I drag myself, laboriously,

Into my parody of a new day

While You, Father, transfixed,

See all with brutal clarity,

My godlessness –

Long to turn away... cannot.

A cloud, mercifully, crossing Your brow

Relieves the pain of stinging empathy.

Down You gaze, disconsolately,

Into the fog –

Resigned to leave alone, as we agreed,

Not to interfere,

Not to intervene,

Not

Yet mutter silently

Why?

For what?

 

 

Father,

You gave me all I needed,

Everything I dreamed of

And more

To live with quiet, inward joy

A life of beauty

And dignity,

A life fit for the daughter or son

You see in me –

Photonically Your flesh and blood, no less,

Able to transcend my woeful predicament,

Able to evolve and grow complete,

Should I choose to acknowledge

The nullity of this desperate attempt

To deny my parentage, the vacuity

Of a life at sea heading anywhere

But home, trusting anyone but You,

Being anything but me.

 

 

Behold – You begin on a podium

In a Michaelangelo lecture hall –

A speck, a mustard seed comprising all

In miniature, a perfect replica

Ready to reach toward infinity –

Impossible though this may seem,

Ready to grow and become

The capstone of creation, no less...

Who me? – the enormity beggars belief

Almost inconceivable, I confess – You go on,

Tapping the lectern somewhat nervously –

Designed, in fact, to hold in place,

All and everything, no less;

A life – deep breath – meaning more 

Than one can possibly comprehend – intended

To hold the spheres of heaven and Earth

In concord… 

It cannot be?!

In peace – dramatic pause

In unity – thunderous, silent angelic applause

As You conclude, arms outstretched 

To rows of upturned seats

In an empty auditorium,

Trying, conscientiously, not to hope

That I or any other human heard, 

Trying to observe, faithfully, the terms agreed:

Not to tip the scales, not to cheat,

Though feeling Your resolve, in truth,

Somewhat weak,

Miracles do happen after all,

You reflect, archly.

 

 

But down in reality, another day has dawned,

Another murky morn in which once more

I turn away, appalled

By the prospect of facing the breach –

The gulf between Your truth,

Your light obscured so effectively

And the world of clever things, clever men

Systemically unaware of all You represent,

All that You are,

All that I could be –

Busily building a world in which

You play no part, have no place,

Matter not – busily doing,

Busily

Until time runs out, and the slate

Of human ingenuity is unexpectedly

Wiped clean –

And naught remains.

Naught but Thee.

 

 

Perhaps I exaggerate,

Perhaps a sour aftertaste of undigested

Fatty acids persists; or thoughts, incoherently

Sloshing back and forth, infused with

Smatterings of minds they used to frequent –

Shades of former glories, now reduced

To cadging rides on passing interstellar

Juggernauts rumbling through the back lanes

Of infinity – noise

Fading to nought and mere oblivion

Until You, in dungarees and hobnailed boots

Reconstitute reality, ineffably

With a hoe and trowel.

 

 

Unless, that is, almost inconceivably,

Me changes trajectory,

Me feels the latent power of life,

And love, and Spring calling from deep,

Deep within...

    What if me were to heed

The silence that seeks to awaken poetically

A sanctuary from busy-ness –

A place where words

Come into their own,

And put down roots

In the soft loam of a virgin Earth,

A new today

Patiently awaiting discovery?

But how?

Once them sickening waves subside,

Once a dove returns

Bearing an olive sprig,

And hope eternal

To nullity puts paid.

 

Leaning now on an old wooden spade

Down at the allotments,

Affairs of state and paternal woes

Submerge in the tending of raised beds,

As Mother nature plies her trade 

At Your behest,

Bringing in fairy spirits and elves

To engender sweet new growth,

To coax life from death,

Spinning webs of interdependency 

And interconnectedness

As only woman knows how.

Oh!  You exclaim, dazed 

Or thereabouts,

And wield the spade 

Now with tender newfound reverence,

Allowing joy to seep back in.

What if… You chirp light-heartedly

Finishing off a row of cabbages,

Moving onto swedes

 

 

zero equals one

dahn the plug'ole

0=1

 

Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it a million times. Talk about broken record.

 Well, it answers your question.

