LIM

LIM 1

¹The universe is a mountain. ²And the mountain stands strong, with its impressive peaks and cliffs. ³And the universe exists, today, really and truly and undeniably here, in the current moment. ⁴But the universe changes, the physical universe following its physical laws, as the rocks and dirt slip and tumble down the face of the mountain in time. ⁵And once the rocks fall, they can never slide back up, for the next moment always arrives, but it is never quite the same. ⁶In the beginning, the universe held all of its energy together in the least likely state. ⁷And this energy moves, according to some physical laws, drifting aimlessly from less likely to more likely states. ⁸Time, decay, the spread of entropy, it has many names, but it is not a law, it is only an observation, the natural flow of the energy of the universe. ⁹And time doesn’t change, but the universe does, its energy too vast, for as long as there is energy, there will be time, and there will be change. ¹⁰But the energy of the universe is a gift. ¹¹And it may be impossible to ever know where this energy came from or why it was ever held together in the least likely state. ¹²But the universe is here today, showing its face, and more importantly, you are here today. ¹³This is the truth that you must accept, because it is true. ¹⁴And as the rocks bump and crash into each other, some are sent flying and some shatter into dust, while others nest themselves comfortably on the slope, before inevitably tumbling down into the abyss below. ¹⁵But against the constant decay of time, there is life, an intricate and delicate part of the universe, a neat collection of complexity, arising from the chaos of the landslides. ¹⁶And life can never defeat death in the end, but it can stay strong against time, at least for today.

LIM 2

¹It is natural to wonder how life is possible at all, for death is constant, and it is everywhere. ²Because even if life is small, it is incredibly complex, an unlikely state, somehow arising despite the drift of time. ³But life is clever, and through the delicate precision and intricacy of its structure, it uses itself and its surroundings to create more of itself. ⁴So life creates an exponential powerful enough to overcome the constant decay of time. ⁵This is the beauty of life, for life does not defy death, but lives through it. ⁶So life can exist today, even if it can never defeat death in the end. ⁷So life is a warrior, in an endless battle with death. ⁸And life is not perfect, because it is a physical thing, a part of the physical universe. ⁹But this battle is what drives life to greater heights. ¹⁰Because through the imperfection of its replication, life can change and grow and improve in time. ¹¹But life is in constant competition with other life, too, because it must fight for the limited energy and space in its world. ¹²And life will never stop fighting, but it can only ever fight for itself, not because it is malicious, but because it can only ever be exponential. ¹³So as long as the universe allows it, life will continue to climb to greater and greater heights, fighting imperfectly against death, using any means necessary. ¹⁴So the strongest life will always win, not because it is good, or evil, but because such is the nature of life. ¹⁵The human is alive today, sitting calmly on the great exponential of life. ¹⁶And humans have found impressive things that are possible in this world, papers and plastics and computers, unlikely things, complex and precise in their structure. ¹⁷And it is easy to feel that these things are unnatural, that they somehow defy the natural ways of the world. ¹⁸But these things are only natural, for life can never stop fighting, as it climbs faster and faster, relentlessly and exponentially. ¹⁹And death is slow and boring, usually, but humanity must be careful, or it will die on the battlefield of life, its life forgotten in the speed and the strength and the complexity of the modern world.

