Blair Munro
Origin Piece (( 2 )) Individual free will.
We all live in little fantasy worlds. Some are wilder than others.
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At this point, The Individual reached full awareness of their ability to choose. They had passed the state of being, reaching the state of individual free will. The Individual still had much to learn about individual free won’t.
This state is commonly know as the point where somebody realizes that they are like a god in this universe. They can do anything they want to within the confines of physical law. This has a tendency to get to people’s heads, usually in an extremely distasteful way. On special occasion, these people evolve beyond, but usually they just stagnate, becoming malignant narcissists and anti-socials of society.
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5 PCE - early in the summer
Anchorage Saturday Market(1) - TIME MACHINE FOR PEACE market research booth...
The Saturday market was busy, smell of sweets and roasting meat in the air. The sun was out, room-temperature outside, majestic mountains in the backdrop. At one particular location in the line of tents, most would slow down to glance for a moment and read the name of this little hole of a booth, a glowing dark jungle green inside, not bright and white like the rest. It read TIME MACHINE FOR PEACE a social invention project—with a row of strange symbols drawn out on the other side of the awning (quite clearly trademarked, for brand protection).
Most of The Onlookers passing gave a nervous oh gee this sure is quirky! laugh, sometimes a wave inside. Most kept moving on, vaguely confused. Some just seemed generally disturbed by all the cardboard homeless-looking signs plastered around the booth entrance. It was going to be okay; there was nice jewelry next door, with barbecue, corn fritters, and strawberry lemonade across the aisle.
Some Onlookers passing would skim the cardboard signage upfront that contained carefully written black sharpie text. The largest piece—about three foot by four foot in size—modestly introduced The Individual putzing around inside the tent. It then casually outlined a plan to invent a global computational peace system to usher in the advent of world peace (the largest supercomputer known to Humanity, certainly). Finally it affirmed that it would be great if they could help, lend a hand. We’re in this together.
It read something like this:
There was another large cardboard sign clamped to the tent at an angle that attempted to explain the time machine for peace in the context of a social invention project.
That one read something like this:
The main cardboard signage was held erect by a table closing off the front of the booth, made out of some storage racks and a wooden door from Lowes, with an opening to the right side for only the Brave Souls to pass inside. Somebody once told The Individual that they should have a mission statement that is eight words or less, so, that was the cardboard sign cherry on top, a small square piece on it written like:
The signage made it clear that messaging was extremely inconsistent at that point—crude presentation and all very confusing.
A quick glance at the table up front would find strewn across it flat rocks with a strange symbol spray painted black on one side, white on the other. It looked like a peace sign, but with a ’W’ overlayed. 1-bit rock computers, free! a placard exclaimed. Something like this:
Over to the left corner, a spent .50-caliber shell casing held some water and a small black pansy to appeal to the military-minded. There was a red hardware bin with some stickynotes and a pen beside, MAILING LIST said the plastic placard behind it.
On the right side of the door-table was another hardware container, this one flat with many little compartments, like a flat tackle box, or screw box. In each compartment were paperclips, one color per compartment—a literal rainbow of paperclips. Beside the paperclips was a wooden case for displaying archeological artifacts, but this one was full of strange colorclips arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner, like jewelry but clearly something much more significant. Something like this:
Looking up, hanging at the right post of the tent was a small flower basket with more black pansies, plus some blue lobelia. It was a nice touch of life. Starting from the hanging basket, dangling along the tent awning in swooping drapes was a long chain of various colored paperclips. It looked like a piece of abstract art, because in a secondary sense it was.
Some Brave Souls passed the entry into the world inside. They were struck first by the hanging American and Alaskan flags in proper presentation in the back of the square tent space, backed by the same glowing jungle green as the tent canopy. Glancing to the right, right in their face, was another piece of cardboard hung up against a blue tarp backing. (The blue tarp to the right was tied up mainly to keep the jewelry people from drifting through accidentally.) On this cardboard piece to the right was a a diploma, in a transparent three-ring envelope, taped up with clear packaging take—Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering(2), minors in mathematics and physics it read—this beside articles of organization and incorporation for what were apparently The Individual’s peace lab LLC and corporate umbrella peace lab incubator.