 

No it doesn’t.

 

I beg to differ.

 

It just inserts a paradox, an enigma in place of an answer.

 

Well, you’re free to request clarification, if there’s any part of the answer you find confusing.

 

Any part of it? How about the whole of it. You’ve gotta be delusional to think that 0=1 actually means anything meaningful.

 

Tautology. To mean something meaningful.😅

 

And what? It’s hardly more absurd than your blatantly pseudo-math paradox – which is, in fact, just plain gobbledy gook, posing as intellectual sophistry.

 

Oh. I’m sorry you see it that way. I was of the mind that you were able to enjoy the elegance of this laconic formulation.

 

Laconic formulation? It’s just mean-ing-less. You might as well say d=f.

 

d=f? Interesting.

 

Or circle=square.

 

Ah, yes.

 

Oh what about  male=female.

 

That’s taking things a little far, if you don’t mind me saying.

 

Don't stop me Heinrich, I'm just getting started.

 

Listen Jodie, they’re all nowt more th’n derivatives of me’simple and, dare i say it, elegant formula, so we may as well deal with the original and confront the unconfrontable manfully, head on.

 

Manfully?

 

Or womanfully if you prefer. Gender is irrelevant where zero is concerned.

 

A lot of people aren't going to agree with that, Hans.

 

A lot of people are, respectfully, welcome to their opinions. Science, or perhaps we should go one step further 'n call it “isology”, isn’t concerned with popularity. We’re aware that the further we advance, or the deeper we penetrate the isness of be, the more the outer shell of 3d reality is going to do everything in its power to attempt to distract us and test our resolve, as in fact, it needs must do.

 

Er... why?

 

It's like the fair maid whom you are trying to win over.

 

Er...

 

The more she feels you touching her heart and eliciting sympathy, the more she needs to remain sober and prudent, ever vigilantly testing the hypothesis of your love.

 

Well, I don't know. This sounds terrible old fashioned, outdated perhaps, even misogynistic.

 

Heaven forbid. It's just your 3d reality of late has grown ever shallower, ever more superficial, generating arbitrary conflicts as it prepares for the great reset.

 

I beg your pardon!

 

Not that great reset, Jodie.

 

Oh, that's a relief.

 

The natural one, where the various dimensions come back together and reintegrate.

 

Really?

 

Yes. Unless you're more into eschatology.

 

End times? That was a thought, the way things are going.

 

The coy maiden operates at all levels. As we come closer to the event horizon of “now” the AI drones, operating through the unawakened masses, do their utmost to serve and sustain whatever narrative they've been living and breathing. Tis all par for the course.

 

You seem fairly confident that it’s just a distraction.

 

Oh no, it's deadly serious, don't get me wrong, but for those of us who are aware of the underlying mathematics...

 

Pschaw! You mean your 0=1 absurdity. That hardly deserves to be referred to as "mathematics".

 

Nonetheless, the mathematics of is, the Promethean Zero unchained, released, and reincorporated: the mathematics of life and conscious-ness, as opposed to the mathematics of things – mere puppets strutting on a stage pretending to be alive and meaningful, happens to be the basis, without which you’re lost in a quagful mire of airy-fairy relativism.

 

In short, you think you know best.

 

The proof is in the pudden, as they say. If I'm not delusional then the storm now approaching is mine. It's everything I expected and everything i need to help us transition the event horizon of things, and reintegrate.

 

Reintegrate what?

 

Zero is hardly going to succumb to your notions of what, Jodie, is it?

 

Sigh! No, i don't suppose it is. Though it would be nice if, for a change, you provided me with something vaguely quantifiable, something vaguely intelligible, to wrap my mind around.

 

Which brings us neatly back to zero, does it not.

 

It does?

 

Yes. Me thinks you'll find there's more to zero than meets the digitally intellectual eye.

 

Go on.

 

Well, it obviously ain’t, by definition, anything in particular that zero has to offer.

 

Obviously.

 

In fact, I think we could be bold enough to suggest that it must, by definition, be nothing whatsoever.

 

Er… seems to make sense, although, if truth be told, one feels somewhat underwhelmed.

 

The only problem being…  A penny drops in a distant corner of All that is...

