Order and Chaos

I like to say often that the universe of life is a metaphor reflecting the universe of things.  As usual, this has been said before.  "As above, so below."  If you'll sit with me, dear reader, I feel this will be one of the more intense posts I'll ever write.  I could be wrong.

In today's world, we hear the words "good" and "evil" thrown around a lot.  Light and darkness, fire and water, the names change, but the concept remains the same.  Today I will be expanding on these themes by calling them instead "order" and "chaos" respectively.  The balance between these two forces, much like the good and evil stories of our culture's youth, shift the fate of the entire universe as we know it.

Chaos on the physical plane manifests as entropy, the tendency for the universe to break down.  My cod example here being the vase breaking; once broken, it is never whole again from that point in time forward.  Those aligned with this physical nature believe in impermanence and the one fate that connects us all: death.  This is not "evil", it is simply a physical reflection of the metaphor of entropy.  Scientists speak often of the end result of entropy.  If entropy is to win out, the universe itself will continue to expand until everything is ripped apart.  According to this theory, as matter spreads, gravity will not be able to overcome this emptiness and universal temperatures will drop.  Eventually, all matter in the universe will exist only in black holes, but entropy will eventually break those down too, for her immeasurable depths envelop all.  At some point further than any of us can fathom, all matter will eventually reach zero Kelvin, a metric invented to denote absolutely zero kinetic energy; no movement, no life, forever.  This is one possible death of the universe and it is the reflection of chaos reigning supreme over order.

Order on the physical plane manifests as the anti-entropic force of life.  If entropy is the breaking down, anti-entropy, now synonymous to love and order in this post, represents the tendency for life to join.  Love is an experience of two, who were once one as we all were at the Big Bang, attempting against all law in the universe to join together again.  Love is two pieces of a broken vase attempting to become whole once again.  If love were to flourish in this world, all life would begin to mix back together and form a singularity of individuals who act as one body greater than the sum of their parts.  Mankind would walk among the stars with the same chaotic grace of a body comprised of a billion cells walking through a grocery store.  This is not "good", it is simply a reflection of the metaphor of this anti-entropic mindset.  This is currently not the projection of scientists, but if order were to win out over entropy, the entire universe would eventually become one being.  "Man will impregnate the universe with knowledge and eventually matter will become mind," as someone really cool once said.  Gravity, in this case, would eventually begin to pull the entire universe even closer together.  If man can indeed master the universe, our great love will weigh on this universe with immeasurable mass and pull things closer.  Andromeda and Sol would be as connected as I am to all of you-- and eventually closer.  Closer still that this gravity would grow and grow until the entire universe would collapse in on itself and truly become one once again.  This fate is called "the Big Crunch" by physicists, and it too is a definition of how the universe might die and it is the reflection of order winning out over chaos.

Address your attention to the one common force here, gravity.  Gravity is the Tao of the universe.  Like tides, the universe as a whole flows towards order and chaos and back maintaining the life of the universe itself, for as long as neither of these forces wins, the universe will neither expand nor contract.  If either becomes too powerful, the end result is only death.  The largest cycle I can fathom (which is but a grain of sand compared to our universe) is the relationship between Sol and Serius.  These stars dance with each other in the heavens and that gravitational force astrologically creates the great Mayan cycle of awakening and falling asleep in our world.  These cycles on every level, from sub atomic particles to galactic interactions, are the very BREATH of the universe.  Breathing out into chaos is just as necessary as breathing in into order.  The Tao of gravity knows this, although gravity does not "know", it simply is.

Therefore, do not despair if you see the world through entropy-tinted glasses.  You are simply a reflection of the universe breathing and are as necessary as the brightest soul.  For that soul cannot bring breath into this world without the lack of it.  If your glasses are order-tinted, do not despair at the great battle of attempting to become one.  Revel in that struggle and commit to it because you MUST bring life and breath into this universe for it is what the lion in your heart demands.  All beings have purpose and it is only when we all do our part that the universe will live.

