Of the endless trains of the faithless - of the cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of my eyes that vainly crave the light - of the objects mean - of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of us all - of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest - with the rest of me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here - that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
God languished at the edge of the universe for lack of something better to do. He was just so bored by everything he had been doing for the last half of eternity (infinite minds are awfully hard to occupy indefinitely). So he told himself stories and waited to run into something or someone interesting. The universe that he had seen this far had ceased to interest him especially since there wasn't much to see, mostly shades of black on darkness; so he abandoned the void where he resided and his profound thoughts that can really only be contemplated in absence of anything else and went in search of something other than empty space and empty-headed thoughts. As there was still nothing to see God closed his eyes and watched the colors and forms that danced on his eyelids and wrote stories about the color and the little points of light. God liked to think that he was a great story-teller and his stories were filled with the detail and sensuous delight his universe was lacking. People with depth and life filled every scene; they had back stories and dialogue and were story-tellers in their own right. God was actually very proud of his creations; they were unorthodox in the void which swallowed everything that couldn't stand on two legs of truth and that they could stay in his head without being sucked up by the void as well delighted him. Most of the inhabitants of the void, those true things which couldn't be denied, agreed with its philosophy that anything that wasn't true should evaporate into emptiness because that's all lies and fictions are anyways, just emptiness, the absence of truth; some even thought God should evaporate as well since he was just full of it but none of them could deny his truth, so he stuck around and spent his days imagining entire worlds of imagining people.
With his eyes closed God could see everything ever wanted in the way of interesting worlds and things and people except one thing that he couldn't see because it wasn't inside his eyelids and he was very startled when he bumped into it. The soul that he bumped into shrieked, well it would have if it had known what a shriek was, but God had some idea and that's how he heard it. God whipped around and opened his eyes to see what he had unwittingly disturbed but like everything in the void it was black against darkness and even with Gods keen eyes he couldn't pick it out until he brushed up against it again and another shriek trumpeted in his ears. It was a speck and God feeling especially guilty for frightening it so badly cupped the speck of soul in his hands to calm it down, but when he reached out to it again to soothe it he was taken aback with shock and wonder. The little soul he held in his hands has no senses, it couldn't see the void or hear the booming voices of truths that passed though the universe whenever they were announcing their new platforms; it had never perceived or known anything until their chance encounter and since then all it felt was mortal fear. God was puzzled but his immediate reaction was to calm the trembling soul, to make it feel something other than fear since that was certainly the worst way for any truth to go through life. He spoke to it softly and tried to feed it calming thoughts but the soul was panicking at the intrusion to its previously blank mind and it darted frantically from one palm to the other only feeling more and more trapped. God was visibly upset and was afraid that if he did any more that he would only make the souls condition worse. But he wanted it to have more on its mind than just a terrifying encounter with something so much bigger than itself so he started feeding it images from its mind so that one day it might be able to remember those and not only its own experience. The soul fled eventually and God watched it go until he blinked and suddenly couldn't make out its form any longer. He had scared off the first interest thing he had run across in the universe: he sat and pondered since there was really nothing else to do and turned his mind back upon itself.
Bump! God was so confused. Bump-bump-bumpbump-bummmmp! He had been lost in thought for ages and this was such a weird, persistent feeling that had broken his reverie. He looked down at the speck that was poking him in the side with such conviction. The soul was back; and putting on the most impertinent display God had ever seen. God knew why it was here, every bump communicated the same idea and conveyed it very intently; interest, in anything God had to say. Ironically all God could think to say was "Huh."