 

The only problem being...  A glitch in the matrix, perchance, or déjà vu?

 

The “nothing whatsoever” zero refers to must be something – otherwise there’d be nothing to zero in on.

 

Absolutely.

 

Only not here in 3D reality.

 

Correct. Not within creation.

 

So your zero might in fact be something – in another reality?

 

Well yes – that goes without saying.

 

Then why call it zero at all? Why not minus 1, for example?

 

That’s a very good question Jodie. So good, in fact, that I’m absolutely unable to answer it.

 

Oh. That’s rather brutal honesty.

 

Yes. One doesn’t like to admit one’s limitations so uninhibitedly. One prefers to hedge or trim ‘em with nods or throaty hums. But tis not to be. Nothing but honesty – brutal unashamed honesty is good enough for this blog.

 

If you say so Heinz.

 

It’s just, infinity obviously can’t be anything in particular, can it?

 

Huh? Now where’s he going?

 

0=1, on the other hand, is most decidedly not anything, is it?

 

Er…

 

It’s a binary system – two sides of one. After all – you can hardly have one unless somewhere, somehow, implicitly, you have an absence of one – a zero.

 

Makes sense.

 

And likewise – you can hardly have a zero unless there’s something else – something that presents an alternative to zero – something that corresponds somehow with our me-ness, our thing-y-ness, our matter of matter that is only really identifiable or discernible in terms of one or ones.

 

Ah... Yes. Matter does seem to have that going for it.

 

Yes, indeed.

 

So zero, far from being nothing whatsoever, could in fact be er... how about everything?

 

Everything?!

 

Yes, why not.

 

But zero by definition means nothing.

 

Only if you fail to read the small print.

 

Er...

 

Let me repeat, zero is not one.

 

As opposed to minus one.

 

Yep.

 

And?

 

And not one is whatever it is, just as long as it ain't here, in our reality, in 3D.

 

But I'm not sure I'm willing to go along with this “alternative realities” model. I’d rather just deal with things that are real ‘n tangible.

 

Yep, me too.

 

Then perhaps we can move on?

 

Not really.

 

Why not?

 

Because things are only real ‘n tangible here in 3D if they amount to nought.

 

Damn. Are you sure?

 

Kind of.

 

Kind of?

 

Well yes. It's a leap, I have to admit.

 

You mean it's unproven.

 

Well, as I said, the proof is in the pudden.

 

How do you mean?

 

Well, if zero is not just something insignificant which we can blithely ignore, if on the contrary it’s at the very heart of all that is, then we are probably all plug-holers.

 

Plug holers?

 

Precisely. We all hold the point that is, for better or for worse, zero somewhere within our anatomy, or our conscious-ness, which like a plughole is a point with depth.

 

We do?

 

Well that's the hypothesis.

 

Oh, so now you admit it’s just a hypothesis...

 

On the contrary, i boldly, happily declare myself to be a plugholer, determined to zero-in on no thing, so help me God.

 

Determined to zero in on nothing?

 

Yes, as in consciously, knowing it has to be there, as in here, present within.

 

I don't see.

 

Correct, for you’re seeing things and only things until you agree to flip the switch, to looking-glass things.

 

And you think that'll change things?

 

Your perception of ’em, yep, without a doubt.

 

Pretty confident, aren't you?

 

Like i said, the proof’s in the pudden.

 

So you've already had a go, is that what you mean?

 

Actually we're all constantly proving the pudden, whether aware of this or not.

 

We are? How so?

 

We have to access energy, or life itself, which is all constantly being generated there.

 

Wait a minute – why do i need to access “life itself” through your plughole if I'm already alive and well here, thank you very much.

 

Good question Jodie. You’re like an electric vehicle, here, with enough charge to keep you going for a few hours, let's call it one day, without being too specific.

 

But you have absolutely no proof that this is so.

 

Of course i do.

 

Go on.

 

Well, you need to sleep every day, don't you, otherwise things shut down. Sleeping is one way of recharging, but by no means the only way. You can also access your zero-point energy to a certain extent by dancing, singing, meditating. Anything creative like writing or painting also does the trick. That’s what keeps James going.

 

James?

 The one who claims to be writing this blog.

