Code – EDEN by FREI

Expiration

We are not doomed.

We may well be determined and we may be defined but we are not definitive and we won’t go on forever and we won’t ever die: immortality is granted, though the wish is monstrous, as long as we take it upon ourselves to be the centre of our own attention.

Conduits to the stream. The energy, the code, the connection. We may yet go extinct; we need not mourn ourselves: we leave behind perhaps no legacy but our intention to do well.

Complex situations, simple choices: do you put anger in the world and hatred and want and division and them versus us and incomprehension and rejection, hostility, enmity, loss; or do you engender hope. Do you foster recognition, respect. Enjoinment: empathy. Different, differentiated manifestations of one and the same.

Never even mind that we’re human: remember we are god. When every mistake we’ve ever made is multiplied with every catastrophe, our hearts may hurt from the unwisdom we yield to. And yet: we can make it so, we can make it other.

The thing that we’re made of may yet lift us. We can, whether we want to or not; but wanting to is harder than saying no. Everything is known, everyone can be understood.

Accept as the deepest part of you that which you loathe most. The person you despise: you are him, you are her. Embrace them. The child murderess. The suicide bomber. The bludgeoner to death. You celebrate, you cheer, you dance your pride when your football team wins. When your psychopath strikes: suffer him to be your disaster no less than you appropriate your goal scorer’s triumph. The medals on the athlete’s chest are badges of your honour no more and no less than the bloodstains on the knife stabber’s hand are witness to your failure. Own it.

Grow up into the painful truths, and free yourself. There is no freedom without truth. There is no truth without pain. There is no pain that does not carry a reward. When all is said and done: start over. There is no reward without loss. There is no loss without self. There is no self that stands alone.

Surrender to the motion of a greater purpose. Even if you don’t understand. Even if you do not believe. Even if you’re not convinced. Your heart knows long before your brain, because your brain is more powerful than you think: when knowledge is you and you are the world and the world is an instance in just one universe and the universe is a thought and the thought is expressed then you are god: you are god.

Accept the burden of being all powerful. Make good on your promise. Dare love.

< {Orlando}

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{Orlando}

i am orlando

breathless at the bacchanal bewitched, senses submerged, my image mirrored, my mind magicked, my emotions modulated magnified unmoderated and maybe immodest, myself multiplied:

masked dancer at the carnival bald bearded lady, fashionista beehive diva, torch song bearer of my soul pole-dancing scientist shop floor assistant checking out the other side, experimenter, part-time genius moustachioed hipster sophist nerd geek self-inventor and bespectacled spectator taking in, in- haling, hailing without praise or condemnation participant observer, being-done-to doer

all exposed

the pushing to the fore, persistent rushing shoreward of wave upon wave: the daily deluge of disaster

wilfully constructed, or else wantonly permitted to occur and then dispersed with breathless kick and fury horned-up with excitement round the clock catastrophe porn paired with power penetration to the brain: every second someone selling something a tsunami of musthave dispensables then news again the weather breaking down ten thousand perish in a flood security alert three men arrested at the airport one who fled soft-spoken leaker of state secrets swears allegiance to the people; people protest the police, the army bullets rifles hand grenades, ex- superpower eyeing up her neighbours’ territories, boundaries unkept, unrecognised, rendered irrelevant space probe touchdown on the comet, cheers and champagne at base, break through the tunnel, high speed trains dark matter and dark energy the murder of the messengers a million on the streets in solidarity, fighters of and for freedom feeling pain, offenders in each other’s eyes – our tears all taste the same

a smartphone with an app the university that taps into the global lecture hall a telescope array across a mountain table peering deep into the origin of time, and cupcakes talent shows, made-up realities downloads, stolen identities and printed body parts milestones in mending memories, the tantalising likelihood that we are not alone sandcastles made of stars, stars made of frivolities cat videos and piles and piles of rubbish

rejects refugees residents of uncertainty, nomads by adverse conditions, the collateral of calamity unwanted unloved, un- understood disowned dishonoured dismissed dishevelled, dis- affected indistinct in the morass of mass morbidity, in- visible

flashes of inspiration fascinations colours, glitter decadences balls: exuberances festivals and congregations, close communions travel at the speed of sound, lightspeed communication instantaneous pools of commonality the vibe and exultation, the euphoria the sharpwit razor of precision, the ingeniousness the shared experience the climactic joy, the sacred orgasm of life

