Climbing Through
February 2009
#001
Climbing Through
I have done so much climbing through my life. Such sad, gloomy darkness, with struggles beyond belief. Going in and out of situations and changes due to mental illness, which affects so many of us.
It started so long ago, struggling to the top of the ladder, just to fall down time after time. People suffer with so many different kinds of mental health problems, no two people are alike. However we all share the same pain and aches due to the changes and struggles in our lives.
Most of us can climb to the top of the ladder of darkness, but some are so unfortunate not to see the end of this dank and dismal place.
Jan Humphreys
GROW
Climbing Through
Through the archives of my mind, I see life
The sea, and its emotions, colours and strife
On the high seas way in the distance
I see nothing, but the horizon, joining the sky
And then I climb back
What am I, but the joy of the world
A sister to the truth,
I climb through the awkwardness of not knowing
Of finding the mass that is growing
Ready to join a world of sleep.
I will climb through the mirror of life
And strike a bargain with strife
I will wake - I will see
I will be a new me
Who am I?
Just me
The person I always meant to be
What is this mirror I see?
It is glazed with triumph for me
An apple - green in its appearance
I bite - the juice flows down my neck
and I realize, I AM AWAKE
The operation is done,
The mass, who knows?
Only time.
(C) 24.2.09 JOSIE LAWSON All Rights Reserved
GROW
Climbing Through
I pass a mirror on the stairs, I stare and stare
Who is that person there?
Is this the person that I know and carry everywhere?
With one swift move I climb in through
Into a room so like my own, and yet - and yet
It's plain to see this is the real me
I know this place, reversed it be
- and yet I see
what I can always see
and em - and me. Am I the same?
I start to dance I whirl and spin
Expressing now the mood I'm in
Jump so high, reach for the sky
Spinning , leaping , soaring high
Then stop
It was an image in a mirror clearu
pon reflection it would seem
and climbing back into my world
I realise t'was just a dream
Cynthia Price
Climbing Through
I read an article in the Independent recently entitled 'Rise of the machines, end of the humans?' which talked about the 'Technological Singularity'. Later I got yet another reminder of the February Writing Challenge 'Climbing Through', this one from Ashley and it finally climbed through and made me think about Climbing Through. Putting the two together I think I've come up with three point something.
A singularity can present problems for those trying to climb through because there is no way back. It's a one way ticket.In mathematics a singularity happens when you try to divide something by zero. It looks like f(x) = 1/x for all x. To get back to where you started you just do f'(x) = x/1. But when x = 0 there is no answer, or maybe any answer you care to think of. However, turning the equation over does not get you back to where you started because you cannot guarantee that the answer you thought of was correct. There are other mathematical singularities, especially in three (and more) dimensional calculus, if you're not careful your equations can lead you into dark, dangerous places.
Astronomers and cosmologists use the term 'singularity' when they talk about what the rest of us call 'black holes'. The thing about a black hole is that when something goes in, it doesn't come out again. Well,as far as we know, it gets past the 'event horizon' (point of no return), and after that we're a bit confused as to what happens next. If, somehow, it does come out, it's unlikely to be as it went in so we won't recognise it, it's likely to come out in a differentplace, direction or indeed a different time. Also if it does come out, there is every possibility that it was a 'wormhole' and not a black hole.
A black hole is defined as such because it does not emit any light, which means we cannot see it. We see the effects of it as everything around it appears to drop into nothing, giving off vast amounts of electromagneticflurries as they cross the event horizon in their last desperate warning to others to steer clear.
A wormhole looks just like a black hole but has a connection to another part of the universe, however, we just don't have much of a clue where until we get there, then we're not too sure if we can get back to wherewe started from, or end up somewhere and/or sometime else entirely. It does at least give a faint possibility of climbing through.
Black holes, and wormholes exert massive gravitational pull and that has huge effects on places, directions and time. Places tend to fall into them, the direction in which thingsare travelling is changed, bent around, or even into them, and time slows down to walking pace as you are pulled ever faster towards them. It's not all Disney and Deep Space Nine.
Talking of which, the new singularity rearing it's head to frighten the scientists and make them tread more carefully as they try to prepare to climb through is called the 'Technological Singularity'.
