Scripture from the notebook of TEM
The Untitled First Page
We, the civilized people, are condemned to live the lives of the mundane, the hopeless, the pointless, (line ends with comma)*
Only if you let it be. (written below the first line with different colored ink)
(The rest of the page is blank, unlike most of the other entries in this notebook there is no date or title)
Ending (there isn't a precursor to this page, it is simply labeled "Ending" at the top)
When will it end? It doesn't, not until the sun enters the red giant stage and kills everything on Earth. But that won't be for a long long time, will there be any humanity left here? Will we reach the stars and whats beyond? And if we don't, what's after? What about Heaven and Hell? Consciousness can't just disappear, can it? Ever do something while drunk or half asleep and not remember it? It's like it never happened... The world... So big, so many lives... (at this point there is a blank line followed by a page and a half of text that was scribbled out)
(the text continues on the next page unmarked, it is not clear if it refers to the scratched out text)
To those that think the conclusion met on the previous page is bull. When you are at work tomorrow or the next day and you are slowly sinking with the realization that everything written was stupid hopeful idiocy, stop and look around you. Find one person and humanize them. Realize that they have lived a life just as complicated, terrible and wonderful as yours; but with different characters, different plot, different POV. Realize how much of life they have experienced that you haven't. Think about the infinite mysteries that that presents to you.
What do they know that I don't?
What bad things have happened to them?
Good?
Who do they know?
Where are they from?
Are they happy or sad?
What do they think of me?
(next side of page)
Really think about the endless questions the vast majority of which will never get answers, even if you married that person and stayed with them for the rest of your life.
Now multiple that by 2.
Find another person. And another. And another.
Realize how many people are in the building. The city.
They are all full of the mysterious and the fantastic. Now think of people from other cultures, other countries, other continents. All of them with as much endless mystery as the next, all human, all so much the same and completely different.
Now think of the infinite mystery we have found, the fantastic amount of forever unknowns.
(next page)
And realize that you have only pondered that entirety of the most familiar and knowable beings you will ever find.
The world isn't fantastic? (there is one last line below this one, it has been scratched out)
* ( ) denotes editors' notes, not part of the original text.