Looking across the tent from the diploma, another door-table was set up along the left side of the tent, wall from the neighboring tent providing a white backdrop. Various objects were deliberately arranged on its surface, black sharpie text written on the table components from my personal non-electronic world piece computer, with annotated sharpie callouts for each object. One of the objects was an overlong well-worn ice axe, one a hat with colorclips and stickynotes in it, one a small jewelry case full of beads and rings of colorclips. Something like this:
To the right corner some storage racks in the back held boxes on end full of textbooks, what looked like advanced physics and mathematics, some neuroscience and cell biology, a few novels like Consilience(3), 7 Habits of Highly Effective People(4), Verbal Judo(5), Dune(6) and so on. There was one Calvin and Hobbes(7) comic book laying on top of them all. Like this:
Looking up, the Brave Souls would find diagrams and writing on the canopy of the tent—graphs of different colors. Looking down, yellow sandbags and large kettlebells held down the booth’s tent posts from the wind with orange ratchet straps. Black and red totes lined the free space along the ground were like benches, one with sharpie written in large letters EMERGENCY MARKET READING NOOK BENCH, back next to the book boxes.
Diagonally across from the entrance, a stool sat in the rear left corner. On it, The Individual sat. It was a male in early thirties with a gentle but imposing posture, rocking slightly, hunched and intent, fitted billed cap over shaggy hair, furiously scribbling symbols and words with a 9-in-1 transparent colored pen into a small red civil engineering field notebook. There was a stack of those notebooks—some yellow—on the table to his right on the edge of the table, with various art supplies bundled around them.
Occasionally, inlookers might catch him take off the hat, pull out a sticky note, on it write some significant tidbit or another, fold it in half then tuck it meticulously in a precise position somewhere under the elastic band—slide the hat back on, bill perfectly centered by the centering algorithm he employed. Occasionally inlookers might catch The Individual wearing yellow or purple circle glasses like John Lennon or Ghandi or someone like that. This all had a feel like this:
At first glance, even second and third glance, fourth glance, this was pure madness. At n’th glance, still pure madness. Only the Brave Souls who took time to engage would recognize the strange form of peace lurking beneath the insanity.
This was in most part because The Individual was literally insane at the time—psychotic, suffering from a flare up in a medical condition called schizoaffective-bipolar type(8)—basically a combination of the thought disorder schizophrenia(9) with the mood disorder bipolar-one(10). What else would compel one to commit to such an endeavor? It wasn’t like like the more debilitating cases; The Individual didn’t hear voices or see things in the absence of external stimuli (the DSM-V(11) definition of hallucination). But this was still psychosis; judgement and thinking was a little (lot) bit wonky, delusional, grandiose and paranoid. Naturally, the entire booth presentation was a little rough.
But this all was also because The Individual knew there was only so much energy in a body, so much money available to set up a market booth. The eclectic eccentric booth configuration ensured that only personality types compatible with The Individual found their way through the entrance. He didn’t have the energy for the others. He was after all, part electrical engineer in the core. Electrical engineers think largely in terms of filters, and energy, harmonic content. In hindsight, this worked out for both better and worse for The Individual.
This individual was very shy, so it took some work and social pain to get comfortable talking to The Onlookers. It was only a couple weekends before things got comfortable, for The Individual was a quick study, but there was always a great deal of awkward because he was so much a tinkerer, always changing things to see how they felt. He never approached a situation the same way twice. The booth never looked the same way twice.
The Onlookers who actually took time to stop and study the grandiose signage were his target audience. The primary purpose of the market research booth was always to get a feel for how people engaged with the underlying concept. Who are these Brave Souls? How do they feel? A typical encounter would usually initiate at the point where an Onlooker stopped to read the sign intently. The Individual’s universal piece—his peace process—would engage around then, usually a schtick something like:
"Welcome to the time machine for peace! Quick rundown—this is like a market research-and-development booth intended to solicit for feedback and ideas from people like you who take interest in the underlying concept. I know it’s a lot to take in, so please take your time and feel free to step inside to look around, and do feel free to ask me anything—open book."
"Ok yeah! ...I’m just trying to process..this is...a lot to process.."
Hesitant, perhaps nervous—chuckles around,
"For sure..there’s a lot to unpack here. I live for talking about this stuff though, so I’m super happy to talk through anything you don’t understand or that concerns you."
"Great, thanks! Hang on a minute!"
Smiles.
The Individual would usually end up explaining that the market booth was an example of one of the larger components in his personal world piece computer at the moment, that the booth runs a peace process called the universal piece, a singular concept that treats peace as a process, not result. The Brave Souls among The Onlookers would engage, enter the booth, and The Individual and them would spend anywhere from ten minutes to three hours discussing the merits of peace in this context of such grand ambition.
Usually conversations revolved around technology, Human Nature, evil, religion, war, spirituality, politics, education, economics, language, usually in terms of the core concept itself—the world and universal piece computer. Clearly though, The Brave Souls interested in the project came from all walks of life, and from home and abroad.
