mahiwaga

I'm not really all that mysterious

portents

What is the most likely explanation is that the only thing I’ve had to eat (at least since 11 a.m.) is practically pure unadulterated sugar. Never underestimate the fact that sugar is actually quite a potent psychotropic agent.

So the main reason I woke up today (after crashing out around 2 p.m., having been at work for a decent 30 hours) was to get a new fan, one of those Vornados, because (1) my apartment doesn’t have AC and (2) these things are pretty compact and I don’t have a lot of room. During these summer months, my apartment gets blisteringly hot, mostly because I have an insane amount of computer equipment always on.

So I get in my car and make my pilgrimage to that blessed land of geekery, and the bane of my financial existence, Fry’s Electronics. Now most Fry’s, especially this Fry’s, tend to depress the hell out of me, partly because I have no disposable income and can’t afford anything, but mostly because there are some sad individuals who hang around these type of places, and I’m not sure if it’s sympathy or antipathy that I feel for them. Maybe because I identify a little too well with the stereotypical geek.

Luckily, they didn’t have any Vornados (at least none that I was willing to pay for, because, frankly, I am not going to pay $79 for an electric fan, no matter how stylishly retro-futuristic it looks) so I didn’t have to throw down any filthy lucre.

Now what happens next is that I notice a hunger pang burning in my epigastric region. There are two options at this point: I can either take an H2 blocker with or without a PPI to get rid of this acidic feeling and go back to sleep, or I can get something to eat. After a ridiculously long internal debate, I decide to actually get something to eat, the next obvious question being, what.

I end up aimlessly wandering to the strip mall containing the Coffee Bean and Borders Books. Who should wander by but my sister’s ex-boyfriend. Trippy. Turns out he is moving in with the sister of his brother’s girlfriend who happens to be a medical student whom I worked with now starting her residency. OK, I know, antecedents, shmantecedents. The law requires me to preserve anonymity, so there.

Anyway, I end up going to Borders and spending $100 on music and books. Not exactly what I intended to buy. What are you going to do.

But what struck me was when I headed up of the bookstore, ready to go home and crawl back into bed (because, lucky me, I get to go to work tomorrow.) In the still, fetid summer air, I got this sense of, I don’t know. Potentiality. Possibility. Maybe a Garden of Forking Paths, if you will (and if Borges will forgive me.) Now, I’ve gotten this feeling before, and it’s never led to any good, frankly. Mostly because I’ve always let that potentiality just sort of leak away. I’m not really that good at snatching up opportunity, at grabbing for things that I want. For better or (more likely) for worse, I’m the kind of guy who figures that whatever I need in my life will be within close reach, and I’ll eventually always end up whereever I need to go. Some call this “lack of ambition.” I like to think of it more as tending the garden.

Who knows how different my life would be if I never read Benjamin Hoff’s The Tao of Pooh

But I find it fascinating how physics and Taoism frequently have congruent imagery. Taoism uses the metaphor of a river flowing downstream quite frequently to describe the Way itself. The Way is potentiality. And discussions of the Laws of Thermodynamics frequently involve the metaphor of a river. Everyone can intuitively understand that rivers flow from higher to lower elevations, and energy flows exactly like that. The technical physics term potential energy describes this very energy. Not the actual energy of the flow of water, but the possible energy that would be released if that water were allowed to flow.

My interpretation of the Way is that grasping at things that are out of your reach is like trying to go too far against the free energy gradient. Sure, getting what you want in life takes energy, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I can’t help but think that so much sorrow in the world is caused by using too much energy to get somewhere or obtain something without ever considering the possibility that you might not like it there when you get there or when you get whatever it is what you want. And so we spend all this time dissipating this potentiality skittering hither and thither, trying to find happiness like it were hiding in some actual place, some object or achievemnt, or in another person.

When it’s actually always in reach.

Or so the Taoist sages say. I personally wouldn’t know. I suspect they’re right, but I haven’t quite figured out the Way yet.

Supposedly, what you find by staying still instead of running around like a chicken with its head cut off is that you can actually get reach pretty far. There’s something magical about it that actually mimics bizarre phenomena in the quantum universe. Consider, I don’t know, a photon. Consider an energy well like the Earth. Science fiction writers will frequently refer to it as a gravity well. What they’re referring to is the fact that it takes energy to shirk off the influence of Earth’s gravity, a lot of energy, in fact. But once you’ve reached escape velocity, it actually doesn’t take that much energy to get farther and farther. So popular science writers and science fiction writers will use the three dimensional image of four dimensional space-time where Earth sits at the bottom of a pit with steep sides that eventually start levelling off at the top.

Now quantum objects exist as waves, according to Erwin Schrödinger, and traditionally, a photon sitting at the bottom of Earth’s gravity well would be a waveform extending from one wall of the pit to the other wall of the pit, except that the actual wave equation would show this isn’t true, and that the waveform actually extends throughout the entire universe, it’s just that the actual probability that it will be outside of the gravity well is a whole hell of a lot less than the probability that it will inside the gravity well. Except that photons do escape. Tunnel through, in fact. This is quantum tunneling. (As I understand it. I could certainly have gotten the whole thing all fucked up.)

So metaphysically speaking, I kind of think of a person’s potentiality like that. And particularly their reach. You may think that you’re never going to influence anything outside your tiny little patch of the universe, but once in a while, something gets out there and changes the world.

Now I’m not literally saying that you should stay still and never go anywhere and just kind of rot there in your own spoor, but what I’m saying is that you’ve got to give it a lot of thought why you want to expend that energy getting out of that gravity well. It’s an investment with uncertain returns, and frankly, one piece of the universe is as good as the next when it comes to finding happiness. I’m not saying that personal growth isn’t good (although cynicism sometimes overtakes me and I can’t help quoting Tyler Durden: “Self-improvement is masturbation. Now, self-destruction…”) But personal growth is more related to rooting yourself in one spot and growing tree rings rather than traversing the map superficially, never really leaving a trace. Sure, there’s a place for ephemera, and it’s crucial to have a sense of wonder and curiosity intact, but I have this feeling that it’s extremely different to find lasting happiness by always looking for novelty.

Hmmm. Why does it sound like I’m trying to talk myself into something that I’m afraid of?

Too funny.

Potentiality.

Right now all I’m going to do is revel in it. And just let the river find its way to the Sea.

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