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Thursday, December 13, 2001

Everything

I also wanted to ask a question about your journal entry entitled Zerogamy. I will admit that it is a vague question, but I think must be vague based on your entry. What is everything? Does everything mean someone who has dreams similar to yours with the ability to accomplish them in your absence?

As you say, it is vague (my own statement more than your question). It's just how the intuition comes out in words, and honestly I haven't yet solidified it logically. When I try, it translates (at this moment) into: someone who is actively curious about, and creative with, everything; who puts in the effort (a lot!) into pursuing that curiosity and creativity -- e.g., painting, composing, exploring, sporting, scientificating, philosophizing, cooking, acting, writing, playing, building, dissecting, inventing, and so on to infinity. Even if time only permits a finite number of such pursuits, even if only a small number can be done at once if to be done at all, there is still the bottomless desire, open awareness, and ever-present readiness that come from just seeing and wanting all that is possible.

It is a vantage point from which most of the world's concerns seem so terribly superficial and insignificant, all fighting over dew drops yet oblivious to the lake.

But, as you imply, there is the simpler question of personal taste. Maybe most people see themselves the same way, and their concept of "everything" just looks very different than mine when passed through our respective value filters.

I think the truth is a little of each, though, where in addition to varying tastes, most people just don't see what is possible, and/or aren't willing to put out the effort to make it happen, and/or haven't really come to grips with their own mortality. (E.g., religion masks the urgency of life, making people better worker bees, and crappy romantics. But more generally, the visceral truth of mortality is not easily grappled by the human mind...)

My friends in general score pretty highly here, btw, so I don't mean to imply the earth is barren of such people. I just haven't bumped into one with sufficiently compatible tastes, objectives, physique, sense of humor, etc.. etc.. I just said it seems so simple; didn't say it was. :)

-Simon

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