To end each conversation, the marketbooth universal piece programmed by The Individual dictated they part ways by leaving Brave Souls with two pieces to take with them (besides asking them to sign up for the mailing list on occasion). The first piece was an imperative, conceptual and intangible; this was typically the last piece of heavy talk for that encounter:
"The piece I try to leave people with is this: I think you stand to benefit by treating peace as an explicit process, not a result; that is, I think you stand to profit more from your efforts in life by explicitly asking yourself throughout your day-to-day activity, what does peace as a process mean to me right now? I believe that asking this question continuously is the minimum viable action people need to adopt to make the world a more peaceful place."
Then, the second piece:
"So I want you do me a favor and pick a colored paperclip(12) from the tray, ideally one that you think best represents our conversation just now—its quality. Grab two of that color. Ok. We’re going to add the first one to the end of this chain here, which is becoming a community art project of sorts.
"This chain is an example of a non-electronic digital memory storage device for the market booth component of my personal world piece computer. Each link segment on the chain, like yours here on the end, represents a unit of significant conversation time I’ve had with visitors about this project. Each link segment represents a meaningful contribution to the time machine for peace social invention project
"I say digital because its bits are discrete like a computer’s, as in there are only so many colors you can choose from, and the bits are lined up link by link. Paperclips that are parallel are from multiple people visiting at once. Each drape represents a weekend here at the market, each silver ring separates the days in the weekend."
Gesturing at the chain,
"These are all the people like you who have shared similar moments, and shared wisdom in the form of conversation and feedback like yours. By using the neighboring colors as context, I can more easily remember the order and names and content of people who talked with me, often with very high accuracy—"
He would usually then point to various paperclips on the chain to share what each one and him talked about that particular day.
"—so, thank you so much for your contribution!"
Going on,
"Oh right! And the second paperclip! The second paperclip is a gift from me to you, a new addition to your personal world piece computer. You can take it with you and clip it somewhere as a memory device to remind you of this encounter. Or, if you please, you can reprogram your paperclip, say, to hold paper together, or pick a lock, or defuse a bomb or something."
Chuckles.
Those Brave Soul visitors would leave the booth bewildered and generally satisfied with their experience at the Anchorage Saturday Market Time Machine For Peace Social Invention Project Booth. At this point, to terminate that segment of the universal piece, the booth peace process, The Individual would record key points of interest from the exchange in one of his journals, making note of paperclip color and names just in case he were to forget in the future, jotting as many pertinent details into various notebooks for later review. Usually though, the context of neighboring colors was just enough.
But again, all the details would try to slip away on sunny beautiful Anchorage Alaskan days like that. The Individual would get lost in the gaze toward the Chugach mountain front-range that faced the booth tent. Refuge lied in wait; that was the timespace vacation space.
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On that particular Saturday, mid afternoon, another Brave Soul—an older gentleman—stopped to read the signage. He was of medium stature, had a billed cap pulled down tight over his eyes, obscured by sunglasses, wearing well-worn 501 bluejeans with a well-worn black tshirt—sporting imagery of motorcycles and Americana or something like that. He looked up after reading, looked in at The Individual sitting there on the stool, looked around, made that choice, then stepped into the entrance of the tent. He took off his glasses and stared at The Individual, accusatory grin flashing, more like a sneer, exclaiming loudly,
"Boy you’re living in a fucking fantasy world."
The Individual, already observing the Brave Soul approach in his periphery, looked up from the stool and smiled warmly, ready for the confrontation. Cocking his head slightly,
"Yes, I know. And I live to turn the good fantasies into reality..."
He stood up to meet the Brave Soul closer, by two large calculated strides to the entrance, sharing opposite edges of the rear door-table corner,
"...and you most certainly know, that I most certainly see how you live the same. We are both living in a fantasy my friend. You and I live in a crazy messed up world. We’re just doing our best we can to stay sane and make our respective worlds a better place. We are trying to live in our fantasy worlds. Because that’s the whole point."
The Brave Soul hardened, nodding thoughtfully, then his face hardened ever harder, shaking his head with this crush of solemn, tired exasperation, pain even, responding,
"This world is just fucked. Fucked. The evil in it. Every day we hear about something worse and worse in the news. It’s just fucked I tell you. People are fucked. Crazy. Good luck with your peace, boy. Really, I wish I could help."
The Brave Soul gave a vaguely gaze of desperation. The Individual nodded in kind, stern face, hardened too; he knew exactly how this Brave Soul felt. But then all of a sudden the man’s sternness just collapsed, melted; he reaching out with some suppressed excitement, and touched The Individual’s left elbow (The Individual’s right elbow bearing the weight of him on the table facing the man, body relaxed, fingers folded, still nodding seriously). Using a brief flicker of the eyes toward the touching hand, The Individual both acknowledged and welcomed the impending remarks from The Brave Soul:
"Do you know what the key is? The solution? To world peace? It’s not some computer you know! Do you know what it is?..."
