John Zielinski

composer - saxophone - flute - synth - voice

The Universe Is Neither Safe Nor Fair

This first saw the light of day as a social media post when 2018 was coming to a close. It's a useful thing to remember.

The universe is neither safe nor fair. Bad things happen to good people. Bad people get away with the most horrible things. Each of us – and even all of us – could die at any second thanks to a multitude of possibilities. Maybe it’s appropriate to be thinking about this as the current year enters the beginning of its arbitrary end. After all, the measurement of time is a human construct with no real meaning. You don’t believe me? Then how did the Julian measurement of a year suddenly become the Gregorian measurement with an extra day every 4 years? Why is a day 24 hours long instead of 23 or 10 or 100? And what about this 60 seconds to a minute and 60 minutes to an hour thing? It’s all arbitrary.

“Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?” Yep. Nobody gets out of here alive. I’ve known young people who died without warning. I’ve known old people who wanted to die as their bodies betrayed them, but who ended up living longer and suffering more than they’d hoped. I’m beginning to see people my own age – friends and acquaintances from elementary school, high school and university – leave this plane. Oddly, for all of the talk that I’ve heard since I was a kid in Catholic school about life everlasting and a place of infinite joy after this life, nearly everyone I know seems scared shitless about dying. So much for “faith.” If you haven’t seen The Invention of Lying you really should. Although the circumstances were surely different, I’m fairly certain that the general scenario is pretty much spot on.

This afternoon a hawk hit our patio window, bounced off and ended up landing, dazed, in an oversized flowerpot. It was probably chasing its prey and lost control along the way. It ended up shaking off the effects and flying away to hunt again. According to our anthropocentric beliefs that hawk knows nothing of its mortality and neither do the other birds, mice, rabbits, and squirrels that it hunts. We don’t actually know that, of course, since we lack the ability to communicate with those other species, but it gives us a lovely feeling of superiority. To tell the truth, I’d prefer to be blissfully unaware that there’s an end coming. Every day would just be another day until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.”

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so what of the energy that animates these meat suits that our consciousness wears? From whence did it come? Where does it go? I’ve got my ideas, but you’re unlikely to believe them. Then again, maybe that’s part of the program; part of the illusion. Maybe there’s only a single consciousness and everything else is just a dream that it’s dreaming. There is no differentiation. There are no meat suits. Maybe your consciousness – or mine or his or hers – is all that’s out there. You’re all alone in the universe and created the rest of us in your mind to keep from going insane from the loneliness. On the other hand, maybe you created the rest of us in the insanity of your loneliness. Before you dismiss these ideas, consider the various stories of an infinite god with no beginning who created all things. That must have been one lonely guy.

If you’ve read this far either what I’ve written has somehow piqued your interest or you’ve simply got too much time on your hands. Either way, thanks for reading.