Flash Fiction: To Be Truly Alone

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It's been awhile since I posted original fiction, so I thought it would be fun to reflect back on a piece that I wrote for a flash fiction (fewer than 1000 words) contest back in 2018. It's a first foray into action and science-fiction for me, and certainly stretched my comfort zone. 

My intent was to highlight and speak to the sheer vastness of the Universe, and particularly how small humanity can feel in that context. Not only is the Universe vast and presumably empty, but humanity is the only intelligent species that we are aware of to date. Whether – or perhaps, when – we encounter another civilization, what will that mean for us? What will it do to our psyche? And what will it mean to be human in that new context? 

These themes are all too lengthy to fully flesh out in fewer than 1000 words, of course, but they are themes that I hope this piece at least touches on – with some fast-paced action driving the narrative. Below is a brief synopsis introducing the story, followed by the story itself. I had a blast writing it, and the process made me want to pick up an HG Wells novel and do a deep-dive into classic sci-fi (The Time Machine and The Island of Dr. Moreau are probably my two favorites of his). Hopefully it will provide the same impetus for you.

Synopsis: The two sides had been friendly for many years, but when one turns suddenly violent and takes captive an unarmed individual, her only remaining recourse is to make a desperate attempt to free herself and find out what else her captors are planning, before it is too late.

→To Be Truly Alone 

The bucolic dream melted away, the rolling green hills replaced by stainless steel walls, cold to the touch and colder in their sterility. Paisley flexed her fingers, struggling to regain control of herself. She looked to the bruises dotting her arms, examined a still bleeding gash in her leg. She could only imagine what her face must look like. 

They had never been violent before. Something must have changed, spurred them on; either that or they were incredible at playing the long con. She didn’t intend on waiting around to find out what they wanted, or perhaps had already taken.

Setting to work, she looked to the opposite wall, as she remembered that it was a one-way mirror. Paisley knew her captors were impressionable, so she stared into her own reflection, hoping one of them was manning the booth hidden behind. Within a few seconds, she crumpled to the floor. She lay motionless, listening hard. Sure enough, the door clicked open, and one of them crept in, reaching its grey, scabbed hand forth to feel for her pulse. At its touch, Paisley grabbed it by the wrist and rolled it into a choke maneuver, making the most of her size advantage.

“Where am I?” she hissed into its lone ear. “Don’t!” She grabbed the stun prod from its flailing hands and took the keycard dangling from its belt. The body in her grasp went limp, the trachea of its thin neck crushed. “Dammit.”

Paisley briefly wondered if she might feel remorse later; no time for it now. The keycard let her into the observation deck behind the mirror, where she frantically searched for clues as to her whereabouts. Shoving the card into the nearest terminal, its screen lit up on the home page. “Welcome to Reynolds Embassy 2117 – Europa Station. Enter login credentials.”

Shit. Her captors were using their embassy orbiting a human outpost to hold her. They must have staged a coup. It would only be a matter of time before they mobilized to target earth, if they hadn’t already. She drug the limp body of the guard into the booth and used its palmprint to gain access to the system. A quick search of the mainframe confirmed her fears. She had to move fast: It would only be a matter of minutes before they realized she’d escaped the holding room. 

Gathering up the keycard and prod, she shuffled out of the booth and into the hallway, searching for a medical wing. If she didn’t get the prodigious bleeding from her leg stopped, she wouldn’t get far. Voices around the corner. Paisley tried the keycard at the nearest door and slipped inside. 

It was dark and smelled of cleaning products. She searched the cleaning cart with fumbling fingers and came across a mending kit. Not exactly prime first aid, but it would have to do. Trembling, she withdrew a needle and threaded it, plunged it into her thigh, and worked quickly to stitch together her leg. Tears flowed unbidden from her eyes. Fatigued, Paisley struggled to piece together her situation. 

They had drawn blood from her, of that she was certain. The gash and bruises? Testing her healing response, likely. Then it hit her: they lacked white blood cells. That would explain the scabbed over skin. Wounds could never heal properly because of constant risk of infection. A final genetic modification they wished to make before engaging in intergalactic war. She had to get this information out to her side.

Easing the door open, she made her way down the hall, looking for a breathing apparatus. Her suit would have been incinerated, or locked up, at least. She prayed that it was only locked up. Using the darkness to her advantage, she picked her way past several open doors toward the end of the corridor. Supply room. Excellent. 