And death is not the end.  The Big Crunch will be followed by a Big Bang.  Life would not be able to live in that confined space for long.  As one, it would create another universe just as ours was created. The heat death of the universe would also rip apart, for the unstoppable force of entropy meeting the immovable moment of zero Kelvin would surely rip open the dimensions in a way that there are no words yet to describe.  This cycle of death and rebirth, is but one more cycle that macroscopes to every level of this universe with perfect consistency.

When I hear the words, "as above, so below", I picture a human awakening.  A state of enlightenment is reached wherein balance simply becomes.  This human's spirit becomes aligned and as above, so too their body rights itself into a state of perfect being.  As above, so below.  I would like to end this post by taking this just one step further.  I see the entire universe as one being doing whatever the hell universes do in the land beyond our many dimensions.  All of us, all of THIS STUFF, is but a metaphor for what lies above.  Take some time to reflect on those words.  As above, so below.  The universe is breathing.  Listen to that breath, dear reader, and you will know fear no more.

7 questions

Sooooo Facebook is making me ask myself 7 important questions.  Why not answer them here?

1. What would you do with your life if you didn’t have to pay the bills? If money weren’t an issue, what would you do with your days? Would you write? Read? Sing? Whatever it is, you have to do that thing. Money is an interesting phenomenon that completely controls our everyday lives without having any purpose other than sustainability in the form of purchasing from others what we could produce and create right in our own backyards. Consider that when you’re deciding between a soulless job that will make you rich versus a life that will feed your passions.

-Chill in coffee shops and work on comics, art, music.

-Picket outside schools about adultism and hand out free books.

-Offer my time to work in a library or on a farm or in a cafe.

-Try to save the world in every way possible (because there are simply too many to list right now)

2. What cuts you the deepest? So much is defined by what we’re most affected by. Really, what do you not even want to think about right now because it brings you so much emotion? Let those things in, and sit with them. Consider them. Integrate them in your life. We call this acceptance. It doesn’t mean you have to like it, it just means it is something that moves you very deeply for some reason, so you shouldn’t ignore it. Figure out what that reason is.

-Many things cut me deep.  The many ills of this world/society, the many inner turmoils I face on my own, the many things I know I cannot help...  But I try to remember one thing: problems can only do two things.  They can kill you, or they can force you to get creative and grow out of it.  For example, one day our sun will explode.  We can either grieve and wait to explode or we can think how awesome it'll be to be space travelers.  Without that inevitability, we might never be forced to transcend our Earthly place.  For another example, I have faced a lot of anguish in my life.  It didn't kill me, but it has helped me find the humility and empathy to be a decent person.  I could be mad, or I could enjoy it. ... But to stop avoid the question, the things that cut me deepest are being trans and the abomination of a society our elders have created.

3. If you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today? Live for today or plant seeds for tomorrow.  What path is most important for you to take before you embark on that new road we call death?

-I'd listen to this song on repeat (and maybe this one too).  I'd also write a long letter to family and friends.  I'd tell my siblings some truths I've kept from them.  I'd print up a copy of my blog, find all my old drawings, take down the things my students made for me over the years off my wall, compile a big compilation of the joys of my life and plan a ceremony to celebrate life...  Don't mourn my death.  Death sounds like a wonderful adventure-- and I'll see you there.

4. Who do you love and why do you love them? The first people that come to mind are very much a part of who you are. But what’s even more important is why you love these people. Where is your love and what is it based on?

-Love is complicated for me.  Seeing matter and "people" as interchangable allows me to love notes forged with intensity, songs sung with tears, moments lost in time, random strangers full of pain, as well as close individuals with whom I share intimate or non-intimate relations.  ... OK, yeah, to answer the question without copping out, I will say my family... Yet I will say my family is far more than simply the ones who share my blood.  You know who you are.

5. What do you quote? I’m always interested by what people quote, especially on social media, because really, they’re not bringing your attention to something that someone wise said as much as they are trying to tell you something about themselves. Look at what you want to perpetuate to other people, when you yourself can’t find the words. What strikes you most is who you are.

