I believe I prefer the order of a sequenced life rather than a life of “everything, everywhere, all at once.” But having never ventured off my worldline, I don’t have sound basis for comparison. If you know of how I could experience atemporal existence, I would be happy to give it a try and get back with you.
Depends on the year. In twelfth grade, I remember enjoying Physics the most. In Eleventh, Psychology was the best class I attended. There was a year when I got the most out of an English class that focused on Creative Writing. I guess my most longstanding preference was for classes like Geography and Social Studies, wherein we learned about the world outside our world.
I hear the rains accelerate
From the lightest sprinkle.
Soon the streets are aflood; mere sound
Makes my fingers wrinkle.
The rain continues to ratchet
Up: faster & faster.
'Til it's maxed out at a speed that
Spells certain disaster.
How can it keep up this dire pace?
What sponge this cloud must be
To hold on high, up in the sky,
The contents of a Sea.
But, in time, the downshift begins
Towards just drips & drops.
No matter how boisterous the band,
The song, it always stops.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Who can say? I could be dead. I could be one of the last humans alive after the next pandemic or a nuclear Holocaust or a solar flare that sends humanity back to the Stone Age, or some combination of these and / or other disasters. I could be sitting where I currently sit, doing what I’m currently doing.
I’m no fortune-teller. (If there’s one thing my time as a social scientist taught me, it’s that people think they are much better at making predictions than they are.)
Bohemians
gathered around
the absinthe bottles,
the light hitting
the bottles shone
a radioactive shade
of green.
That green light
threw blotches
against walls &
floors & people &
anything else there
was to illuminate.
The more they drank,
the less green the mottling --
not because the empty glass
was clear, &
didn't refract, or spray green,
but because the splotches
turned every color --
every color there is --
and the colors danced
around the increasingly
amorphous surfaces.
Until, at last,
everyone was asleep,
and visions of Green Fairies
danced in their dreams.