Why are we here?
No reason, science says,
Deal with it.
Ok, dealing with it…
Let me deal with it
Let me deal with it
Let me deal with it
By asking questions
What if there’s no reason
Because there actually is a reason,
But that information gets destroyed?
The way that other information gets destroyed,
Like, you know, in math,
A non-bijective transformation.
The way that as soon as we measure
A quantum system
We collapse it,
Destroying information.
So, from a scientific
perspective,
Let’s make a theory:
It seems like there’s no reason
Not because there is no reason
But because it’s mathematically impossible
For the reason to be transmitted
Into this 4D world.
And so it’s up to us
To try to build that reason
Back together from pieces
To search and journey
Until the picture feels full.
But even then,
We aren’t sure if we’ve fully recovered the message
What if we were totally wrong?
What a delightful suspense
Hanging over even the most zealous zealot
Right up until
they depart this world:
Hold on, I might be wrong
about the reason!
I’ll be there, maybe
The old man in a cabin
All covered in maps.
The map-maker
Thinking he should burn
the maps with his body
Since all maps are wrong.
The reason
It could come in a dream.
That seems believable,
If not iconic.
Or in another’s dream,
Since there are so many more others
Than there is a myself.
And the reason, from their dream
That they describe
In a podcast
That you overhear
As you drive your child
To daycare, from an open car window
You think you heard it,
And then it’s gone.
Infinite stones
And under any of them
Or none of them
The reason.
And maybe you just needed
To turn one more stone over,
But it was dinnertime.
Wait, what’s that in my pocket,
Folded up nice and small.
Oh, I had these instructions
On how to be a soul
Put into a human body
On me this whole time?
Beyond Mountains, More Mountains 