5.30.01

Hello again! Yes, it is I, back from the void. I know it’s been a while, but I’ve had an extremely busy month of May to say the least. Not only have I been doing a lot of things outside the home - going to concerts, going to my hometown for a visit to the family, and had more than one visitor to my humble abode - but I’m also working on quite a few literary projects as we speak. Actually, I’ll fill you in on them briefly, so I’ll feel better about completely ignoring, and probably losing, my entire Space Monkey audience.

I’m working on a piece of fiction that’s based upon a rather interesting idea that’s running around in the paranormal community of things called "shadow people". Essentially, there are some in the world who claim to see black objects moving out of the corner of their eye, but when they turn the "object" has disappeared. However, there are some who say that when they have turned, they catch brief glimpses of these "objects" that, in fact, seem to have human-like appearances. They claim that the "shadow people" are only there for a moment until they disappear, but some claim they stick around and watch them with their glowing red eyes. Pretty spooky, huh? Don’t you even dare bring up The Sixth Sense, because, well...alright, it’s similar, but not how I’m doing it it’s not. Anyway, there are quite a few stories with various experiences with these "shadow people" that were rather intriguing to me and some of them seemed like they might be a good basis for a story on the H.P. Lovecraft side of the spectrum.

I’m also doing research for what will probably turn out to be my first full-blown novel! Yeah, I’m as surprised as you are. This one deals with the pharaoh, Akhenaten, AKA The Heretic King. In a nutshell, this guy came along in ancient Egypt and said "Ya know what? I don’t believe in Osiris or Horus or any of these other gods. From now on, there is only one god and that is Aten, the Sun Disk." Well, needless to say this disrupt Egyptian society in a major way and there’s a good chance that he was killed because of it. There’s a lot more to the story, but you’ll just have to wait until it gets published or I decide to publish it here, whichever comes first (frankly, I’d look for the latter before the former).

I’m also working on a project that combines what little talent I have in writing with what very little talent I have in art. It’s sort of hard to explain the concept, but someday I hope I can get some things down that I can post and scan in some of the artwork to go along with it and then it will all make sense. Either way, it’s keeping me from my Space Monkey duties, so I thought I’d tell you about it.

Finally, the last project I’m working on is something that I’m really enjoying thus far. It’s my first collaborative work with a friend of mine based on a story idea I had back when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was out in theaters. No, it’s not a Star Wars-based story, but something in the movie sparked my imagination and this buddy thought it was kind of cool. It’s taken us a while, but we’ve finally decided to do something with it. Lots of fun and I hope it continues to be.

Besides all these side projects, frankly, I haven’t had that much I’ve wanted to talk about. I had kind of reached a writer’s block so to speak. I’ve always tried to keep a certain level of sophistication here on Space Monkey, despite all the four-letter words I use. I always try to make the subject something beyond the typical "Dude, what if aliens really exist? That would be soooo cool, man." That’s why there have not been daily updates on Space Monkey from the beginning. Anyone can say something pretty stupid every day of the week, but it takes someone very special to say something really stupid once a week.

However, after a good Memorial Day weekend at home, much of it being spent in intelligent conversation with various members of my family and friends, I’m back. Besides having a good weekend, I also picked up a pretty amazing book called "God’s Debris" written by none other than Scott Adams of Dilbert fame.

A friend of mine pointed this book out to me as something that both he and I would probably be the only two people we knew who would like it. I’m guessing he’s probably not too far off.

God’s Debris is a much more coherent, unified Space Monkey. Rather than just randomly talking about topics, Adams’ story has a true theme and direction to it. However, God’s Debris goes into a larger scale than much on Space Monkey as of yet. He talks about the nature of reality, the Big Bang, time/space, gravity, and probability. It’s pretty far out stuff. Anyway, there are many topics and ideas in the book that I find interesting, but one of them really blew my mind. (Warning: This gets kind of deep, so either put on your wings to stay above the bullshit, turn back now, or strap on your rubbers and jump right in - the choice is up to you)

In the beginning, there was God. God is omnipotent and omnipresent, right? Well, if God knows all, it’s safe to assume that he knows the future, too. Well, if he knows the future, he knows our future, and if he knows our future than it must be pre-ordained. If that’s the case, we don’t really have free will, do we? If we don’t have free will, then why is God even bothering allowing this world to survive? If he’s waiting for the ending that he already knows, why doesn’t he just fast forward through the commercials and get to the good part? Heck, if he already knows the ending, why bother creating us at all? What does he hope to gain from it? He has no wants or desires because he can create anything and knows all. However, there is one thing that he cannot know: He cannot know what reality would be like without him.

So this brings us to The Big Bang, when God "uncreated" himself to see what would happen. He exploded into infinity and slowly, over billions of years, the pieces are coming back together - our known universe, and therefore we, are "God’s Debris".

For this concept to work you need to understand a pretty vital principle in our world - the idea that large, complex systems are always made up of smaller, simpler parts working together in harmony. If you look at mankind’s history, we’ve gone from scattered - not knowing each other’s tribes exist - to rapidly becoming a close-knit, global community - telephones, the internet, faxes, and television have all contributed to this. Not only do we know that each other’s tribes exist, but we can know the individual tribe members now. We are becoming that large, complex system by combining our smaller, simpler parts together through communication.

Now, add in the possibility of life on other planets, which also might combine their smaller parts to become these massive systems. What if they become part of our system, creating an even larger entity?

This is the same way that the universe is developed. Earth is part of a solar system, which is part of a galaxy, which is part of something we don’t even know exists, which is part of something else that we don’t know exists, until eventually it’s all a part of space.

It is this combination of smaller systems that makes up the conscience we call "God". With the combined technologies and ideas of many such worlds, eventually, there will be nothing we together cannot create or know. We will then have become God - whole again with nowhere to go and nothing to learn. And where does this leave us?

"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer."

I guess the moral of the story is "Be nice to each other and someday you’ll be God." Honestly, I don’t think this one really has a moral, a right answer, or much of anything concrete at all. What it is is a nice jumping off point for your own thoughts.

I think I’ve had enough for the night. My head’s about ready to explode trying to wrap my brain around this concept as it is. Again, if you have anything you’d like to bring up, feel free to email me and we’ll discuss for the world to see in a future entry. Love to hear from any one of you.

Your rather confused pal,

Space Monkey