Rhea's Story

She sits in a transparent gaze; her eyes of the finest diamonds. They do not register or see, they just reflect. They reflect the insignificance of the world. They reflect all that is gold, all that is forever and all that is lost. I ask, but she cannot answer. It's okay though...I know. I know her story.

She walks, destination unknown. Doors don't open. Every turn a miss, every miss frustration. Jove finds her as he always does. She sleeps a colorful sleep. She dreams of mirrors, rooms and the helpless. She dreams of infancy, mountains and stone houses. "What did you dream of last night?" I ask. "I don't know," she says. It's okay though...I know. I know her story.

She sits in a transparent gaze, reflecting a canyon of color. A drink - to all that we've lost and everything it cost us.

"When were you born?" I ask. "April...1933," she says. All is well.

Sunrise..."Where am I? Who brought me here?" she says. "This is your home," says Jove. "This is our home." Faces, pictures and voices mean nothing. From color to darkness, from darkness to emptyness, times slips away. It's okay though...I know. I know her story.

Something calm about the afternoon. A familiarity sets in.

She wants to talk. "Tell me," I say. "Tell me everything."
"But I don't know anything," she says. "I don't even know who you are."

It's okay. I know. I know her story.

A Question Of Time

"My fate is the same fate of the physical world. That we coud have come from nothing and return to nothing, this is entirely possible. But lets us enjoy our illusions of immortality." -Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

We all have a fate. Whether it's simple or complexe, we will eventually cease to exist in the "earthbound" way we exist right now. We can speculate about what may come thereafter and we can hope that our spiritual beliefs hold true once all the lights burn out, but while we hope and speculate, we should always strive to learn and seek different perpectives, even though time seems to set certain limits. Even our lives rush by us, because in many ways, we're too "busy" to pay attention. There was an experiment done whereby a group of people over the age of 60 were asked to count down 1 minute, and a group of people under 40 were asked to do the same. The people over 60 always over-counted their minute by about 10 seconds, while the younger group always undercut their minute by about 10 seconds. The constraint of time seems to be much less of an issue when we get older. Do we begin to accept our fate or do we simply begin to realize what matters most? It's probably a combination of both, although I tend to believe that our minds eye gets a clearer, more intrinsic view of who we are and what it means to exist as we age.

But what is time? This question has been on the minds of humans for over a thousand years. Did time commence with creation, or has time always existed? Logic tells us that if time had a beginning, it should have an end. In Christianity, time is said to have orignated at the moment of creation (Genesis), although for Buddhists, their belief is that the universe is timeless, without either beginning or end. The Quantum Theory has not been able to answer this question to date, but it does have a theory on time, represented by the following scenario, seperated into five ages or eras:

First, the Primordial Age. This age is the age of the Big Bang and the beginning of what we know as time. This stage lasted about 350,000 years. We now take a huge jump to right now, about 13.7 billion years after the Big Bang, to the second stage which is called the Stelliferous Era. This is the epoch which has brought us not only the stars and planets, but also every bit of matter that surrounds us today. We now move to about 100 million, million years from now in which the universe experiences its third stage, the Degenerate Age. This is the age when the last stars burn out and die. An age where the planets fall from their orbits and in the darkness of space, matter begins to decay. The only things left are black holes. On we go to an age which will far surpass all the time that has passed since the Big Bang till present day. In this fourth stage, the last remaining black holes disappear, devouring the last bit of existing matter, giving way to the fifth and last stage, The Photon Age. This is the age where time fragments into total disorder. All that remains of our cosmos will be invisible, low energy light particles.

In this Quantum scenario, we begin to see that time evolves. If we are able to be around in the last stages of the universe, we may not even recognize it as time at all. It has been proven that particles can in fact be in two places at once, so we might uncover that there are many universes, each with a time of their own. Ultimately, this time that we feel passing, that we know and trust, may be somewhat of an illusion; an illusion that allows us to make sense of our place in this tiny corner of the cosmos.

Perception Is A Hell Of A Drug

When I started to get into astronomy, I had no idea it would completely redefine my perception and perspective on life. When I dug a little deeper into that world, some other worlds became visible to me - those of physics and particle physics. It sounds all smarty fiddle diddle and all, and to be honest, I understand NONE of the math behind it. Reading about people whose day job is to figure out how life came about is overwhelming to say the least. These physicists and scientists have the arduous (some say impossible) task of making sense of the universe and all the mind boggling material in it. It's fairly unanimous among scientists that we came from star dust. Isn't that just the most rad-awesome thing you've ever heard? Well, maybe it's just me. My nerdy-sense is tingling.

