2D Godhead

I’m not that fascinated with 3D space anymore. That’s a lie, I am completely obsessed with it. But it has only led me to a new and even bigger obsession with 2D space. That’s what I meant to say. After all, a 3D image is accomplished by blending two 2D images, right? So, to be fascinated with 3D space for long enough, is to become obsessed with 2D space. That is what happened to me. But, although my original foray into the dimensions of space and perception were crude and physical, just graphic and simplistic, something happened somewhere along the way, and … well, it happened when I started studying holographic universe simulations.

In a hologram a 2D medium gets enlivened by the right light source and it gives rise to a 3D image. The whole phenomenon entails a 2D medium, a light source, and a 3D image - that is pretty wild. It’s not one thing. It’s a 3D thing inside a 2D thing. That blew my mind. And I started thinking about it, and … I never really stopped.

So, then I got institutionalized. Back in the 1970s I got myself into a little bit of trouble, and I ended up in an asylum for a while. They put me away, and there is no use going into it. It was just a sequence of actions in a certain circumstance, and one thing led to another. I ended up living there in that asylum for three years, but I didn’t really care.

That’s a lie, it aggravated me to no end. I deeply resented being institutionalized. But it’s always something in this old world, anyway, right? I mean, I have never lived anywhere where I didn’t have to answer to people who were obsessed with their positions in the pecking order. It is kind of all the same after a while. You lose interest. You just find it harder and harder to work, even harder to be a good worker, and you get worn out. What difference does it make where a person lives? Sure, I would’ve preferred being at home, snug in my own bed, but … at least I had God.

Do you think it’s possible for subatomic space to be 3D? What if subatomic quantum space were really 2D and the whole point is that it gives rise to this 3D space we call the physical universe? See? That’s what I’m talking about!

When this 2D quantum foam folds back on itself, the blending of two 2D images gives rise to a 3D hologram, which is the universe in which we live.

What if God was not the biggest thing in the universe, but the smallest or the flattest? And what if God was not 3D, but actually 2D? What if God is like 2D quantum foam, from which arises the 3D holographic universe simulation that people call life in the universe?

Okay, the point of the story is that I want to tell you where I found God. Do you want to know?

Downstairs in the storage units, under the main floor of the administration building. I’m not kidding.

I got the key, the master, to all the units, and I went down there one night, in the middle of the night. I had been wanting to go down there ever since I heard staff talking about all of the stuff that was down there in storage. The building had been there forever, and between patients, doctors, nurses, and staff, and all the family and friends who had come and gone over the years, I bet there would be some place in the basement of main building of this asylum where someone was keeping an awful lot of good stuff.

One night, under the light of the full moon half-hidden by clouds, I just kinda wandered over there accidentally on purpose. I ended up spending only a few minutes down there in the basement of the building because I quickly got freaked out. There was so much stuff in storage there, I could never go through it all. Then I thought I heard someone coming, so I just cut off my flashlight, and stood there frozen in the darkness forever, vowing to leave just as soon as I possibly could and never come back.

But, that was a lie. I ended up going back the next night, and the next, and next thing you know I was going down there every night. It soon became part of my routine.

Then one night I opened a storage compartment that had a lot of stuff that looked like it was from far, far away. Like oriental, medieval, Arab, something-or-other, far out. It was different, and a lot of it was beautiful. I started wondering what this stuff was and how much it was worth.

And, then I saw it.

At first it was nothing special, just something rolled up. But, of course, I was curious to see it, so I unfurled it on the storage room floor in front of me, and shone the light on it. Suddenly I was looking at the most beautiful thing – surely one of the most beautiful pieces of art I have seen. It looked like a magic carpet. You know, like something from 1001 Arabian Nights. It was purple, and green, and it had this flourish of design in the center, like some letter or word or symbol, that must have meant something really special. It had all this calligraphy on the borders up and down the length of the carpet.

It was relatively small – maybe 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. A true magic carpet from Persia.

Look, do you want me to tell you the truth? I could have gotten myself out of that asylum any old time I wanted. But, then what would I do? Go get another j-j-job?

