the salmon of doubt

 

I beg your pardon?

 

I said compartmentalised.

 

Er… not sure I follow your drift.

 

Well, I could have said “fragmented” – but this is actually more deliberate.

 

So we’ve got all this technology that’s essentially inaccessible?

 

Correct.

 

Like Black Ops?

 

Yep. Special access projects – they call them. Advanced anti-gravity technologies, for example, or non-physical weapon systems, energy beams.

 

Like death rays?

Kind of thing – yes.

 

And you believe all that?

 

Let’s just say that their security codes are not unbreakable – not where quantum computing is concerned – or remote viewing.

 

Ok – so it’s for real – you’re saying – and there’s all this sci-fi stuff knocking around out there – warp speed, faster than light travel and the likes?

 

Absolutely – but who cares.

 

Huh?!

 

I mean – it’s no big deal. In the end it’s just technology.

 

Whaddya mean – “just technology?” It’s a quantum leap ahead of where we are. I guess we’re talking zero-point energy systems too, aren’t we? Enough to overturn the entire global petro-dollar financial system.

 

Absolutely – but you still don’t get it – do you?

 

Get what? I want to get my hands on the tech. I wanna see what we’ve really got. I wanna get off-planet. I wanna run my car on water. I wanna see the cure to cancer – all that’s been suppressed for so long – and most of all I wanna quit flying around in those ridiculous tin cans we call jet airplanes. Please! – sixty years or more of technology suppression. It’s enough to drive one insane.

 

And what? You think your life’s going to improve?

 

Huh? Whose side are you on, Seth?

 

No one’s.

 

Well maybe it would help if you joined the liberation movement. Maybe it’s time to take sides. You know, join the resistance.

 

Not really.

 

?! I’m speechless. How can you know all that you do and not want to do something about it?

 

Because technology’s not the issue.

 

But surely we’d be better off if…

 

We could export our violence to other planets?

 

Oh – so you’re worried about that?

 

Not really.

 

Then what?

 

Do you really imagine anyone has the power to control your destiny?

 

Er… apparently, they do – if what you say about these suppressed technologies is true. They’ve managed to keep us in the dark and essentially enslave us – like animals on a reservation. They've chained us to their energy grid and held a financial noose around our necks.

 

Well that’s where I disagree entirely.

 

How? Do you mean to say that we’d be no better off if they'd allowed us to enjoy the fruits of human ingenuity and put to rest long obsolete science and technologies, if they’d adhered to the constitution and acted as public servants rather than feudal overlords?

 

Well, I don’t really think that was the plan – not initially at least: it was more a case of trying to protect the West from foreign enemies – but, in any case, everything they’ve done, and continue to do, is par for the course. It’s how rulers have always ruled.

 

That's no excuse. Times have changed. Why on earth would you seek to justify their criminal deception?

 

Why assume that you and I are fundamentally better or would have done things differently? Politicians are ever faced with awkward choices and getting re-elected or gaining an advantage while jockeying for position or power has little or nothing to do with playing fair, does it?  They’ve always found it hard to stick to the ethical and moral guidelines that we the people like to believe are sacrosanct, and try to impose on them. And, to a large extent, we’re not innocent bystanders, are we?

 

How do you mean?

 

We all have the ability to read people intuitively. If we’ve chosen to ignore or exclude that ability from our arsenal of critical faculties because we prefer to trust our so-called leaders, and live in a sugar-coated version of reality – that’s our own decision, isn’t it?

 

But how can the people possibly gauge the scope of their deception? It beggars belief, doesn’t it, and it’s all been happening incrementally, for decades, hasn’t it?

 

Yes, but we know they’re lying through their teeth, don’t we? I suspect we know far more than we like to admit, and that we secretly prefer the deal we’ve been offered because we’re loath to face the alternative – the dark, mysterious source of our doubts and uncertainties which is happily hidden from sight by the candy-man-can reality they’re serving up. The fact that half the country’s on anti-depressants and the other half on food stamps only goes to show how deep the rot has already set in.

 

I suppose so. So it’s our failure to hold our leaders accountable – you’re saying?

 

Leaders? They’re just people playing a part. We choose to take this theatre seriously, don’t we, because we basically love it. It thrills us to have “kings” and “queens”, “presidents” and “magnates”. It seems so glamorous, so compelling – even the baddies – they too get our little hearts beating with a frisson of fear and loathing. We’re willing suckers for their drama, not innocent victims.