-I have the most eclectic and varied quote stores in my brain.  If this were D&D, I'd have devoted a feat to it.  However, I find myself quoting Rumi more often than anyone else these days.  That old lecherous fart... he knew some shit.

6. In those rare but life-changing moments, how do you act?  When you’re at the end of your rope and you have to make a decision, which way do you choose? Notice the patterns in the paths you choose to take. Notice how you help others when they ask for it. Notice more how you help when they don’t. Your instinctive, intuitive reactions do say something about you. I know some would argue that instincts are just by-products of technically being animals, but our instincts are also formed by the thoughts that we craft in our minds.

-I make many calculations and fortify myself with knowledge, but at the end of the day, I follow my instinct and I listen to the language of the world which deafens me to much that logic and reasoning whispers in my ear.  I don't find these moments rare.  Every day is an explosion of action and reaction, the great cosmic dance of Shiva.  There is a flow and once in line with it, I believe every moment of your life becomes life-changing.  I'll tell you for sure if that's true once I'm in line with that flow.

7. What do you think about most? It’s the little things that add up and create who you are, and if you really want to see where you’re at, write down the things you think about most. They are where you are most invested. They are where you are most curious, interested, perplexed, pained and inspired. These are the things and people who most tell you who you are, because they are the things and people who have remained with you, even if they’re not physically there anymore.

-hmmm.  Gender, how to make society better, higher states of consciousness, humility at the vastness of the universe, and joy at all the simple things.

Finding the light in the darkness

I said that line in a previous post and it surprised me.  I don't really know why I said it, it really wasn't related to what I was saying, but it happened and it has been tumbling through my thoughts ever since.  Get ready to go on a journey, dear reader.  This thought spreads its arms across the vastness of human experience.  I will start this tale in a place you'd never expect and lead you into the unknown and then back to the humblest yet most quintessential aspect of our soul.  I have a lot to live up to in my own introduction...  So it is time to start.

In economics, there is a term called marginal cost.  For you calculus minded individuals, this term defines the integral of the producer's cost to produce an additional unit, q, with respect to q.  For those of you non calculus people, I will have to use more words to describe the same thing:  When producing an item, there are some initial costs like building a factory to make it, wages for labor to produce it, and the price of raw material for it to exist in.  All those costs divided by the number of units that can be produced with those costs is one way of thinking of the marginal cost.  According to a lot of market theory, the marginal cost of increasing my productivity by one unit is the price we should sell our good at; ie if I still have loans on the factory floor and my CEO has a huge salary, then my marginal cost will be pretty high, but once I have paid off the price of land and fired my CEO, the cost of increasing my output by one reduces drastically, and so should my marginal cost, the price my customers pay.  

Technology has driven real marginal cost down on an exponential curve the last hundred years.  The industrial revolution was but one step on this path.  We broke the task of making a shirt across the world, cloth coming from here, dye coming from there, labor coming from here, distribution going there.  Institutionalized slavery still exists today, but the mechanization of labor could reduce the cost and time of production further.  With all these drops, why hasn't the price of creating dropped?  Because the marginal cost remains the same in the balance books of these companies.  As marginal cost has exponentiated downwards, upper management pay has exponentiated upward which holds our marginal cost at 20 dollars even when it costs 13c to make a shirt.  

People say often that this greed is the ultimate evil of our time.  It is the darkness, the yin, the masculine energy flourishing to dominating power that has subjugated our world to the state we see today.  Yet the light is rising, my dear reader.  You know it.  You feel it as I do.  But how?  It is in the nature of masculinity and femininity that our story travels next.

Masculinity is a blanket of earth or a swathe of fire.  It extends and covers, it smothers with its exuberance and desire.  Femininity is the wind or the water.  It flows and it yields eternally.  Masculinity reaches indefinitely and femininity is never truly grasped.  If masculine energy has reached so far as it has in our economic model, how is that feminine energy to return the masculine back into balance if it only yields?  Let's talk the housing market to answer that, shall we?