Once inside, she was elated to find her suit still intact. She pulled it on and fitted the helmet on snugly, attaching an extra oxygen cannister to her belt. Her best hope was to make it to open space and activate her beacon. Then it would be a race for humanity to recover her body first.

Hideous alarm sirens let her know that they had discovered her escape. Time to move. Extending the telescoping stun prod, she made her way back into the hall. She had 100 yards to go, and three armored individuals were already running at her. She parried a thrust of a stun prod from the first, using its momentum to shove it in the back and send it flailing behind her. The second vaulted off the wall, aiming for her head. Paisley dropped to her knees, sliding below its attack along the smooth floor. She sprung to her feet and kept running. The third combatant stood resolutely in front of her. Wrong move, she thought. She hit it square in the chest like a jouster, sending it flying the opposite direction.

Small as they were, she knew their true advantages lay in intellectual prowess, sheer numbers, and a certain disregard for human ethics. She had to make it out alive and warn humanity. Reaching the exit, she thrust the guard’s keycard into the slot. Nothing. It required two-factor authentication. Panicking, spurred on by the footsteps of a multitude of them just around the corner, she ran to retrieve the card off the body of her nearest dispatched opponent, ignoring the sharp pain in her leg.

With a thrill she watched them barreling down the hall, headed straight for her. Paisley sprinted back to the door. Reaching to her wrist controls, she calmly switched on her beacon.

She was afraid, certainly, but also disappointed. Decades ago, humanity had come to know that they weren’t alone in the universe. But in a way they were still alone, of this much she was certain. With nary a glance back, she pushed the second keycard into the airlock, watched the doors slide open, and launched herself into the void.

What Action Looks Like, or Why We Don't Do Anything Anymore

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Let's talk about language. This necessarily requires a disclaimer: I'm not an English major, I studied engineering and climatology. However, it's not so much the intricacies and structural aspects of language that I'm after. Rather, I want to talk about the proliferation of our use of nouns as verbs, a process known as verbification. (And yes, I fully appreciate the irony of the word "verb" being turned into a verb.)

I'm not a Luddite of language. Language changes and evolves over time, often in helpful ways. Words come and go, get adapted to our changing needs, fall out of use to promote a more just society, and so forth.

But sometimes changes in our language indicate something else is going on. Language reflects culture at large, and in this current cultural moment, perhaps we are "verb-ifying" our language because we don't actually do anything anymore. The verbification of the word becomes a stand in for the action itself.

The cascade began with "texting" and "google-ing." These uses streamlined our language and made a fundamental sort of sense. It is much more fluid to say that you "googled" something, rather than to wade through the unwieldy construction of "I conducted a google search," or "I searched for it on google." (I am omitting capitalization to reflect the use of google to refer to online search in general, rather than the specific use of the Google platform. See how language reflects our larger culture?)

But the story now is changing. Adulting. A new way to Chipotle. Dialogued. Venmo me. Summer safely. This is how you money. For the most part, these new verbifications seem to fall into the realm of cheeky taglines, clever marketing, relatable phrases that will stand out in the ever-expanding competition for our attention. In fact, the first link of Google search (as of this writing) turns up an article citing the (dubious) claim that our attention spans are shrinking and the subsequent challenges that alleged phenomenon poses for marketers. I would argue instead that we are still able to sustain attention just fine, but that there are ever more competing claims being made on our scarce attention. 

Enter in the verbification of words. In a world where competition for attention is being ramped up, individuals seek ways to distinguish themselves from the crowd and companies seek ways to better engage with potential customers. It's done in the name of individualism, being a trend-setter, or being cute. But really, it's just sad.

Follow me. Ok, I get it. Follow is actually a verb. Jesus even exhorted people to follow him. But Jesus's invitation entailed actually doing something. Now? Just a click or a tap. And you've "done" it. And herein lies the problem for modernity. A search of verbified words turns up several webpages guiding one in the practice or explaining its history; other search results offer an indictment of the practice. I, however, want to examine instead what the practice says about us from a broader standpoint.

Much has been written about how much activity – and rest – was involved in a standard day for our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors, notably by Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens. Movement and action were indelible parts of the hunter-gatherer's day. If one didn't move, one didn't eat or survive. 