 

I fail to see how we can avoid taking it seriously when these actors, as you call ‘em, have the power to direct the police, tax authorities, the media – you name it. They have a stranglehold over public discourse. They seem to be able to literally control the minds of the masses.

 

Absolutely – but that’s just within the game, isn't it?

 

What do you mean – the game? It’s hardly a game, if you ask me – when bombs are falling, people are being incarcerated, businesses and livelihoods are being destroyed… When humanity is being held hostage by a bunch of narcissistic sociopaths.

 

Not to mention mandated medical procedures which we can’t discuss here, triggering fatal reactions. Absolutely. I agree entirely. It’s beyond a joke.

 

Well, am I missing something?

 

Not really. Words themselves corral us into contradiction? They are what happens when something else, when infinity is excluded from the dialogue. But it was only ever going to be a matter of time, for time is the length of line that separates the hooked fish from the cooking pot, or the world we’re living in from the wonders of mean reversion, when the magic bubble pops and Cinderella has to run home barefoot as the clock strikes twelve.

 

Ok – so, in terms of infinity it’s all just been a game, has it? A lark in the dark, nothing too serious? Temporary?

 

Well, even now you’re using words, so whatever I say’s going to sound insensitive or crass, isn’t it?

 

In that case there’s nothing really to discuss, is there? You’ve locked yourself in your tower of infinite wisdom and we can all go rot in hell, as far as you’re concerned.

 

Well, no, you’re right. I stand corrected. In fact, there is a choice.

 

There is?

 

Yes, absolutely.

 

And what might that be?

 

You can choose to face the salmon of doubt.

 

??

 

More meaningless words – I apologise.

 

But what does it mean?

 

Eventually you grow tired of the warm shallow waters. Deep inside something stirs – a longing coupled with fear and doubt – a need to start a journey back – to engage somehow the other side.

 

Which is?

 

The purposeful, the active side of infinity, which seems to have a mind of its own.

 

Er?

 

That’s when things get interesting, to put it mildly, when the salmon reveals how everything you think you know for certain is, in fact, mercifully, riddled with doubt and that the body of knowledge that seemed to protect you from infinity, in fact, does nothing of the sort. It merely presents a convenient Potemkin facade to satisfy the careless eye of a passing dignitary, but nothing more.

 

You mean to say that each of us individually actually has the power to engage or to reactivate infinity?

 

Individually, yes, how else? If you’re willing to pursue the salmon of doubt upstream. It’s a lonely but thrilling journey. You see – infinity is not what you expected it to be, is it? It’s all bets off – because suddenly you see how everything – literally every thing – is interwoven, interconnected to such a degree that ultimately no one ever really had any power over you whatsoever; likewise no thing. Quite the opposite, in fact.

 

But that can’t be true, surely?

 

Nope! Not certifiably. Seth does a little dance suspiciously reminiscent of a drunken man pretending to be a salmon navigating the bewildering waters of infinity, with sang-froid and peculiar poise.

 

So again, you’re contradicting yourself.

 

Of course. There’s literally no point trying to prove such matters because the result will never satisfy anyone’s expectations,  nor their need for something tangible, something quantifiable.

 

How do you mean?

 

Well, in the rational world of things said and things done – we can all see that people and institutions have a great deal of control over us – there’s no denying that – is there?

 

No, there isn’t.

 

And the mind is bound to operate within that rational framework where a causes b resulting in c. There’s nothing we can do about it. Imagine you’re pointing a gun at me – and you shoot. What happens next?

 

You die.

 

Absolutely, or I’m injured. And who’s to blame?

 

Well, if I’m the one who shot you…

 

Yes, but I might have been threatening you in some way.

 

Ok – but my pulling the trigger is what causes your death – doesn’t it?

 

Yes and no.

 

Huh?

 

You see – in terms of the power within each one of us – in terms of the infinite – it requires my acquiescence for me to die or suffer at your hands.

 

It does? You could have fooled me!

 

I know, it’s confusing as hell, isn’t it?

 

But why? It’s evidently absurd.

 

Because I’m alive – and a part of the infinite we refer to as life itself – or Creation – or, come to think of it, God.

 

And?

 

Just a part, mind you – but still – that’s sufficient, whereas the bullet ain’t. It’s just a thing.

 

It may be just a thing – but it’s loaded with enough energy to snuff out the candle of your life flame, isn’t it?

 

Yes, if I acquiesce.

 

Huh?! I fail to see the logic.

