20 August 2010

freelance quantum wufkitn

Friday the 13th has traditionally been a good day for me, and this just past was no different. Except maybe that it was better than some - ? Top ten, i'd say, if i were able to count such things. Actually, its the weekend as a whole i'm looking at, or even back into the week.. from the new moon on, let's say. A good time to mark a beginning.

Dark moons have been a noticeable event in my life for the last twenty years or so. i've mentioned that fact before. Long enough you'd think i'd remember to pay attention when one's coming up, but they're as likely to sneak up on me as not. i hit a peak, crest a wave, look at my little Lunabar app, and - oh, go figure. That's been as certainly true with this one as any.

So maybe it wasn't until Saturday that it struck me, really; but then, i'm often so caught up in the moment i don't have time to Process until afterwards. But at some point Saturday i realized - i have a stack of checks sitting on my desk, waiting to be deposited. Wait, now, i have *what* - ?! But its true. i'm hardly rolling - all but one are for less than a hundred dollars - but neither am i in danger of defaulting on the rent, at least for next month. After that, who knows. Its a crapshoot - welcome to the world of freelance! - but right now, just for today (if you will) i'm doing ok.

Also on Saturday, after closing night for the last play, i had a really nice conversation with one of our troupe members. Who is also going the freelance route, a bit further down the path than me tho. But he was very encouraging, seemed like he Sees it how i See it. i've been feeling pretty good about how things are going anyway, but hearing someone else's take on it was really nice (and definitely appreciated, pal, if you're reading this!)

Somewhere along the way with this, i also had a moment of feeling.. of realization.. how can i put this. Five years ago i was in such a different place - emotionally, financially, physically.. and at the time, i Saw that a wave of change was coming in. i didn't know where the wave would take me, only that Something was building. Now, i suddenly feel like i know what it was building towards, that i'm Here, Now, this is It. By which i don't mean at an end or stopping point; maybe the end of an era or phase and the beginning of a new one, but not Over over. i'm certainly not ready to be done, by a long shot.

Saturday night i went home early, no reason to stay out. In a good frame of mind after hanging out with my pal. My apartment, lovely new place, was quiet, a lazy humid breeze drifting up from the lake. i went into the living room in the dark, still not used to having so much space of my very own, and started doing yoga - a nice long session, stretching myself beyond my usual limits. Moving very slowly, Subliminal time, so as not to pull anything; and then settling into statue mode. i wanted to try a new pose, see if i could hold it, and i think that i can, that it will work (a variation on the Venus de Milo - obviously variant, as my arms are staying attached thanks just the same!) Did my regular workout after that and then went to sleep to the sound of crickets and the gentle oscillation of my fan.

Things are coming together in my life - i feel that finding this apartment is a symbol of that, not the cause, of course. But as if that was the last key i had to turn in the lock, and now the door has opened. Life could be very scary right now; i have no idea how i'll pay rent in October, little say electric or food or heat. i signed a year lease that i can't promise i'll be able to carry out. And yet somehow i'm not worried - in fact, i'm quite the opposite of worried; serenely trusting in thee yoniverse that S/He will provide.

i don't believe there are accidents - maybe causes and effects we can't perceive or understand. Not accidents, though. i'm here, where i am, because this is where i am *meant* to be at this juncture. The place fits me too perfectly. And if i managed to make this lucky stumble, to some place i feel so content, so able to live my life, then i Trust and believe that the means to maintaining it will appear. This is already beginning to happen; opportunities i would not have expected or looked for seem to be springing up. i'm cautious about getting too optimistic, settling back and thinking i've nothing to worry about, but at the same time trying not to worry things *out* of existence, either.

A final tangent and i'll close: i'm a reader with a broad spectrum of tastes, have been my whole life.­ i therefore pick up books at the thrifts fairly regularly; a twenty-five cent investment can provide a week's worth of entertainment, albeit some much more entertaining than others. One of my recent acquisitions, "Timescape" by Gregory Benford, might not seem entertaining to most folks. Its what is known as 'hard' science fiction; that is, the science in it is real, or real enough to speculate upon. There's not much sex (what little there is involves the closest thing to a villain in the piece, nothing racy at all) and even less violence. Nary a car chase to be found. i've been looking forward to getting home every night so i could get back to it.

The book deals with the possibility of a sort of time travel, or at least communication backwards in time; and the problems arising if such an endeavour proves successful. Since the author is equipped with a working knowledge of quantum physics (circa 1980), one of the possible consequences of such communication is the notion of parallel universes - a concept i've spent a lot of time thinking about.

One of the most interesting things in the world to me is when you go far enough around the circle that magic becomes a science, and science blurs and dissolves into spirit. Sir Arthur Eddington is quoted as saying "The stuff of the universe is mind-stuff", one of the shaping mantras of my life. This book doesn't go quite that deeply in, but it does ultimately begin to deal with the question of what happens when the universe splits in two (Another look at this, one more accessible to the general populace, occurs in the movie "The Butterfly Effect").

The protagonist realizes, near the end of the story, that his universe shifted and changed, and that his former future was no longer 'future', that it, in fact, no longer *existed* for him. He is even able to narrow it down to approximately when the shift happened, one of several events that might have thrown the switch (as readers in the 'outside observer' mode, we know very clearly which event, as the outcome - the author chose a well-known historical moment - turned out very differently in our world).

What intrigues me is the notion that his fictional description of the sense of shifting futures, and at least one theoretical speculation on how this could happen, very strongly mirror my own experiences, and intuitive sense of the same - my 'magic' just took a giant step closer to his 'science'. Is it then so wildly improbable that 'magic' brought me into this apartment, is bringing me new opportunities, even that it put a randomly-chosen book from the thrift store into my hands with a possible explanation for how such things might happen - ?!

Of course, any sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to less advanced civilizations. But whether its that hoodoo that you do or the Wheeler-Everett-Graham model doesn't matter to me. All i know is, the universe is unfolding as it should, and for once i seem to be surfing the crest of the probability wave. Um - cowabunga??

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