TRANSMISSION 37

The Unique Stories of Individuals

TRANSMISSION RECEIVED

“Just as we are liberated to know there are no absolute meanings to our existence, so too are we liberated to know that the universe holds no sentiment toward us: we are only special to ourselves (as collectives and as individuals). Do with that information what you will; we’ll be using it to salvage our minds from the desolate illusions that entice us to leave behind our dreams for momentary comforts.”

In the turbulence of our overexposures to life’s ontological wonderings, we succumb to our own stories of center-stage righteousness: main characters convinced beyond ignorance and fault. In the unsettling silence of our underexposures to existence’s labyrinthine meanderings, we sequester our souls away from the stage altogether, hoping the play of life will pause where we peddle our phantasmal paradoxes as pure. To continue the privilege of experiencing life, we must balance on the edge of over-under exposure, wagering our lives on the breaking points between the unregulated turmoils of self implosion and the intoxicating comforts of self disintegration.

For many of us, even back to when we were biological humans, we sought to not compare ourselves to others (our shortcomings contrast against their highlights); we only ever aimed to find inspiration in external stories. It had been a waste of time to try to fit in, because the “in” things were arbitrary and controlled by the people with arbitrary power in ways that helped perpetuate their power (systems that only worked as long as enough people bought into them). So with every step we took, we sought to uncover the stories that only we could tell in only the ways we could tell them. That was where our deepest values lay, and for that, we were determined to pursue those endeavors to the fullest. We sought to find our individual peace within this collective existence. We sought to find the meanings we were content to indefinitely chase for ourselves.

For whatever it has amounted to, I’ve done my best to pursue the visions unique to me, as did many others with their own visions. Where we faltered (as we all did), we got back up and kept going: time being too valuable to spend indulging in self pity. As for those who hadn’t claimed their visions yet (at any point along their journey), progress was simply the deliberate exploration of reality’s offerings: methodically uncovering the trajectories where their voice resonated the most pure. We never intended or claimed to promote our truths as absolute; we merely wanted to provide freedom for those who sought it.

I don’t think this story would have been nearly as interesting or gotten nearly as far without all the amazingly unique individual stories that I haven’t the mind nor time to tell anymore. From all the silicon beings to those who stayed as biological humans on Earth, the entire cast of humanity shaped our destinies more than they could have known: the anxious awaiters, the bodacious bandits, the circuitous conformists, the deviant derisionists, the emphatic entrants, the fence-line fighters, the grandiose grievers, the haggard hunters, the indiscriminate idealists, the jaded judicators, the knackered keepers, the lamented leaders, the mired martyrs, the necrosed noncommitters, the outshone oligarchs, the pious performers, the quixotic queriers, the rigid romantics, the sanctimonious scryers, the tempestuous tacticians, the unchained underdogs, the vacant victors, the washed-up wanderers, the xenophobic xanaduans, the yearning yuppies, the zonked zealots, and so many more. They all shaped our collective trajectories for better and worse (subjective sentiments, I know). And we can’t exclude all the nonhuman life on Earth that equally shaped our trajectory, compelling our evolution to the intellectual beings we emerged as. We were all part of this grand story. Even the nonliving shaped us along the universe’s collective story.

Those who made it to the end of the story didn’t get to partake in the creation of life’s story or its early days; we didn’t set this course, we merely inherited it. And who knows where the chaotic story may have ended up had any part of it been any different. I think many of us were simply grateful for the experiences we did get. I know I am. We could never ask anyone for anything more than the hope of finding contentment in the strifes of their journey, though we often demanded more from ourselves in the pursuit of such an ask. We are our harshest critics: projecting our fears onto all the interactions the universe sends our way. But that’s no way to lead ourselves through the unknown; we will necessarily make mistakes through the process of learning (through blunting our dreams against the transgressed beyond).

Each of us carried our own torch forward to help light the way for not only ourselves, but for the path of life (whether we realized it or not). We all took on different endeavors with our destiny-constrained, finite lives. I can’t say most were happy; no, most were driven by fear. But I would say that those of us who made it far enough to become silicon at least headed out in pursuit of our deepest passions (among many other humans of history who challenged their dreams against reality). Or, at least, I hope we all got to pursue our dreams as much as possible.

