I haven't posted in a while now. I've been having some pretty astounding personal changes in my life, and they've distracted me to the point where I need to let things settle down in my mind before I can organize anything sufficiently to post. Therefor, it's likely to be a while more before I have something intelligible to write here.
I thought I'd be ready by now, but that's not the case. One thing keeps leading to another, and I can't even say how long it will be.. Meanwhile, the following fantasy occurred to me before the changes began (and it's just possible they're related). I'll put it out here for your amusement 'til I'm ready to continue. If this brings up anything for you in your personal life, I'd love to hear about it if you're willing to share.
Thanks for your patience, and I hope you'll check back in a month or so.
"A Fantasy in 11 Dimensions."
This post is fantasy. Any relationship to the real world is purely coincidental.
One of my all-time favorite books is Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. In it, he describes three concepts I have found fascinating my whole life.
“Waiting is”: The idea that waiting isn't necessarily a passive thing. You can do it actively, more like stalking than waiting.
“Grok”: The ability to drink an idea into oneself, to understand it so thoroughly that it becomes a part of you.
“90-degrees from everything”:
The hero, an idiot-savant of sorts, has the ability to “disappear” things, but can't explain how he does it. The secondary-main character does an experiment to see where things go when this happens. He sets up 2 high-speed cameras 90-degrees from each other, and films a disappearance. Both cameras show that the disappeared object goes rapidly off into the distance, becoming smaller and smaller until it vanishes from sight. Where did the disappeared objects go? “90-degrees from everything.”
It's a wonderful book, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Recently, something prompted me to think about it once again, particularly in regard to “90-degrees from everything.”
We're all familiar with 4 dimensions:
up-down (height)
right-left (width)
near-far (length)
recent-past (time)
Each is 90-degrees from the other. So, what's 90-degrees from everything we know? Inside-outside (a nameless dimension so far). It's the 5th dimension.
Of course, inside and outside are relative, but then, so are up and down, right and left, near and far, and even recent and past. They all depend on the position (and time) of the viewer. Inside and outside is no different, really. Our bodies are inside the real universe, and our “selves” (souls, spirits, whatever) are outside. Or is it our selves that are inside the real universe and our bodies are outside of it? See what I'm saying? Either way, inside-outside is 90-degrees from everything else.
Note also that inside and outside each have a version of right-left, up-down, and all the other dimensions. So, now we have 10 dimensions in the universe. Five are “real” and five are “imaginary.” So, let's add an all-pervasive barrier that separates inside from outside, “real” from “imaginary,” and let's call it the 11th dimension.
We could call this M-Theory (Mystery Theory), but that name's already taken, so, in the spirit of 2001's semi-intelligent computer H-A-L ( note that's I-B-M minus one letter alphabetically), let's call it L-Theory.
Now, that's what I call fun! (OK, so my idea of fun is maybe different than yours.)
Let me repeat: This post is fantasy. Any relationship to the real world is purely coincidental..
Or it it? (Cue the spooky music, and fade to black.)
