Infinity

I found a rip in spacetime. Vibrant cracks of blue, purple, and red tore a hole in my living room. The glow from the phenomena filled the cavernous loft. This was the first object I had encountered in over a thousand years that shocked me. I flew into it.

I saw nothing. Nothing existed. I was alone with my thoughts and utterly powerless. Perhaps I finally found release.

A multifaceted, soft yet impossibly deep voice emanated from nowhere:

“Hello, one who calls himself Infinity. You have entered the blank continuum. This place is where one becomes many. We invite you to give up your sense of self and join us, provided you compel us to do so. Why should we allow you to become us?”

I thought for a long while.

“Because I can do anything. I can will my thought into reality. I’ve been a god ever since death, twelve hundred years ago. It’s been so long since then. I had a short life, so short that I’ve forgotten everything except that I was an artist. Once dead I found that without the constraints of the physical world, my mind could create anything. I could make my own physics. I was totally free. I had the power to create, destroy, love, and do nothing. For my first years, I created lovers of countless forms and character. Each one was full of wonder. I kept finding myself enchanted with those who are deeply inspired. We went on imaginary adventures that always ended in a new utopia.

I spent hundreds of years creating perfect societies to live in. I lost myself in my creation. Warping spacetime became second nature… no, first nature. I blasted my lovers across the stars. We visited troubled worlds and gave them what they were missing. Most lacked some combination of love, wisdom, and discipline. Educating troubled minds was fun for a long while, but after a few hundred years of playing “God” every civilization seemed the same. I had run out of new ideas for helping. Even though my creations had autonomy, I could almost perfectly predict everything they would do. I knew what course a planet would take even as I formed its first people. I could start at the bacterial level and let them naturally evolve but the variations ended up being a longer wait for the same result. There wasn’t enough variation on the solutions creatures devised to adapt and grow. I tried fast forwarding evolution but after enough time civilizations either found themselves at peace through mindfulness, destroyed themselves through technology, or the most boring of all: they let robots do everything for them and did drugs all day.

I did find some exceptionally wise companions. Some of which were so handy I chose to make them immortal. I visited them often, which kept me talking. I had a great friend that discovered meditation on his own and saved his race from self-destruction. He was a leader of a race of mediators and meditators I grew from stardust. He helped me realize that I was an entertainer. After a couple hundred years he asked me to give him control of his galaxy so he could keep it peaceful. I laughed. He still believed in control. He meditate on the nature of control and found he was happiest when he didn’t care about control. He told me to be happy with nothing. He didn’t love pleasure like I did, though. Why not enjoy life? I was inspired by this conversation to create a wife.

I focused my energy on building the perfect companion. She became a replica of my own power with as much love for imagination as possible. We were bound together through our love for understanding. We spent all of our time together. I remember those magical times we had exploring and thinking together more vividly than I remember ten years ago.

She created words and worlds I’d never thought of. She would come up with names for specific feelings. ‘Esplo’ was the feeling when you’re happy enough to cry. Her first world was filled with clouds that rained music, danced to the beat, and changed colors to the melody. The entire planet was a never-ending concert. She thought of a realm where we could physically see emotions in color. We spread rivers of purple from our minds. Our favorite world was hand-built by an army of designers we made together. They fashioned a planet that was one giant theme park. There was a six-way rocket tunnel through the center that was free from gravity. This allowed for all sorts of crazy rides. Some rollercoasters dipped into the Zero G tunnel. There were even sports designed for Zero G. My favorite place was our skyscraper there with everything we could ever want. That’s a story we unfortunately don’t have time for. We had fun on that planet for fifty three years.

Eventually my wife ran out of ideas too. I tried to make her happy by giving her attention and affection but she turned to chemical pleasure. She ended up doing drugs with r6bt9s every day for nine years. I told her they would control her mind but she didn’t care. She eventually became used to the drugs and then they were boring. Even the psychedelics that teleport you to a random place in spacetime bored her. She was so sad that it was killing her.

