now playing: shadow on the sun by audioslave
my universe is simple.
my universe is me, and two pebbles.
me
two pebbles
and the sound of two pebbles
clicking
together
i look back over the last six months of my life, and ask myself, what have i learned?
well?
well what?
what have i learned?
i have learned that i am more resilient than i thought.
that, nevertheless, i have a breaking point.
i have learned that to go on not dying, i need reasons not to die.
living, reasons to live.
i have learned what i want to do, when i grow up.
what i want to be.
(maybe)
and lastly, but by no means leastly, i have learned that the smallest number is… three.
not one.
not zero.
definitely not two.*
and not any number bigger than three.
i am sitting on a bench, in the royal botanic garden, edinburgh, and the world is a whorl of swirling colour. in my right hand are two pebbles. i click the two pebbles together. i feel like i am in a robert lax poem…
i click two pebbles and i am thinking i am thinking as i click two pebbles two pebbles two pebbles two pebbles i click two pebbles two pebbles i click two pebbles and i am thinking i am thinking as i click
what is one?
one is i. one is me. one is self.
what is two?
two is you. two is not-me. two is other.
what is three?
well, here’s where it gets interesting.
three is not ‘us’. three is not ‘me and not-me’. three is not ‘self and other’.
not exactly.
three is not like that.
three is not an amalgamation, mixture, or mash-up.
three is not ‘feat.’
three is not one plus two.
three is not sperm plus egg.
three is not pen plus paper.
three cannot be reverse-engineered into a set of component parts.
three is not the dildo-making machine, but the dildo itself.
three is an emergent property.
three is not the eighty-six billion neurons in your brain
firing, not firing
but the lipstick thought of those six thick inches
of slick pink silicone
deep inside you
and so…
if one is me
and two is you
then what should we call three?
consequence?
effect?
syzygy?
sex?
end product?
sound?
or something else?
three
is the sound of two pebbles
clicking together
i am sitting on a bench, and the world is loud today.
i meditate by mentally rotating my focus between between unity and multiplicity.
i am me
i am two pebbles
i am the sound of two pebbles, clicking together
i am that one sound, and nothing else
i am me
i am sitting on a bench in a beautiful garden
i am a leaf. i am a branch. i am a tree.
i am the sound of the wind, in a tree, in me.
i am me
i am two pebbles
i am the sound of two pebbles, clicking together
i am the leaves, the trees, the garden, the sky, the entire universe
i am me
the question is:
why three?
why is three the smallest number?
why not zero?
or one?
or two?
and why is it not any number bigger than three?
why is three not just enough, but just enough?
- one is the smallest unit of existence
- two is the smallest unit of interaction
- three is the smallest unit to describe the result of an interaction
my universe, the one with me in it, is made up of things, and interactions, and the results of those interactions. that’s it. that’s all of it. that’s all there is. many things, many interactions, and many results. indeed, infinitely many things, infinitely many interactions, and infinitely many results.
all the same, infinite infinities notwithstanding, everything that is, was, and ever will be; everything that isn’t, wasn’t, and never will be; everything real, imagined, not real, and not imagined – it’s all just things, interactions, and results.
here, the phrase ‘necessary and sufficient’ is useful. in my universe, made up of things, interactions, and results, three is both sufficient, and necessary. three is enough, but just enough.
one
you find yourself
in an unending blank white space
what do you do?
you invent the universe
or go insane
i invent the universe
or go insane
two
you find yourself
on a pebbly beach
you are a pebble too
and you are perfect
what do you do?
nothing
three
you find yourself
what do you do?
i am sitting on a bench, and i realise something.
if i could simplify my life, my universe, everything down to just me and two pebbles, not only would it be enough, it’d be the exact right amount. it’d be a universe that contained everything necessary and nothing else. no more, and no less. perfect.
for some people, one pebble would be enough.
for some people, no pebbles would be enough.
it would be enough to imagine two pebbles
or one pebble
or no pebbles
for me though, it helps to have two, actual, factual, lickable, clickable pebbles.
the pebbles make the sounds i hear the sounds and i make the pebbles click together
i am part of the chain of events that results in the sound being made
and i am part of the chain of events that results in the sound being heard
but i am not the pebbles
and i am not the sound
i am me
***
you may be wondering
why is this worth knowing?
