Cloudscape

Let life and all of life be your lover, and cherish all beauty it brings.

Beyond death there are but three possibilities: either there is nothingness, or there is infinity, or there is something between the two as there is now. The first would mean to become undone; the second would mean to become one with all of existence; the third would mean to be reborn.
In the latter case, whether we are reborn in heaven or in hell or in earth, we would remain much like we are now, that is, limited. Thus we would be reborn over and over again forever, since nothing that is finite can remain the same as it is. If this cycle of reincarnations would last for an infinitely long time, it would also randomly involve an infinite amount of situations and eventually repeat them infinitely many times; if not, then it must end either in nothingness or in infinity, as it could not remain stable otherwise.
This is actually quite a horrifying possibility, since it would mean that we would end up in every possible situation we could imagine, from the most blissful to the most painful, be it in reality or in imagination. Be it through our environment or hallucinations, either how, we would go through every possible experience that could be conceived of. More frightening still, because of this we would also end up being every possible person, from the most honorable to the most cruel. In some future life we might be a murderer, or a rapist or a tyrant. Worst of all, we could do nothing about the fact that everything that would ever happen would happen again, and we could never do anything to avoid it.
As to what came before birth, likewise, there are again the same three possibilities. But here the possibility of infinity and of nothingness become harder to defend; after all, both nothingness and infinity are stable. There is nothing that defines them, and therefore no state into which they could evolve; after all, why should it evolve into one state and not another, if the starting points are identical? If we came from nothing, or came from infinity, then we would have remained either nothing or infinite.
Nothing can simply pass from nonexistence into existence; for nonexistence has no configuration whatsoever, and so cannot change into another specific configuration such as that of a human body. This would be a complete paradox: if we came from nothing at all, then there would be nothing that would determine what we would become. There would be no reason why we should be ourselves rather than someone else, and therefore who we are would be acausal. There cannot have been a beginning, neither of the universe nor of our lives within them, because something would have caused that beginning, as well; otherwise, it would just be without any reason at all.
Seen purely from our own viewpoints, how could our own consciousness one moment have not existed and then suddenly have been bound to a specified body? Since my consciousness was bound to a particular body means that it must have been defined in a particular way, but how is this possible if it had not existed before?
If we suppose that everything has a cause, then this is completely impossible; thus, our own consciousness must always have existed. This may or may not mean that if this is so, it will also always exist; after all, if our consciousness had existed for an infinitely long time, then from a purely statistical viewpoint it would appear impossible to stop existing. This is not something I say because I want to believe this, for I believe the possibility of eternal repetition is far more terrifying than that of eternal nothingness. The possibility of infinity is the only that offers some comfort, as infinity could only remain stable through infinite love.
That our consciousness never had a sudden beginning is not as far-fetched as it seems: after all, how can we place a line between consciousness and unconsciousness? Are not some of our own perceptions even now only partly conscious, that is, subconscious, and some to so little extent that we never realize they are there at all?
At what point does a fetus become conscious in the womb? Or did we already have some more fundamental consciousness still before that? Can we pinpoint an exact moment at which it becomes conscious, before which there was no consciousness at all and after which all of a sudden there was consciousness? And if so, where did the consciousness suddenly come from? Out of the blue, from nowhere at all? Or does consciousness arise gradually?
Perhaps the only solution to this question is that our consciousness has always existed; in that case, there are but two possibilities: the first is that what we are now is just another of an infinite series of reincarnations, which over time will go through every possible situation and eventually repeat themselves.
The second possibility is that our consciousness has grown for an infinitely long time. Before we were born, before our consciousness was bound to the complex system of our brain, perhaps our consciousness was bound to simpler systems. Perhaps if one would go back in time and if somehow one could observe what one's consciousness had once been, one would find that it would always halve, and halve again and over and over forever as one would go further in time; perhaps once, before we were conscious of our own bodies, we were conscious on lower levels. However, since every level of consciousness could be halved, our consciousness would have been lower and lower in the past but never have reached zero; however, it would have approached zero as a limit. That is, it would have been infinitesimal in the past; as every level of consciousness would further be halved without quite reaching zero, it could have existed for an infinitely long time. If this is true, we don't need to deal with the inexplicability of consciousness that arose from nothing to become something.
Perhaps consciousness is something that grows from an infinitesimal point to bit by bit spread over the entire infinity of the universe. Put another way, perhaps that of which we are conscious grows until it becomes the entire universe.
To live is a transitive. We are always aware of something. Right now, we are aware of our own bodies and their surroundings, perhaps, earlier, we were conscious of a single atom, and before that of a single particle and so on ad infinitum. Maybe we should not think of consciousness as something that arises from matter, but rather something that merely relies on it: we are aware of matter, and as such we could not be aware without matter as there would be nothing to be aware of; but that does not mean per se that matter causes consciousness.
If our consciousness has grown from a infinitely close to nothing over an infinitely long time, it is reasonable to assume that it will continue to grow towards infinity, though possibly never fully reaching it. In fact, relative to future, infinite levels of consciousness, our current level of consciousness would then still be infinitesimal. This is merely a question of frame of reference.
I would like to emphasize that this is merely a hypothesis, and not my personal belief. Consciousness is probably by far the most mysterious thing in the universe, and since it cannot be observed, we can only hope to understand it through pure logic. But logic, too, can be flawed. I still believe each of the three scenario's (infinity, finity, or nothing) to be possible and favor none of these; but my hopes are that we will, sooner or later, reach infinity. If we do, however, the question still remains if we will do so in a finite amount of time, or if we can only approach it over an infinitely long time.