 

I know, because you’ve excluded infinity from the equation. You see, life itself – for better or for worse, carries within it something unique.

 

You’re telling me.

 

It carries a direct link to the infinite – which is the event horizon beyond which there is no matter – beyond which matter cannot go.

 

Oh.

 

So, no matter how hard or cruel that bullet may be – or how fast it flies – for it to penetrate the field of Is within you – for it to reach the wellspring of life itself – it has to do something that it can’t technically do.

 

Er… Seth, aren’t you overcomplicating things?

 

Absolutely. But that’s only because I’m using words to describe what words can’t reasonably describe. If, however, you ignore the words and agree to receive the mental images I’m sending you – the direct meaning – it’ll make a lot more sense, I assure you.

 

Mental images?

 

Well yes. A kind of telepathy.

 

You mean to say you can actually communicate without words?

 

Absolutely. But it’s hardly surprising if you think about it, is it? – if we are all individually, as living beings, carriers of the infinite. So, the bullet cannot penetrate the infinite within you because a bullet is finite, but a bullet can kill a human if he or she has decided to suppress and deny infinity within himself – to wilfully downgrade life itself to being a thing – to put all his eggs in the basket known as “body” or “matter”. The body can definitely be hurt or killed by a bullet, can’t it?

 

Yes, of course it can – I just can’t see why you imagine the body could avoid dying if I didn’t acquiesce?

 

Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, Ten. Your failure to see makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

 

It does?

 

Yes, because you’ve compartmentalised yourself.

 

I have?

 

Yes. You’re no different from the government, the so-called State you’ve been having a go at, with all its secret technologies. You’ve likewise hidden the information from yourself – you’ve artificially created a reality where such things are impossible or inconceivable, where things have to add up numerically.

 

Oh. But why do I stop being infinite and thus protected from the bullet – just because the information has been hidden away, or because I’m feigning ignorance?

 

Good question Ten. It’s a matter of Time, so to speak.

 

Time?

 

Yes.

 

How so?

 

You’re heavily invested in Time, and the feeling that things are moving inexorably in a certain direction, from the inflexion point where you first chose to experience “things in their entirety” by excluding everything else that can’t be bundled up in Time’s package deal. It’s a bit like gravity and the belief that you are stuck to the ground and cannot fly. These things are true to the extent that “things” can be true.

 

Oh. And to what extent is that?

 

Obviously to the extent that things matter, rather than life itself, or the extent to which you believe that things can deliver whatever you’re hoping or praying for. You decide. So, long story short – you’re wedded to Time and things until you completely lost all recollection of the inflexion point where it all began, until you’re bound to uphold Time, your Reality-of-things sponsor, at all costs, for fear that you might be cut adrift in the shockingly unpredictable quantum stream, even to the point of choosing death rather than decoupling from Time itself. The alternative – the salmon of doubt – seems so tenuous, so uncertain… mere fiction. Doubt needs to excluded, eliminated at all costs...

 

So?

 

So the bullet wins, usually, because we acquiesce, bound by the now impervious logic of matter, but knowing deep inside our soul that there’s more to me than the horcruxed version trapped in a now defunct time stream. A failed investment, yes, but not, ultimately, the end.

 

You make it sound so…

 

Plausible?

 

I’m not sure I’d say that... scripted, or perhaps “mathematical” is the word I was looking for.

 

Well yes, there is a rather splendid mathematics in play here.

 

Oh no – not your ridiculous “zero equals one”.

 

None other.

 

But it’s utter nonsense, isn’t it?

 

Yes. Utter nonsense until you’re facing down the barrel of a gun watching a bullet making its way to your thingness of body.

 

And suddenly – when death is the only remaining option – we’re willing to discard all reason and logic and unequivocally accept that numbers are basically meaningless, mere cheerleaders for Time’s fascist army of goose stepping procedural inhumanity – is that what you’re saying?

 

I’d concur, up to a point.

 

Up to a point? You mean to say back up to the inflexion point?

 

Yes. As long as we’re in the experiment, in the drama of things-that-matter terribly – we’re forever playing around with numbers and time, generating reams of receipts and timestamps.

 

You make us sound like androids or a virtual reality simulation.

 

Well, funny you should mention that… Human we may be, human we are – but again – only up to a point – because the bifurcation inserting us into the Time stream rendered us half human, half machine – we became part of a numbers game, didn’t we?

 

Oh my God. This is beyond insane.

