Bondless

Atoms, here on earth and throughout the Universe, bond with each other by sharing the extra electrons they have to fill in the voids other atoms are carrying. If it’s a perfect match of lack of and excess, it is considered a very strong bond: a covalent bond. One element, however, is unique. Helium only has one shell to hold electrons, and that shell comes prefilled to the brim. Helium needs no bonds; no bonds for Helium.

Recently, Helium was caught in the act; shacked up with some unsuspecting Sodium. How? In simple terms, it forms surface level bonds, without actually sharing any of the magic that’s bouncing of its walls.

Every Helium atom is out there, right now, searching desperately to form any sort of bond it can; this is raw, quantum, universal nature.

The Universe is shrinking, or expanding, however you like to see it; and with it, the emotional spheres it contains. So many more avenues, those many more eyeballs eagerly swiping away unwanted electrons. “And the wonder of it all, is that you just don’t realize”[1] how deep this plague can entrench its roots. A never-ending pining for something, anything to spark a darkening life: a wet cigarette, once again.

The cigarette needn’t be wet, and with such ideas there are a million others worth falling in love with; the beautiful dance of balance, between formless giants: matter and anti-matter. The pixie dust in us all finds a miniscule point on which to pop’n’fizzle, a pinch too much and none of this exists; here, we have refined, infinitesimal, Universal nature.

To traverse the endless sights of the body and mind, all the artwork that we gave to ourselves; all of our tributes to the great beyond (a great beyond that has gifted us with the place to be, earth); to run one’s fingers through the air surrounding life, love; don’t ever let that cigarette remain dry. You can’t drool, on another person’s pillow; you can’t slobber down a bottle, for it’s yours to share.

The gargantuan tranquility of the self at peace with what’s within; a gorgeous show put on every day, every night, for you and you alone.

Passion, fire, desire, a movement of purposeful action: matter. Satisfaction, migration followed by relaxation: anti-matter. The chaos of all the reactions that surround us, the desperate, frantic bonds forming at unimaginable scale: entropy.

Yet good ol’ chappie, good ol’ danny boy Helium takes another drink, and saunters on forever galivanting in search of a bond, any bond; whistling a whisper: dear friend, how do I begin to search if I’ve already arrived?

Written on Thursday, August 12, 2021

[1] Wonderful Tonight, Eric Clapton

My Palm Holds the Universe

As I stand, towering over the valley in front of me, above the Eyebrow Path, all I see is a great expanse of oaks and pines carpeting the monstrous, peaceful mountains, and infinite land beyond. It was hard finding this spot, a rock reaching over the cliff on which the path was, none of whom I’d come here with could see me, and I couldn’t see them, with one small climb and two steps to the edge, I was gone.

Momentarily in the least, the world as I knew it had ceased to exist, and I could converse with myself freely. In this conversation I found…certain things, which I can’t call truths, but then again, some unknown Greek philosopher did say all that Truth is, is but “an amalgam of earthly elements”. Maybe it’s time I float an idea, and see how the world, your world, receives it:

Individuals are perpetually painting portraits of their world, caught within a misconception of immortality. The clothes I wear, the music I listen to, the books I read, the way I walk and the accent I carry seemingly define me to the painters observing, perched on their own canvasses borrowing and lending colour. The power of perception complicates the beauty of the self. Taking the tumult of colour and music flowing freely and arranging it logically: self-doubt, one questions the self in front of the mirror as one perceives the universe beyond his/her own canvas and wonders “Is my painting the best…?” And yet, under all this conflict there lies a fountain of wonderment, often mistaken as childishness. From this fountain sprout ideas.

Ideas as to what if, would I, must I, etc. Ideas that creep slowly onto our canvasses; look closely and you can catch glimpses of them flitting across people’s faces. That flicker of the edge of a girl’s lip, or the twitch in her eye after she hears or sees something she likes, or dislikes. Sadly, not all ideas are such romantically aligned. The rage in Hitler’s voice was enough to drive a nation blindly into a madman’s war. That rage was an idea, and ideas surpass words. At the bottom of every fountain is a line feeding it, and it is this Universe that exists, and throbs incessantly within each individual.