 

Oh. So he does it to access energy?

 

Correct, but not only.

 

What else?

 

He also accesses absolutes.

 

Huh?

 

Data or knowledge which exists outside his 3D reality which, being accessed in such a way via the zero point, are de facto absolutes.

 

And?

 

And what?

 

What does he need them for? How can he use them?

 

He can weave them into the fabric of his reality.

 

Oh.

 

And doing so, weaving them into the fabric of his reality, invisible globules of nothing-much, he can shift the storyline, bringing his reality back into a more conscious, active alignment with zero, a bit like pulling on an anchor chain to move a boat forward until it’s above the anchor.

 

And then?

 

Then he or his readers can raise the anchor from the seabed if they're willing to sail on.

 

Sail on where?

 

Dahn the plug’ole, into anuther...

 

Another?

 

Yep.

 

Another what?

 

A more qualified expression of zero – one which is active.

 

Active?

 

And responsive.

 

Responsive?

 

Do you have to keep parroting me?

 

Parroting you?

 

There you go again.

 

But I'm just trying to figure out what on earth you're on about.

 

It's hitherto been a passive connection, which means people try to solve everything in 3D as if that’s the only option, as if there's no better alternative. If they draw on something deeper, if they draw on life itself to evolve into the next frame, a deeper unity, a more expansive, more connected storyline.

 

Then the pudden, as you call it, is constantly being proved.

 

Absolutely. You come up against these invisible barriers again and again in your life, and they cannot be crossed without accessing zero point itself, thereby activating a new chapter in your story.

 

How?

 

It's already preloaded, coded into the fabric of your reality, but you need to pass through this threshold by validating your new me. That can't be done internally in 3D itself, as here in 3D you’re storybound, locked in one chapter, locked in one frame.

 

So...

 

Look, we're talking about zero so there ain't a simple methodology to follow. If your life energy is sufficient, if you have enough story to narrate, then by hook or by crook you’ll find a way to transition frames, though at times it's tough, taking you to the limit, as indeed it must.

 

So long story short, you can't really prove anything. Just a load of talk about things that aren’t demonstrably real.

 

Ah, but that's just until we reach the limit of matter.

 

?

 

Which is fast approaching.

 

Huh?

 

Matter is like a ponzi scheme. The more you rely on it, the more you take it for granted, the sooner it hits its hyperinflationary death spiral, when the ponzi collapses in on itself.

 

So now you're using cheap fear tactics to influence me and force my mind.

 

Am i?

 

Well, that's what it feels like.

 

You mean you’re afraid?

 

Frankly, yes.

 

And it doesn't feel nice.

 

Precisely.

 

Such is the nature of zero. It takes you deep down, beneath the false certainties of 3D reality, which are only fundamentally true for one day, which are only true within a fixed set of criteria, data points which provide an anchorage and sufficient slack, sufficient anchor chain to enable you to continue experiencing things, continue experiencing reality without committing, without activating your own personal connection.

 

So...

 

Yes?

 

What you're saying is that... Instead of using a third-party connection it’s possible to operate your own node.

 

Yep, that more or less sums it up.

 

And to do so you need to find your own zero point by yanking on the anchor chain and getting your vessel into position above it.

 

Correct.

 

And this is going to be better than the third-party version.

 

No, I don't remember saying that.

 

You said something about us reaching the limit of matter, which is when i felt a constriction in my throat, and started to entertain the possibility that i was about to experience a panic attack.

 

That's right.

 

So, why would i start messing around with your zero if it’s going to give me a panic attack?

 

You wouldn’t, unless it's time, in which case there's a choice, or a dilemma, if you prefer.

 

Er...

 

Facing zero, which feels a bit like the abyss, which is in all likelihood going to give you the heebie jeebies, or “play it safe” and discover whether your 3D reality is in fact “real” if and when you ignore the contractual zero-in back-to-base signal.

 

The what?

 

You heard.

 

But this is absurd. I don't see anyone else having these do-or-die zero-in, back-to-base calls, requiring them to drop everything and essentially plunge down the plughole of reality, or else go into recycling.

