In a Theory of Everything forum long ago in the 9th century, Abunasr Farabi wrote:
Vague and unrefined did the secrets of existence remain.
Unpierced did that highly revered pearl remain.
Each person said something according to his reason.
Yet untold did the point which was of essence remain.
And Abulhasan Kharquani replied in the forum in the 11th century (the internet was slow in those days):
The primordial secrets neither you know nor I.
The words of the puzzle neither you can read not I.
Your discourse and mine are behind the curtain.
When the curtain falls, neither you remain nor I.
But they didn’t know how far science would advance and that we would actually be able to see the curtain and derive the truth from it. So we say more as our harmonic couple continues their journey through life...
Some thoughts arose out of the depths of his wondering:
Since we all became of this universe,
Should we not ask who we are, whence we came?
Another thought, more of vision, soon arrived:
Insight clefts night’s skirt with its radiance—
The Theory of Everything shines through!
“I’ve been thinking about Fundamental Possibility—it solves a lot of problems!” he exclaimed. “It’s also what I’ve been leaning toward lately, although the book’s revelations clarified it.”
“Like what?” she inquired.
“Like how the penultimate reality, the fundamental substance, could still have existed forever, or at least in its potential form, and how its particular form was specifically one that worked instead of one that didn’t.”
“It existed forever because time was born with it, from possibility, the both of them always there as potential.” she replied.
“Yes, there was what just what is, rather than what was not—for a nothingness could never be, for there is surely something here.”
“The fundamental substance was the most probable of all possibilities,” she surmised.
“Yes, and perhaps it was the even only possibility that would work.”
“Or the others fizzled and failed by going nowhere, sort of a survival of the fittest of all the scenarios of consequences of what could serve as reality.”
“And Fundamental Possibility had to exist, rather than not, for that’s all there could be. Yet, I’m trying to adjust to this new way of thinking.”
“True,” the book chimed in. “Fundamental Possibility is a bit like your mind sifting through eventualities of possible actions, only Possibility forms substances. It may even be forming some now, here and there, but on a lesser basis than when the universe expanded, for then all was wide open. Of course, this Possibility must remain simple in a way, that being the price of being Fundamental, but you, a 13 billion-year complex composite, are much more advanced, and that’s where real meaningful life occurs. If Fundamental Possibility could talk, which it can’t, for it is not a system, it might say something much the same as you would now in your quest for the theory of everything:
I’ll follow every single avenue,
Whether it’s brightly lit or a dark alley,
Exploring one-ways, no-ways, and dead-ends
Until cornered where the truth is hiding.
And now you’ve arrived in that dark corner and so you can live life better by knowing who you are:
One simple substance gave rise to everything,
Chosen as probable above the rest—
Knowing at once that it would function well—
The most promising—the possible one.
However, unlike the simple beginnings, the possibilities of the complexities of everything are unbounded and that’s the greatest thing:
As to how complex, there is no limit,
Except perhaps when it makes a black hole,
And the smallest is the planck distance,
So size is absolute, not relative.
All in all, you are the lucky ones standing atop the pinnacle of time, change, form, and substance. Life awaits:
Like the moon, challenge night and gain the light;
Like the rose, suffer the thorn—gain the fragrance;
As life, surrender to live forever—
Enlightened more than a thousand suns.
Life is waiting when you have the right attitude—you will come to not even know what sorrow is:
World does not pass by—you pass through it;
Clear your being so the treasure may arrive;
This spirit sparkles of a different light—
The gemstones are of a different mine.”
They continued through the entangled forest.
“Our minds do seem to make the actual from the possible, don’t they? she proposed.
“Well, Possibility was our birthplace, so perhaps we retain a version of it.” he answered.
“We create thought.”
A spectral vision appeared before them, a brightness that shone like the sun. “I am Dame Fortune—Lady Luck shining upon you. In turn, I visit everyone who lives in a state opportune. You two have turned your chance meeting into good fortune. You are lucky—others don’t see me when I come, or they ignore me; some refuse to take a chance on me, for they are busy going nowhere; and many are just plain unaware. Of course, then it is awhile before I come to visit them again. Farewell. Good luck.”
They bid her fond farewell and sweet return, and he and she walked on through the strange land, the place where all things were possible, but where all ideas had to be lived before they could be written.
She looked at the red rose that she still carried, and said to him,
“It’s for you. I give this rose to you.”
“I will surround the blossom of your flower with unselfish love,” he answered.
“My blossom unfolds over you, as does your own around me.”
“We’ll refold and enfold each other.”
“I’ll enrapt you, like the words of a poem,” she answered. They again opened the mysterious book of poems, which soon came to life.
“What is the name of the rose?” he asked of the magic book. “Can you not tell us now after all we’ve been through?”
The book replied, “There is much more to come. I shall answer you as time wears on. It all has to do with the life of the rose, though. So you shall see.”
They walked on, eager for the quest of life’s possibilities, entering into the innermost bowers of their flowered spirits, savoring there all the flora within. They could now understand much that their speechless memory had devoured, all that life’s drudgery had stolen and overpowered.