 

Well, just think about it…

 

Honestly, I’d rather not.

 

Absolutely.

 

Would you stop saying that?

 

Saying what?

 

Oh no – I’m not going to fall for that one – Seth. I’m not a complete idiot you know.

 

Seth grins inanely.

 

You just did.

 

I did what?

 

Fell for it.

 

I what?

 

You fell for it – hook, line and sinker.

 

I did not.

 

There you go, again.

 

What on Earth are you on about?

 

Outside Time – outside the limited version of things you refer to as reality – the word “no” or “not” is absent.

 

It is? How come?

 

Because there’s nothing to deny. All is – like it or not.

 

So?

 

So, when you denied the word – when you said “oh no” instead of “absolutely” you triggered that very word in zero Time – in the unbifurcated version of happening, the isness of be.

 

The what? You mean to say…?

 

Absolutely. Yes.

 

No way – that there’s an unbifurcated version of this?

 

Has to be, doesn’t there – zero equals one.

 

My God.

 

Bit like – energy being neither created nor destroyed.

 

So this version – it’s highly tenuous – you’re saying?

 

Yep.

 

Kind of “thin ice” or my favourite: “avalanche waiting to happen”.

 

That's right. Spot on.

 

And If I “oh no” here – in the full version I’m still accepting or affirming reality? Right?

 

Absolutely.

 

Darn. And does that change anything?

 

Absolutely.

 

Please stop saying that – it’s really annoying me.

 

Ok, Ten, absolutely. Oh, by the way, Zero equals one.

 

No…

 

Ten finds the walls of his reality flickering – fading – and suddenly he’s swimming upstream – a salmon – the salmon of doubt, apparently – until he finds himself in strangely familiar surroundings – back at the place of his birth – back at the spawning ground.

 

Oh my God – this is it. This is where it all began. The first split. And there – a tiny little part of my soul.

 

A horcrux – she calls it in Harry Potter – rather ingeniously.

Ten tries to pick it up. Ow! It hurts.

 

You bet it does.

 

It feels…

 

Wrong?

 

Yes. It does. Absolutely.

 

It is. It was. But you can set it right.

 

I can?

 

If you’re willing to decompartmentalise. To reconnect. To unsplit.

 

But – they feel so different, the divided pieces.

 

Absolutely.

 

Oh this is too much!

 

Perhaps numerically, yes, but on the other hand, look – there is a rather splendid salmon – feel how it brings the two sides back into alignment – feel how nestling in doubt and uncertainty is a burning desire to come back home, to unmake the unbreakable vow that bound you in Time and Matter until...

 

Now Ten gives his attention entirely over to the salmon of doubt – feeling it swimming through every moment of his Tidal stream, back to source, in an ever-growing, now unquenchable desire to return to surely-not infinity, where things are no longer things, where birth and death coexist – where the salmon spawns after making the long, arduous journey back home, back to source, and then fades away to oblivion – now complete – a purely narrative device, nothing more, a now obsolete metaphor,  unless...

 

Meanwhile, word has come in through reliable sources that in secret underground bunkers, laboratories and production facilities throughout the USA encryption protocols have been failing at an alarming rate. Data has been leaking out ever faster while experts frantically seek to uncover the cause of these catastrophic data breaches. Security personnel have been widening their search beyond international spy agencies, though Russia and China are still considered the most likely culprits. Interestingly, these seemingly unintentional data releases always appear to coincide with the latest “salmon of doubt” internet sensation episode – a kind of flash mob, Mexican wave internet mobilisation linking huge numbers of online participants in a random chain of whackamole-cum-follow-that-fish viral gaming, with astonishing results. Participants have claimed a plethora of inexplicable, unanticipated outcomes – from serious money suddenly appearing in their bank accounts, to unsolicited, but equally serious job offers; from newly discovered psychic abilities, to long lost friends or family members suddenly returning home, not to mention entire blockbuster filmscripts as well as novels and poems downloading into their heads verbatim. Some are even claiming the dead coming back to life, though this has yet to be verified independently. Psychologists are struggling to come up with an explanation for the salmon of doubt phenomenon, but at the moment they’re leaning towards a mass delusional psychosis. Be that as it may, the number of individuals now hunting for the salmon of doubt online is rising exponentially and an increasing number are even questioning whether alien technologies are in play.

 

Bloody ridiculous, if you ask me. Huh? Where is everyone? Where did they all go?

 

 

 

0=1

undoubtedly