The speck followed God wherever he went, mostly latching on to hear stories and thoughts that were constantly flowing from Gods mind and devouring each one with eager delight. God let colors and forms flow out of him and into the void where they mostly dissipated and some were captured by his enthralled parasite; God no longer cared that his thoughts were fading into nothing into the void, he was broadcasting for everyone to hear and was triumphant in the knowledge that he had one listener. Then out of nowhere came another bump-bumpbump, and God looked down; another stray soul had pressed up to God. It had just heard the faintest sound but after existing for an eternity without a single voice the soul flew to the sound of God. Suddenly scores of souls were flocking to God, all hearing and thinking for the first time. He had stumbled upon thousands of souls all clustered together as they had been since the moment of creation. They swarmed and flew around and God stood in awe for the first time in his life. All this time they had been sitting here at the edge of the infinite universe without a thought, a question, a voluntary movement or a story to speak of and every single one was now pressing up against him to hear something, well just anything at all. God thought, and pondered; he was so intrigued and he had hoped for someone to listen to his stories ever since he could remember wanting anything and now he had writers block. What to say, what is good enough? Then the very first soul did something he hadn't expected, it articulated exactly the story it wanted; it wanted to hear its own story, and at that moment God knew exactly how to begin.
God began his epic poem and said "Let there be light" and everything was bright. The souls could see the world of his invention and watched with anticipation. God separated the light from the dark to distinguish everything in it; unlike the universe, his mind was filled with things that were light on dark, where you could really see. Then he created an object, huge and permanent; a world to stand on and just for variety he gave it water and air because this world would be more than just something and the absence of it. Then God looked and said "There needs to be more, this world should be decadent and full of things that multiply to make more and more until there is no space on the world for anything stale or bland. So God imagined into his world, plants that grew and reproduced to fill water and the land. God also played with the light in the sky so it always moved and so every night he and the souls could look up and see twinkling stars: he was really on a roll. Then God looked at the teeming souls, without eyes or ears that could really only see and hear him and he decided to make them something too. He experimented with forms putting each one on the Earth and tweaking the next until finally he came up with something suitable for what they were; in fact as he saw it now they all were human and he gave each a body. The souls all started talking, touching, smelling, tasting and hearing the world God had created and they loved their story. God sat back and listened because he loved their stories too, each of them had at least one to tell. God had made them all in his image; they were all story-tellers too. They told stories of love, passion, hatred, war, honor, courage, loyalty, adventure and every quality that could motivate their tongues move. God watched every story unfold and people listened to people recount them again and again. Humans died, they died a lot but each time their souls would wake up from their dreamlike state in the universe and bed to be let back into the story of their life, even if they had to start over.
One day a soul came rocketing out of the story, screaming, shouting, cursing at the world and life itself and in his rage he ran straight into God. He looked bewildered for a moment but then aimed his curses and rants at God himself, saying that everything was a lie, screaming at him for deceiving all the people the world, never allowing them to know anything because he has shut them off from the truth and the real world. God was perplexed; no one had ever told him that they felt this way before; no one ever thought the story was a bad thing, or even a deception. He asked what the outraged soul wanted in the clearest of terms. The soul responded simply "I want to see the world for myself; I want to know what my existence really is; I want to know the truth!" "Oh." God said he picked up the tiny speck that was so full of anger and he placed him an arm's length away. "Here you are." he said and let go. The souls sight went black, his senses numb and he could no longer scream. He couldn't hear the truths trumpeting their ideologies and he barely even knew he existed at all.3 God watched with pity as the little soul squirmed and darted blindly one way and then another. He wanted something that his nature denied his having and God regretted that he could never show the souls what he feared some of them desired most, a glimpse of reality itself. It was in their nature that they were unable to sense reality for themselves and his nature was to to invent stories and fabrications and in consequence he could never truly show them it himself. He listened to the blaring truths but he could never recite their knowledge, their teachings. He looked at the souls crowded around him and wondered whether his stories had anything to teach.
The end.
1. Walt Whitman. For those of you who enjoy footnotes, Whitman is referred to as Uncle Walt in the Dead Poets Society which I just watched last week.
I found this particular poem (O Me! O Life) while searching Poets.org which I highly recommend to anyone who has some free time and can stand to read in verse. (Yes I do search poetry websites in my free time. Don't judge.)
2. The only reason this got published is because I couldn't sleep. It's 6:10am. I have church in 4 hours and 20 minutes. Hopefully the Scotts think this an appropriate excuse for falling asleep during the service.