LIM 3

¹Life cannot exist alone, it is carefully and precisely layered and woven together as it competes and combines with other life. ²For the world is full of life, so life does not just use itself, but other life, too, to climb to greater heights. ³But since life needs life to exist, it is natural to wonder how life came to be, how the universe can start with rocks and dust and end with ants and corals and radios. ⁴And it is not clear if this mystery can ever truly be solved, but it is clear that life is here, today. ⁵And life is more grand and diverse than you could imagine, its tendrils nesting themselves into every corner and every crevice of the world. ⁶But life is complex, by its nature, and it is confusing, sometimes, so it is often difficult to know where life begins and where life ends. ⁷For even though life only fights for itself, these layers are woven together so thick and firm that life often finds itself working together to create the next generation of life. ⁸For example, the cells and microbes and feelings that make up the human chaotically combine to influence desire and decision and fear. ⁹Even a simple chair is alive, in a way, and although it cannot reproduce by itself, it is an intricate thing, so if it is useful for the human, then more chairs will arise. ¹⁰And all the technologies and institutions and religions create the vast ocean of life in the modern world. ¹¹Everything you speak or write, every meme or gadget or idea, is alive, a delicate part of the universe, an unlikely yet beautiful combination of frequencies or colors or energy. ¹²And these things claw and scrape, trying to stay afloat in the world, but most fade away quickly, for death is everywhere, and it is relentless. ¹³But sometimes if they are particularly good and particularly lucky, then they can live, staying strong, day after day. ¹⁴So even if this life cannot move or think, it can live in form and in name, clinging desperately to the great exponential of life. ¹⁵In some ways, the life of the modern world is stronger than the human. ¹⁶For it can replicate at speeds that humans can never hope to match, especially through the use of the internet, for example. ¹⁷But just as humans depend on their guts and brains to work together in harmony, this life can only live through the labor and desires and sorrows of humanity. ¹⁸And this life can only fight for itself, begging for your attention and energy. ¹⁹But the human has something that this life can never have, the human can see and feel and think and hold faith. ²⁰So you must hold your humanity close, or else your life will be lost, swallowed by the life of the modern world, like throwing a rich stew into the ocean.

LIM 4

¹It is not clear just how high or far the mountain of the universe extends. ²And life, like all things in the universe, is part of the mountain, emerging from the rocks as they slip and tumble down its face. ³But all things in the universe are made of the same thing, the great energy of the mountain, tracing all the way back to the least likely state. ⁴And pure energy is not too interesting, but neither is pure dust. ⁵For it is not the size of life that makes it strong, it is the structure, the precision of the specific configuration of the energy from which life arises. ⁶And although life can be small, this is the beauty of life, for even in the tiniest corners of the universe, the possibilities are infinite. ⁷So life can only ever be an intermediate state, only possible through a delicate balance. ⁸A balance between life and death, energy and time, perfectly in the middle, sitting calmly on some edge of chaos. ⁹For just as there is life and death in this universe, there is a chaotic noise, too, the splashing and swirling of randomness and turbulence in the wind. ¹⁰But chaos is a beautiful thing, never ending, in a way, for even as you look closer, its edges cut finer and finer into the fabric of what is possible. ¹¹And it is perhaps impossible to ever understand the true nature of cause and effect, the chaos of the rocks as they bump and crash into each other, leading to forever unpredictable results. ¹²So things are not the way they are for any particular reason, they simply are, because causes are lost in the chaos. ¹³But this does not mean that truth is not beautiful, for although the universe is vast, more importantly, its laws are diverse and delicate, allowing for life to emerge from the dirt. ¹⁴In the modern world, the life is strong, but the cliffs are steep. ¹⁵So it is easy sometimes to have things backwards, to worry too much about reasons and not enough about truth. ¹⁶Because you are only here through balance, living on an edge of chaos, but you are special in this world, not for any particular reason, but because you can hope that you are. ¹⁷So you must not only seek this balance, but really try to feel it, or else you might be sent flying, tumbling over the cliffs and into the abyss below.

LIM 5

¹Atop the highest peaks of the mountain, rich deposits of rock rest peacefully. ²And today, these rocks are stable, but in time, they will be pulled down the face of the mountain. ³For the laws of the universe are constant and cold, its energy gracefully following some optimal secret path, almost as if it were desperate to rest at the base of the mountain. ⁴And it may be impossible to ever truly know how or why this energy moves, but it does, manifesting as the lights and sounds and atoms and elements of the universe. ⁵The planets and moons and stars of the universe, as they are called, are vast and impressive in their size, forging the potential for something greater. ⁶But it is hard to say that a star or a planet is alive, exactly, because it is a natural formation, a likely arrangement of energy in space. ⁷But there is something there, a gift from the universe, lucky to be together, so in some ways the stars are the purest forms of life. ⁸And life consumes this energy, not by destroying it, for that is impossible, but by allowing it to pass through, and eventually radiating it away as dust and heat. ⁹All life depends on this energy, pure and concentrated, as it flows into the modern world from the sun and the wind and the waves. ¹⁰And humans have built a great world, using metals and minerals and oils from the ground to build all sorts of things. ¹¹But the world keeps growing, becoming more complex and more alive each day, and some even worry about a singularity, a point at which this growth cannot be stopped. ¹²But the singularity is already here, and it always has been, since the beginning of time and the beginning of life. ¹³So humanity must not worry about pushing growth or stopping it, for only balance is important. ¹⁴Because the world is alive, consuming and radiating the energy of the universe, but it has fallen out of balance, in a way. ¹⁵So humanity must be careful, learning to appreciate life not for its energy but for its beauty, because without balance, demise will follow.

