i've been thinkin about my doorbell

when you gonna ring it, when you gonna ring it?

mattress has been doing a little bit more reading than usual lately, and it is a good thing. slid somewhat out of the habit....so much to do in new areas. just started a new book yesterday, a biggun. very excited about it. anyway, for the most part he has been reading books that generalize in introspection...those about self and ego, body and spirit, those sorts of things. one sentence in particular struck him whilst flipping through a page of joseph campbell's. obviously there was a lot of built-up context beforehand, and a lengthy explication afterwards, but we shall see if when removed from those bookends the thought is still perhaps just as intriguing.

to paraphase, there is something noticeable which happens when someone dies. the body is still there, but it has been completely voided of its animating force, of its will to live and to perpetuate its own healthy existence. in short, something was there which no longer is...something is missing, removed. it is doubtful that many would argue with this statement, but feel free to unleash in comments if you find yourself rubbed sideways.

now m sat and strummed his mind for some time over this notion. it makes much intuitive sense at first, but like any other statement, it opens up fields and fields to frolick in depending upon what personal and mental associations you may have which resonate with it. and one thing, being somewhat of a man of science, was brought foremost in his sight. he has been contemplating all sorts of different notions for the past while, but a recurrence in his thought is the idea of an afterlife, or of defining what different scenarios could be conceived of as a, continuaton, for lack of a better, of this consciousness which we currently experience our worlds through. for whatever reason his mind grabbed these two thoughts, and smashed them together, possibly to see what remainders fell to the mathematical wayside (things can perhaps best be defined by what the are not). and he happened upon a curious thought.

in all of the world, of physical existence explained by current and/or past paradigms (at least insofar as he is knowledgeable of them), he can think of nothing which truly disappears when it seems to. there are many things which change, yes, but change cannot really be considered a disappearance, can it? when a puddle of water disapparates from the floor overnight, our caveman instincts babble and coo and perhaps rifle through a bucket of sidewalk chalk to search for a color with which to best express our confusions on callous cave walls. but with our cultured brains, shackled and chained, we know what happens here....the water evaporates into the atmosphere and perpetuates one of the most fundamental and natural cycles known in life. the water disappears, but really it is explained and we know it to be nothing more than a shifting of states. name any natural thing which defies this law, and surely matches will devise some clever prize with which to reward your wily fox-consciousness. he is rather confident in asserting this, because he is rather certain that you won't have any aces up your sleeve.

now, one of the clever minds which m enlisted on this problem proposed the idea of quantum physics, in which particles are known to disapparate and apparate all over again, apparently with no logic or methodical structure to the events. and m will perhaps accept subatomic theories tomorrow (perhaps this is why he is writing it tonight....the LHC may append these thoughts with quite a volume of information as soon as tomorrow), but for now he is throwing them out the door. partially on account of his general ignorance of the subject, and partially because perhaps nobody can claim enough knowledge of the subject to necessarily prove it, inasmuch as something can be empirically proved anyway.

so here we are. one dies, and something has disappeared from them. with our corollary information about the world, can we really be so stubborn as to believe that consciousness, or the soul, or whatever you would deem this existence....can we be so stubborn as to believe that it actually just disappears completely when it appears to? should we believe that it vaporizes in some unfathomable, intangible manner? that it returns to a grand cycle; a dying and a rebirthing, again and again? is it possible to explain it in terms which we are predisposed towards; does its nature extend beyond the confines of our ability to express it? he thinks that considering the controversy of the thing, that much at least is clear....we cannot definitively say what it is that happens, or even what the 'soul' encompasses...what its boundaries are. but can we at least cultivate an idea that there is something which happens to it; that it does not simply end in darkness and ennui? the evidence seems to back it up.

energy cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed. it can be shuffled and redealt; swirled and recycled....but nowhere can we find a case of energy ceasing to be. where, then, does the light in your eyes vacation; on what shore does it summer? and before the tides shift, before the seasons are published and frozen in their fleeting moments of majesty....can we winterize ourselves, our truest cores, for the long cold ahead?

"what, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'this life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more'...would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'you are a god and never have i heard anything more divine."
~ nietzsche