College debt has exploded over the past fifty years to the point that fewer and fewer homes are being purchased and that market is slowly dying.  As this cycle begins to wane, the young are not reaching for new homes, they are being inherited, traded, and communally built.  Why?  Because economic oppression from our economic model forces people to be more efficient and use less and something just clicks.  Some personal transformation occurs and them to become as humble as the dirt.  After being shoved into the dirt, they become the dirt and economic shackles no longer hold them.  Homes get passed down and no longer have any value aside from becoming places of life shared as a community of man.  This is how femininity triumphs.  Please remember, I am not talking about man and woman, I am talking about a state of being.  It is not to say that all women are like this and all men are like that.  The correlation exists, but we all have both in us at a certain balance that changes every passing moment.

An arguably better example is Napster.  Someone took it upon themselves to use the free building tools provided on the internet to build a sharing house for media.  Once media springs out of the mind and into the physical realm, it is replicated and shared on these platforms with very small marginal cost compared to running a company that crafts and ships disks.  The cost of housing and replicating 90kb is negligible, why pay a distribution company with thirty offices of stooges who isn't really paying the artist for their profits anyway?  Fast forward ten years and media is being produced and shared on YouTube professionally on nothing but advertisement revenue.  Marginal cost is so small, it can be absorbed by someone who wants to steal a bit of your airwave to sell someone detergent.  So many free platforms now exist and the amount of wallet saved from this free exchange encourages donations to what someone knows is worth their investment.  A freer market emerges.

This feminine motion is intoxicating, it draws you into it like all sacredly feminine motions do.  Once the Napster market was tasted, it was too sweet.  Once soaked in this masculine darkness as we have, these feminine motions draw us back out into the light BECAUSE OF the darkness before.  Without being forced to pay an absurdly imbalanced marginal cost, freer models of being would not be so seductive.  Ironically, the darker the shadow, the brighter the light needed to create it.  We have been in the dark so long that it can be hard to see how far this light will take us.  Fifty years from now, I imagine a brightness that looks like this:

I imagine a young person building a set for a movie.  She has a device attached to her arm.  It is a deeply interconnected device that links her to like minded individuals.  With it, she finds or creates the schematics for a piece of her set for free.  The rendering technology exists because someone desired to make it.  The energy exists because our star still shines and our wind still blows.  She grabs some recycled material and feeds it into this device and it prints her imagination into reality.  She crafts her whole scene this way, creating the illusion of being in a wake-walking lucid dream of her imagination and she spills forth this story into reality without a single dime.  She is housed wherever she may go because no one owns land anymore and the world is beautified with communal architecture that incorporates natural cycles into its designs that eat waste and regurgitate food-- like an edible architecture birthed in the minds of the local artists.  She is making her movie because it has meaning for her.  With no marginal cost, she gives her movie to the sharers.  The money donated to her by the fans of her imagination goes towards treating herself beyond the basic needs provided for her by the sacred environment she lives in.  Man lives in rhapsodic abundance and life is lived to the point of tears in every waking moment.  

This image-- this light will grow not just from, but because of the darkness that envelops us today.  Without the ideas of mechanization, efficiency, the ever grasping for more that strangles the mighty into husks of Sin, we would not have these tools.  Now armed with the fruits of that mindset, we are free to take it and create with it.  Therefore I say that I am in love with masculinity-- in love with this evil darkness, because it's depths grow me.  When he envelops me, I become the light in his darkness and suddenly I am cradling him and we are one in the same.  

One day, like the breath of a divine being, the feminine light will be smothered again by darkness on a grander scale as it has from the birth of reality.  One day, that darkness will become light yet again, but I can only hope I will be long dead to see what darkness the next cycle will know.  I do not hate the dark that has swept over us as it now fades.  I anticipate it, so that I may flow around its advances and use its flame to burn brighter and longer than I ever knew possible.