Invisible

At exactly 12:03 pm UTC on December 17th, Alex disappeared.  He didn't notice anything specifically at the time.  He had just looked at his watch for the third time in as many minutes, waiting for his lunch break.  He wasn't sure exactly when the change occurred.  He thought on the moment extensively later.  He concluded he must have been while he was typing on his desktop, writing up the that week's sales analysis for his company.  Engrossed in the statistics, he didn't notice his disappearance until he tried to look at his watch.  It wasn't there. Nor, for that matter, was his arm.  Or his shirt.  Performing a more detailed checkup, Alex realized that he wasn't there at all.  He could see none of himself, though he seemed to be able to control his body.  He sent the mental message to his arm, and he assumed it moved, though it was hard to tell.  To verify this, he moved one arm in a direction so as to hit his other arm.  To his vast astonishment, nothing happened.  He felt no impact in his arms, no touch of skin on skin. 
Baffled, he rose and picked up his lunch, then walked out of his office.  Deciding against human company, he headed to an out-of-use conference room and settled down. 
Slightly belatedly, he realized he hadn't felt anything on his way.  When he walked, he felt no impact of his feet on the ground.  When he opened the conference room door, he did not feel the door on his hand.  His heart pounded.  What was going on with him?  And why?  As if in a dream, he tried to pinch himself.  Nothing.  A sob escaped his lips.  Why could he not feel anything?  And to make matters worse, though he knew that he had sobbed, he had felt nothing, heard nothing.  He did not exist.  
Frantically, he pushed back his chair.  And passed straight through it.  'No! No!' his mind cried out, but he could make no sound to be heard.  
Alex convinced himself this was just a bad dream.  But as time wore on and nothing happened, his conviction lessened and lessened.  Finally, he was forced to accept that this was his life now.  He was stuck as an unseen, unheard, unfelt presence in a world revolving around sense.  He could watch and listen as events unfolded, but could do nothing to alter them.  
After a few years, he could take it no longer.  His silent ravings and pacing increased, and he no longer saw the things around him.  In a rage, he picked up and threw imaginary objects, screaming his silent anger to the world.  That couldn't last forever, though.  He slept.  And as he slept, he dreamed of a beautiful world.  One that did not need to be felt to be admired.  One in which his existence would matter to nothing and no one.  
He paid a visit to a library, where he read over people's shoulders.  He saw many picture books, read some fragments of fiction, and at last stumbled upon Descartes.  Cogito ergo sum.  I think therefore I am.  He could imagine no greater gift from a man long dead.  Cogito ergo sum.  He existed after all.  It was simply that he had transcended the world of matter and extension, and passed on to a new realm.  
For the next several years, Alex traveled the world.  He hitched rides from people he did not know and who did not see him.  He walked for hundreds of miles at a time, for without a body, he knew no fatigue.  He sought out the peaceful places in the world.  A lonely beach.  A vibrant forest.  A beautiful sunrise over the remains of a devastating forest fire.  He visited all these and more.  His sanity returned, slowly and in pieces, but returning nonetheless.  What did he care if he could not change the world?  He could still admire it in all its glory.  
Centuries later, Alex was on the first of many manned intergalactic missions.  He was one of the first Earthlings to see the Milky Way rise over the horizon of a foreign planet.  He explored first one, then another, then another still, finding always sights to be seen and sounds to be heard.  He became a roaming traveler, knowing all and known by none.  In time, he even found a modicum of inner peace.  
The universe was a glorious thing to see and hear, and he, the unseen, unheard, unfelt, was there to admire it all. 

Watches

At birth, everyone was given a watch.  Before the umbilical cord was cut, every child, including Kia, had a tiny watch put on their left wrist.  It was designed to expand with her as she grew.  This watch would define Kia's time for the rest of her life.  Her parents, quickly approaching old age and in a hurry to raise their only child, sped up her watch for the first several years of her life, and slowed down their own.  As a result, in a mere 5 years of their time, she had grown into a charming and attractive young woman.  19 years had passed for her.  She, like every other child, attended an individualized school with a robotic teacher for the first 18 years of her life, and then graduated.  
She was a fundamentally social adult, but none of her friends' times moved at the same rate as hers, making meeting at a given time and place impossible.  When she made a friend, she would stay with them for a few days, and then the two of them would go their separate ways.  It was considered the ultimate devotion in their society to change your own watch to match another's, something only married couples chose to do.  
There were no public clocks in the squares of the towns.  The sun rose and set erratically.  No one could record its travel, because time was not regulated.  Science faltered and then came to a halting stop at this lack of consistency, and the society was stuck with a medieval level of technology and knowledge.  No one knew any better.  
Kia eventually found a man she loved. They set their times at a grand ceremony attended by none but themselves, and had three children, whom they raised slowly but eventually relinquished to the greater world.  There came a day when Kia could no longer wind her watch. She passed away peacefully in her sleep, the hands on her watch coming to a complete halt in the dead of night.  Her husband reverently released her watch from her wrist, and placed it in a thin glass case.  She and her watch were buried together in a graveyard which knew no time.  


