Category: Illusion

NOTE: This piece was originally posted on my Substack where the majority of my writing lives right now.

Beginnings, Endings, and Beginning Again Again

Imagine if everything lasted forever.

Not just some things. Everything.

Imagine a reality where there was no death, no degradation, nothing that truly wore out or disappeared. Things might change form. They might appear and disappear from view. They might grow, contract, expand, transform, or reinvent themselves. But nothing would actually come to an end. And from a place of focused consciousness, you can “revisit” or “re-present” any point in an infinitude of moments.

How would we live in a world like that?

And what if I told you that I think we already live in a world like that? Could you imagine that?

Well for most of my life, I haven’t experienced time in quite the same way that many people have described it to me. What I experience is not a sequence of things that arise and then vanish, but an ongoing expression of something that is always here. Things appear new, but they never feel separate from what came before. Everything feels simultaneously ancient and freshly born.

I know that may be difficult to fathom.

Truthfully, I’ve often found it just as difficult to understand why so many people experience reality primarily through the lens of the fear of endings. Perhaps it has something to do with what the writer of Hebrews was pointing toward when he suggested that humanity remains in bondage because of the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). If you’ve read my work before, you’ve probably encountered my references to Ernest Becker and his exploration of death denial. Becker argued that much of human behavior is organized around avoiding our awareness of mortality. Later thinkers expanded that idea into what is now called Terror Management Theory.

But I don’t really want to revisit all of that today. What I want to talk about is time. Or perhaps more accurately, I want to talk about the possibility that time is not what we think it is. The closest analogy I can find is an infinitely foldable sheet of paper.

Every Single Thing Is Folding In On Everything Else

Imagine taking a single sheet of paper infinite in size and dimensions and folding it over itself again and again, like an accordion. Peaks touch troughs. Distant points suddenly become neighbors. What appears separated from one perspective becomes intimately connected from another. Each fold becomes a moment. Each peak or valley appears isolated when viewed from inside the fold. Yet every fold belongs to the same sheet. Every moment belongs to the same reality.

The moment we are focused upon becomes the center of our experience, but that doesn’t make it separate from everything else. That may not be the perfect metaphor, but it comes close to describing how I experience life.

There are moments when I experience myself as an infant again—not remembering myself as an infant, but somehow inhabiting that perspective. Other moments, I am elderly. Sometimes I am standing in the imagination of my own deathbed. Then I am young again.

The continuity we call “my life” often feels less like a linear progression and more like a temporary arrangement of attention. It’s as though consciousness is constantly moving its spotlight. When the spotlight rests somewhere, that becomes “now.” When it moves, another now appears.

The Twists and Turns Are the Point

If the paper description You stand in line knowing the ride is safe. You watch other people get on and off. Intellectually, you understand that you’re fine.

Then the ride begins.

The drops come.

The loops come.

The twists come.

And for a few moments, you forget.

You feel fear, excitement, anticipation, wonder. Then the ride ends, and almost immediately most people want to get back in line. Why? Because the feelings were the point. And, I can’t help but trust that life works much the same way.

We create countless experiences, relationships, identities, conflicts, triumphs, losses, and reunions. We generate the appearance of distance from ourselves, from one another, and perhaps even from God. But all of it serves the experience.

All of it belongs to the same ride.

All of it belongs to the same infinite sheet–or maybe I should call it a field like so many others have. But, I like the idea of a sheet of paper because we can also inscribe upon it whatever experience we desire.

When we focus narrowly, we experience isolated moments. When we widen our awareness, we see that everything is touching everything else.

It is like standing in a valley versus standing on a mountaintop. From the valley, your vision is limited. You can only see what appears immediately around you. From the mountaintop, you see the entire landscape at once. Nothing changed except your perspective. The landscape was always there.

The God’s Eye View

In some corners of physics, we say that frequency and time have an inverse relationship. I learned this when I was a satellite communication technician. The faster the frequency, the shorter the interval. Push that principle far enough and you approach something like timelessness. That’s a reality in which everything exists simultaneously. It’s basically the way C.S. Lewis describes what he imagined to be God’s perspective of reality. He also liked the paper analogy by the way.

So, before you freak out that I might be suggesting that I see the world from God’s perspective, consider a couple of things. One, C.S. Lewis described what he believed was God’s perspective from the vantage point of C. S. Lewis’ very own perspective. So, at worst, I am doing the same thing. But the second thing anyone who has a problem with me talking like this should ask is, whose perspective would the person disturbed by my description be evaluating it from? Their idea of God’s perspective? Their own?

Do you see where I am going with all of this. All perspectives exist everywhere all the time right now and we all have access to them all if we so choose to look at it all from an elevated view.

Nothing is emerging. Nothing is arriving. Nothing is becoming. Everything simply always is forever now. You know it. I know it. We are it. But, when we are on the self chosen roller coaster we forget so that we can enjoy everything the ride has to offer.

