Quantity.
I am scared of this topic. Not the topic of quantity — in a way the topic of quantity scares me — but I’m scared of the number one.
I wonder if that has a name. A wonderful name.
Let’s try this way:
One
True
Yes
All
Powerful
I think it’s not one that scares me as much as one’s followers.
When one gets big enough it rolls over all opposition. Like tide.
See, imperfection is existence. So what is one?
It is pure chaos, in a sense—it is the point right next to the end; the very last one.
Terrifying.
Terrifying.
See, when you come face-to-face with one, you are either one or you’re not. I mean “You’re not.” Not “You’re not one;” “ You’re not.” You’re either one, or you are not.
At this point I’d like to invent a pronoun that means the lack of a pronoun, real or implied.
So you are either one, or you’re not (glish).
Terrifying.
Hi, one. I’d like to be (giish). I’d like to be (glish) and also not be one (glish) (please). I’d like to ask if that’s ok with you, but it doesn’t actually matter a lot or at all. If you’re one, you’re preference has no bearing on whether I can not be one and still be. (Glish).
For if I am, you will no longer be one (glish). There will be two. At least.
So, unreasonable one! It had to be either you or me, or both of us— as one.
Guess who won?
——
One is like a swing. No, one is not like a swing. One is, though, like a swing.
A child on a swing on a swingset moves back and forth, over and over. Inside the overall motion though, is other motion: legs go out, or knees bend, or the whole thing twists from side to side. The motion-in-motion changes the path of the overall motion, making it faster or slower or crooked, but not by much, because the child never touches the ground.
Without a reference point, without touching the ground, the motion-in-motion can’t really do anything. It is more than self-correcting: it is nothing. If you took away the back and forth motion, one is like this. Because it is one, every problem it fixes it must also either have created or be about to create. Which annoyed the heck out of me. “Quit poking into things, one!” I said. “You’re wearing me out for nothing. You’ll fix something, then break something bigger, and on and on and worse, until you settle down.”
Explaining this to one, that was how I defeated it. And wiped the sweat from my brow in relief, because the only logical state for an omnipotent being is at rest.
“Just be.” (i said that too)