.. ..

i rest i pause i meditate, i am orlando i reflect

i have no solution, there are no solutions i have no anger: anger is void, i ease i learn i think i offer

silence

i become the citizen and i see sparks of wisdom and then once again i laugh i love i give i take i lose myself i win i love again, i want and want not and want not to want, i realise i am a part of it: i am a part of everything, every thing is part of me

i am the gods i am the universe i am the energy i am the code i am the probability i am the failure and the hope and the despair i am the triumph of existence

that is what i am: i am

orlando

.. [{Orlando} was first published as part of Orlando in the Cities in A Quantum City, Birkhäuser 2015]

< Experiment

Expiration >

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Watch Coda from Orlando in the Cities Video

{Connexum}

not the essay, just the idea
not the notion that everything is connected, that is not new
and not the question
how connected is everything
but the question
how
if everything is connected
is everything connected.

if things are connected
there must be something that connects them

and for many things that are connected
we know what that is
we can see it, measure it, build it, make it
we can name it:
the axles the shafts
the electric current the
data the code and the signal

but what about things that are connected and we
don’t know what it is that connects them
what about
quantum entanglement
for example, einstein’s
spukhafte fernwirkung
what about that?

there is no doubt that things are connected of which
we don’t know how this is
and
if things are connected
there has to be some thing that connects them
even if that is
a thing we have not detected
a thing we have not yet detected and so not yet given a name to
a thing we have not yet detected but may yet find
we can find

that would give us
three things in principle:
energy
information
and the third thing
the thing that connects things
for which we don’t yet have a name
but we have
maybe
names
for manifestations of it
the strong and weak nuclear forces
the electromagnetic force and the force of
gravity

what if these forces are to the third thing as
light sound heat motion are to the first (energy)
and as
data code and semantic content are to the second (information)
what if that third thing is a thing in itself
that exists and that is
as yet only
partly
understood

as humans we like sets of threes
trios, triumvirates, trinities
they give us a deeper reality

at first glance we seem to be living in twos
in the binaries of
male/female
plus/minus
hot/cold
dark/light
day/night
yes/no
1/0

but it only takes one thought to know
that
neat and simple as this looks and sounds

it is patently not our
reality
our reality
here too
needs a third component each time:

male/trans/female
plus/neutral/minus
hot/tepid/cold
dark/twilight/light
yes/maybe/no
1/anything in between/0

even yin and yang are not a duality
but a symbolic expression of the way apparent opposites complement each other as part of
the same

and this
is when it gets really interesting, when
dualities are not augmented by that which is in between
but are understood as the whole:

yin/same/yang

for which the quantum equivalent then would be
wave/wave-or-particle-depending-on-how-you-look-at-it/particle

what if
we’ve always known this to be the case
and have expressed it in many ways
the elements of
the same the other and the essence
in plato’s timaeus
the father the son and the holy spirit
anicca, dukkha, anattā:
impermanence
suffering
non-self

what if that third thing
the essence, the holy spirit, the non-self
is
in principle
the thing that connects
everything

the third thing
the thing for which we don’t yet have a name but that exists and that
we most likely
will find and be able to identify, a

connexum?

[ <THE BOURNEMOUTH & BOSCOMBE TRILOGY: Redemption]

{The Fire Breather} >

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Expiration

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EDEN was originally published in random order. Starting 1st August 2018 it is being reposted in sequence. To follow it, choose from the subscribe options in the lefthand panel (from a laptop) or in the drop-down menu (from a mobile device).

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{Orlando}

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{Connexum}

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Thanks & enjoy.