We arrive in a hospital room from a womb and are immediately brandished by the Joneses. Our days are no longer driven by survival against the elements, they are driven by survival against ourselves. We exist in a more privileged time than ever, a time when we are ever-increasingly aware of our own awareness. All those feelings we often mute with fear or paralyse with ‘socially acceptable’. The pressure to live within a construct of ‘proverbial’ wisdom often fashioned through dictatorship or fascism. Some of us relish being a Stepford wife and living behind a white picket fence. Some allow angst-fuelled rebellion to rule and push outside of societal norms as a cry for attention, or to mend the brokenness felt by unrealised narcissism. Many of us struggle to find breathing space between all the shoulds. Our stifled collective conscious has become so entrenched that we no longer recognise ourselves. How much of this ‘rational’ influence leaches into the recesses of the actions we take and the thoughts we think? Even in those precious moments when we are alone, when no one is watching but we are watching ourselves. We look in the mirror and feel detached from what we see. Like we’ve moved into a new house but never unpacked the boxes, or we are the jester trapped within a satirical play. Do we always need to abide by the stigma or should we search for a more natural alignment — the real-ness of life and a little irrationality? Perhaps conformance provides us too much comfort. Comfort like a lead blanket.
The Fibonacci sequence implies maximum thermodynamic entropy. Yes, that’s a sentence with some big words. That sentence may or may not make much sense to you, but bear with me. I am by no means a mathematician or a physicist; full disclosure, I’m rather horrendous at both and numbers sometimes hurt my brain. At times I just find the orchestration of life absolutely astonishing and so I like to read, absorb and ponder. The Fibonacci sequence is an infinite series of successive and ever-diminishing units. When added continuously, they form fractions that converge towards a single value. Entropy is a law of thermodynamics where ‘disorder’ always increases with time. Entropy, the Fibonacci sequence and another phenomenon known as the golden ratio govern order in the natural world. They saturate history, ancient man and nature. They appear in plant growth, insects, shells, flowers, structures within the animal kingdom (including homo sapiens), ancient architecture, reproductive patterns, hurricanes, DNA, crystals, elements of galaxies, asteroids, even the physics within black holes and the topology of space-time. If that doesn’t blow your mind… seriously. Perhaps one day it literally will blow our minds, in the beautiful elegance of a golden ratio.
So why do matter and anti-matter have the desire to consistently be in a golden ratio or a state of entropy, and how does this relate to us? Nature has so much yet to teach us, and not just medically and technologically. Simple, in many ways, is often more fruitful, and natural is beneficial. But nature is powerful and anything abused can become the abuser. If not respected and understood, it can be as dangerous as not recognising it at all. Can nature teach us how to better soothe our souls? For some a lavender bubble bath, soy candle, herbal tea and oatmeal face mask hits the spot, but what about beyond? The golden ratio, or Phi (1.618033), is much more than just a mathematical number. Mathematically, the definition of an irrational number is a real number that cannot be expressed as a fraction, i.e. in decimal form; the decimals never end. Perhaps the perfection of irrational numbers has something to teach us about our own rationality. Irrationality, my Oxford dictionary definition: ‘Not logical or reasonable.’ Another dictionary definition: ‘Without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgement.’ Sound judgement… who is deemed rightly sound to lay this judgement? Perhaps the beauty of entropy has something to teach us about how to do chaos the right way. Not five-car pile-up type of entropy but a perfect balance between symmetry and asymmetry. An ever-increasing state of randomness is beautiful. Beautiful chaos. Beautiful chaos is life.
The golden ratio and the Fibonacci series are related. The ratio of any two successive numbers within the Fibonacci series results in a decimal very close to the golden ratio. For the golden ratio, a + b is to a, as a is to b. Why does the smaller body tend to be the same fraction of the large body as the large body is to the sum? Both the large body and the small body simultaneously maintain a relationship with one another and with the universe. The Earth is being pushed by both the universe and the Moon, and the Moon is being pushed by both the universe and the Earth. It is these combined influences that create Phi. A unified field. Perhaps this alludes to our answer of our psyche aligning with all that is. Is that even a possibility? I don’t know but, damn, would I like to find out. Perhaps being more ‘irrational’ allows us to better harness the wave of possibility before it collapses into the particle (matter). Our own Copenhagen interpretation; a quantum (everything is possible) rather than a Newtonian (everything is predictable) way of living.
The more years pass, the more I thought I was moving closer to releasing an anthology of my ordinary life for no one but myself to read. The more years pass, however, the more I realise life is actually a bizarre whirlwind of anti-matter stitched together with my own perception. So, my anthology doesn’t matter. Not excusing the pun. It doesn’t matter in a really cool way. Everything doesn’t matter. Every-thing-does-not-matter. Non-matter governs matter. By focusing on non-matter and drawing our attention away from every finicky thing in life, we alter our perception and harness the power to influence matter. Matter functions in time. Non-matter functions in moments. We are the observed and we are the observer. We drive the needle and thread while life simultaneously teaches us How to Make an American Quilt. Or, for some, how to hire and underpay a sweatshop worker for an overpriced garment. Point being, we choose. So, we know we are capable of making choices in life but how much of our life is driven by our internal state of being? How much of the quilt is shaped by how we feel while we are quilting? In moments of pain and sorrow, perhaps we should move towards becoming the observer, allow ourselves to disassociate — make the emotion more tangible than innate. Too much of being the observed can distort, we begin to break down into the parts of our sum, lingering but no longer palatable to ourselves.
The Fibonacci sequence, entropy and the golden ratio have even been measured at the atomic level. Scientists have artificially introduced quantum uncertainty to chains of atoms, which causes them to act like nanoscale guitar strings — they magnetically resonate and the resonant ‘notes’ show frequencies (pitch) in the ratio of 1.618… (the golden ratio). Hidden symmetry within the chaos of the quantum system. Perhaps the realisation of these astronomically significant laws will allow a harmonised fusion of our past, present and future. Perhaps deja vu exists to remind us of the astounding nature of time-space reality. Energy carries entropy and emotion is energy in motion. Are we far enough down the rabbit hole yet?
What you focus on grows. Feelings seem to expand the more that you revel in them and perhaps we have evolved to a place where we are now able to shift a posteriori into new gears. Allow yourself moments to collapse into appreciation and you will begin to recognise when your sensory experiences are on steroids; really absorb those primitive yet esoteric moments, such as the deliciousness of petrichor, or just staring at a walnut. You begin to notice feelings you’ve never experienced before, feeling flavours beyond neopolitan; new ‘feelscapes’ if you will. I know this because I am beginning to live it. I am only just standing on the shoreline, but oh so excited about how deep and colourful the ocean really is. I am beginning to recognise those paradoxical and seemingly inert moments in life whose sum is thrilling, profound and metamorphic. If nothing else, it allows you to press pause on the exhaustive oscillating between self-loathing and the insatiable appetite of a broken ego. No longer trying desperately to unfeel the feelings that have left your perception abrasive and deflated. You are no longer a CRT TV with red, green and blue phosphorescence emitting cliched scene after cliched scene. No longer allowing Keyser Soze or Verbal Klint to dictate your life story from a bulletin board and the bottom of a coffee mug. You play the guitar strings. You’re less chalkboard and more Hemingway. You begin to crawl out of the white noise and into a more lucid awakening to your own existence — the most precious existence of all — simultaneous existence of one and of all: Phi.
Take me down the rabbit hole, I’m totally up for meeting Schrodinger’s cat.