Recently, methane has been observed in the atmosphere of Mars. This appears to indicate that Mars is either biologically or geologically active. Although it is possible that this methane is being emitted by microbes, there is no reason why this possibility should be greater than the possibility that it is caused by volcanic or plutonic (subterranean volcanic) activity, well on the contrary. Though it seems very attractive to see this as possible evidence of life on Mars, however, everything seems to point in the opposite direction. Looking at a map of the methane distribution in the atmosphere (an example of which can be found here), anyone with some knowledge of the Martian geology (or "areology" as it is called) will see that the vast majority of the methane is located above the Tharsis bulge. The Tharsis bulge is about the largest volcanic plateau in the solar system, also containing some of the largest volcanoes in the solar system.
One study stated that volcanic activity is unlikely to be a major source of methane based on studies of Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth; they found that Mauna Loa emitted 9 metric tons of methane per year, whereas on Mars, 300 metric tons of methane are emitted per year. Mars has no active plate tectonics, and no volcanoes on Mars are known to be active. Since Mauna Loa is the largest volcano on Earth, they therefore assumed that its volcanic emissions, if not surpassing those on Mars, would compare to a large percentage of its emissions. However, this argument is based on the supposition that there is no major volcanic activity on Mars, which obviously makes it cyclical: there are no major volcanic emissions on Mars because there are no major volcanic emissions. Furthermore, there is another flaw with the conclusions of this study: the final results were published in 2006 after thirteen years of research. However, Mauna Loa has been dormant since 1984, and no significant seismic activity was observed since then until 2002.
I believe that, despite the fact that no volcanic activity has been observed on Mars, we should do well not to underestimate it. For one thing, most, if not all, volcanoes on Mars are shield volcanoes, whose eruptions are far less dramatic than those of stratovolcanoes. Their lava has a high liquidity, so that it flows out easily and steadily, rather than being locked up in the magma chamber for a long time until it suddenly explodes. Because of this, eruptions are far more frequent but less prominent. Because of the low viscosity of the magma, it also flows out without bringing too much scoria with it. This, in combination with the low pressure with which the highly liquid lava flows out, causes the eruptions to produce very little smoke in comparison to their more aggressive brothers the stratovolcanoes, which often cause smoke trails which can be seen from space. The most dramatic eruptions of shield volcanoes are caused by water entering a vent, due to the pressure of the expanding vapor — since there is very little water on Mars, this never or almost never happens.
Furthermore, we can draw from the results of the Mauna Loa study that even when shield volcanoes are dormant, they still emit some methane. Considering we're talking about a planet covered for a large part with volcanoes, we might very well assume that ten times as much methane is produced on the entire planet than by a single dormant volcano on Earth.

If you do not love life, life will not love you; if you do not love yourself you will not love life. For life is you.

Think of life as a beautiful garden maze. In the maze every passage has its own beauty: here there is a fountain, there there a flowerbed, somewhere further a statue or sculpture or a pond a tree or just a tirelessly singing bird…
Perhaps you are just passing them by as you are running through each passage to go to the next, around the next corner, always looking around the corner to find the exit in the maze. Perhaps you are trying to find a destination in the maze, but there isn't really one.

Don't seek, and you will find.