Generations passed.  Kia's children had more and more children, and several generations later, her thirty-times great grandchild was born. His name was Roo, and he, too, received a watch at birth.  In time, Roo grew to become a great statesman, and the man who first began to regulate time. People were strongly encouraged to set their watches to the speed of a great clock in the center of the land, and gradually, over the course of a hundred years, the individual watches went out of style, leaving only great, public clocks, scattered across the nation.  Even several millenia later, wearing a watch was considered bad luck, a tremendous divide between the wearer and the rest of the world.  
The sun rose and set with a regular beat, and people lived, loved, laughed and died to the ticking of the same grand clock. 

Upside-down?

One morning, everyone in the world woke up upside-down.  And I'm not talking wrong-side-of-the-bed.  I'm talking seriously upside-down.  Rather than being on the ground, people walked on some sort of false ground in the air.  There was a definite boundary here.  Everything was on the same sphere, suspended several miles above the Earth's surface.  Mountain climbers suddenly found themselves without mountains, and thus without a job.  Runners rejoiced, for they no longer had to run hills.  Children laughed, and cried, and ran around as fast as their legs would carry them, admiring the strange sights and sensations.  Clouds floated through cities and dropped rain away from them.  The thin air was to blame for the deaths of millions of ill and elderly, and world population was suddenly not so much of a problem.  As the day wore on, though, people discovered a dilemma.  There was no food.  Sure, some larger households would be able to survive for weeks on their sizable pantries, but many of the less well-off would be starving within a few days.  By four that afternoon, NASA engineers and scientists had regrouped.  After a few futile hours of arguing over the cause of this strange mishap, they agreed that they would have to send well-equipped expeditions back to Earth to bring food back to the people.  Around ten pm, they called it quits for the night and agreed to meet again the next day to plan their excursions. 
The next morning, everyone woke up as usual, firmly planted on the Earth.  No one was ever sure whether it had been a dream. 

Thanksgiving

I have many things to be thankful for.  Too often, I feel that I ignore these things and focus on the problems in my life.  Complaining has a way of uniting people for a common cause that mutual thanks so rarely does.  Someday (inspired by xkcd), I'd like to participate in or lead a contentedness rally.  I'd love to see people spending time thinking about their good fortune rather than mulling over and bemoaning their problems.
The funny thing is that the previous paragraph complained about complaining.  And now I'm complaining about complaining about complaining...
In any case, for today, I'd like to spend a bit of time considering the things in life that I am thankful for.
First off, my family.  They're an amazing group of people, intelligent, reasonable, and kind.  I like to spend time with them, playing games, discussing politics, or just sitting in the same room doing our separate things.  I'm incredibly grateful to have such an unbelievably awesome family.
My friends, too, are amazing.  I don't think I could ask for a more engaging, enthusiastic, and exciting group of peers.  I always love to spend time with them, and their insights into everything from science to religion are always intriguing.  Their friendship in what can often be a stressful world is like a beacon to me.  They give me the strength to go on living the way I do.
I am also grateful for some more mundane things, like the food I always have on my table.  I am glad to be well enough off to be able to eat good, nutritious food three times a day, when there are people around the globe who struggle just to get a bite to eat. 
I am also thankful for the physical ability to do as I wish with myself.  This freedom is refreshing and much appreciated. 
I'm glad, too, that I live in a nation of intellectual freedom, and have the freedom and the ability to express my views.  It's great that I can discuss controversial topics without fear for my own well-being, and I like to think that I am reasonable in using this freedom.
Lastly, I am grateful for my ability and the ability of those around me to see the best in things.  The world can be a frightening place at times, and it sometimes takes a new opinion to see the beauty around me.

