Understanding the Illusion.

Nullification is the untainted state of all things. One moment we're swimming in a sea of non-existence. No sense of self. No self to have a sense of. There is only the void, with all things woven into the same mercurial tapestry. Then suddenly, we're ripped from the cold, unfeeling state of oblivion into the world we now live in. From perfection to imperfection. Omnipotence to subsistence.

Each and every one of us holds a lease on a bag of meat.

We go through life trying to find the answers. Who am I? What should I do? Where do I fit in? Why am I important?

It's not that we can't find the answers to these questions, though. The problem is that we never seem to ask the right questions.

What makes one man right over another? Is it the truth? Does the mistress of reality burden herself with a balance scale of all actions? Nay, this is an absurd notion. The first step to seeing past the grand illusion is to release all concepts of right and wrong. Let me be perfectly clear and direct with you.

There is no right or wrong.

That's not to say people don't do terrible, unforgivable things. The slaughter of a child. The theft of a loved-one. The rape of a woman. These things are undeniably painful. I would never commit such acts, just as I hope you never would either. In the grand scope of the universe, though... none of these abominable choices are innately right or wrong. A child dies. A person is lost to the ages. A woman weeps. 

And the universe continues on, without so much as a whimper.

You see, lesser men have created a lattice-work of mendacity just to get through the day. They can't handle the entire weight of the universe bearing down upon them. The knowledge that no one and nothing is out there to execute the rules of fair play is just too damn much to accept. So... they busy themselves with trivial matters. These lesser beings work themselves to death, or they watch too much television. They obsess over their money or drown in a sea of narcotics. They worship idols and gods, pleasure and pain. Anything to stay distracted... but they can not accept that this is all a fantastic magic trick.

The funny part, though? Once you know that you're watching a magic trick, then the semblance of a structured existence becomes all the more enjoyable. We all want to know the secret to how a trick works, but what happens after that?

Knowing the secret of a trick leads you to appreciate the artistry of its administration.

How wonderful that we get to see imperfection in the flesh? The agony of defeat and sacrifice? The colors of the rainbow? The wonder of a freshly cut bouquet of sunflowers? The deep blues and purples of space, scattered with a million billion stars and countless worlds? These things, though phantoms, are no less beautiful. Can you not appreciate the bonds that hold the petals of a flower together? Can you not marvel at the love that keeps two people linked for a lifetime?

The beauty in all things goes far deeper than their surface.

I can not walk through life with head hung low and mind kept dull. My eyes must wander deep into the onyx well. No reflection in the water. No cool breeze trying to return home to the sky. Just me and the substratum, alone together.

Friedrich Nietzsche is infamous for stating the following...

"And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

I find Nietzsche to be acute in his language. Though most would take his words as a lyrical hustle of allegory, I find that a much deeper meaning can be gleaned if you take him more at face value. The trick (there's that word again) is to not misread abyss. Instead of an allusion to the depths of the soul, read it merely as a name.

When you stare at abyss, abyss stares at you.

Important here is to identify who or what (though they are one in the same) abyss is. I refer back to the beginning of this article. The abyss is the nothingness we were forced from at the onset of our lives. It represents the cyclical nature of our being. We move from nothing to something, and back to nothing again.

In the abyss. Out of the abyss. In the abyss. Out of the abyss.

This infinite loop of opposing perspectives seems without merit, but consider this...

Would you know what black was without white? Would you know up without down? Would you know joy without sadness?

To understand the abyss, you must leave the abyss.

This circular view of existence is ostentatiously represented by the Ouroboros -- a dragon in an infinite loop consumes itself. There is no beginning or end; there is only the cycle. The Ouroboros first appears in antiquity with the ancient Egyptians, but was also separately present with the Norse, Germans and Greeks. They understood the concept that Nietzsche put to paper long before he ever existed.

I'll leave you with this thought...

Consider the universe as having two basins, much like a kitchen sink. There is the one basin where the amorphous nothingness exists. On the opposite side of the sink is the basin with the world we currently live in. With the advance of technology, many futurists believe at some point that we can obtain immortality (whether via an organic or inorganic means, the choice is irrelevant). Leap ahead to a future where this prediction has been met. All of mankind can live indefinitely. The illness of death has been conquered. As the contents of the nothingness basin slowly transfer to the land of the living, that side of the sink empties out. The basin on the side of the sink where we currently live grows full, to the point where it contains all matter. The nothingness basin is completely and utterly empty. All matter exists in the living basin. One sink is filled; the other is empty. The cycle is no longer moving from one basin to the other. When you can't leave the basin you're in, how do you know you're in a sink with two basins? You can't. Thereby, would mankind not eventually wonder what it is to die and not live forever? Would man not want to escape the basin of life and see what else the universe had to offer? Would man not purposefully vacate their own immortality to see the other side?

In this way, death is life and life is death. We go from one basin to the other, all in the hope of gaining a better understanding of the universe. The cycle always finds a way to continue.

On the other side of a child being born is a curious immortal hoping to die.