Yeah, right, like I’m sure that’s going to happen. Where am I going to work? Schizoids-R-Us? Where all of my people really want to do lunch with all of your people?

My whole life I found that if you acted a little differently, then people acted like you were a nut case. The only way to explain it is that they really do not like or understand anyone who is not normal just like they are.

Believe me, in the 1970s it did not take much to get institutionalized. To this day, you only have a relatively narrow bandwidth to manage the impression of someone who cares about being normal, sane, perfectly fine and dandy, cut from the old cookie-cutter mold, cruising along at dull normal. Blow it once, and they will never look at you the same way again.

The truth is that there is only one tiny little problem with me. Let’s just say I have trouble getting along with some people sometimes. I just do.

I don’t really want to get into it now. Let’s just say that once upon a time, I did something I probably should not have done. It was not such a big deal, and it didn’t merit me getting in trouble really. I was just misunderstood, because if you think I am crazy, then trust me everyone is a little bit crazy, and some are a whole lot. And that goes for whether you are inside an asylum with someone like me or outside in the normal world with someone like you.

I mean, if you are in some ancient Greek myth and you talk to the sky, then you are some kind of lyrical poet. But do that today, in public, after a long day at work, around the wrong people, and … well, next thing you know, someone calls the cops, they show up, and you are answering a bunch of stupid questions.

Cop: “What year is it?”

Me: You mean which year, sir?

Cop: “What year is it?”

Me: Does anybody re-e-eeally know what time it is?

Cop: Uh, who is the president?

Me: Well, that would be me, and it’s Mr. President to you, and I’m gonna have your job for this, son. (laughter from the onlookers)

Cop: “Have you had any thoughts about hurting yourself?”

Me: What, you mean, like, emotionally?

Cop: “I mean like suicidal thoughts.”

Me: Have you? Can you admit that, to me, right here and now, in front of everyone, like a man?

I guess they didn’t like my tone, and decided I was going to go directly to jail that night. Big surprise. But, the point is, just to keep it in broad strokes, the real point here is that it did not really take much to get oneself institutionalized in those days. Once I was in jail, since I already had been labelled as mentally ill, it only took a very small, concerted effort. That was just life in polite society in those days.

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Soon I started to have that meant-to-be feeling about finding the Persian magic carpet. It was starting to seem like it belonged to me, might as well, and I was starting to become obsessed with it. I would find myself going down there nights, just spending time with it. I created my own ritual where I would sit on it and meditate, and sometimes I would imagine I was flying. Then after I finished meditating, I would sit on a chair, or on the floor next to it, marveling at it. It became a sacred ritual for me.

One night after a meditation, as I sat there looking at it, the patterning began to move, to swirl slowly, the purples and greens and the calligraphy embroidered on the borders were sliding and moving, perceptibly, little by little, squirming and sliding around like paramecium under a microscope. It was clearly alive.

The magic carpet had now become an oracle. I began to treat it as if it was alive. It showed me that everything was indeed alive. This tiny stretch of magical carpet was as beautiful and alive as anything I had ever seen. It was full of life. It had heritage and creation in it. It had humanity in it and profound symbolic abstractions of the highest order. In its presence the whole universe was alive and made of pure meaning, was positively dripping with meaning, and significance, that quickly went beyond words.

From time to time, as I would visit and spend time admiring it, I would sometimes become welled up with feeling, as if I had stumbled upon something so simplistic, and so utterly elegant, that it was one of the sweetest things that had ever happened to me. Whoever had made that carpet, that magic carpet, had taken their good, sweet time doing it. This was not something you buy in a big box store. I could never have thanked that person enough.

It was a labor of love and someone had obviously spent a fair amount of time designing it, planning it, and making it. It must have happened a long time ago because it just didn’t look like anything made today. It was from an altogether different time and place.

I felt I had received this gift from someone living and working a long time ago. And now I was receiving the product of their labor of love, like a gift from some anonymous master of art, given to me across expanses of time and space … it was like the whole experience was all made just for me.

Then something would remind me not to get caught because I was down there rifling through all of this stuff, and I had better collect my thoughts and skedaddle on out of there. The only thing about these late-night forays to the storage room was that the next day I would often sleep half the day.

