The "Infinite Now:" A Clue to Finding Forever

In the beginning
THE was the word and
the word was THE and
it was an Object and
the Object was good.

THE Object was the center and the focus.
The light which shone from it was the light
that was shone upon it,
the light illuminated
all that it touched and cast deep, black shadows
upon all that was
behind it and
under it and
darkness was there.

But when we had THE,
we had Everything and
we were good because we had it.

THE was all we needed and if we had THE our lives were complete and we were better than anyone around us and they envied THE Object and admired us.

But faded THE did, and waned THE did and lost its luster and attraction and the feelings faded and THE was no longer the Object that it once had been,

causing us to search

for an Object to be found that would be THE Object, and we would
be restored by it and we would
keep it glistening, never to let it get
dull and fade as had the olde one, THE . . .  such a THE which we had revered, but had now revealed to us as never we thought it would that it had:
Finiteness,
a limit,
an age or
eon, through which it would serve,
but then would pass and like a long, long play upon a stage,
surprise us with a dropping curtain when just
we felt that it would never end, but entertain us
throughout all eternity,
or least-wise 'til we dozed The Sleep,
bigger than all other sleeps combined,
whenever that transpires, "Later,"
sometime amidst the infinite years.
 
So THE becomes a Finite THE,
THE With and End, to our befuddlement, but why?

We should have known that Infinites need Finites to exist or How can they?
(Exist, that is).

They have no foil against which they can ring the trueness of
their depth, save when compared to
Things that never end.

And that's the Object of
The Story of THE, An Object,
with a start and end and a life unlike all others.
It exists and fades, no matter that we hold as tight as ever.

THE has held us and we it,
THE slips away in spite of all, and we
are left with empty hands,
a state for which we weren't prepared, but which prepares us
for the coming phase,
unlike our previous plans which have prepared us
for nothing, save
frustration that our energies all went for
naught.
We "should have stood in bed" for all the good it did.

We watch THE Object go and realize that We have Not.
(Gone, that is, with it).

We're left behind to watch THE go,
to watch another THE appear as though a Grand Supply of THEs
was just behind the hill,
awaiting Time
or Chance
or Grand Design
to give the cue for it to show its Face.

We watch THE come and go and, disenchanted by the passing line,
seek refuge in a place that's more akin to our
felt needs
and wants
and longings, deep, primeval, for a womb, a cave, a hideaway.
So,
crazed,
we wing our way from here to there,
then stop.

We realize THE's gone,
in decadence it's disintegrated right before our eyes and  . . .
wait.

We're not only still bemused, but also back from one full circuit 'round the castle, moat and all, and right back where we started from.

How nice.

The path is Infinite,
a circle
without ups and downs
or corners sharp
or curves all winding.

Arcing slowly to the left
or right,
I guess we could decide,
but always coming back to Here,
much better than Olde THE, a Finite Cuss who always disappointed us
by crumbling in the End.

So now we know:

the game's to Play ... to PLAY, not THINK ABOUT.
The Game's to Play for Playin's sake,
the opposite of "Play to Win" or
"Play to Lose" or
"Play to Smash Someone to Smithereens."

Who cares about Them anyway?
We've got Our Game to Play
and
They
have
Theirs.

Save passing in the night,
the twains shall never meet,
and that in darkness,
not knowing what transpired,
except for wind and dust and
clacking clicks of wheels on steel
defining cracks between the rails
by beating out a rate-dependent rhythm of
"clickety-clacks mean
steely cracks:
you'd better not
fall in one."

THE seems to be forgotten now as
Play we must at new-found games.
Who knows their names, or cares? No one I see,
although I can't see everyone, so
someone,
somewhere
might know what to call this, but
The Game
is good enough for me.

The Game; it energizes and it teaches as we Play.
There's no way to lose except to stop,
because
the Playing of the Game is Winning and
the Winning's in the Playing
not
the start or
middle or
the end, like THE, Olde THE, Olde Useless THE,
whose passing never indicated Joy was on the way
to take the place of Long-lost THE.

Well, not so much was Joy the
real replacement for Olde THE,
as was Relief,
my God! Relief!

I never thought there was so much to feel
when THE was gone
as when I first met true Relief.

With Happiness so uppermost in song and story,
fable,
lore and
Constitution
who would think Relief would hold a candle to
Pursuit of Happiness?

The thing about Relief:
when it comes, it's Now,
not later,
not tomorrow,
after meals, when meat and spinach are all
gone and then
dessert
is carried in.

No, not Relief.  Relief says:
"Hey! I'm here! It's me, right Now,
                                       right Here,
                                       let's Revel,
                                       God I'm such a Party Person!

"Don't you get it?  I'm Not This,
                                     not That,
                                     not THE
                                     or Them
                                     or anything External.

"Just Relief, in Here, down Here in inside from top to toe I'll
make you feel content, serene and calm.  And that, along with
Common,
Unexciting and
Ordinary beats
Happiness
hands down."

The outcome of the process is to realize a Truth:
we've gone from THE to THE and found that THE is wanting
by itself,
it ages, dies and leaves us
seeking yet another THE to take its place.

But, as a word alone, THE's not a strong contender.
So then we went for Infinite,
since THE was Finite,
endings leaving us non-plussed,
empty and
anxious for
"some more" of This or That.

However, with its Infiniteness, the Infinite leaves
a big, black
Question Hole:

"Infinite" in what direction, where, when, how, with whom and why?

The answer is, of course, Right Now.

The Infiniteness is greatest use to us Right Now.

It turns out that, alone, the three are
of no use to us
or to each other.

However:

Combining THE with Infiniteness, with Now and,
like a three-leg stool,
they hold each other up,
supporting THE with Infiniteness
at just the time we need it,
Now,
since that is
all we have.

You can't sit on that stool tomorrow and
if the date's "today"
you've missed your chance to do it "yesterday,"
but Now You Can,
forever Now,
and ever.

No time constraints,
no limits
nor no bounds.

THE Infinite Now permits you, in its wisdom (and hopefully in yours), to take a chunk of time so big you can't imagine where it ends or starts or where the middle is, because it doesn't have those parts to worry you.  It doesn't start, it doesn't end, it just IS, and since it IS Right Now, let's use it, but don't rush, no need, I'll give you one Now at a time and if you need another one I'll give that to you too.

Time to get to work.
Gotta go.

See you "Later,"
whenever That is.