I also fetched a woolly jumper. Now I’m sitting on Børre’s balcony drinking gin and tonic. His parents have a cupboard full of bottles. When I’ve drunk myself to courage, I plan to read on in the scary book about time. Now I’m reading. Paul writes about Einstein. I understand that Einstein is my friend.
It somehow appears to be integrated in his theory that past, present and future exist side by side. It’s one of the con-sequences of the theory of relativity. Naturally, I don’t grasp how it’s possible, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t give a shit about how it’s possible. The point is that I feel a little more at ease after having read it. I refill my glass and continue.
It excites me enormously to read that the experts (whoever they may be) disagree about the nature of time. Some of them want there to be defined, once and for all, a kind of universal time that can function as a measure of change, while others think one should declare the concept of time null and void, as non-existent. We can still have watches. We can keep measuring change in seconds and hours and years, but the idea of time as something which is just there is useless. The latter group has my full sympathy. As far as I am able to, I will lobby for the eventual recognition of their views.
All of this attracts me more and more. My existence is developing some distance from itself. Perspective. Perspective is one of those things one ought to be able to purchase and administer intravenously.
Paul’s not afraid of the big thoughts. He writes about eternity now. What’s important to know about eternity is that it’s not just a very big number, he says.
Eternity is something very different from what is simply vastly, incredibly huge. If the universe has unlimited time at its disposal, it does not simply mean that everything can happen. It means that everything will happen. No matter how improbable it is or how much time it will take, it will happen sooner or later. That means that if I were to live forever, I would do everything and experience everything. Something like that would only be interesting if my brain were able to think an infinite number of thoughts. I honestly don’t know if it is.
I put the book down to see if I can think of something. Something new. Anything. I close my eyes and take a few sips of gin and tonic. First I don’t think about anything in particular, but then I think about Lise. In a way it is a new thought. It’ll do. But there’s more. I see pictures. A combine harvester and a beach. And a fish. I don’t know whether or not I could call them thoughts, but at least it’s all new. I doubt if I’m imaginative enough to live forever.
Now Paul’s getting hardcore. He’s saying that everything points to the universe having had a precise beginning, and that it will also have an end. Paul says that one day, everything we know will disappear. That’s what he’s saying.
As a consequence of the Big Bang, the universe is expanding in all directions. The force driving it outward is great, but things indicate that the mass of the universe one day will have a gravity that in total will be more powerful than that force. The movement will then stop, and stars and systems and whatever all of it is, will contract again. Everything will go into reverse, and in the end it’ll all simply collapse. Paul calls it the Big Crunch.
After that nothing will happen, not a turd. The same way nothing happened before the Big Bang, simply because there was no ‘before’ in which it could happen. Maybe the universe will start contracting in a hundred billion years, but it could also linger on for a billion billion years. And after that we’ll have as many years to pack our bags and prepare for the end.
I love these numbers. Paul’s an absolute fiend with numbers. Somewhere in the book he operates with a number he claims will be a one with several million noughts attached to it. It has to do with the distance, in light years, to a celestial phenomenon or a system of something that is located somewhere completely other than our solar system.
He also mentions a prognosis that concludes that the total number of galaxies in the universe seems to be in the region of ten billion, and that each of them has about a hundred billion stars the size of the sun. These numbers are so absurd that I strangely enough find myself in a good mood. It’s all so immense. I think Paul feels a bit like this as well. There is so little I can do to make a difference. It is liberating.
My own responsibility is decreasing considerably. I can feel it right now. The sense of responsibility is diminishing. At an enormous rate. I am hardly anything at all. Strictly speaking, that ought to be a frightening thought, but I don’t experience it that way. Maybe it’s the alcohol playing with me.
This thing about the universe apparently having an end naturally puts a damper on things. Any ideas I might have had about eternal life are sort of getting stuck in the throat. But it doesn’t seem to bother me. Not now. On the contrary. I feel more alive than in a long while. Suddenly it feels good to have a deadline to relate to. As a matter of fact, I’ve always worked well under pressure.
If we are allowed to carry on down here for another few thousand or million years, I’ll be happy. Afterwards the universe can explode and collapse as much as it wants.
What’s hectic about all this is the thought that I haven’t asked to be here. I am just here. So is everybody else. We are all here. But we haven’t asked to be. It’s not our fault.
Profoundly lyrical, I am sitting gazing out into the night when Børre comes shuffling in. He has woken up because he was having a scary and dangerous dream. He climbs up on my lap and I wrap him in my woolly jumper. I pat him and tell him not to be afraid. It was just a dream. And tomorrow is a new day. Børre rubs his eyes and asks if I can sing a song. Of course I can. I can sing ‘Fola Fola Blakken’5. It’s one of the nicest things I know. When the boy comes smiling into the barn with word from father that Blakken is going to rest, that’s when it all fits together. You dream about that, Blakken. Just eat, just stand easy. Maybe wander around the yard, with junior on your neck.