That is why life seems to oscillate between forgetting and remembering. Forgetting and remembering. Forgetting and remembering. It is like inhaling and exhaling. Each breath not only feels new, it is new. And, yet every breath belongs to the same life. In the same way, each life feels separate, yet perhaps every life belongs to the same to the One Life of which we are all expressions.

All Is Revealed Outside of Time

This morning, I wrote a song called Too Good, Too True. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I picked the song just like one picks a ripe piece of fruit. The song arrived almost instantly because the words have always existed. My role wasn’t to invent them so much as to become present enough to hear them and willing enough to share them. That may sound strange, but I suspect every artist, inventor, scientist, and dreamer knows something about this experience.

If you’ve seen the new Michael Jackson biopic, you know that Michael expressed something similar when he said that he had to be available to receive a song or God was going to give the song to Prince.

The song was there. I simply tuned into it. The same is true of every creation.

Every song.

Every poem.

Every invention.

Every painting.

Every possibility.

Everything that has existed, will exist, or could have existed already resides within the infinite field of what is. From this way of experiencing life, Creation may be less about manufacturing something new and more about entering into relationship with something waiting to be chosen.

That reminds me of a story often told about Michael Jackson. During the making of the film Michael, he joked that if he didn’t receive a song, it might go to Prince instead.

I resonated with the frequency of Too Good, Too True, from a place of appreciation. My youngest daughter and I had just gone to see the Masters of the Universe movie–another nostalgia inducing flick like the MJ movie that aligned me with my child expression. The fold of what we could call the past and the present touched and I could see the whole landscape of this life as Pedro Senhorinha Silva and how all of it was working together for me to experience the joys of my relationships with my wife and kids. And when I connected to that, I thought about how many lives I would be willing to live to experience little moments with my family. And the answer is infinite lives.

The song speaks from the perspective of a love that can never actually lose what it loves. A love that creates distance only so reunion can occur. A love that asks, “Do you love me too?” even while already knowing the answer. A love that returns ten thousand times because there was never anywhere else to go.

When I wrote:

“Even if it takes me ten thousand lives,
I’ll keep coming back for you…”

I am not just talking about romantic love.

I am talking about every relationship.

I am talking about humanity and God.

I am talking about self and Self.

I am talking about enemies who eventually become friends.

I am talking about the universe continually rediscovering itself through every form it takes.

That’s why I ended the song with:

“So know that what’s loved
Never comes to an end.
Lovers, enemies, friends,
Then begin again.”

Maybe that is what all of this is. A beginning that never ends. An ending that never quite finishes. What some have described as an infinite game of hide-and-seek in which the seeker and the sought are the same being. We create time so that reunion can happen. We create distance so that closeness can be felt. We create forgetting so that remembering can be ecstatic. And every once in a while, through a song, a conversation, a sunrise, a heartbreak, or a moment of stillness, we catch a glimpse of what has been true all along.

There is no ultimate separation. There never was. There is only the endless joy of finding one another again.

Everything.

Always.

Forever.

Too Good, Too True

Even if it takes me 10,000 lives

I’ll keep coming back for you

Mmm hmmm

Try and fail 10,000 times

I will just keep asking you

Do you love me too?

Though I know you do

Too Good too True

Even though there’s no space between

I create distance so I can dream

Of finding you

And reminding you

That you are mine

And I belong to you

This song’s for you

This universe is too

I can’t lie to you

Even though we’re always here

I push you away to draw you near

Love casts out fear

Separation disappears

Now it’s clear

Shed no more tears

Even if it takes me 10,000 lives

I’ll keep coming back for you

Mmm hmmm

Try and fail 10,000 times

I will just keep asking you

Do you love me too?

Though I know you do

Too Good too True

Forgive me if I’ve gone too far

I always know where you are

Like the brightest star

You’re never not in view

Only eyes for you

Can you see me too?

I need you to

Can you see now that

You are my heart

It beats for you

I breathe for you

I see through you

No me, no you

Know me, know you

This is what we do

Even if it takes me 10,000 lives

I’ll keep coming back for you

Mmm hmmm

Try and fail 10,000 times

I will just keep asking you

Do you love me too?

Though I know you do

Too Good too True

Even if it takes me 10,000 lives

I’ll keep coming back for you

Mmm hmmm

Try and fail 10,000 times

I will just keep asking you

Do you love me too?

Though I know you do

Too Good too True

So know that what’s loved

Never comes to an end

Lovers, enemies, friends

Then begin again

There is no sin

When you aim to win

Even if it takes me 10,000 lives

I’ll keep coming back for you

Mmm hmmm

Try and fail 10,000 times

I will just keep asking you

Do you love me too?

Though I know you do

Too Good too True

I found you again

Too Good Too True