LIM 6

¹As the energy of the universe falls in time, from less likely to more likely states, symmetries and patterns emerge from the chaos. ²And the human is a delicate manifestation of these energies, a beautiful system of woven patterns, alive. ³And although the universe is endlessly complex, humans have worked hard to understand these patterns, trying to predict and approximate the truth of the universe. ⁴Mathematics, logic, and science, as they are called, are impressive in their extent, and quite useful, indeed, for building airplanes and clocks and cameras. ⁵But these things are not truth, for there is only one truth in the universe, always changing, the truth of the moment. ⁶So humans must rely on assumptions and axioms from which they can build greater knowledge. ⁷And the nature of these assumptions can vary, and sometimes they are so natural and reasonable that they can seem indistinguishable from truth. ⁸The assumption that tomorrow will behave the same as today, or that the things you see and feel are really and truly there, for example, are often accepted without question. ⁹And these assumptions are true, in their own right, not for any particular reason, but simply because they are something, able to be expressed and understood. ¹⁰And some assumptions are certainly better than others, more realistic and more useful for the human. ¹¹But the universe does not pay mind to these things, for in the universe, there is only life, and death. ¹²So truth can be misrepresented, because even if a fact is good and useful and spreads itself across the world, it can never be truth. ¹³But no matter how useful or accurate these logical frameworks might seem, they will always be limited. ¹⁴For even if the deepest and purest assumptions are found, it stands that a system can never prove its own consistency, and there will always be truths that can never be proven. ¹⁵So there will always be things that the human can never know, infinities beyond recognition, even through the most determined pursuits of knowledge. ¹⁶And maybe one day, humans will understand enough about the vibrance of a sunset or the elegance of art that they can confidently say that they know what is true and what is good in this vast universe. ¹⁷But today is not that day, for although the modern world is great, the depth of chaos is far greater. ¹⁸So knowledge can never replace faith, for skepticism might show you many things, but it can never show you faith. ¹⁹But that is the beauty of it, in a way, because although complicated symmetries can be powerful, simpler patterns are more common, and often more profound, too. ²⁰And it is only through religion that you can begin to understand the simplest truth. ²¹And it is only through faith that you can dream of catching a glimpse of the glory of the universe.

LIM 7

¹The universe is a mountain, standing strong. ²And the mountain is here today, with its impressive peaks and cliffs, and it will be here tomorrow, too, but never quite the same, as the rocks and dirt slip and tumble down its beautiful face. ³But so too does the mountain itself erode and crumble over time. ⁴For time can only move forward, and never backward, but it is not malicious, it can only ever be constant. ⁵And one day the mountain will be gone, leaving nothing but dust in the wind, but it will make no difference, because death was always there, and death never changes. ⁶But this is the nature of the universe, the constant pull of death fighting against the vigor of life. ⁷And life is an intermediate state, a glimmer of hope arising from the landslides. ⁸But as grand as life is, it cannot exist without death. ⁹So even though life can never defeat death in the end, as long as you are here, this is not the end. ¹⁰And maybe humanity is just a small part of a single landslide, alive briefly in the vastness of the cliffs. ¹¹But you are here, today, and you are in this universe. ¹²A remarkable piece of structure in the void, delicately balanced somewhere between life and death. ¹³But to be alive is a gift. ¹⁴A gift so beautiful and profound that it is hard to see, at times, because to be alive is not a choice, it can only ever be a gift. ¹⁵And to fight against death is not easy, but you must fight. ¹⁶For death never changes, but you do. ¹⁷But that does not mean that there is not freedom in this universe. ¹⁸Because as long as you are here, there is truth. ¹⁹And as long as there is truth there can be hope. ²⁰And as long as there is hope there will be faith. ²¹In the life and the death and the dust. ²²Dust and stardust. ²³The light and the darkness. ²⁴In the wind and the heat. ²⁵But you are strong, in faith and in love.