I carry Børre back to bed and lie next to him until he falls asleep. Then I go and sit on the balcony again. With a glass of water.
I look out over the town. People are sleeping.
I fill my mouth with water and swallow a little at a time. Water is good. If I had to choose between a lot of things, I’d quite definitely choose water.
I feel better than in a long while. First the ball, then the hammer-and-peg, and now this, all the big numbers. The good feeling of freedom from responsibility. Maybe I’m on my way up. Maybe I’ll be all right. And while dawn breaks, I sit there thinking that I’m a really good guy and never mind space and time and all the rest of it.
5 A melancholy song about an ageing horse who is ready for ‘retirement’.
Crazy Love
I am sitting in front of the TV waiting for the hangover to go away so I can start hammering again. I tried tying a piece of cloth around the hammer, but the sound was still too loud. Brio ought to consider making the pegs out of wood instead of plastic.
It would have suited me perfectly to hammer right now. I could have summed up my thoughts from last night in a careful manner. But now I have to wait.
It’s all confusion now. All this stuff about space. I believe I was thinking never mind it all. It doesn’t feel that way now. Hubris.
There was no end to how grateful Børre’s parents were. They wanted to pay me, but I said I would have nothing of it and besides, I had treated myself to their liquor.
Børre didn’t want me to go home to my place. He is a good boy.
TV is a good thing. I ought to watch TV more often. I get pleasantly diverted. I can’t quite tell whether the thoughts I’m having are my own or if they’re coming from the TV. Animal programmes are the best. David Attenborough explaining that nature is intricate and that it all fits together. Wasps that navigate according to the sun. They know what they’re doing, the wasps. They know a lot better than I do.
Now there’s a commercial on. I like car commercials. Almost all of them are set in some desert or other. The cars drive fast in the desert. A solitary car under the sun
. Volvo’s latest commercial is also set in a desert. It looks cool. It’s fast. The guy driving has nothing to do but drive around in the desert. He just drives. I think I’ll buy a Volvo. A green one. My brother will like it.
Other things that appeal to me are graphic illustrations of how shampoo and toothpaste work. They’re so wonderfully educational. I can see how the effective ingredients penetrate the hair or the teeth and cleanse and sort things out. And afterwards it’s better than how it was before. That’s the point. That things are supposed to get better. But I get aggressive about little animated things and animated food. Crackers that jump out of their box and dance on the kitchen counter while calling the herb cheese in the fridge, and when the herb cheese comes out, the crackers dive into the cheese and spread it all over themselves. It’s a strain to watch. Advertising people animate anything these days. Someone ought to shoot them in the foot. There are limits to my toleration of stupidity.
These are things that I think should never be animated in a commercial context:
– Crackers and bread products
– Dairy products
– Chocolate
– Meats
– Fish products
– Cleaners (and dishwashing gloves)
– Eggs
– Fruit and vegetables
– Clocks and watches
I watch Swedish news for a while. They are in the process of wrapping up a case where some council workers have misused council funds. It’s quite serious, but it puts me in a good mood. People are completely mad.
In this case a group of council workers have been on a survey in Brussels. Things got a bit out of hand, and they happened to pay for a night of merriment in a sex club with the council’s credit card. We’re talking more than thirty thousand kroner. In one night. I see the bank statement. That’s what puts me in a good mood. It says Dahl’s Paint and Hardware, and then it says Texaco a couple of times, and then it says Crazy Love six times in a row.
And those involved have pathetic excuses. One of them says he can’t remember a thing from that night. Another claims he never understood it was a sex club. I feel sorry for them.
Dahl’s Paint and Hardware
Texaco
Texaco
Crazy Love
Crazy Love
Crazy Love
Crazy Love
Crazy Love
Crazy Love
Now I’m watching a series where we follow the police at work. In America. It’s a reconstruction of a good deed two policemen did in Los Angeles a few years ago. I am surprised to find tears coming to my eyes.
I am moved by the reconstruction of the good deed. The two policemen are standing inside the police station telling the story, and at the same time we get to see what happened. The producers have found two actors who look like the two policemen. It’s quite a good illusion.
Here’s what happened.
The day before Christmas Eve a black woman sits crying in front of her house in a poor Los Angeles suburb. The policemen come driving past in their police car. They stop, asking her what’s the matter. The woman explains that while she was at the hospital visiting her cancer-stricken daughter, someone stole everything she owned. All the furniture, the food in the fridge, even the kids’ Christmas presents are gone. And inside the house three kids are sitting feeling sad. There won’t be a Christmas this year.
The policemen say there’s little they can do. These kinds of burglaries are hardly ever solved. But to be on the safe side they take down what kind of presents she had bought her kids.
When they get back in the police car, the two policemen talk about how this kind of stuff really stinks. Society is going the wrong way, et cetera. They decide to buy presents for the woman’s children and pay for them themselves. It’s Christmas after all, and they have everything they need, while the poor woman and her children have nothing.