3. I wrote the following after publishing this post on Sunday, I wasn't satisfied with the ending so I rewrote it on Monday. Just in case any of you were interested enough to read it again. =)
That you are here - that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
Uncle Walt1
God languished at the edge of the universe for lack of something better to do. He was just so bored by everything he had been doing for the last half of eternity (infinite minds are awfully hard to occupy indefinitely). So he told himself stories and waited to run into something or someone interesting. The universe that he had seen this far had ceased to interest him especially since there wasn't much to see, mostly shades of black on darkness; so he abandoned the void where he resided and his profound thoughts that can really only be contemplated in absence of anything else and went in search of something other than empty space and empty-headed thoughts. As there was still nothing to see God closed his eyes and watched the colors and forms that danced on his eyelids and wrote stories about the color and the little points of light. God liked to think that he was a great story-teller and his stories were filled with the detail and sensuous delight his universe was lacking. People with depth and life filled every scene; they had back stories and dialogue and were story-tellers in their own right. God was actually very proud of his creations; they were unorthodox in the void which swallowed everything that couldn't stand on two legs of truth and that they could stay in his head without being sucked up by the void as well delighted him. Most of the inhabitants of the void, those true things which couldn't be denied, agreed with its philosophy that anything that wasn't true should evaporate into emptiness because that's all lies and fictions are anyways, just emptiness, the absence of truth; some even thought God should evaporate as well since he was just full of it but none of them could deny his truth, so he stuck around and spent his days imagining entire worlds of imagining people.
With his eyes closed God could see everything ever wanted in the way of interesting worlds and things and people except one thing that he couldn't see because it wasn't inside his eyelids and he was very startled when he bumped into it. The soul that he bumped into shrieked, well it would have if it had known what a shriek was, but God had some idea and that's how he heard it. God whipped around and opened his eyes to see what he had unwittingly disturbed but like everything in the void it was black against darkness and even with Gods keen eyes he couldn't pick it out until he brushed up against it again and another shriek trumpeted in his ears. It was a speck and God feeling especially guilty for frightening it so badly cupped the speck of soul in his hands to calm it down, but when he reached out to it again to soothe it he was taken aback with shock and wonder. The little soul he held in his hands has no senses, it couldn't see the void or hear the booming voices of truths that passed though the universe whenever they were announcing their new platforms; it had never perceived or known anything until their chance encounter and since then all it felt was mortal fear. God was puzzled but his immediate reaction was to calm the trembling soul, to make it feel something other than fear since that was certainly the worst way for any truth to go through life. He spoke to it softly and tried to feed it calming thoughts but the soul was panicking at the intrusion to its previously blank mind and it darted frantically from one palm to the other only feeling more and more trapped. God was visibly upset and was afraid that if he did any more that he would only make the souls condition worse. But he wanted it to have more on its mind than just a terrifying encounter with something so much bigger than itself so he started feeding it images from its mind so that one day it might be able to remember those and not only its own experience. The soul fled eventually and God watched it go until he blinked and suddenly couldn't make out its form any longer. He had scared off the first interest thing he had run across in the universe: he sat and pondered since there was really nothing else to do and turned his mind back upon itself.
Bump! God was so confused. Bump-bump-bumpbump-bummmmp! He had been lost in thought for ages and this was such a weird, persistent feeling that had broken his reverie. He looked down at the speck that was poking him in the side with such conviction. The soul was back; and putting on the most impertinent display God had ever seen. God knew why it was here, every bump communicated the same idea and conveyed it very intently; interest, in anything God had to say. Ironically all God could think to say was "Huh."