It's about 'AI', Artificial Intelligence, machines becoming more intelligent than humans. When that happens humans will have to be 'enhanced' in order to keep up with the fantastic speed of 'thought' of the robots. That enhancement is seen as being offered by having nano bots implanted in the brain. Then humans can stay with the machines, match them for intelligence, as long as the humans are given the correct nano bots. We won't know how to switch them off and get back to our less intelligent selves, but they will know how to switch us off.
At that point the machines may have little use for humans so we may be left to our own devices, or eliminated, if we use too much of the planets resources. That last can happen anyway, we are quite capable of doingthat all by ourselves thank you very much.
The article I read says that we will cross this Technological Singularity Event Horizon thirty five years from now. Someone said that AI would make machines 'super intelligent'thirty five years from now, but he said that in nineteen seventy four, thirty five years ago, and they're still saying thirty five years, so don't hold your breath, no one is going to climb through that particular singularity any time soon. AI, Blade Runner, Terminator and the like are just movies, fictional imaginings of mere humans, writers, just like us.
There is at least one other singularity, another event horizon that has to be climbed through, and some say it is the most dangerous of them all.
It's an idea.
"An idea can't be put back in the bottle" is a quote from one of today's big names in Technology. He's right of course, we all have ideas and every so often one takes us climbing through to a place we've neverbeen before, never seen before, never thought of before, never written about before, and we can't get back. Scary or what?
I know that sometimes my imaginings scare me a bit, sometimes it's a 'wow' moment, but mostly it's "Why didn't I think about (or try) that ages ago?" I reckon we're probably all at least a little bit like that.
So I guess we should go on thinking, allowing our imaginings, fictional, factual or otherwise, to take us wherever they will, make us write what we might, and keep on climbing through.
Happy climbing.
Dave Chambers
Climbing Through
Bound tightly
In a shroud of my own making
Protected, constricted
My time has nearly come.
I have feasted from
Scarlet to violet
Hidden my swollen body
Waiting for the transformation
That is my right of birth
Climbing through from darkness
Emerging to a dazzling array
Of light and colour.
I dry my wings and fly.
Ashley Jordan
GROW
Climbing Through
Climbing Through a hole in a shoe where the water still leeks and the tanned hide leather smells pungent and dirty not very flirty in fact rather dirty in a disused train compartment where the hole in the ceiling is not particulaly appealing as the rain pours in and I am soaked to my skin suffering a cold I don't feel very bold out here in this cold so all I can dream of is climbing through the holiday poster in the carribean to a place of warmth and beauty.
Paul Evans
Climbing Through
The uniniated call it getting 'dressed',the sex starved 'undressed', leaving nothing to the imagination. If I were you, wrestling with undergarments, or buttons that are never outdone, I would have fun,....' you are what you are putting yourself through'; the generous stretch of elastic, the embraceof your waistband, a collarful hug that is head and shoulders above tired 'on and off'.
Bruce Barnes
Climbing Through
Climbing through a portal
to another kind of place
things still a little hazy
warm wind on my face
eyes opening wider now
a new world comes into view
sun shining down on everything
sparkling in the morning dew
the air is filled with radiance
I hear seagulls cry
this journey just became more beautiful
walking on
climbing through
reaching out to sea and sky
Lucia Birch
Ravaged By Love
I am in Eden - and the steamy silence is broken,
by the freeing from my mind of tropical birds;
beautiful iridescent birds - that were caught,
in my imagination - are now at liberty,
amongst the palms and I relish them.
They call out their joy - their singing,
awakens my senses - and I dance!
My cool muslin dress floats about my ankles
and I am weightless
I whirl around, and around -
lost in my world - I hadn't noticed,
the re-emergence of silence.
My hands fly up to protect my head,
from hundreds of birds -
falling dead - around me - and,
I am running through a carpet of feathers,
no longer soft - but sharp and cutting my feet.
The intricate weave of my fabric - is now,
blood red - it is spoilt - I rip it from my body
exposing my naked flesh -
it is the last humiliation.
I jump - and the glass shatters around me,
forming an ocean at my feet - with
the moonlight dancing on my bareness -
I step into its reflection - and am,
Swallowed - by its warm salinity.
Jan Hedger
GROW