Contrast this with our modern day experience where one needn't leave the house for days on end. Food, groceries, gadgets and items from Amazon and the like, and all manner of things can be ordered and then delivered right to our doors with only a few keystrokes on our part. This is undoubtedly helpful when we're sick and need or ought to stay in; it is not my intention to demonize modern conveniences. 

But beyond those rare circumstances, it is simply a form of luxurious convenience that allows us to reap rewards without consideration for the true cost of our lack of action. Inaction is not quite the right term to describe this phenomenon since an outcome is actually being produced, so let's instead call it "un-action." Such un-action results in isolation from others, treats the underpaid people involved in the delivery industry with indifference at best and contempt at worst, has a negative impact on the environment, and requires no meaningful effort. There can be no sense of accomplishment when one has, in fact, not actually done anything. Even for those of us in white collar professions, most of our day is spent clicking, typing, and moving virtual objects about on a screen. 

There is a counterculture, however, that would have us take back our sense of accomplishment, and a long list of articles examining the joy and mental health benefits of the flow state that can be achieved while working at a self-determined physical task. From Shop Class as Soulcraft to the classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, we humans seem to know intuitively that joy awaits us when we are allowed self-determinacy and when we work with our hands. The human body evolved to move, and we are denying our bodies a core part of being when we cease to do physical things. 

I think that we sense – subconsciously, at least – that action is missing from our lives. So we create it with our language. We verbify words and allow ourselves to be sucked into the digital vortex and we convince ourselves that we are ok with it. Our capitalist system then embraces the trend and jumps on board with verbified advertising, as with the Chipotle example above (not to mention countless others). 

But what if we could push back? Set down the phone; walk to the store; interact with other people; cook at home; garden; make something; do art; go for a run; find rejuvenation for your body and mind through movement. It will take a conscious effort, but it just might be necessary. Better yet, it just might be an action worth taking.

Seek What Can Be

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The tagline "Seek what can be" adorns the top banner of this blog. I wanted to take some time to explain what I have in mind with that motto.

To "seek what can be" connotes a notion of possibilities and fulfilled potential, of reaching out and grasping at an idea and turning it into a reality. As noted on our About page, being Deliberately Aimless is about desiring that which cannot be and embracing life's contradictions. And so, with a motto imploring you to "Seek what can be," I present you with another contradiction: a blog rooted in the notion of grasping at unattainable things in life that is, surprisingly, defined by a motto of attainment.

Why the contradiction? Because while we want to take on life's big – and sometimes un-answerable – questions on this blog, we don't do so in a pointless or meaningless way. For instance, when asking the question What is the meaning of life?, it's not enough to just say that we don't know or that there are many interpretations. While this statement is true to a degree, we also want to examine all the different perspectives and practices that have been produced through the ages of our shared and collective human experience. Just because a question is difficult or even impossible doesn't mean that it isn't worth taking on. In fact, we view that difficulty as the very reason to engage with it.

To seek what can be involves looking beyond the mundanities of everyday life to see the bigger picture. Life is hard, but it does us no good to cower in fear or to run from it. We must instead meet it head on. Confront life and let it take your measure, and may it not find your measure wanting. 

But neither is this meant to be a rah-rah, puff out your chest anthem. There's a reason that I relate more strongly to Henry David Thoreau than to Theodore Roosevelt, though I greatly respect them both. And as I write this I am struck with the thought that perhaps there aren't such great differences between the two men as a cursory glance would suggest. 

When life dealt TR the worst of blows and took his wife and his mother from him in the span of a single day, he entered into his journal a somber and simple statement: "The light has gone out of my life." To deal with his grief and this great tribulation, Roosevelt sought solitude in the Dakota Territory where he became a rancher for a time and hunted and rode on the high plains. Roosevelt did not run from his trauma. He merely sought out a place of solitude wherein he could work through it. Solitude – as Jesus informs us numerous times through his actions – is a great teacher and can be a place of strength.

To seek what can be can also refer to this sort of seeking. The seeking of solitude, of re-centering, of greater understanding, or the realization that one simply cannot understand what has transpired but that it is possible to keep moving forward. That the light may have gone out, but that it can also be re-ignited.

As someone who deals with bouts of despair – and who doesn't these days? – I think it is this secondary definition that is the more important. Sure, by all means, seek what can be in the sense of following your dreams and making great things happen. I want to encourage that heartily, as well. But I think it is in the quiet moments, where we are unsure, downtrodden, beaten down by life, that seeking what can be can really be a mantra to carry us through. 