of what possible benefit can this knowledge be to me, to my life, big, and complicated as it is?
well, a lot.
and precisely because life is so big and complicated. it’s easy to get lost. it’s easy to lose yourself.
knowledge, clarity, simplicity such as this, is a safe haven in stormy seas. it’s a map, and it’s a big red dot on the map. it’s a ‘you are here’. it’s a ‘you are you’. it’s a lighthouse. a beacon. it’s somewhere you can set out from. it’s somewhere you can come back to. in a word, it’s home.
and it’s important to have a home.
they say to write what you know.
well, after six months of not knowing, or writing, anything, this seems like an appropriate place to start.
with the one thing i know
(or the three things i know)
me, and two pebbles, and the sound of two pebbles, clicking together
there’s nothing here that hasn’t been thought about and written about a thousand times before, by better thinkers, better writers.
i don’t say that because i think that this is no good.
furthermore, i don’t say that because i think that this is the bee’s fucking knees, the best thing since nietzsche, and that by saying so i can wallow, still warm, in the bathtub blood of my suicidal pseudo-self-effacement.
i say that because the point of this article is not the decoding of some ancient metaphysical arcanum, the deciphering of some secret gnostic knowledge, or the lemon-scented revelation of the map on the back of some imitation frosties showing the last known location of the booby-trapped templar treasure-trove, no.
the point of this article, if it can be said to have a point, is that this information isn’t something i found out from a documentary. or a book. or a website.
i figured this out by myself, ab initio, on a bench, in the royal botanic garden, edinburgh, in a profound psychedelic fugue, trying to work out whether to stay alive, or not, and having decided, trying to work out why.
There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Morpheus – The Matrix (1999)
the point of this article
is that life
(my life at least)
without pebbles
is not possible
not just not possible
paradoxical
my universe is me
and two pebbles
and the sound of two pebbles, clicking together
the point of this article
is to persuade you to go out and find your own two pebbles
they might not be pebbles
they might be a person
or a place
or a poem
or a piece of music
something that reminds you that you’re not alone
that you have a friend
that you have a home
that you matter
two pebbles
two pebbles
two pebbles
the sound of two pebbles
in other words
love
postscript:
whilst writing this piece, i had in mind the artistic minimalism of robert lax, one of my absolute favourite poets. his work has a stripped-down simplicity (of form, not function) that, to me, seems to say it all, with nothing left out, and with nothing left over. his work, to me, is the essence of poetic perfection. the essence, that is, of the number three.
untitled, by robert lax
one
moment
passes
another
comes on
how
was
was
how
is
is
how
will
be
will
be
was
wasn't
is
isn't
will be
won't
post postscript
*asterisk
not one.
not zero.
and definitely not two.
would the world keep on worlding, without me?
and what, in this me-less world, would be the smallest number?
would it be be one less? two?
two less? one?
or three less? zero?
remember the tree, in the far-away forest, falling? that old chestnut.
‘sound’ happens when tiny environmental vibrations trigger the transmission of signals down your auditory nerve, to your brain stem, then onwards to your temporal lobe, where the signals are given a meaning. ‘sound’ is not the vibrations, or the signals, but the meaning. ‘sound’ requires an observer.
imagine, if you will, an earth, nothing but deep blue sea and deep blue sky, except for two tiny tropical islands.
the tiny island islanders know nothing of one another.
if it helps, imagine entirely separate earths, each with one tiny island.
or two entirely separate universes, each with one tiny earth, and one tiny island.
to you, as an observer, the islands are two. however, for the islanders, their islands are singular. their islands are ‘island’. they are entirely unaware of each other. they are entirely separate. they are one, and one. they are not two.
now, imagine that some intrepid floating coconut, or oceanic coracle, or interstellar spaceship, or interdimensional dinghy somehow, miraculously, makes its way between the islands.
now, suddenly, the islands are two. they are two, but in the same instant, three. they are now self, and other, and the result of self meeting other.
here, if you will forgive, my long-suffering, long-scrolling reader, for the sake of science, or something else, one more morsel of leftover self-indulgent post-scriptural pseudo-philosophising – a final question.
if two is the smallest unit of interaction, and three is the smallest unit of result, and it is impossible to have an interaction without a result, does the number two even exist?
if the universe is either one, or three, but never two – how many numbers are there? because i count two. one, and three.
fuck.