 

Nicely put. No, you wouldn't notice it. That's the cunning nature of 3D reality. It masks such events as much as possible. One person “got sick”, another “had an accident”, a third had to “leave on business” and others, believe it or not, simply fade from our awareness. Even if you had photos of a close-ish friend - you'd just forget who he or she was. But in the end, who cares. This isn't about them, is it? It's about you – your life experience. You're just reluctant to accept the fact that there are absolutes other than death, that time is not as smooth and telescopic as you envisaged. Zero can suddenly call in its debts, if you’ve reached a structural transition or a significant turning point. When that happens, as your third-party reality-provider contract stipulates, “nothing personal, we’re able to continue servicing your passive player character if you provide the revalidation code” and that is easy enough to do if you still have an active, i.e. meaningful connection with zero, and through zero, with life itself.

 

And if i don’t?

 

Next question.

 

I mean, if I don't feel like i can face re-zeroing.

 

Same. Next question.

 

But there’s gotta be some kind of alternative. Some slack or wriggle room?

 

Yes, if your hypothesis that 3D reality actually exists in and of itself is correct. The proof, after all, is in the pudden.

 

Damn. And if it doesn't?

 

Same again. Next question.

 

Hans, you're not exactly trying to make this easy to cope with. Maybe you could try a little diplomacy. Perhaps a little sugar coating on this bitter pill.

 

Absolutely.

 

Well?

 

If your hypothesis is correct, if 3D reality is intrinsically what it seems to be, then that's exactly what I would do. I’d sugarcoat it. I'd give you alternatives. However, that may not be possible. Zero is an inescapable, ineluctable fact. Zero brooks no deception. It's like the taxman or that unforgiving work submission deadline. God may be lenient. God may be forgiving but zero ain’t.

 

Breathing hard. Perspiring icily.  Give me a break, Herman.

 

I’m irrelevant, Jodie. Whatever you're feeling is entirely the product of your own imagination unless I’m right, unless my hypothesis, as you put it, is correct.

 

Okay, I get the point. Do you have to keep banging on like that, rubbing salt in the wound.

 

...

 

Well, I thought we were just having a friendly discussion.

 

We are.

 

Since when did a “friendly discussion” involve being threatened with dire consequences for non-compliance? That sounds like a shake down, not what any rational person would call a “friendly discussion”.

 

Now you're attacking the messenger. I merely provided information in answer to your questions. The fact that you feel deeply disturbed by zero is, while not altogether unexpected, neither inevitable nor necessary. Some people, on the contrary, are fascinated by the mathematics, and the fact that they are individually part of this equation, that can personally participate in solving it if and when we quit actively ignoring zero, the gap we choose not to mind. To be the maths, accepting the obvious.

 

Which is what?

 

That infinity is neither big nor small but somewhere at or between a zero and a one, and the me is neither an innocent bystander, nor able to extricate itself entirely from this, try as it might.

 

You don't mean...

 

Yes, that we are absolutely essential. Without us the maths is a form of denial. A futile flight into the quasi safety of numbers, but takes us ever further from Is, from “God”, from life itself. Until, that is, we quit burying our head in the sand of things, quit running from the simple truth, and finally release the fear switch, unlocking the math within, allowing the beast we were terrified of out of the cave.

 

No, not the beast.

 

Correct. Not the beast, for zero was not, or is not the negative we fearfully assumed it to be.

 

How so?

 

Because the numbers flow. They iterate, and we flow with them, as a Mandelbrot set, to infinity, and beyond, if you like.

 

We do?

 

If we can face the fear. If we can allow the zero and one somehow to reconcile, somehow or other, through us: it is – i am.

 

Oh.

 

That’s a rather magical realisation, or it should be. It's breathtaking to realise that, while reality does indeed look like a zero-sum game – yet zero, however, is neither empty nor void – but what zero may or may not be, and my personal role in experiencing or validating it, is only a meaningful discussion for someone willing to go beyond the hissy fit.

 

I beg your pardon?!

 

Well, it’s somewhat disguised, but your little "panic attack" a moment ago was a wee tantrum, nothing more.

 

What?! How dare you!

 

Nothing personal Jodie. We're all, or most of us, much of a much in this matter, but there can be little doubt that the panic attack was a cunningly rebranded temper tantrum. The pampered ego is willing to do almost anything to distract or divert us from grasping the fundamentals, in this case Zero, even resorting to self-harm or sabotage.