They stop at a toy store and buy what’s on the list. A couple of hundred dollars’ worth of stuff. They start chatting to the store owner, explaining to him what they’re doing. The store owner is touched by the benevolence of the project and says he will pay for half of it. It’s Christmas.
When the policemen get back in their car to return to the precinct, there is a call from the station.
They must come immediately.
At the station the boss is asking what’s going on, and it turns out the owner of the toy store has called a TV station and that the TV station now wants to interview the two policemen. Happy news stories like this one are hard to come by, and now it’s Christmas and people need something good to draw them together. The ball starts rolling.
More TV stations are picking up the story. CNN roll up. Soon the entire United States knows about it. The policemen are congratulated from near and far, and President Reagan calls to say he is proud of them.
People are sending money, and a man offers to give the woman a new house in a better area. Suddenly they realise the woman doesn’t know anything about it. She doesn’t have a TV, or a radio. She and the kids are probably sitting all alone in that empty house. They think there won’t be a Christmas. The policemen decide to wait until the next day, Christmas Day.
The following morning the black woman gets up and wakes her children, saying they’re going to the hospital to wish the cancer-stricken daughter Merry Christmas. The children feel it’s all a bit depressing without presents, but the woman says they have each other and they must be grateful for that.
Sirens. The woman sighs, saying even on this holy day people can’t seem to be good to one another. But then the son looks out the window. The street is full of people. Police cars and fire engines and cameras and people. The two policemen are standing outside on the grass, their arms laden with presents. Somebody starts carrying furniture into the house. The woman doesn’t understand what’s going on, but then she recognises the policemen. They give her a hug and a cheque for eighteen thousand dollars. Then the woman starts to cry. And I cry a little, too.
The headache has passed. I’m hammering.
This business with space again. All the thoughts from last night haven’t exactly made me less mortal. When the universe is ephemeral, one can easily feel that human existence is meaningless. Why should I do anything at all?
On the other hand it is tempting to try and make the best of it. I’m here, anyway. The imagination won’t cope if I try to picture where I’d otherwise be.
I am not ashamed about having thoughts like these. Maybe I should have had them before. I don’t know when people usually think about these kinds of things. Some probably do it as early as age fifteen. I didn’t. But I’m thinking about them now. And I’m not ashamed. The whole point of sitting in this flat is just so that I can have these kinds of thoughts. I hope things will get better when I am finished thinking. As a matter of fact there are quite a lot of things I do appreciate.
This is what I appreciate:
– Hammering
– Throwing
– Sitting on the loo
– Sun
– Eating
– Trees
– Friendship
– Beaches
– Girls
– Swans
– Sleeping and dreaming and waking up
– Having someone stroke my back (rare)
– Music (All You Need is Love)
– Children (Børre)
– Water
– Driving a car
– Cycling
If only I had a feeling that things fit together and that everything will be all right in the end. It would be so good.
Maybe I am spending too much time alone. I ought to spend more time outdoors. Maybe talk to someone. Who would I talk to? Kim is so far away and Kent is a bad friend. I could always chat to my parents, but I don’t like worrying them with my problems. I’d rather they believe I am well and getting better all the time.
When I was little, Dad and I used to walk around our house. He would hold my hand a
nd then we’d walk around the house. For some reason I recall it as a very good and meaningful thing. We lived in the house. It was where I ate and slept. And we also walked around it.
I take a break from hammering and cycle up to my parents to tell Dad I’d like to walk around the house with him.
He has just had his afternoon nap and thinks it’s a little strange. I tell him not to ask any questions. I tell him I need it. I need to know what it feels like to walk around the house with him. It’s part of something I’m working on, I tell him.
Dad puts on wellingtons and a coat, and then we walk around the house. Dad and I. We are walking all the way around the house.
It’s not quite like it used to be, but it’s all right. I hadn’t thought walking around the house with Dad would solve everything. I had moderate expectations. Dad says we can do it again later, if I feel it’s necessary. I tell him it’s quite possible. Dad also says I ought to go out more. Meet people. Maybe a girl.
Girlfriends
Why don’t I have a girlfriend? I can’t see any good reason. People not half as friendly as I have girlfriends. Idiots have girlfriends. I absolutely ought to have a girlfriend.
There is a lot of injustice and idiocy in the world. I guess that’s part of my problem.
Is it that unintelligent people are responsible for all the silly music and the idiotic books, magazines, films and all the animated foods in the TV commercials?
Could it be that simple? Sometimes I think it is. It is a very plausible explanatory model. Quite attractive.
Or is it that these people are not really stupid, that they mean well, but fail over and over again? That’s also a possibility. There’s a big difference between being stupid and just being unfortunate. One sure thing is the fact that they have girlfriends. Every single one of them. But not me.
The Pope