The speck followed God wherever he went, mostly latching on to hear stories and thoughts that were constantly flowing from Gods mind and devouring each one with eager delight. God let colors and forms flow out of him and into the void where they mostly dissipated and some were captured by his enthralled parasite; God no longer cared that his thoughts were fading into nothing into the void, he was broadcasting for everyone to hear and was triumphant in the knowledge that he had one listener. Then out of nowhere came another bump-bumpbump, and God looked down; another stray soul had pressed up to God. It had just heard the faintest sound but after existing for an eternity without a single voice the soul flew to the sound of God. Suddenly scores of souls were flocking to God, all hearing and thinking for the first time. He had stumbled upon thousands of souls all clustered together as they had been since the moment of creation. They swarmed and flew around and God stood in awe for the first time in his life. All this time they had been sitting here at the edge of the infinite universe without a thought, a question, a voluntary movement or a story to speak of and every single one was now pressing up against him to hear something, well just anything at all. God thought, and pondered; he was so intrigued and he had hoped for someone to listen to his stories ever since he could remember wanting anything and now he had writers block. What to say, what is good enough? Then the very first soul did something he hadn't expected, it articulated exactly the story it wanted; it wanted to hear its own story, and at that moment God knew exactly how to begin.
God began his epic poem and said "Let there be light" and everything was bright. The souls could see the world of his invention and watched with anticipation. God separated the light from the dark to distinguish everything in it; unlike the universe, his mind was filled with things that were light on dark, where you could really see. Then he created an object, huge and permanent; a world to stand on and just for variety he gave it water and air because this world would be more than just something and the absence of it. Then God looked and said "There needs to be more, this world should be decadent and full of things that multiply to make more and more until there is no space on the world for anything stale or bland. So God imagined into his world, plants that grew and reproduced to fill water and the land. God also played with the light in the sky so it always moved and so every night he and the souls could look up and see twinkling stars: he was really on a roll. Then God looked at the teeming souls, without eyes or ears that could really only see and hear him and he decided to make them something too. He experimented with forms putting each one on the Earth and tweaking the next until finally he came up with something suitable for what they were; in fact as he saw it now they all were human and he gave each a body. The souls all started talking, touching, smelling, tasting and hearing the world God had created and they loved their story. God sat back and listened because he loved their stories too, each of them had at least one to tell. God had made them all in his image; they were all story-tellers too. They told stories of love, passion, hatred, war, honor, courage, loyalty, adventure and every quality that could motivate their tongues move. God watched every story unfold and people listened to people recount them again and again. Humans died, they died a lot but each time their souls would wake up from their dreamlike state in the universe and bed to be let back into the story of their life, even if they had to start over.
One day a soul came rocketing out of the story, screaming, shouting, cursing at the world and life itself and in his rage he ran straight into God. He looked bewildered for a moment but then aimed his curses and rants at God himself, saying that everything was a lie, screaming at him for deceiving all the people the world, never allowing them to know anything because he has shut them off from the truth and the real world. God was perplexed; no one had ever told him that they felt this way before; no one ever thought the story was a bad thing, or even a deception. He asked what the outraged soul wanted in the clearest of terms. The soul responded simply "I want to see the world for myself; I want to know what my existence really is; I want to know the truth!" "Oh." God said he picked up the tiny speck that was so full of anger and he placed him an arm's length away. "Here you are." he said and let go. The souls sight went black, his senses numb and he could no longer scream. He couldn't hear the truths trumpeting their ideologies and he barely even knew he existed at all.3 God watched with pity as the little soul squirmed and darted blindly one way and then another. He wanted something that his nature denied his having and God regretted that he could never show the souls what he feared some of them desired most, a glimpse of reality itself. It was in their nature that they were unable to sense reality for themselves and his nature was to to invent stories and fabrications and in consequence he could never truly show them it himself. He listened to the blaring truths but he could never recite their knowledge, their teachings. He looked at the souls crowded around him and wondered whether his stories had anything to teach.
The end.
1. Walt Whitman. For those of you who enjoy footnotes, Whitman is referred to as Uncle Walt in the Dead Poets Society which I just watched last week.
I found this particular poem (O Me! O Life) while searching Poets.org which I highly recommend to anyone who has some free time and can stand to read in verse. (Yes I do search poetry websites in my free time. Don't judge.)
2. The only reason this got published is because I couldn't sleep. It's 6:10am. I have church in 4 hours and 20 minutes. Hopefully the Scotts think this an appropriate excuse for falling asleep during the service.
3. I wrote the following after publishing this post on Sunday, I wasn't satisfied with the ending so I rewrote it on Monday. Just in case any of you were interested enough to read it again. =)
