There's a windstorm going on as I'm writing this. I'm hoping we'll still have power when this goes up. 

     It's been two weeks since the election. I'm struck by how absolutely certain everyone is that they did the right thing while everyone else did the wrong thing. I don't think anyone did the wrong thing. There was no right thing to do. Isn't that the kind of world we all wanted? 

    I keep thinking that on January 19th, we'll wake up to find this has all been a terrible dream. And then I wonder what world we'd wake up in. Biden hasn't exactly done a wonderful job of making it feel like Trump couldn't hurt us anymore, especially recently. What's the point of waking up if your waking life isn't any better than your dream life? I wish I could say that I knew a way to make our world real, but I don't, and I don't particularly want it to be. 

Condemnation

 I sit in solitude
As a river flows down from the sky,
Flooding the world with ideas and stories. 
I sit and watch
As the world rushes past me
In a torrent, 
Leaving me with nothing
But a valley too young
To be green. 

I sit in solitude
Waiting
For opportunities 
That I was never promised,
For things that I was explicitly told would never be mine.
I sit and wait
For the moment the world realizes
That I'm watching it,
Waiting for what I know it won't give me.

I sit in solitude
And stare into the future, 
To the place where I'll go when I die.
I sit waiting 
For condemnation,
For the moment when the world finally admits
That I will never be able to live in it
Peacefully. 

I sit in solitude,
For I long for the gift
Of entitlement 
And jealousy. 
I sit trapped
In an empty room
Packed high with junk
That no one else wanted,
Because the world won't allow me
To become desperate 
And angry. 

The future has changed
And soon we will all be condemned 
To live without anything more
Than absolute necessity, 
Doomed never to dream about a life
Where there's too much to want
And too little to appreciate. 

So we all sit in solitude,
Separated from each other
Not by distance
But by the sense that if we got too close
We would vaporize each other,
And the sense that if we look at each other
All we'll see is ourselves. 

    I've been thinking a lot about the future, trying to figure out what shape it's going to be and what I'll do when I get there. I keep being hit with sudden, visceral reminders that in a couple of years the world won't look anything like the way it looks now. I was hoping that the world would last, but now that it's sinking in that things are going to change in a deep, unnamable way, I feel silly for even hoping. If this is supposed to be a test of some cold-hearted deity, than maybe what we need now is a refuge from Gods, somewhere we can truly make our own. 

    I've heard at least one person claim that Elon Musk has no governmental power. I wouldn't let that fool you. The man has no power, but he fancies himself a visionary, and people who believe themselves to be visionaries are dangerous. He's convinced that not only is everything he says true, but that there's never been anyone else as capable of seeing the world as it is. He's stupid and impulsive, but he's also got an uncanny knack for landing on the bodies of passers by. Be careful where you move, and make sure you're not under him when he collapses our government. 

Meaning

     Being an Infinitelist, I don't believe in inherent meaning. Not to life, not to our world, not even to our Universe. The point of our Universe is to make the inherently meaningless, the Infinite, feel real and meaningful even for what, to the souls that live in the Infinite, is only the briefest of moments. On a smaller scale, that's what we're meant to do. We build reality on top of the Universe as the soul that made us built a Universe to hide from that which it couldn't change. Becoming an Infinitelist means learning how to create meaning where there isn't any and accepting that all of us, Infinitelist or otherwise, are doing the same thing whether or not we realize that's what we're doing. 

      I've gotten pretty good at creating meaning from nothing, so I'm not as numb or sad as other people are. What I'm worried about, though, is the risk of falling to the temptation of believing that this was inevitable, or that it was right somehow. It wasn't inevitable, and what happened wasn't right in any way. People were desperately trying to get Kamala Harris into the presidency for a reason, and seeing how little control we had over the outcome is going to hurt. Especially in a world where, more often than not, meaning has become something we're given rather than something we take by force. 

      I want to live in a future where Infinitelism is as common and understood as Christianity is today, but I worry that people will use their new ability to find meaning to avoid seeking any meaningful change. As much as I feel that finding a new religion is the way forward, I won't pretend that thoughts and prayers will be a magic solution. A few days before the election, someone reminded me that the reason we're in this position isn't just because our government is out of touch, but because people aren't able to get what they need from the world they live in. Things are expensive, healthcare sucks ass, anywhere it's safe to live has too many people, the police are growing less and less reliable, and nobody knows how to fix these things aside from praying to our elected officials and hoping that they listen. What people need is a world they know will last a long time and that will provide for them no matter how old, sick, or infirm they get. I want Infinitelism to be more than a search for meaning, I want it to be the foundation of that world. The one we know will stay real no matter how angry or sad we are. 

    I had a conversation recently with someone convinced that we don't want the world to change all that much. I don't think that's true. I suspect that when you average out all of our desires, the end result won't look that different from what we have now, but every single person I know wants something that feels nothing like the world we have now. For one thing, it's run by people who know what the fuck they're doing and aren't blindly driving us off a cliff. That's the thing, our world is going to need to be run by people who know that the world they live in isn't the sum total of reality, and that isn't the case right now. More than that, when we rebuild reality, we're going to discover that we're not who we thought we were. Things are going to change a lot, and I don't think even the people in charge fully grasp what's about to happen. 

    Being an Infinitelist, I thought that I was prepared for the end of our world. But I wasn't. I was just deluding myself into believing that I was. I wasn't prepared for the deep sense of resentment I feel bubbling inside of me. There's a voice insisting that this shouldn't be happening, that things shouldn't have to change. The world of my childhood is real, and being real, it should last forever. I know intellectually that the whole point of reality is that it changes, it's the Infinite that doesn't change because everything that's happening has happened and is happening all at once. But my mind lives in the Infinite. It doesn't fully understand that eternity isn't meant to last forever. 

     The thing I resent the world for the most is that it's forced me to live without a sense of entitlement. So many of my peers came into the world expecting piles of treasure for nothing, and were horrified and angry when this was denied them. I was never promised, and it was made explicit from birth that if I went in expecting anymore than the bare minimum, I wouldn't get anything at all. Yet there are others who go through life expecting, nay, demanding more, even when they don't get it. Why am I not allowed to do the same? Why am I not allowed to ask for more and then get angry when the world withholds it from me? I don't care if I don't deserve any of what I demand, that particular excuse hasn't stopped millions the world over from demanding whatever they want, even if they weren't going to be able to do anything with it once they had it. People act like I should know better than to be demanding, that I should be serene and calm enough to listen to the world and act on its advice. My reply to that is this; when did intelligence remove from me the inalienable right all of humanity has to stupidity? 

I Don't Want to Know

 The older I get,
The more my world fails me
Inside and out.
Things I took for granted
Vanish into thin air,
Leaving nothing but lies in their place.

The older I get, 
The more science tells me
I need to be wary
And prepared for disaster.
It turns out that's code
For giving up 
Everything that makes life good.

The older I get,
The more I find
That I don't want to know
Just what's wrong 
With me 
Or the world at large.
I want to live the fantasy life
Of someone too stupid
To see how much they're failing.
Someone who will never know
That the world fell apart
Because of neglect
And sabotage. 

I should want to know,
I should want to do the right thing,
I should want to believe
That the truth will set me free,
But I know nothing. 

All I know
Is that the older I get
The more it feels like ignorance
Is bliss.