What It Is
Everything is miraculous, yeah, but some things are especially so, like this duck pond in Battery City Park, where I like to sit and think about what it is.
HOBOKEN, JANUARY 1, 2025. 5:20 AM. Once again, I stretch out on my living-room couch with a mug of coffee, pen in hand, blank-paged journal in my lap, blanket over my hairy legs, Hudson River gleaming beyond the window, hoping to say… What?
I can write anything. Well, not anything. I’m constrained by my aging brain and limited powers of expression, not to mention the limits of all language.
Time is limited, too. I teach today. I’m hearing student presentations in my science-writing seminar, 9-11:30, and freshman humanities course, 12:30-1:45. [See Postscript.] At 2:00 I meet Joe C. in my office to talk about his senior thesis, on whether young Americans are losing faith in politics. (Oldsters are losing faith too, Joe.)
Before all that, I gotta shit, shower, shave, dress, gobble my yogurt/granola/banana breakfast and walk two blocks to the Stevens Institute campus. So yeah, constraints, as always.
But right now, 5:35 AM, I’m free to write, with caveats noted above, anything. What do I want to say? Here’s what: I want to face this moment squarely and say What it is. That is, I want to say what this moment--right here and now, 5:41 AM--has in common with every other moment in my life.
What it is for me should also be What it is for you. Although each of us occupies our own niche of space, we’re all crammed into the same present (and spare me reminders of time’s relativity). We’re all impaled on the tip of the arrow of time, this eternal end/beginning. And each moment is momentous, the culmination of everything that’s happened since the big bang, which kickstarted this whole schmagoogle. Supposedly.
5:55 AM. I once thought saying What it is means describing what’s behind the veil. Now I think there’s nothing behind the veil, the veil is all there is, which means there is no veil. So saying What it is should be simple. No fancy physics or metaphysics, invocation of unseen realms.
Ideally, what I write will make you murmur, Hmm, this guy is onto something. Or, I know what it is, but this guy doesn’t. Or, What the hell is this idiot talking about?
Any reaction is okay. I’m hoping we can compare notes and see if our perspectives overlap. Ideally, we’ll reach rough agreement on What it is or What it might be. But remember, no language, not even the language of mathematics, can truly capture What it is.
Another caveat: If you say you know What it is, you risk looking like a fool, or an arrogant asshole with a delusional sense of your own significance. When you announce, This is what it is, people! you might look like some maniac thumping his chest, shouting, Me! Me! Me!
On the other hand, every single moment of every single life, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, embodies all life, just as each point in spacetime embodies the whole shebang. So arrogance is perhaps forgivable, even called for. Every sentient being is qualified to say What it is, even a fool or an asshole. Even a grizzled professor scribbling in his journal in a one-bedroom rental in Hoboken.
6:30 AM. It occurs to me that all this blather about What it is could be an evasion on my part, an attempt to distract myself from what’s really on my mind: my desperate late-life quest for love.
Not to mention all the terrible stuff a woke peacenik like me is obliged to care about: war, poverty, racism, sexism and other sources of misery. Nukes, climate change, pandemics. The wobbliness of democracy, the ascent of AI-enabled fascism and predatory capitalism. The kinds of crises my students might talk about today. Shouldn’t I write about these problems instead of yammering about What it is?
Well, sure, but from a cosmic perspective--and pardon me if this sounds cold--our most urgent crises are trivial. Our worldly troubles, you could argue, distract us from what matters most, the fact that you exist, that I exist, that anyone exists. And we know we exist. What a trip!
No “explanation” of our existence makes it less mind-bogglingly weird. Quite the contrary. Science has demonstrated that our existence is infinitely improbable. Not how the world is, but that it is, is the biggest news, news that should never get old.
Unfortunately, we get habituated to our existence, so we need to be reminded of how freaky it is that we’re here. Every single day, The N.Y. Times should devote its entire front page to the headline:
WE EXIST!!!
Or maybe The Times should print one giant exclamation mark:
!
I mean, don’t forget about the misery. Just remember—and yeah, it’s ethically cringey for a lucky bastard like me to say this--that the misery unfolds within the moment-by-moment miracle of existence. “Miracle” sounds schmaltzy, but isn’t that the right word for something infinitely improbable?
To summarize: When you ask what any moment is, you should exclaim: It’s a fucking miracle! Then you can get into details, like how and why things are the way they are and what we can do to reduce the unfairness and misery.
7:12 AM. Hmm. What have I got here? Should I try to turn these scribbles into a column? Yeah, why not. I’m old, with little to lose, and only so many moments left to say what I really want to say.
But now it’s time to shit, shower, get ready for class. I hope my students solve all our problems when they give their talks today.
Postscript: I’m posting this column during my Christmas vacation, but I wrote the first draft a month ago when school was still in session.
Further Reading:
On God, Quantum Mechanics and My Agnostic Schtick
Entropy, Meaninglessness and Miracles
Quantum Mechanics, the Chinese Room and the Limits of Understanding
Nicaragua, Quantum Mechanics and Other “Solutions” to Habituation
And if all that isn’t enough, check out my book Rational Mysticism.