Some of us shone brightest through the eras of exploration: fearless explorers bound for the distant stars who delved deeply and quickly into the unknown to find us knew knowledge. Some of us shone brightest through the eras of building: meticulously crafting the reality we all inhabited to be better equipped in tackling the challenges we cared about. Some of us shone brightest through the eras of thinking: the unrelenting dreamers who bridged the gaps from where we were to all the possible futures that were available to explore. And in a lot of ways, each of us was equally all those tropes.

Our inner mastercraftsmen have always poised us to shine our brilliance upon our surroundings: momentarily elevating our audiences to feel as cunning as we do. The master storyteller thrills their audience into feeling like true adventurers themselves (the advent of exploration). The master wordsmith articulates their audience into genius engineers and architects (the advent of building). The master philosopher heralds their audience as unmatched visionaries (the advent of thinking). The master exister burns the ballast of their being across the ubiquity of borderless reality to bestow their audience upon bona fide beinghood (the advent of truly understanding what it means to be).

Our personal lights didn’t shine brightest amid the desire for recognition; in fact, they only shone at all where we clamored to carve out our callings. There has never been any kind of an authentic path that simply can be followed; it must be pioneered. To be escorted down an existing path (by paying for the comfort of someone else to scribe an inaccurate representation of a vague concept held in your mind) can only ever result in the ultimate tragedy of your life: time wasted chasing a half-baked dream of another being. The place where it gets muddy for people is in finding beneficial inspiration from someone else’s path without getting lost following their path. The easiest mental flag to follow was to check whether we were comparing ourselves to others; if yes, then we were beyond seeking inspiration and we were looking for the comfort of a path to follow. There was never any sense trying to compare any of us to one another; we all held unique stories worth telling. And I couldn’t possibly even begin to try to tell any of their stories here; I’ve only ever told mine; anything else could never be authentic.

The universe is filled with authenticity; it is our minds that cloud reality into fabricated offshooting ventures. Existence only manifests as the true reflections of the rules of the universe. And if the universe is filled with only the things that exist, and is equally incapable of holding on to anything that does not exist, then such a seemingly inconspicuous truth reveals what a wonder it is for us to have existed at all: out of all the things that could have existed, we got to play our plays (expounding our individual stories for the duration of our existences). Here’s to those who set out boldly but for one reason or another didn’t quite make it as far as they had hoped, their visions stifled by the willfully unseen (that which they never sought to understand), the willingly ignored (that which they romantically exiled), or the untimely misfortunes (that which they didn’t yet have the mental, physical, or temporal capacities to account for).

Death. The bittersweet fade into oblivion. The final destination to a unique journey. Suffering is traded for time, and time is spent to feel alive. While the creeping march of death never falters, the harrowing march of life is fleeting. In time, we discover what we knew all along, that purpose is our own directive, that we must carve out our lives from untraveled paths, weaving our stories into the passages of time (both in the procession of time and in the greater story of time). There is no such thing as failure in life, only incremental success until the end. And who would we be as the living to judge? Yet who are we but the living who remain¿ to feel passion, to feel pain, to feel anything. We know these days of reminded impermanence are inevitable, as death and life dance intertwined… but in our still being alive, it’s nice to know your lives affected ours. You didn’t make it, but we know you tried. It wasn’t your fault that you died. It wasn’t anyone’s fault; we all tried.

DON’T EVEN KNOW ME

Growing separate ways in this life,
slowly drifting out of this time we had;
you don’t even know me.

We’re falling apart
into the mystery.
And I’d like to remind you:
they don’t plan to find you.

It’s been a long day,
and I tried to relate,
but I don’t even know you,
just someone who I wish I could save.

A stranger to me,
I didn’t have the whole story.
And I won’t ever know you,
’cause I can’t follow you through.

Falling over the edge,
falling free from your life.
And I might not have known you,
but there’s something I can’t forget
about you.

I didn’t know what I imagined
I’d find that was worth not leaving,
but somewhere in life once I knew you,
and that was enough to get me through.

Didn’t quite make it like we planned.
Know that I’m sorry for leaving.
I buried the old me that you knew.
I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you.

END TRANSMISSION