After another look at the showcase, I came in. Glancing at the pale golden words "Life Shop" painted on the door, I reminisced on when I first saw them - I was too little then to know what they meant, let alone what secrets I'd find beyond that door. I dared to come in, and since then I'd come back every day for more. I got addicted to its merchandise, so much so that I felt it'd kill me if I didn't get any more for even a single day. There were all sorts of things, and I'm quite sure that even if I'd live to be a hundred years I could never try everything there was.
The shopkeeper was a little strange, though. I'd never actually seen him. And since he never showed himself in the shop, and everything was for free anyway, I do wonder if one could call him the shopkeeper at all. It's just what I call him since, well, I wouldn't know what else I should call him.
"Ah, Eligio!" said a voice from nowhere. "Same as always, El, you know the drill."
"Right. Self-service." I looked around. My eyes skimmed over the thousands of potions in the room. Every potion had another effect. There was joy and hope and fear and love and sadness… I looked longingly at happiness, a potion which was tantalizingly outside my reach on one of the higher shelves: it was too high. Every time I made this objection Eligio laughed and said: "Why, there's ladders!"
I then replied that I was afraid of heights. This made his laugh even more merrily, and he said, "Well, you can remain down here all your life if you want to, but that's not going to get you anywhere. You've been in here often enough to know all the more interesting things are up there."
He pointed and looked up, and I followed suit. It was, indeed, a long, long way up. The strange shop was actually so high that he could not see the roof, and he wondered if there actually was any at all, even though at the outside the shop seemed small. An endless series of ledges and ledges and stairs led up.
Oh, he'd been up there, and actually far higher than most people here cared to go. Every level actually had the same potions, but they were somehow different. At least, they were given the same name. But the "happiness" you could drink at level five was nothing compared to the happiness down at the ground level: richer, warmer, and strangely more complicated. In fact, once I'd drunk the happiness in the higher levels I was quite tired of the happiness at the ground level: it tasted cloying in comparison.
Yes, it's true that I've often fallen down when I climbed higher, and it did make me more cautious about how high I'd go. When he'd find I'd broken nothing, Theo, the shopkeeper, would merely laugh and say that if I fell, it was my own doing. This would make me so angry that I'd fly into a rage. My doing? Couldn't the bastard at least build a safer shop for his customers? To my irritation, as usual he would just laugh at this, and say that this was just a quicker way down for people who wanted it. He'd then ask me how it happened that I'd fallen, and with extreme vexation I'd admit that as usual I'd looked down. He'd told me not to look down, but it wasn't easy when you knew there the only thing that kept you from falling down hundreds of feet were a few inches of floor at your side. Yet I'd found that I would fall only when I did look down. I'd feel my body being sucked into those vertiginous depths as soon as the fear of falling down came over me.
I'd be convinced I'd broken every bone in my body even when I'd go home, but to my surprise, I'd never broken anything at all, at least, except for some vials and potions in the shop.
Strange to say it often felt safer in the dark cellar, and when I'd fall from the higher levels the first thing I'd do would be too rush down into them. There, at least there were safe balusters, and if you'd go down at least you knew you could get up again, at least if you wouldn't get lost in the dark.
And when his accursed shop had just been responsible for another of my falls, there was no way I wanted to hear or see that freak Theo then - or that's how I thought of him then, even though he could be a nice guy, at least, in his own ways. Strange to say, I had never even actually seen him, which had made me make the joke to ask if he wasn't just some kind of cassette player - it was meant as a joke then, but I'd actually wondered for some time if it wasn't close to the truth.
Either how, when he'd just been responsible for another of my frequent falls I liked not to see him for a while, and besides, well, if I may whisper something in your ear, there are actually many, well, noteworthy potions in the cellar, too. But don't tell that to anyone, because most people will think we a psycho to say that. And yet, people keep coming down here and drinking the potions in the racks here. I wonder why. But when I ask why they do it, they just say that they are meant to be here.
But somehow, I find the potions here have something strangely, and perhaps deceptively addictive - like the songs of the Lorelei. Once you'd get down here, you were almost sure to come back someday. Strangely, the potions here were almost always bitter or acrid, or ice-cold or very hot. Sometimes, they would burn in your throat or in your stomach, and more than once I've actually vomited from them. I'd then try to get back up as fast as possible, but then I sometimes realized that wasn't always easy, finding your way back. And there were always those horribly tempting smells of those strange potions. Why ever the shopkeeper held these potions here, I don't know. I asked him, but all he'd say was that there were very many tastes, and he wanted to satisfy everyone's.
It was very dreary here. But above, when you'd look straight up in the shop you'd look into a blinding light like that of the sun. Some supposed there just had to be a very bright lamp there, and others thought it was a window to the sun, and wondered what it would be like on the roof. But I thought there was no roof, and there was no window up there either: I believe the shop was so high that it went all the way up to the sun.
Indeed, once when I'd gone up to the nine-hundred seventy-sixth floor, when I came down, panting all the way, I asked Theo: "Where is the roof of this thing?"
"You know there is no roof, El," he'd say with his usual laugh, "What do you take me for, an ordinary junk shopper? This is a real place, y'know: it goes up into infinity."