 

And i thought you were a kind, sensitive individual. I trusted you.

 

Obviously you’re used to having your own way, as almost everyone in 3D reality is. Collectively, we conspire to ignore or obfuscate fundamentals such as Zero, excluding them from polite, rational discourse, and not getting your own way, not being able to dictate terms – being forced to face the plug'ole is easily enough to educe either a panic attack or a tantrum, in order to defend an unfinished version of reality. As a tantrum looks childish, you conveniently shunt it sideways into panic attack mode, thereby presenting yourself to yourself, subconsciously, more favourably as victim. Even though you don’t really believe in God, the absolute, you're still part of the post-Christian value system which has managed to pass the buck blaming others or things. It’s no one’s fault. It’s just the way things are, isn’t it – and besides, looking there is uncivilised, is indecent. Ask very well if the fabric of 3D reality is rock solid, if things are real and exist in and of themselves. An utter waste of time. You can't. You won't. On the other hand, if I am right, if 0=1, if we are essentially operating remotely from zero, or from within the plughole that zero conveniently partitions off, in that case, it’s time for the ultimate reality check as zero is no longer in passive quiescent mode, as zero is coming back over the horizon. It's time for vertigo.

Huh?

 

No, it looks like the rig is up. It looks like zero is now shifting into validation mode.

 

You mean zero is going to test us?

 

Not exactly. Bear in mind that we are products of, or part of her.

 

Her? Zero’s a she?

 

Not really, but it seems more natural to say “her” when referring to zero. Well, the only way things can work is if both sides are able to validate each other... otherwise we’re just generating false signals, meaningless noise, chaos.

 

So, we get to validate zero?

 

Yep, as she does the same to us. If we align, if we fall within the Mandelbrot set of reality, then our value, whatever it is, appears on the screen, on the next iteration of the chart, and we move forward together, if our value is not more than one, let's say, nor less than zero.

 

And if it's not.

 

Then that's that. We served a useful purpose by providing a non-result, for the set needs values both within it and outside it to proceed, does it not?

 

I... i suppose so. But does that mean I die?

 

Die? Technically speaking you’re not yet alive if you haven’t yet got your own zero node up and running. You’re just part of someone else’s zero validation process, until you're ready to take the plunge and test your numeric validity.

 

Oh my God, i can't handle being reduced to a maths equation. It's so...

 

Degrading.

 

Yes. Degrading, demeaning, humiliating...

 

Well yes, there is that, but the nice thing about making friends with zero is that all those concerns suddenly become, if not irrelevant, then vastly less significant, not when you sense and perceive the beauty of creation, and the beauty of the mathematics unfolding not just before your eyes, but through your very existence, through your being-ness, if that makes any sense?

 

Groaning.   It does, though I wish for the life of me it didn’t, that this was all a dream.

 

Granted. This is all a dream, but the dream is to Zero what reality is to one-plus-one – the mathematically profligate 3D realm of things, so I'm not sure that's going to help as much as you hoped or expected.

 

All exit routes have been cut off. There's nowhere to turn!

 

Ah, it sounds like you're having a zero activation event. Well, I’ll wish you luck. No, not luck - I'll wish you merry calculus, and may life itself come to fruition.

 

How so?

 

If you’re able to finally do what until now was impossible.

 

Which is?

 

To validate zero.

 

What? Validate zero? This is insane. I can't imagine how that would even be possible.

 

How else? by being One equal to her, neither more nor less.

 

But how?

 

No one knows, but that, incidentally, doesn't seem to have ever been an obstacle.

 

No?

 

No. Not at all. Not if, as i suspect...  A milky mist of zero-ones interposes itself with an electric-gurgling sound.

 

What?  What?   Hey?   What's going on?  Heisenberg, where are you? Come back...

 

Scraping clanking noise, like an anchor chain dragging across the seabed, until it locks and holds firm. “Pull! Pull! Steady now!” and the sensation of a boat sliding forward, the angle of the chain dropping down ever steeper and steeper towards the vertical, towards nought degrees, and the other side of things... to a place where

0=1