In the words of beloved author EB White, "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." To seek what can be is the hope that some day one need not choose between these desires, but that they would be one and the same.

Ocean Exploration via Biomimicry

 

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In a previous post, we examined the benefits of design inspired by the principles of biomimicry. As a reminder, biomimicry is the practice of observing and then mimicking nature as a way of finding innovative solutions to human problems. Nature has often optimized solutions through many millennia of natural selection at work. Our task, then, is to take these solutions that are readily available and find ways to tweak and apply them to human problems. One such example that I want to explore is that of deep sea exploration.

The deep sea and the sea floor are the last (macroscopic) frontiers on earth. By some accounts, more than 80% of the oceans and sea beds remain unexplored and unmapped. To gain an idea of the complexity of the issue, we should start with a little history of ocean exploration. 

In the United States, the first coastal survey was performed beginning in 1807 after the authorization of the Coast Survey by President Thomas Jefferson. It wasn't until 1840 that Sir James Clark Ross of England took the first deep sea sounding in the south Atlantic. The Gulf Stream, a key factor in the moderate temperatures of western Europe, was finally mapped in 1860 following a 15 year mapping project by the US Coast Survey. Ocean exploration and our understanding of climate goes hand in hand, as the oceans act as a great moderator of the climate that we experience due to the high heat capacity of water.

From 1872-1878, the first modern bathymetric map was created following soundings taken by the Coast Survey in the Gulf of Mexico. Fortunately for us in the modern world, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now produces an online and interactive bathymetric data viewer. It allows a user to delineate and download a digital elevation model (DEM) of the ocean floor as measured by sonar and lidar (pulsed laser measurements).

Following the early creations of bathymetric maps from high-density soundings, ocean research in the following several decades continued primarily through depth soundings, dredging of the sea floor, and temperature measurements. It wasn't until the 1920s that radio acoustic ranging came on the scene and more modern methods were developed in subsequent decades, such as sonar and, in the past two decades, lidar. To underscore the difficulty of comprehensive ocean exploration, then, it has only been in the past century that we have been able to take electronic measurements and only for the past several decades that we have been able to do so at scale. This setup helps to explain the current paucity of knowledge regarding the oceans, particularly the vast space been the surface and the floor. 

The above methods all represent remote ways of measuring the ocean. Sending a craft, especially a manned craft, is far more difficult due to the immense pressures reached under even a couple thousand meters of water. From the 1930s, we have been sending humans to increasing depths in increasingly rigid and thick-bodied diving craft. In 1960, the manned Trieste bathyscaphe reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, a depth of over 10,900 meters (over 35,800 feet). In keeping with design principles of the time, the Trieste had a 5-inch steel wall around the pressure sphere, a small plexiglass observation window, and a thinner exterior steel wall to contain the float liquid used for buoyancy. 

Our design principles for deep sea diving may be changing, however, as a team of researchers from Zhejiang University in China demonstrated in a 2021 paper in the journal Nature. The team designed an un-manned diving craft using principles inspired by the soft-bodied hadal snailfish. This translates to a diving craft design with a silicone body and dispersed electronics, thus allowing the electronic components of the craft to be spread out in the silicone body and not require the pressure resistance that a centralized system would necessitate. 

This approach allows the robot to operate as a deep sea organism does, with its body flexing and responding to changes in pressure, but remaining pliant enough to not be crushed by the immense pressures. The robot is propelled by electrical signals that convert into mechanical energy and induce a flapping motion in the "fins" of the craft. Think along the lines of how the electrical current makes Batman's cloth cape rigid in Batman Begins.

The robot was subsequently tested in the South China Sea to a stated depth of 3,200 meters and was later tested in the Mariana Trench, though the final achieved depth was not stated. And while it is noted that the propulsion system needs some fine-tuning (ocean currents can pose a problem for the device's limited mobility), this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, one inspired by simply observing and mimicking organisms in their natural environment. 

The potential advances we may discover lurking in the depths of the oceans provide more than enough motivation to continue this biomimicry-inspired research, whether we ultimately make breakthroughs of a medical, energy, or as yet unknown origin. This is research that allows us as humans to Seek what can be, something that we here at Deliberately Aimless certainly support (more on this in a future post).