Raw ideas transcend words, as do raw thoughts, and these arise with pure emotion. Let us visit this girl again. True love – as many like to romanticize – hardly anyone finds, and yet is so familiar to all of us even though we haven’t come close to experiencing it yet. Why? Because it is an idea; we strive for the ideal, sometimes we hate certain other ideals. Imagine the thought (as hard as it is to portray something that is beyond words, using words) of a person that engulfs you truly. Back to my example, so completely enamoured is he with her that he knows the sound of her footsteps, is well versed with each and every detail of her face – the crackle of joy at the thought of chocolate, and that listless face, frowning and spouting rage only within – he can see within her. Asking him the colour of her eyes as a cheeky, cheesy jab would be pathetically pointless: this boy is far gone and beyond. He now no longer sees her, but begins to form her in his mind. Herein lay the dangers of our canvasses. He doesn’t see her canvas anymore, but sees her on his own canvas. Coming back to reality, regardless of the outcome of the romance plaguing this boy, he will never be able to forget her, for he has her etched in his mind for the rest of eternity. Sadly, the horrible mistake our pseudo-immortal minds make is to forget that it is the image we create that we are falling in love with. In this boy’s case, his image of her, our ideas condemn us to failure.

So, what when we dive into our fountains, forsaking the luxury of tangibility awarded us through perception of the physical? Loneliness hits like a brick, and its darkness engulfs you. But the moment you open your eyes, and become privy to the entire Universe driving every action, reaction and want that you’ve ever felt – knowing or unknowingly – you start to look at a brand-new world around you. Peace engulfs the mind, and bliss becomes habit. Many call it Nirvana, I call it an idea. Is there a life to ideas? Do they live in a world? Ideas are all around us, and within us. Here’s an idea, ‘float down the red river violently rocking you to sleep as the green skies hide which is beyond, and the blue fields smirk with disdain at this unwanted visitor’.

Any and every image ignites the mind to form idea upon idea till it is too much to handle: and then we sleep: waking up to ideas that lived and died in the various dreams that we don’t remember. But day in and day out we are subject to the only idea that is worth knowing, yet we forget, caught in battles of perception and self-actualization: the idea of Life. Not life as in the opposite of death, but Life which is birth and death. Many ideas are regarded as transcendent, the idea of a god, or that there is an equation that explains everything set in the physical, Science. However, the one idea that will never perish is that of Life.

We are mortal visitors, travelling through this basic, floral idea, forming upon that the homes for our minds to rest in. So, the life and world which is ideas should be enjoyed till the last second (another interesting thought, “the last second”).

What do I feel standing on this rock? I feel the triviality of existence; in its triviality I am free from the chains of my canvas, as well as of those of others. I reach out into the vastness and lay the Universe onto my palm: such a simple, serene idea.

Written on Friday, February 29, 20xx

A Friend

“You make me believe in magic, but think practically…it won’t be practical…”

Fantasies, paints splattered across aspirations, wind under the kites of expectation; and reality, the lead that pulls all of that into an endless pit…where it waits, to be dreamt of again.

We fight our flights of fancies, lest we get left behind – twiddling our thumbs – watching stars burn bright. Indulging too long with our own minds, bits of reality start to chip away as we gloriously fill-in-the blanks.

A life to be lived but how, when checklists and to-dos abound? To give this life a chance has become its own process, with its own standards of success; and its own time, to be measured as per the desirable result. What would you seek more, a crutch to make the process a little more bearable; or the fruit, of the labours that currently infect you?

Upon letting go of the result, one finds that it needn’t matter. The ‘result’ never really reaches us, and we aren’t really moving towards anything; rather, the world moves towards us. What we do with the oncoming traffic, gives definition to the short duration we call a lived life. In all of this, love can either be part of a reality – another set of checklists and to-dos, a way it’s meant to be and if not, it’s not meant to be – or a fantasy, that ever-elusive fruit of the labour of love lost. Of love ignored, of those left by the wayside because they wouldn’t fit conveniently into a reality, or because they were too good to be true…a fantasy.

Turn here, and find that the marriage of reality, with fantasy, is love. The perfect balance, an achievable, accessible reality that provides the infrastructure to explore one of the most powerful, pure fantasies birthed by the human race. That is the true power and scope of this thing we call love; we are not bound by any man-made construct; no amounts of religion or money will stop us. All attempts made to hinder our persistence; love is the only pestilence that can be lived in all its glory, and let go of, within the minute.

Love cannot be fought for, it cannot be worked on; it is, and when it comes, society along with our minds, conspire to run us through guilt, shame and self-contempt; it is, and shall remain – be you heavenly or be you damned – a friend.

 Written on Friday, June 11, 2021