So thank you.  To my friends, family, and acquaintances, thank you very much for allowing me to be a part of your life.  I hope that you've gotten as much out of our relationship as I have.  To complete strangers, thank you for taking the time to read the ramblings of one more person in a strange world.  I hope that you will take the time to thank someone in your life who has made a difference to you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Life

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Music

Fingers dance across keys.  Music swells through the strings and wood and fills the air with a beautiful melody.  It rises and falls with the tap of the keys, flying high and dipping low around me.  Now, it soars above my head, fluttering its wings and tweeting its joy.  Its delight fills me to the brim, and I smile involuntarily.  Then, in an instant, it drops like a stone to the deepest recesses of loneliness, and my brow furrows with concern.  My fingers slow and lighten, and the music dips hauntingly.  With a heart-wrenching pound of the keys, the song begins again to speed up, dragging my heart along behind it. 
When I play piano, I feel at one with the music, and a sort of blissful peace that overtakes me and lets me ignore the world around me for a while.  Sometimes, I swear my pulse is in time with the music.   The feeling of my fingers dancing effortlessly over the keys with no motivation from me, the sensation of having a tiny symphony playing in my head, the joy of flying to faraway places buoyed along by the music.
I find myself almost addicted to the feeling.  Any time I have an extra five minutes, I find myself scurrying to the nearest piano to play a few of the songs I know (not many, let me tell you), to once again soar with the music my fingers create.

I am thankful for the joy music brings to me and many of the people around me.

Rain

Rain.  Rain.  Rain.  A dark cloud wafts across the sky, slowly blotting out the sun and warmth.  A frigid breeze grows from a whisper to a howl, anticipating the excitement to come.  People glance upwards fearfully, then hurry indoors.  No one wants to be out in this.  Then, like a wall of water, comes the rain.  It pounds on everything it can reach, soaking the ground into a mush.  The new swamp eagerly absorbs more and more rain water, forming shallow puddles hidden by the grasses, pitfalls for any animal wandering through.  The rain falls heavier and heavier.  Pounding on roofs and roads, sending animals and humans alike scurrying for cover.  Then, in the climactic moments, a bolt of lightning flashes across the sky, immediately followed by the clap of thunder.  Bolt after bolt strikes the earth, exposing image after image of a stark landscape in grays and whites.  Another bolt, longer-lived than before, streaks between the clouds, lasting for so long that humans can momentarily see the entire scene brilliantly illuminated in color.  No one moves.  The area is silent in the wake of the deafening crash of thunder.
Out on the sidewalk, a young child in neon yellow rain boots breaks the silence, splashing delightedly in puddles and shrieking with delight.

Rain can be such a cleansing phenomenon.  It leaves the world fresh and new, washing away the old dirt, washing in the new.  The scent of the world is completely new, a fresh and clean smell.  And everything is sparkling and revitalized (thank you to a friend for the synonyms), with the newly emerged sunlight glinting off of everything, creating a mosaic of natural beauty.
I love rain.

I'm grateful for pouring rain that energizes (or re-energizes) the world when it's starting to feel old.

Writing

Utterly terrifying.  Completely exhilarating.  Entirely fascinating.  Mind-numbingly boring.  Writing runs the gamut. And I think I've gone through all of these feelings on it.  When, the day before an assignment is due, I am forced to whip something together, I can hardly think of anything more stressful.  But when I sit down in the evening (or morning, or afternoon) to write a brief blog post, I find myself actually enjoying it.  Such a strange mix of feelings on what seems to be a single, rather one-dimensional topic.  But writing is so much more than that.  It is a way for people to express themselves without the immediate pressure of time constraints.  When talking, you can't pause for a minute to come up with the perfect word for the situation, or have the time to frame your thoughts coherently.  Writing gives you all of that.  And then some.  When you write a story, it's like reading.  I've found myself engrossed in the story so much that when I stop writing, I can't help wondering what will happen next.  It's a chance for my perfectionism to be expressed (in terms of finding the right words, phrases, and combinations thereof) and repressed (I don't have to know exactly where I'm going at a given point in time).  I am free to roam about the world I have created, setting myself on a crash course to an unknown destination.  Letting my fingers do the walking, expressing myself without fear of reprisals.  It's a freedom of a sort.
And yet it is also confining.  With only words to express my feelings and ideas, I am forced to compress gestures, images, and facial expressions into the simple letters, numbers, and punctuation I can actually type.  How is it possible to convey all of the information a person could want to in just a line of text?  Language is an amazing thing, but it is not all-powerful, all-expressive.  In the end, we all resort to some sort of face-to-face communication.
But even so, I find myself running back to the written page, as a form of both release and expression.

I'm grateful for writing, for the freedom it has shown me and the promises it holds.

(smile! :) )