For full details of the research, read the press release from Nature here.

Mount Timpanogos on the Horizon

 

Mount Timpanogos, Utah

As the winter season draws to a close here in Utah and we find ourselves firmly in mid-spring, I thought it would be fun to revisit a photo of Mount Timpanogos (11,749') that I took in early April 2018. I had trudged through the deep spring snow up to the top of White Baldy (11,321') in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Still relatively new to the area at the time, I knew that vast vistas awaited me at the top, but I didn't quite know what the views would hold. I was not disappointed.

Timpanogos, or Timp as it is affectionately known by locals, is the second tallest mountain in the Wasatch Range, second only to Mount Nebo (11,928'), which is just visible in the above photo in the distance on the right hand side. It wouldn't be until October 2019 that I would summit Timp itself – perhaps more on that in a future post.

The climb up White Baldy begins at the White Pine trailhead, the starting point for many of my favorite hikes in the central Wasatch. Eventually the trail diverges in the wood (I couldn't help myself), and the hiker can choose between the White Pine or Red Pine trails. I took the left-hand trail and continued up White Pine. (I know, that's a lot of Pines.) 

The snow was still deep, but soft. It was early spring and the snow was beginning to melt in the afternoons. I had begun in the early morning, but would find myself post-holing a route through the waist deep snow at certain points later in the climb. My thighs screamed bloody murder, and I had to scramble on all fours to reach the ridge that would carry me to the summit, but it was worth it just for the sheer beauty. (Make sure to take proper gear, precautions, and safety measures. Snow can be finnicky and is not to be underestimated on steep slopes.)

Nothing quite prepares you for the stillness and silence that can be experienced in a snow-covered forest. And as I made my way above the tree line and the sun made its way over the ridge to touch the north slope, the entire landscape before me began to sparkle with a brilliance unmatched by man-made displays. In those moments, nothing else mattered but the next step that I took. The serenity even silenced the typically incessant thoughts in my head. 

Then I reached the top. And the view that awaited me is what you see at the top of this post. Shimmering, sparkling, brilliance.

As for the descent, steep as it was, I reminded myself of the line from Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, "It's impossible to fall off mountains, you fool." And so I made my way back down, brisk and lively across the snow.

→Haiku

Bluebird sky above,

Untrammeled snow at my feet,

Mountaintops beckon.

The Nature of Justice

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Social justice. Environmental justice. Distributive justice. Procedural justice. The list goes on. Justice is a term that we hear often, but that many of us probably don't often enough take the time to ponder. What exactly is justice and, more importantly, what does it mean in practical terms for each of us as people and as citizens?

When you hear the term "social justice," undoubtedly your mind goes to social issues. For instance, the Black Lives Matter movement or ensuring equality of opportunity and equal treatment in the workplace. The term "environmental justice" likely conjures up notions of protecting the environment from human degradation, but also of recognizing that the route of a highway corridor through a city, inconsistent zoning laws, and unequal access to outdoor spaces can represent matters of justice. "Distributive justice" refers to the distribution of resources, which in modern times typically concerns issues such as determining what amounts to fair taxation, to what purpose tax money should be allocated, and how to treat corporations relative to the individual. The term "procedural justice" refers to equal treatment under our officially codified operating procedures, including in legal matters, but also in the perceived fairness of the system as a whole.

This is hardly an exhaustive list of the applications of justice, but it at least provides a starting point for our examination. Matters of justice are difficult to adjudicate because the persons or entities involved rarely share the same perspective. For example, should there be hard and fast rules, such as the justice of the many taking precedence over the justice of the individual? Or should we evaluate scenarios on a case by case basis? This approach may seem ideal, but in a society of many millions of individuals all with distinct interests, it is certainly impractical. Likely, as with so many things in life, the answer lies somewhere in between.

To seek out that (admittedly incomplete and elusive) answer, we will examine three common schools of thought which have developed to provide guidance in determining what constitutes justice. For a more thorough and in-depth treatment of this topic, I recommend checking out Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael Sandel. Ideas from Mr. Sandel's book will act as our guide.

1. Utilitarian Justice
   
   We begin with the notion of utility, first popularized by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Utility maintains that humans, and human societies, should approach justice in a calculating manner. Whatever decision or action results in the greatest good (or least harm) for the greatest number of people should be the logical choice. At the individual level, we are no longer concerned with the greatest number of people, but rather with the greatest amount of pleasure derived from a decision or activity.
   
