horror

See what I did there with the title? I was clever I was, quick to include the subjects of today’s meanderings.

I’ve been working on a new book, something which tends to send my brainmatter searching for new signals to sift through, decipher, and otherwise expand my sphere of knowledge. One such signal came in the form of a book titled From Eternity To Here by Sean Carroll. In short, it’s a book which attempts to understand and breakdown the origins, present course, and future possibilities of time. No small feat, to be sure. Add to that the fact that I’m a complete scientific layman, and what you get is one hell of a weird time. Luckily, Carroll seemed prepared for that and has plenty of explanations for the complex ideas littered throughout the book.

That said, being more creative souls rather than a scientist, most fiction writers (myself included) will tend to latch on to certain bits and pieces in books like this and obsess and run away with them, fixating and dissecting whilst sometimes even ignoring the original purpose of the information all together. While lazily flipping through the chapter titled “Recurring Nightmares,” I stumbled across Poincare’s Recurrence Theorem and that’s exactly what happened.

The gist of the theorem is, thankfully, simple enough: Given a finite amount of space and enough time, moving objects will always return to their original configuration. Seems simple. So what do I do with it? I start thinking about how that applies to the web of life that I operate within and wonder: If this is true in physics, quantum or otherwise, is it also true in philosophy? Will everything in my life at some point, given enough time, realign with an earlier configuration?

If the above is true, if relationships, social statuses, successes, and failures come full circle, does that negate any progress that you’ve made? In other words, will you always step back without having gained, step forward without complete understanding of the forces which compel you? Lots of questions which, unfortunately, I don’t have the answers too. Instead, I have guesses, the main thrust of which is that yes, it is true. Sort of.

I think that, at varying points in our lives, we’re all offered opportunities to reconnect with one another; to go home again; to reset. I think that they’re just that though: opportunities. It isn’t mandatory, you needn’t be compliant with what’s put in front of you, and you may not even recognize the opportunity (the first time around) for what it is. Likewise, I think the universe has a funny way of bringing you full circle every once in awhile in order to take stock of your life and see if you made it to where you intended to go and to review how you got there. You retain what you’ve gained but you’re presented with a perspective you may not have looked through in awhile.

There are some subtleties attached to the theory, not the least of which being, in the case of an orbiting planet which moves in finite revolutions, there are infinite points on the road it travels, even if it doesn’t wander beyond a fixed path. In this case, Carroll writes that it’s not something worth quibbling over, that, in fact, even Poincare would say it was a case where “almost” was good enough when the realignment occurs at a point close to the original. I think that’s the case here. When we’re brought back around and set to taking stock of ourselves, we’re nearly at the same starting point we began at, so close, in some cases, as to cause the two points to be indecipherable from one another. “Almost” is good enough. You’re presented with a figurative beginning point again yet armed, hopefully, with a store of experience and hard-won knowledge with which you might move forward. Whether or not it’s in the same direction or one just a tad off to the right is up to you.

Stephen King has, with great success, explored this in a direct and poignant way in a story which I won’t name here (keeping it spoiler free). Suffice it to say that a main character was presented with a situation and failed to act as he/she should have. The result was that he/she was thrust back to the beginning with hardly any recollection of what would come in his/her future, yet is shown to have acted differently in his/her past leading up to this realignment/return to his/her beginning. In other words they, in some small capacity, learned from their mistakes and would begin again with an opportunity to succeed which they’d lacked previously. Their experiences had been imprinted, if not remembered in a recognizable fashion.

Of course, taking everything a step into that direction, one has to start asking one’s self – what would you do if you could do it all again but didn’t know what you did the first time? Think you’d do the same things again or would chance come into play?

Or maybe you only know snippets. Maybe you’re the only one who remembers. Then again, maybe you’re not. Do you obsess over the fragments of dream-memory or do you simply move forward? The fun really begins, in this case, when one person tries to stick to the script while somebody else goes off the reservation.

Then what?

Ramblings of a madman here. I imagine this will require bearing out in something but it’ll have to wait. Into the notes it goes, to be retrieved in months or years when a story explodes from it. Until then, curious what you guys think: do we get a figurative do-over from time to time? A literal one at the end of the road?

Next up? How about a peak at some artwork from Awakening Volume Two?

Chapter 7 – Cover

That right there is the “cover” to what would’ve been issue 7 (which is now chapter 7). Even though we knew going into it that Volume Two was going to be hardcover only (i.e. no floppies), we wanted to keep the format seamless with Volume One. Plus, doing covers is always a good excuse for Alex to cut loose and, in a single image, help prepare you for what’s coming.

As best you can, anyway…