Scientists (by this I mean everyone involved in the science world from theoretical physicists to particle physicists) usually separate things into two worlds. There is the world that is governed by the theory of relativity, the theory of the large. From apples to the most distant star systems and planets, this theory explains how they work. Then there's the world of the very small. This would be the microscopic world, the world of atoms, protons and neutrons. Here, another theory/formula rules and it is called the quantum theory. When Einstein passed on, what was to be his most crowning achievement was left unfinished. He was working on what scientists today like to call, "the theory of everything." This theory would unite both the theory of relativity with the quantum theory. These theories are in a constant battle with each other. There is no harmony between them, although there should be according to scientists. At the instant of creation, the big bang, microscopic particles were present which after millions of years of cooling, starting forming planets, stars and billions of years later, us. So why would we need to separate governing theories to explain our universe and the things in it if we ultimately come from creation?

One of my favorite physicists is Dr. Michio Kaku. He's a theoretical physicist who works on something called "String Theory," which right now is the leading candidate for a theory of everything. Don't hold your breath. It's not even close to being proven. If it is proven one day, let me just say this: it would mean that there are other dimensions AND other universes. Amazeballs.

A lot of people say, "Yes, that's all trippy and interesting, but it's never going to affect any of us in our lifetimes, so this information, although interesting, serves no purpose." To that person I say: you're right. It changes nothing...FOR YOU.

Instead of taking all this science talk literally and trying to quantify what it means to you, (hint: you'll never be able to quantify our universe and its beyond-words grandeur) I'd like to make what I think is an important parallel.

I mentioned that the world of the very small was governed by a different theory than the theory of the very large. Well, I think that what's inside us, the "microscopic particles" that make up our heart, mind and soul is indeed governed by a different theory than the outside world in which we live and interact. I think it's important to remember that our internal physics, our internal existence, will always be in conflict with the outside world. Like the quantum theory, our internal world is not fully understood, and in my opinion, will remain as such. A unification of the inner and outer world sounds very attractive and harmonious, but there is something to be said about the solitude of the inner world. It makes each of us different and ultimately, allows for each of us to live through our own, unique inner universe.

Most of us don’t take the time to explore our inner universe and I believe that to be a real shame. Just like astronomers have built powerful telescopes to peer into the cosmos, we should also build our own mental and spiritual tools to look further inward. The vastness of the universe can only be compared to one thing: the vastness of our inner selves. Scientists have recently discovered new planets, twins to our blue planet, and have just recently landed on Mars, giving us unprecedented views and insight on its makeup and origins. Our inner universe is waiting for us to explore it for the same reasons. Don’t look for answers! Look to explore, period. A trip to Mars can take up to 8 months of space travel at a speed of 20,000km/hour. If we compare that to how long it takes to take a trip within yourself, well, you know what I’m getting at here.

The outside world will never acknowledge your existence. It’s about time we acknowledged our own existence, because as the only known species in our observable universe to possess a consciousness, we’d be huge dumbasses not too.

 

Any of you ever sing Yankee Doodle out loud before going to sleep? Give it a shot. Most of you won’t do it, but for those who do, you’ll probably laugh your nipples off, but realize this: that was probably the first time in a long time you did something outside your routine. And, in that moment, you thought of nothing else except of how ridiculous you sound. To me, that would mean I’m one step closer to discovering a new planet in my inner universe.

I leave you with this stellar quote from Mr. Stephen Crane:

A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation”

Nothing Becomes Everything

There’s a lot happening out there. From the discovery of the infamous Higgs Boson (aka the god particle) in the world of particle physics, to the disgusting display of disrespect for human life in Colorado, it all seems beyond our understanding, and in many ways, it is.

 

Like a lot of people, I have had many conversations among close friends about life in general and the most common questions go like this:  How do we maximize this chance without wasting too much time within the forum of our minds, trying to answer the unanswerable? How much faith should we have in destiny? How am I ever going to find this “magic connection” with someone else? What is this “magic connection” supposed to be anyway? How many cross-fit, boot camps, mountain runs, hot yoga, spinning, goat push-ups, frog jumps, chicken squats did you do this week? 