   This approach is generally straightforward, provided one knows what one wants, or whether the greatest amount of good for society can be reasonably estimated. These assumptions are rarely the case, however, and the result is conundrums that the concept of utility is ill-prepared to deal with. For instance, the utilitarian notion of choosing that which will result in the greatest pleasure for ourselves does not distinguish between levels of choices or activities, which is to say, the virtue of the thing in question. Furthermore, utilitarianism concerns itself with deserts rather than the experience. If two people do the same job and make the same money, proponents of utilitarianism are satisfied. Never mind that the second person is miserable doing the job while the first loves it. And never mind whether one of them is more satisfied by their income than the other.
   
   It is my sense that utilitarianism seeks to remove morality from the question and distill decision making at the individual and societal levels to an equation of that which results in the greatest pleasure or good. Mind you, that's good with a lowercase "g" and not capital "G" Good. It is good in that it provides pleasure or does not harm, but it is not necessarily (though is not exclusive from) Good that promotes virtue or values. 
   
   
2. Freedom of Choice
   
   A second notion of justice is that of freedom of choice, which has gained adherents in the modern political sphere. In his book, Sandel uses as an example of freedom of choice the modern arguments put forth by (often political) proponents of marriage equality (abortion is another such example provided). In essence, justice in this case is represented by the freedom of the individuals to marry whom they choose, and neither society nor individuals should be allowed to interfere.
   
   Sandel notes that this approach, like that of utilitarianism, sometimes results in the removal of the morality of the question and simply makes it a matter of personal liberty. It is appealing because it allows for a certain detachment: society does not have to grapple with matters of collectively-defined virtue, we simply make our own choices freely insofar as they do not encroach on the rights of others. Leave well enough alone, as it were.
   
   Often times, however, this approach fails precisely because it does not engage individuals on an emotional level. It is my sense that we do not want a society where people merely tolerate the choices of others, while maintaining a bitter resentment regarding said choices. Instead, it seems worth striving for a society in which people can understand and respect one another's choices alongside the act of tolerance. 
   
   
3. Purpose
   
   The third notion of justice that we will examine here is that of purpose, which is to say, the idea of promoting virtue while reasoning about the common good. This injects notions of morality and emotion back into the question. It is necessarily messier than the prior two ideas, but the result is also more satisfying.
   
   At the heart of this notion of justice is Aristotle's idea of telos, or the purpose of a thing, individual, society, or instrument. For instance, according to the idea of telos, the best violins in the world should go to the best violin players, rather than to the nobility, those who can afford the highest price, those who know the right people, etc. In order for the violin to fulfill its purpose, it must be played by the best violinists.
   
   Telos forces us to grapple with what it is that we want justice to represent and promote. Under this ideology, justice is not merely an abstract or indifferent concept. Justice becomes a system of behavior and results whereby we promote behaviors in individuals and societies that we collectively desire. This borders on the notion of justice as fairness expounded by John Rawls, which posits that society should be fair and the individual free, thus "resolving the tensions between the ideas of freedom and equality." In this sense, we must provide justification for our notions of justice, which forces us to think long and hard about why one choice outweighs another.

In Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?, Sandel presents the third notion of justice as his preferred method, and I must agree. To remove notions of fairness, however difficult to define for a given case, is to distill out the human element of justice. Justice cannot be an equation, as with utilitarianism, nor can it be wholly impartial and indifferent, as with freedom of choice. In order to promote virtue in individuals and society, we must grapple with difficult questions of fairness, what it is that makes for a just society, and what it is to live a good life.

Thoreau #3, or The Perennial Source of Our Life

 

We continue our series on Thoreau with an examination of space. In Thoreau's mind, as we shall see, space is about so much more than just the physical distance that separates us.

"This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space; How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to?... to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends its roots out in that direction."

A point in space, and we are but the merest of dots upon that point. Feeling insignificant? Good, you well should. The notion of this series would not be appropriate if I made this all about you or me. Take heart, though, for while every single one of us is insignificant, that is hardly to say that we lack purpose. Let’s begin, however, with said insignificance. 

