They say the world will end in peaceful chaos,
and nonsense will reign
all because of one split earlobe.
And in all anxiety of separateness,
there is, and will be found, something,
someone subdued.
A vague calm, awaiting the fury
when all is cold, lingering by the light
with four screeching magpies
talk, talk, talk.
A noisy chatter
that somehow is subdued-- Not subdued!
But fades away
into a constant hum
of static.
And that is the answer, always received.
The last word.
"I have won!" They will say.
And to be conquered, oh, to be
something subdued.
And one morning, you will rise,
drowning in an ocean of light, always
reminding you
of that daunting, waking presence
of degradation and evolution--
of the devils squawking from shoulder to shoulder,
fighting for a constant ear, pierced by all that noise--
That was always you.
They don't exist, but the boredom of living,
and the tedium of anxiety over one
healed earlobe, still split, of course, does.
But all is well.
It doesn't need to be apathy, this spinning
contradiction of existence and thought:
We need answers for everything,
so we make them, and we find them.
Never there,
and yet, always there too.
They say everything can be broken down
into smaller pieces and that makes for easy examination.
Easy observation.
They say everything exists at once, times one-thousand,
maybe more, neither here nor there.
Something simultaneous, someone everywhere.
The omnipotent mind, twisting himself
in and around, infinitely and constantly,
and that makes all the difference.
It is meaningless. And what will you do with all these
actions of resurrected futility?
Create a codependency, no doubt, on the magic of science and the ease
of technological advancements. Continuing this evasive circle of modern life
and meaningless distraction-- Who can afford to live
and who cannot?
Surely, there is no winner.
We all get to the same place in the end, and knowledge,
unlike currency, through meaningless chatter,
may perhaps outlive you.
"Furthermore, you say, science will teach... that whatever man does he does not of his own volition, but by the laws of nature.
Consequently, these laws of nature have only to be discovered... worked out, mathematically, like a table of logarithms... in which everything will be so accurately calculated and plotted that there will no longer be any individual deeds or adventures left in the world.
In short, the Golden Age will come again. Of course it is quite impossible to guarantee that it won't be terribly boring, but on the other hand everything will be eminently sensible. Of course, boredom leads to every possible kind of ingenuity. After all, it is out of boredom that golden pins get stuck into people... What is bad is that for all I know, people may find pleasure even in golden pins."
-"Notes From Underground" Dostoevsky
