A trip to Infinity and back!

The minute someone drops the word infinity my mind goes to that eulogy monologue in the famous John Green novel. Maybe that's the first time I truly took hold of what infinity actually means. I remember texting two of my friends and asking if they are down to say eulogy if I go first. Just like Augustus Waters feared, oblivion is inevitable and my wish also might have slipped into it. But infinity stuck around.

Watching a group of theoretical physicists, cosmologists, mathematicians going gaga over infinity is a nerdy affair and it does push your limit if you are not a consumer of knowledge. But it does put to perspective many aspects of our menial life. How significantly insignificant we are as beings in this vast canvas of intelligent design or mere chance. It's amazing how they define a circle as the perfect shape or how they grieve over the fact that any object could only travel maximum at the speed of light (186,000 miles/sec) How tragic it is! You may call it an intellectual problem, but no problem ceases to exist due to the ignorance of it. It just increases the fatality of reality.

Einstein said the universe is infinitely finite, with a boundary. Like a finite sphere, like our earth. A boat could go in a straight line forever, even within the measurable limits of our planet. How a circle has infinite points yet measurable in its limit is such a paradox for my half informed brain. Even in all these infinities around us, what keeps us moving are the finiteness attached to our living.

There are so many concepts discussed in the documentary, which I feel inadequate to put to words because of the sheer size of its content. Infinity Hotel, Wormholes, Singularity, Quantum Mechanics and it goes on. Yet the showmakers have done a great job in making it as simple as it could be.

Every possible thing that could exist in a box will exist, and it will each exist an infinite number of times. There is a finite amount of energy which is carried by a finite number of particles and these finite number of particles can be only arranged in finite distinct patterns. And if the universe can go infinitely far, these finite patterns will have to ultimately repeat. And that would mean there would be infinitely many copies of me out there in the far universe, doing the same things like me or different. I don't know. So there are copies of me who have succeeded in life, have beaten the gene curse and still have hair. Alas victory for some fellow soldiers. But I hope there isn't a copy of me who hates Rice and Sambar out there, I pray not, because that would be such a shame for all the other copies.

There are so many great moments in this documentary that put me into a state of awe, confusion, existential crisis but none more than that monologue towards the end. The words, the tension, the music; the build up was so scary. The guy was about to break down. Even when briefly talking about the vanity and vastness of the universe, that existential crisis just pops inside for a millisecond. And then suddenly, he remembered what happened, "Then I fell in love" reaffirming his faith in life again. Also pulling me out of the abyss I was rapidly falling into.

To just think how these highly educated minds could admit to the finiteness of this life and yet on the other hand profess that love is infinite. That is so liberating for any simple mind who plays often with the meaning of it all.

Love is the fuel that runs this universe. Take love out of the equation, this universe is just a box thrown around for infinite time. Love is that singularity that defines us all. Call me a mad romantic, but there ain't a way you are changing me. Bury me on that mountain.

Growing up in a Christian household, I learnt early that what Christians call the key of the Bible. John 3:16. For God so loved the world that God sent His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. Love is the central theme of anything you see around.

But I think the pursuit of a human heart is not for love, it's a search for a place called home. Journeys end at lovers meeting said Shakespeare, I say nah, journey ends when you reach home. That feeling of home is central to any form of love you search for. A place where you can finally come to, and rest. Away from the madding crowd and the mundane routines, a place you call home.

Again, when Moses says in Psalm, O Lord, you are my dwelling place. I never realized the gravity of it. A man who has probably taken the most ill mannered group for a field trip, after a tiring day at work cries with his beseeching hands to the heavens. O Lord, you are my home. And it's a common pattern throughout the Bible, Abide in me and I'll abide in you. If the greatest love comes with a home, I guess it's a pattern we can surely search for in our relationships. And Christ says this finally, I'm going to prepare a home for you, and I'll come back to take you there. Again call me a madman or brainwashed religious. But the pattern is quite evident.

Even if life is mass produced in a factory somewhere out there in the universe or life swam its way into the land from the blue waters, the presence of Chemical X which is foreign to the finite energy carrying particles is what I'm trying to see. I'm stretching it too far, I know. I'm just a hopeless romantic who is into accounting and finance. Because if we are going to figure out things beyond our comprehension it will be like a cat reading a book of quantum mechanics. It's a meow point.

So be it finding love or home whatever you call it, that is the only infinity we will ever hold in our hands in this finite life. And that is the only trip to Infinity we are ever going to enjoy. The sad part is you don't find it, it finds you. Oh it leaves too, sometimes abruptly. One day you are home, and other you are homeless with an eviction notice folded in your pocket.

"There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful."

God, I wish I had more time with some people, or some days just never ended. Oh I wish there were infinities that stretched long like the value of pi but some were cut short by the lack of ink, some rounded off to two decimal points without patience.  With great power comes great pain. To forbear this means to forever burn in the hot coals of "Everything is vanity". So we bite down the pain and try to hold this great power during our ill stricken limited stay. We are for better or for worse a sane mind that we have this gift called love. Blessed be the many infinities we share in our finiteness. Be it a second, or a lifetime; a forever. An infinity so short lived called us.