That Is Not Dead Which Can Eternal Lie, And With Strange Aeons Even Death May Die

I've always been terribly fascinated with the unfathomable. Anything that can potentially be unfathomable, such as comprehending infinity or something darker, like peering into a pit of endless sorrow, has never failed to captivate me.

This is why H. P. Lovecraft's work, particularly the Cthulhu mythos franchise, continues to grip my mind. From Wikipedia: "Lovecraft's guiding literary principle was what he termed "cosmicism" or "cosmic horror", the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. ... Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the antithesis of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality and the abyss."

I think one aspect of my fixation with the unfathomable is that perhaps unfathomable things are not meant to be clearly understood by humans. So this raises curious questions, like what if a person did catch a glimpse of something unfathomable? Is it rosy, like what some people will consider to be divine, such as Truth? Or will it be that because we are not meant to fathom the unfathomable, its sheer power will destroy those who come within its range? Is the unfathomable the indication of the existence of a realm that we might come to describe as Infinite, Perfect, Ideal, Omnipotent, Pure or Godly?

Absolute power also falls into this train of consideration, as does notions of eternity and infinite regress.

I felt that Inception explored this notion to an extent when it broached the issue of death during a dream. The story asserts that people wake up when they die in a dream because it is a means of escape back to 'reality' (in inverted commas here because the movie deliberately leaves us questioning reality itself). But if the dreamer is unable to wake up and dies in the dream, he will remain in limbo and lose his mind.

To me, that sounds like what it possibly means to experience infinite torment and anguish in a short span of time. Is that what it does - derail the mind?

Is insanity also likenable to a computer hanging up? A computer (or program) can hang because it encounters a programming paradox. In one kind of paradox which is relevant to what I'm talking about, the computer encounters a circular (or catch-22) instruction in which the question and answer loops infinitely. For a silly example, I execute a function which asks the computer to create a list of emails if the executable file A.exe is open. However, what if there is a catch, or programming flaw, such that A.exe can open only if the email list is already created and thus needs to create the list of emails prior to the execution of the function? But, as can be logically seen, the creation of the email list requires file A.exe to be open. It's a silly example and I'm not sure if this is really a programming problem, but it's one I've thought of off the top of my head to illustrate the point.

The computer thus gets trapped in an endless loop of contingent requests that can never be fulfilled within the programming instruction.

What happens when a person's mind gets trapped in a loop like that? Given that there are many important things in life that are inherently paradoxical because humans are unable to reconcile them, does the attempt to genuinely reason and reconcile lead to Lovecraft's belief that sanity will be compromised? Does this suggest that perhaps sanity is a specific human trait that is meant (or simply happens) to keep us from actually perceiving what is absolutely and objectively true? Is God the ultimate paradox, which is why we can only reconcile it via faith and not science and reason?

Also, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object? Is the question really moot, as many people often like to dismiss it since it is simply inconceivable? That precisely brings me back to the fact that this is an unfathomable idea, and I'm all the more fascinated by it.

As long as I feel like I'm not compromising on my sanity pursuing these mental obsessions, I guess I'll keep at it for a long while. And maybe only in death will I know the answer.

Paradox

And I realised I had stared far too long when an abrupt, electric snap of chemistry signalled that our eyes met for more than just a brief moment, and I found myself desperately scrambling to look away. But I do not regret the awkwardness. There was an honest air of curiosity about the way she looked, with a fleeting delicateness and fragility amidst her relatively tall physique that was contributed nonetheless by her almost pale fair skin and a voice that had a somewhat shaky undertone to it, although she tries to hide all of this with an upright stature that spoke of an ironic confidence. She is not without flaw, but which makes her all the more immaculate and at once suddenly alluring. I am then reminded of how we can never truly suppress what resides within with what we hold dear as truths; things we'd like to think we are made of, all within that brief flurry of frivolous captivation.


Because I totally have no computer so work with anymore now (other than the ones in the school library with absolutely horrid internet connectivity), I have reverted to more traditional forms of entertainment, such as watching TV and reading. Actually, ‘reverted’ doesn’t give credit where it’s due. I kinda think that if you can get off the computer in this day and age and read a proper book, it’s really quite a wonderful form of trascendence, rising above past the glut of cyberspace over-reliance.

And I ended up conversing more with people the past few nights via SMS without the convenience of MSN. It’s kinda like road safety perhaps. Because of the high amount of traffic rules and road regulations, people take safety for granted and drive more recklessly as a result. The name of the paradox escapes me now, but it’s the idea that the more insured we are, the more likely we’ll end up in an accident.

I also started reading, to my detriment, The Picture of Dorian Gray that Angie gave me a few months back. Seriously not the best of times to get hooked on a novel - albeit a short one - but it is such a brilliant book that I cannot help but stay engrossed. I’ll give my take when I’m done.

Sometimes I even find myself puzzling, so I don’t blame my friends for being bemused with the things I do. I detest institutions, knowingly or not, and am clear of myself to this end of self-awareness. And always on hindsight I am proven right this way. My natural tendency to refuse to study where studying should be – in GSRs, libraries, at home – and instead mugging out in the open where noise and distraction is abound is one. My personal need for a great deal of egocentricity in a world of social dictates is but another. I’d dance my heart out on a tightrope in living out my whims a day before my exams, and it wouldn’t skip a beat. But this life-sized paradox is the way I see life as I think it should be, and am quite amused by the disapproving bewilderment I am confronted with on occasion.




Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.

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