By Stephen Sheehan
My sons broken biscuit that made him cry, 2024.
I have only ever known to think.
It is hard to imagine that I will not think again after I die. The thought came to me as my son had a biscuit, and the biscuit broke, and he ran away crying. I wondered if my son viewed the biscuit, as no longer being a biscuit as it fragmented into something different. I suppose in a flash, I found it symbolic of the idea of something, being separated from the physical, as the physicality of that thing changed, meaning it no longer holds a connection.
Maybe, I am thinking about thinking, from the perspective of thinking, and being able to think from inside a physical mobile complex network that I am not aware of, because I am it. I suppose the beauty of expressing an idea beyond the physicality of the complex system, is that it is no longer attached, and freely operates within its own reality. If we imagine that the biscuit was able to express itself, I suppose the biscuit can be broken down into dust, but the expression would not perish within those crumbs but take on an entity of its own. Though while it escapes the demise of its foundation, it still has a physical body, capable of decay, capable of demise. I suppose to perish, is inescapable for all, even ideas, but before that demise takes place, I wonder about an idea reaching out into the abyss in the hope that it will take on a different existence. I am not talking about someone coming across an idea, and then reinventing that idea to create something new, but what I am talking about, is that the idea becomes conscious of its own mortality, not looking at itself as an idea, but a living creature, unaware of the system that allows it to live because it is that system. It sees itself as a being and thus attempts to go beyond itself to escape whatever fate it is facing.
I started to think, that If infinity is true, then I wonder if I am some fragment or link within an infinite chain, that when I express an idea, that in turn expresses an idea, that expresses an idea, and so on and so on, until I eventually come back into existence where I can think again within my physical body as I do know. Infinity brings with it infinite possibilities, so I suppose, I will think again in the same capacity. Maybe this situation has already happened, and billions of biscuits have been broken and billions of litters of my son’s tears have fallen to arrive at this moment, and I have written billions, billions of times, and while I think it’s important, it is no more important that the biscuit breaking. Maybe the biscuit is more important. With that said, my thoughts about infinity could be completely wrong and naïve to contemplate that this has happened before repeatedly, as that wouldn’t really be infinity, but the opposite. Rather, it will never happen again due to continuous ravelling of infinite possibilities. It is important to think about the possibility, that if an idea becomes conscious of itself and cannot distinguish itself from system that allows it to be, then maybe you or I are just an idea, and the physicality we perceive is that of the narrative constructed to allow the idea to be, in that given context.
I suppose I will never think again. And with each thought, I move further away from who I originally was without knowing who I will finally be just before I have my last thought. Before the biscuit broke and changed, I wonder what it thought about? I don’t know why, but I think it’s important to grasp an idea and allow it to exist. The important thing about giving life to something is that it doesn’t have to be seen by anyone, for it exists regardless, and the validation of others is a mere consequence of exchange or collision. Though these ideas are no more important than a broken biscuit.
My son refused to eat the biscuit and I had to get him another one.