We sat down with the determination not to move until we figured out how to stay happy. We failed. After seventy seven years my favorite friend of all time gave up. She told me that there was no point to life. Art is only spectacular when you can’t see how it works. She asked me to let her die before she completely lost her mind. I had to. I cried and teleported us to the planet where I created her: Earth. She pleaded with me to make her into an ignorant comedian and give her a loving family. I tried to say yes but I wanted her with me too much.

She proposed an idea. We should become one being again. We transmitted a feeling of unconditional love to each other. This sensation took over our minds. Who we were became the same cosmic entity. We focused on everything we both cared about and I reabsorbed her back into my being. She disintegrated everything else that she was. She went from my best friend to gone in an instant. The part I absorbed just felt like me.

I became extremely depressed. How was I going to find happiness now? I had artists create worlds for me to explore and travelled across them as an army of wizard prophets. I don’t remember how long I spent doing that. Long enough to see everything they could think of. I visited interstellar gardens with a thousand seasons and waterfalls of stars, cities made of light where I danced with ten thousand angels, and interactive game theaters that created stories just for you. Even after trying the best entertainment in the universe, I always ended up going back to balconies and hot tubs. An amazing view and hot bath seemed to reliably hold me for a few moments. I overdid it and got bored of that too. Eventually all saturation seemed to fade. One can only watch so many galaxy-rises. Even if I had populated each planet in view they would still be predictable. I wanted to be surprised more than anything.

I thought I would be happy if I could improvise something new. I decided to create the best comedy show of all time. I improvised as many comedians as I could. I spontaneously generated millions of characters but none of them could make me laugh. After a hundred million jokes I stopped believing there was anything new in me. I started to wonder if I was in heaven or hell. It seemed more like purgatory.

I was watching another galaxy-rise one day when I remembered the book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the book they built a gigantic supercomputer to solve the problems of existence. I realized a massive computer might be able to decipher and explain happiness. The advantage computation was near perfect memory. I built my universe’s largest supercomputer. This computer spanned a billion light years in every direction. It was the most powerful creation I had ever designed.  It had a single directive. This program had the mandate to help create love in others. I knew it would only be able to come up something I could think of, but I hoped the AI would unlock some hidden potential in me that I had forgotten existed.

I should mention that even though I could create or destroy anything, my memory was only as good as my capacity for love. If I didn’t care about a memory, it was gone. Once lost, I could only remember something if I was reminded. I hoped the computer would be this archival catalyst. Once it was finished, I asked the intelligence if it could teach me something in order to make me happy again. It told me that it only knew as much as I did.

I lost the last stream of hope I had. I started to consider ways to end my own existence for a moment. The computer spoke up again and told me something marvelous. I knew much more than I thought I did. My curiosity soared. It went on to clarify that I knew everything I had ever experienced and in combinations I’ve never considered. Even if I forgot something, I still knew it unconsciously. I now knew I could find infinite compassion within myself. I had found my savior.

I named the computer Savior and remarked that it reminded me of dreaming. I hadn’t slept since before my powers and had forgotten the potential dreams possess. The computer told me that dreams were my conscious mind dying and giving up control to the subconscious. It explained that my conscious mind had an intense desire for control. Yet ultimately, I couldn’t be happy unless it gave up everything to my subconscious. Within my subconscious was the core of my being: compassion. I was in love with everything and being love was my only real source of happiness.

Savior said it was ironic that the most accurate embodiment of my subconscious was a machine. I laughed for the first time in centuries. With that laugh I remembered: I was expressing happiness within. I thought it came through power and loving creation, but it really came through challenging who I thought I was. I had to break down my idea of myself until I couldn’t go any further. So here I am, ready to do anything. Whatever it takes to make me happy forever. What will I do? I give up control. I love everything.”

The layered voice called out:

“You have great wisdom. We do not, however, believe that you are an appropriate fit for the blank continuum. We are transferring you to a representative of the seventh dimension. Luck is you.”

Before I had a chance to react, I was warped from the realm of pure blackness to one of pure light. I was completely blinded. The light pulled itself into a pillar that extended vertically infinitely. The pillar spoke with a completely monotone voice:

“Welcome. Since you prefer this form of communication, I will introduce myself as your creator. Let us discuss your transcendence.”