Before the time of the Greek astronomer Aristarchus, it was widely accepted that the Earth was at the center of the Universe. Even after Aristarchus formulated his theory which placed the Sun at the center of the Universe, it seems evident that few chose to fall in line with his thinking. The theory would not gain a wider audience until the 16th century, nearly 1800 years later, when Copernicus published his heliocentric theory. This is just as well, as he, too, turned out to be incorrect. 

As it turns out, it is impossible to know where the center of the Universe is. Because of the great distances involved, it takes light an immense amount of time to travel to an observer on Earth from the edges of space, many millions and billions of years, in fact. The Universe is widely thought to be 13.8 billion years old, which is to say, we have been able to observe light coming from a distance of 13.8 billion light years away. This is the observable Universe. 

Ironically, to an observer on Earth, Earth will always appear to be at or near the center of the observable Universe, due to the fact that light will be traveling to said observer from all directions at relatively the same speed, thus illuminating a comparable distance. The Universe is constantly expanding; according to some theories it is expanding faster than the speed of light in places, breaking the widely accepted cosmic speed limit. If this is true, there is light from some parts of the Universe that will never reach us here on Earth, no matter how long the Universe remains in existence. How’s that for insignificance? There are parts of the Universe that will never even be revealed to us here on this point in space.

Despite the immense scales of the Universe, both time and space, Thoreau’s question of human separation is still a valid one. In fact, the separation Thoreau speaks of has nothing to do with distance. For indeed, there should be nothing that can truly separate two hearts or minds set upon each other. As clichéd as it may be, Thoreau is not just talking about physical proximity or intellectual interaction here; he is also talking about love. “The perennial source of our life,” as Thoreau puts it, is referring to faith in something greater than ourselves. A higher power, if you will.

Whether Thoreau was referring to faith in what we call God, or something else, is unclear. He was, after all, a transcendentalist, believing more in ascertaining the truth of the world around him than in divining it from a preacher’s sermon or a deity. It seems more likely that Thoreau was loosely a Deist, in the vein of Thomas Jefferson, believing in the existence of some Creative Being, but rejecting some central tenets of Christianity, including the notion of the Holy Trinity or interventions in our world by said Being. Whatever greater Being Thoreau did believe in, for it seems evident that he believed in something greater than himself, he felt a strong desire to draw closer to his god. For simplicity, I will refer to this something greater as God for the remainder of this post.

What does drawing closer to God look like? For Thoreau, to draw closer to God meant to immerse himself more fully in God’s creation, that is, the natural world.  This is the notion that Thoreau is speaking to in his opening lines of Walden when he talks of “front[ing] only the essential facts of life.” The essential facts of life are spiritual.

People these days will often espouse how they would rather spend money on experiences than on material goods. If faced with a limited budget, for instance, a couple planning to be married may skimp on the cost of an engagement ring and the wedding in order to honeymoon in a better location or for a longer period of time. Or, at least, that’s the going narrative. Whether or not these same people follow through on these claims when faced with the decision is unknown and difficult to quantify. Society, after all, has expectations, and a ring or wedding ceremony is a very visible way for a couple to assert their place in society. 

Goods purchased, or even experiences had, when undertaken in order to produce the most visibility rather than for the experiences themselves, are of the world, and for that reason Thoreau would have been less taken with them. When I say “of this world,” I am speaking of those things that are impressed upon us as things which we should pursue by society, our cultures, the media, et cetera. While I don’t think that Thoreau would necessarily condemn anyone who pursues those things set before us by the world, such as wealth, colloquial success, or status, he would nevertheless caution individuals against setting their sights on these things at the expense of appreciating the true purpose of existence.

And that true purpose, in short, is to experience life to its fullest. Purpose is found in developing and nurturing relationships with other people; in rising early to watch the sun rise, your dog of ten years, grey in the muzzle, taking it more slowly, yet still reaching the hilltop in time to watch that orange orb crest over the distant mist; in staying up late to watch the constellations chase each other across the indigo night sky, assuming you’ve found a sky of sufficient darkness these days; in making somebody’s day by smiling or saying hello as you pass, offering a glint of hope in what might otherwise be a tough go of it. 

I could go on, but I think the picture is clear. These are the experiences, the human versions of the tree sending its roots in search of water. We seek God when we seek to live out our purpose, and subsequently find a deeper relationship with all of existence. We find the "perennial source of our life" when we live amidst and in harmony with Nature, as well as with our fellow man. Distance, then, occurs only as we allow it.