 

On July 4^th, 2012, scientists and physicists around the globe were creaming themselves. The Higgs Boson, the last missing piece of the puzzle in the standard model of particles was said to have been discovered by the crazy, smart people at CERN in Geneva.  Did they pull this thing out of a hat, hold it in their hands and pinch its cheeks? Not really. The LHC, (Large Hadron Collider) is the biggest and most powerful particle accelerator this side of the solar system. Basically, this titanic machine slams a ton of elementary particles together, recreating the conditions in the Big Bang. By a ton of particles, I mean 800 trillion particle collisions. By the way, the LHC is only operating at half power right now. Jesus. The Higgs Boson is said to be the particle which gives mass to all other elementary particles. This would be the most important discovery in science in the last 40 years. I say “would be” because the LHC registered a “sigma 5,” which is the gold standard in physics for a discovery, but those nit picking scientists have to be 100% sure, and right now, they’re at 99.9999999%.

 

On July 20^th, 2012 the horrible and unthinkable shootings happened in Aurora, Colorado. I won’t go into much detail on this disastrous event. We’ve all read the articles a million times over, and I always feel disgusted after reading them.  I just wanted to compare this event to the previously mentioned scientific discovery because it makes our psyche travel through our full spectrum of emotions, which brings me to my point after all this babbling…

 

Much like the physicists and scientists hoping to unify all theories into a “Theory of Everything,” we, as members of the human race, should do the same. Not out there, but in here, inside yourself. In order for the Higgs to have been discovered, countless experiments were put to the test, and countless failed. Physicists didn’t dig up a hole in the ground and give up because the Higgs wasn’t in there. They searched everywhere; the whole spectrum. By everywhere, I mean the observable universe. They took their findings from all their ideas and experiments, the failed ones included, and slowly engineered a path which would most likely bring them to the pot of gold. The next big thing and I mean BIG, would be confirming a formula for the theory of everything. From the most distant star systems, to the smallest particle, this formula would explain it. I’m going to take it one step further here. Yes, me, the everyday Joe that burns a salad.

 

There’s no theory of everything. Not for humans anyway. Science could explain a lot, and faith could keep us on the right moral track; unless you’re an extremist in which case, well…that never has a happy ending. The most frequently asked life questions usually have no answer, or at least no one answer. With the wealth of knowledge that can be absorbed today, we should be concerned with building our library, rather than making sure that all the books are on the right shelf. Like one theoretical physicist said, “We are a type zero civilization.” This means we are still in the learning phase of human existence. Goals are important, don’t get me wrong. Aiming to be the best you can be is intrinsic to our well being, but what lives inside is a completely different spectrum. In my opinion, this inner spectrum has no meaning to its existence. It simply exists. It’s there to remind us of the constant hunger we should have for knowledge, for experiences and for digesting all the colors in the spectrum.  No emotions should be closed off, no doors locked and no fear to crumble. From the smile I got when I heard that CERN had discovered the Higgs, to the sadness and total shock I felt when I heard of the Colorado shootings, my spectrum and my library grew. It’s not enough just to read or watch the news. Take a second. Breathe it in, and put yourself in that movie theater in Colorado. Put yourself at the helm of the LHC, being the first to read out the findings that could possibly change the world forever. Run that extra mile, turn right instead of left all the time and thank whichever god you believe in that you’re aware of your existence. Remember, we are the only species on this planet with a conscious awareness.  Build your dream sequences and don’t fear the nightmare.

 

Stop reading and start learning. When you get home at night, take a second to look up. Insignificance breeds character. Never hate yourself for tossing and turning in bed with a million questions. Instead, make it a point. Not everyone builds their spectrum the same way. Some people are forced into starting earlier in life, and some people start while they’re staring out the window of a room in their old folk’s home. Some people put an eternity of emotions into a breakup, and some people move on to the next one on the way home. Whatever your approach, always look to build, but expect and welcome the collapse. As a “type zero civilization,” we shouldn’t put too much pressure on ourselves to finding all the answers. We should enjoy this infant stage. Touch, grab, eat, smell - everyday for the first time.

 

With insatiable desire, nothing - becomes EVERYTHING.