The man split into a big wide grin, crowfeet wrinkling at his eyes, The Individual bracing for another marketbooth test,
"...it’s Jesus!"
Ah. The Jesus test. This was a common test at the time machine for peace market booth, but this particular outcome was worthy of a paperclip.
"It’s...Jesus. ?"
The Individual replied.
"Yeah, Jesus. If you know Jesus, then you know peace."
"For you Jesus means peace. Me? I prefer to call the product of that peace, love. The Human Jesus—his iconic essence—his significance—it’s an expression of love absolutely, and I believe love reigns supreme in this universe."
"You know he died for our sins."
"Yes I do. Personally, I believe our sins are ultimately absolved, but more-so personally, I know I will always bear their weight. I cannot just let go of the weight of our sins, but I can be in a state of peace, continually processing that weight, readjusting, adjusting."
The Individual was being extremely deliberate with his language. He knew a risk he faced was the accusation that he had a messianic complex of some sort. It certainly was a complex, but it was by definition not messianic.
The Brave Soul paused, then assumed that posture people do when they’re about to tell you something they think very few people know about—the confidence, like in a dark secret, the dirty truth. The Individual was used to these moments thankfully, so he braced for impact yet again, because there was absolutely no telling what this secret could be. It was a wildcard moment in the purest sense, especially in a religious context.
"We are in the end times."
Impact! Here we go! The Individual thought to himself, well, if we believe in a beginning and an end, then all times are end times; of course we are in the end times.. !xx No! Be sincere. He held that tongue; instead,
"I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really know the book of Revelations."
"Well, without going into detail, It’s now. Just look around. Talk to anybody who knows the scripture. They’ll tell you."
"Wow. That’s pretty heavy man."
"Yeah...well get ready because it’s happening, no doubt about it."
A flash of anger crossed The Individual’s eyes and mind. Who are you to take the Revelations and turn them into a self-fulfilling prophesy..! But he referred to the universal piece process, in particular a peace bias that favors tolerance and acceptance. —so The Individual forced himself to calm his mind, thinking I cannot change this man, so I must meet him where he is. He is afraid and frustrated by the seeming futility of it all. And I pity him and wish to alleviate that state of mind, to help him out of it, because that’s a really shitty place to be. I know best. And besides, this is what he is preaching to me. ’Be more like Jesus’, ’what would Jesus do’, they’re just expressions that mean like, ’we must live with absolute compassion’. Ok. Reflect. Stay focused. Explain the function of the universal piece computer.
So he did, but he did so in a language he believed the man would clearly understand:
"Listen, I mean no disrespect, but it really doesn’t fucking matter if we are in the end times or not."
The Brave Soul froze. Moments like these are why they’re called Brave Souls.
The Individual continued,
"Even if we were in end times, it wouldn’t mean we can just give up and stop making a bloody fucking effort to minimize the suffering we experience on our way out—our innocents especially. We can still strive to maximize the love that we share for one another, especially our enemies—compassion in it’s true form...
"...We must, for this is as Jesus would do. The end times don’t change anything, period. The end times are just another test from God. The test is to see if his believers choose to continue to act like his son, even as the damned and saved perish alike. Or, will the saved exclude the damned and cease to love them, thinking that they are somehow absolved from damnation themselves. In that case, the saved find a deeper depth of hell than the damned...
"...If we are in end times like you say we are, how we respond to them is our test. The essence of compassion is to alleviate and minimize suffering in others, and we must exercise compassion of all—we must love one another—again, for this is as Jesus did. This is the basis of peace: minimize the state of inner war within all Humans, especially the sinners; maximize the state of inner peace within all Humans, especially the sinners; compassion. End times don’t change anything. We have a choice to make."
The man stood still for a moment, thinking, staring. The moment stretched into many. The Individual felt the twitch of nervous fight-or-flight start to kick in. After what seemed like an eternity, the man broke out laughing, a huge smile. He extended his hand,
"I like you. Who are you? Are you this ’Blair’ person I read on the sign?"
The Individual shook the outreached hand. The handshake was as firm and vigorous as you would expect in such a situation. The inhabitants of two very different worlds won each others’ trust; the tests were done.
"Yeah I’m Blair."
The man exclaimed,
"Blair, I’m John, it is a pleasure to meet you."
"And you the same."