From the first time I saw it, I became enchanted with its beauty, and then became bewitched by its allure. It happened the first time I saw it, and it kept happening more and more.

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Performing this sacred ritual became part of my routine. I kept going down there. I would unroll the magic carpet, meditate, and then behold it and worship it for what it was. A work of art. Hand-crafted. Preciously. Purple. Green. Lovingly. I didn’t even need to know exactly what the symbol meant. It could have been a symbol of God for all I knew.

I started talking to it, praying to it. I didn’t care. It didn’t have to make sense. It was my own authentic experience of a special thing that had crossed my path. The magic carpet was easy to get along with, it didn’t talk back or expect anything from me. I didn’t have to ask it permission or run things by it hoping to keep it happy. I just had this relationship with this gorgeous magic carpet from Persia, and nobody knew. That is all. I was very proud. For a person who has as much trouble getting along with others as I do, it was a feel-good accomplishment for me to be able to find something that special to call my own, and not to have anyone else be able to ruin it.

And then one night it hit me, this magic carpet was my experience of divinity - it was the 2D divinity, it was like a connection for anyone who could see it. And I could see it all right. I could see the purple and green swirling in front of me, alive, knowing everything, being with me, for a moment in eternity, a moment out of time. Although this carpet was an inert material object, it was innervating me. It was a carpet. It was a portal. It was a carpet, rolled up and stuck away in the storage room of this grimy old building. It was the 2D God whence sprang the entire universe.

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One night, I managed to place the magic carpet on a board and hold it there with some clamps. I stood the board upright, and it was like the magic carpet was adorning a wall. I sat on a chair about 10 feet in front of it and just looked at it. All of a sudden my vision began telescoping in, and I was looking at nothing but one thing, and it was flat, and everything that had been in my field of vision was all just one flat thing now.

The whole universe went 2D on me, and in the middle of this “one flat thing” was the magic carpet. The colors and symbols starting squirming and moving like it was alive again. It was moving and almost speaking, but it was meaning something and moving, while everything around it was flat. It was the closest I have ever come to knowing God and speaking to God. It was like God spoke to me, but it wasn’t with words, or anything like that, it was just a pure conveyance of pure meaning.

I knew the whole universe was made of meaning, pure meaning itself. I sat there beholding the magical Persian carpet, the colors moving, squirming and swirling around, dripping with meaning, and something in me, became the silence of the experience. It was like a light switch getting flipped off, like I was let off the hook, like an unmistakable knowingness of something having been lanced, and drained of its bile, the other side reached, a threshold crossed.

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It was a higher-order experience that was so mind-blowing for me that I actually decided to give up my career as a mental patient.

 I knew exactly what I had to do to get out. It would take about four months once I started angling for it. I had to allow them to think they were discovering it at the same time that I was – that I was somehow being cured.

Of course, that was the whole purpose of the treatment, so it all made sense to them.

It finally happened. I got my marching papers, I even got set up with a residential halfway house that was quite cozy, for what it was. I could stay there a while, and then something else would come up. Whatever happened next, I just couldn’t be bothered. I didn’t even care what it was. I wasn’t worried or anxious about what happened next, for once. I didn’t much care anymore. I didn’t have to. All I knew was that I didn’t need to fear the normal world enough to go live in an asylum anymore.

So, I started packing my things. I found a box. I rolled up the Persian Carpet, placed it in the box, and placed the rest of my earthly belongings on top of it. That day, when I walked away, I had all my things with me in some boxes, and bags, and a couple of suitcases. Some staff helped me out of the building and into a cab, which they paid to take me to the halfway house, about 25 minutes away, and they handed me an envelope with $500 cash in it.

I sat there, grateful, managing a wave and a smile to the staff as the cab pulled away. Nobody even looked at my things or checked any of my stuff. After all, what would an ex-inmate, who had been living in that asylum for nearly three years, have in some boxes, and bags, and a couple of suitcases they were carrying on their way out the door? A magical Persian carpet replete with 2D Godhead?