They hiked up a slight hill whereupon they saw a woman sleeping in the middle of the path. There they stopped and looked, and he turned to she, his rosy partner, saying, “In my mind I see a flame that’s growing dim, it’s the depressed spirit of the sleeping woman.”
“Tell her,” she said, “tell her! Bring her alive.”
He whispered in the woman’s ear, “I am Life. Long ago I found you sleeping in your mother’s womb, and one day I shall have to leave you all too soon when you sleep in earth’s silent tomb. Now I find you newly abloom, but sleeping away the time in between those longer and deeper sleeps. I am whispering a lovely dream in your ear. Wake! Live! Life is a dream come true. The rose abloom withers all too soon.”
She laid the rose on the woman’s chest as they continued on. Looking back they saw that the sleeping woman was now sitting up and clutching the rose.
“Her flame is growing,” he noted, “for she’s now looking on the bright side.”
“The woman probably thinks that she had a vivid dream, a phantasmic reality, so to speak” she said.
“I always listen to my daydreams,” he noted.
“Yes, me too. Daydreams pierce the noise of consciousness to tell us of that which is best for us.”
“Daydreams are full of thoughts promenading on parade before our eyes.”
“Wishes and fantasies cascade freely over the mind, directly presenting themselves to us as our very own suggested ways to live.”
“Well, by merely aspiring to a goal, one is already halfway to the realizing of it.”
“Yes, and all that we now have together was once a dream, no less, that was loved into being.”
“Because life grows from the visions that we contemplate, those that we orchestrate.”
“Yes, but one must act quickly on those ready-made plans that daydreams present.”
“True—because by dusk the phantom shapes may fade.”
“Well, if beliefs are halfhearted, then so’s life.”
“Let our dreams, wishes, and life become one and the same!”
“Pay close attention to your innermost desires, wishes, and dreams. Deny not the desires welling up from your soul—for it is your duty to fulfill them.”
“It guarantees happiness, for then you know exactly what you require to be happy.”
“Come along, sweet-dream!” They moved on, musing in a dream world of their own making.
( DREAMS )
The Bird of Time flew by once again. The bird chaser could never catch it, for the bird lived in a perpetual ‘now’—a constant sunrise in which it flew forward into the future. One wing of the bird was black and the other was white. As the bird flew overhead, a checkerboard pattern formed on the ground all around. “What can it mean?” she wondered aloud.
“I think I’m starting to catch on,” said her partner. “The wings of Time are black and white, for one is the day and one is the night—for fluttering ‘round the night flies the day.”
“Yes,” she said, “I know too! We are all players on the checkerboard of days and nights, as on a calendar, until...”
“...until the game ends and we’re put back in the box of nonexistence” he finished.
“But in the meanwhile I thank Destiny for at least letting me play the game!” she shouted happily toward the sky.
“Of course, my dear. We’ll make a game of that which makes as much of us!”
“Let’s play!”
“I’m game.” And so they traveled on, ready to make their moves.
In the midst of a scenic meadow they were surprised to see what looked like a very large pen walking by. “What are you?” she asked of the large pen.
“I’m the artist’s pen,” replied the pen. “I am finally free!”
“From what?” he asked.
“I will no longer illustrate the written word. From now on I will draw whatever I see or whatever I feel. Then writers and poets can describe my sketches with their wondrous words! I say write what is real!”
“I get it,” she said. “The proof of writing is in the living of it, especially philosophical advice. Live it, feel it, and then write it.”
Next they ran into a living poem, a companion of the artist’s pen. “What are you?” he asked of the living poem.
“I deal with ever enduring themes, those which are universal to everyone. As you can see, I am structured, intense, rhythmic, and melodic. I am a unified body of sensation, thoughts, and passions. I translate all that is felt, though often only very roughly.”
“Are you essence or existence?” she asked of the living poem.
“I am both—I am the form and the idea. I am an object that is born from one’s profoundest visions. I am the image in diction of feeling. I am, at once, both the container and the contained.”
“You’re an expression of all that is difficult to express,” he added.
“I am truth fleshed in living words. I express thoughts that would otherwise go unapprehended. I lift the veil that separates mind from soul—and thereby show the proof of the hidden beauty. I am life’s image drawn in eternal truth.”
“You are immortal then” she said.
“Poetry makes immortal what is best in life by freeing images in our spirits that are deeply impressed. I arrest the vanishing notions, clothe them in words, then send them forth, fully dressed.”
“How do I know if I’ve written a poem?” he asked.
“Well,” said the living poem, “use the highest powers of language and wit to translate your soul’s nature into the poem’s words. The reader will translate the words back into spirit; and then, if the reader’s soul responds, you’ve written a poem!”
He and she tried to write a poem about love, for that was the greatest thing, but they couldn’t get it to rhyme. Finally, in desperation, they came up with the following:
The Trouble with “Love”
Only a few words rhyme with the above,
Like the overflown “dove”, the heartless “shove”,
And the ill-fitting “glove”. Alas, “love’s” rhymes
Remain unheard of, or aren’t well thought of.
They walked on, feeling but a little bit more poetic.
( WORDS’ WORTH )