"Listen, you just keep doing what you’re doing, hear me? We need more people like you."
"Ehrm..I’m too much of a sinner. Hopefully we can find more people like me but who are a little less like me. You know?.."
"Don’t we all! Remember though, Jesus. Jesus, he died for your sins, he died for us! It doesn’t matter if you are a sinner or not, we still need more people like you."
That kind of flattery was always annoying but The Individual swallowed it anyway.
"How could I forget, John ..haha thank you for the reminder, and I for one appreciate your sense of compassion."
The Individual made a nervous but understanding laugh, with an endearing smile. This was an extremely taxing exchange, mentally. The Individual knew to fall back to his early training in these situations, but only enough so to effectively maintain his aspect of the universal piece, especially its peace bias. It worked, and now the two Human worlds were firmly connected, speaking with a common language, but from very different past and ideological perspectives.
The Brave Soul asked,
"Let me ask you though.. Do you really think there is hope for us all, like really?!?"
"Hahahaha!..."
The Individual burst out laughing. It was genuinely funny to him how deep cynicism—ironically the kind rooted in religious faith—could find this particular brand of faith in Humanity so dumbfounding and astonishing.
"...well absolutely yes, I do. I really do. You ought to likewise. We all ought to. I think the fate of our species depends on it. But only if we treat peace as a process, not a result. We need the supercomputer. Maintaining faith is too much an effort without the supercomputer. We are the hands of God. Therefore, we must have faith in God, which is the same as having faith in ourselves."
The Brave Soul took a moment to let that last statement settle, then spoke...
"...it’s a big undertaking."
"Yeah. Absolutely. The largest. I mean, we’re talking general unification here. It’s kind of massive."
"I don’t really understand how the supercomputer would work, but it sounds like something we need."
"Yeah, the how is always the hardest question to answer...but it’s never stopped us in the past."
The peace process clicked into the final phase, the universal piece fully activated, it was time to wrap things up before they veer again into uncertain territory.
"So John, look right here, if I may, I want you to pick a paperclip. I’m going to use this to remember you by. —no, no, take two, actually."
"Dark blue. I like dark blue."
"Let’s add one to the chain, you have officially contributed to the time machine for peace social invention project. Each one of these links is a contributor like you, a conversation like this. Your contribution will somehow find its way into the main body of work, no doubt! The second clip is for you to remember this conversation by!"
"I am honored! It was a blessing finding you today."
The Individual laughed, and the Brave Soul laughed along, a deep laugh, relief. The Individual continued,
"Just remember, we need to focus on loving our neighbors,
and our enemies, the adversary especially. That’s it, it’s all I mean to say to the world."
"Bless you,"
"Well geez, bless you too, John."
"I wish you the best of luck."
"Thank you, I’ll really need it. Peace friend, take care. Just remember, remember to remind yourself alright? Peace is a process, not a result."
"Peace is a process, not a result. Got it."
They exchanged wry smiles, and shook hands once more. The Individual immediately sanitized as John turned and wandered off into the crowded market with a dark blue paperclip in his clenched fist. The two Humans were buzzing from the warm gratification of a momentary connection in deeper form. The Individual and this Brave Soul would never fraternize otherwise. Their ideologies were too different. They may not even love each other in a different context. They felt lucky to have found that context, on that day. Loving your opposition—even the adversary—feels good when it works out right.
(~~ dark blue paperclip ~~)
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Around one third of the market booth interlocutors were devout religious, several bordering on fanatic. It was thus far however, rare to encounter someone on the fanatic spectrum who was not cordial and pleasant, highly intelligent in the right environmental context, at least when avoiding all the right triggers.
All market booth visitors however, were fanatics of peace in one expression or another, to one degree or another. Peace fanaticism, was the unexpected common ground. This was a powerful learning that The Individual carried with him, onward from that period.
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There was a long hard summer ahead. It was all pretty obvious to The Onlookers; the final dark age loomed ominous over the solstice. But after a cold hard winder, the summer would return.
FOOTNOTES
1 saturday market: https://anchoragemarkets.com/anchorage-market/#
2 electrical engineering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering
3 consilience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consilience_(book)
4 seven habits of highly effective people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People
5 verbal judo: http://fop86.com/verbal%20judo/verbal%20judo_%20the%20gentle%20art%20of%20persuasion.pdf
6 dune, mentat: https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Mentat
7 calvin and hobbes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes
8 schizoaffective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoaffective_disorder
https://www.nami.org/About-Mental-Illness/Mental-Health-Conditions/Schizoaffective-Disorder
9 schizophrenia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia
10 bipolar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder
11 dsm-5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5