Pardon me, but it seems that I'm not here,orOh bother, my mind just broke.

Quick and strange thoughts before sleeping.

First off, you should not try to think about concepts like infinity or eternity. I think that doing so has just unhinged me. So don't read this post. I mean, really, navigate somewhere else or go make yourself a snack.

You've been warned!


...


Okay, now that those wussies are gone, it's time to get down to business:

I was thinking about exaltation tonight (eternal life/lives, whatever), and this is how I have understood it. There are an infinite number of intelligences. God or gods put them into spirit bodies. Some of those bodies eventually get physical bodies. Some of those will end up becoming like God and participating in his work. Clear enough? Everyone followed that? Good.

Now, here's my issue. Because God is love, eventually everyone that is of His species (no word for it really, but you know what I mean) gets a chance to become like him. All intelligences get the chance to be embodied and exalted. Some in each batch (like cookies) will not make it, but those that do become like God then add their manpower to the family business and "cookie making" proceeds at a greater rate. At an exponential rate, actually. Acceleration is the name of the game.

However, if we accept that 1) there is an infinite number of intelligences, and 2) God's process of apotheosis (deification) is carried out in finite batches, then we have trouble. Any finite number you subtract from infinity still leaves infinity. Therefore, there exists an infinity of intelligences that will be waiting for an infinite amount of time to become like God. However, an infinite amount of time is by definition a period that never ends. If you must wait an infinite period for your waiter to bring your meals to your table, you never get to eat. Ever. Mealtime never happens.

Thus we are now facing an infinite number of intelligences who will never get the chance to become like God.

Let's take this in a scarier direction. Express the problem as a ratio, or a division: finite:infinite or finite/infinite=functionally zero. Any number divided by infinity is NOTHING.

Ergo, we don't exist. Our existence is a total impossibility.

On the other hand, the fact that I am writing this is evidence that I exist. We cannot imagine our non-being, because the act of imagining itself implies being. Try to imagine traveling through the empty space of the universe, dodging stars or whatever. You never get to the end. Even if you run into an enormous, spheroid brick wall that encompasses all the space you have flown through, you can still take a hammer to the bricks and start making a dent. Either you eventually break through, or there is just more brick, but you can conceivably keep chipping away forever, never ceasing to move forward, albeit slowly.

Thus, ultimately, we cannot conceive of either finite space or time. That is, we cannot pass into non-being or annihilation. Existence cannot cease.

As it turns out, then, we can neither exist any more than we can not-exist. So we have two mutually exclusive impossibilities (which is, in itself, by definition, an altogether convoluted and impossible state of affairs).

Does it make me evil...

...if I tell you that this is simultaneously one of the funniest and most adorable things I have ever seen. (This is why I should never be a parent.)

The Many Faces of Nicholas

Okay, so I found the coolest thing from the St. Andrew's website: an online face morpher! Truly cool stuff; just upload a photo and go to town. Here are some of the filters I've tried:
Nicholas as anime:
Nicholas as a scary baby:
Nicholas as an ape-man:
Nicholas as a Modigliani painting:
And, finally, my favorite:
Nicholas as an El Greco:
Oddly, the most frightening transformation I have not posted here. It was supposed to be a depiction of what I would look like as an older adult. As it turns out, there is enough red in my hair, and enough Israelite blood in my veins that I am going to become something less like Shylock, and rather more like Marlowe's "Jew of Malta." Truly unsettling in a very Fagin-esque way. I guess I just hope I die young.

That, or become an ape-man.

[This was inspired by a similar post on the blog 15 Minute Lunch. The language can be mature and the content unrefined, but he is seriously whoops-now-I'm-sitting-in-a-puddle funny. (Mom and Dad, you won't enjoy it. Sorry.) You've been warned, mind. Oh, and for those of you who have gotten it by email, he is responsible for the 1977 JC Penny Catalog (with commentary) viral.]

Thus it begins...

This is the start of my Marshall Plan: turn a mustache into a modest handlebar mustache, and thence into a wildly immodest handlebar mustache. Salvador Dali, eat your melting-clock-like heart out!

Status Update

Attn: All parties interested in the health of Nick's Commonwealth.

Measures taken have largely eliminated conflict in the North. However, guerrilla forces are still active on the Southern border.

Preparing for a reconnaissance mission, but it has yet to be scheduled--hopefully this week. The stealth of said operation is extremely questionable. (In other words, even if you're shooting cameras instead of guns, when a tank rolls into town, you can't help but notice.)