Immortal, but not enough time

Universe and Life, and self-conscious life doubly so, will probably remain a mystery without end. But, for a self-consciousness there is no need for proof of itself.
Perhaps,for a self-conscious singularity such as a human being, confronting this mystery-without-end, the best way to state the fundamental fact of its own existence is by saying, "I exist therefore I am possible".
I may not know what I am but I understand myself as a realized possibility.
There can be no greater reassurance for a human being than this. Certainly a concise statement it is, and yet, it ought to console (or repel) more than a religion because it too guarantees eternal life -free of moral constraint, from prize or punishment in the afterlife - it compels a clear slate to start your life anew, endless number of times into the bargain. We could almost call ourselves Time Lords were it not for the fact that all information (personal biography) gets annihilated at the moment of death.
Could such a "realized possibility" as yourself be prevented form occurring again in the future? Not if the future is open-ended, that is endless. No qualification can operate on endlessness without imposing a condition in other words - a limit and with it a contradiction.
I am aware of a mathematician who thinks he can add (+1) to the endlessness because there is nothing in mathematics to prohibit such an action; but endlessness is not a mathematical concept; mathematics will always remain constrained within endlessness.
Given endlessness, every possibility will be realized and more, will be realized endless number of times. From which everyday disappointments spring like water out of a fountain. For example: The only reason for not winning first prize in Lottery or Lotto, and even winning it endless number of times is that you do not have enough time; your life span is just too short. And that's the origin of your deplorable luck old buddy - not enough time.
Not surprisingly, endlessness leads eventually to the concept of Eternal Recurrence of things as probably F. Nietzsche has understood it on the basis that all that is possible not only may occur but must occur given endlessness of the process itself and the concept that finite number of qualities create finite number of permutations. Not only every possibility must occur but will reoccur endlessly.
Let's push forward with philosophical impudence characteristic of dilettantes.
We are this Universe, or more precisely, this Universe is self-conscious through us; it experiences and tries to understand itself through our senses and our mental processes.
All its phenomena, all the laws and conditions of the Universe (whatever this Universe might be) are, directly or indirectly, part of us because they have constructed us as we are. What goes under the name of scientific discovery is only the work of making those existing phenomena conscious. If one pushed this reasoning to the extreme then one could say that Universe is converting itself into thought, into pure self-consciousness. This is only my fancy and I have no means to speculate on this subject further because I don't know what a thought is; but the possibility of "Universe as thought" strikes me as irresistibly charming.
One can only insist that everything is natural (or nothing is) in other words,there is nothing to distinguish natural from artificial and attempt at such a division will always be gratuitous; the artificial is commonly understood as being a products of human intelligence.

Nil Penna Sed Usus 

No Visible End to Your Troubles

Non-existence returns no value. How is one to talk about non-existence without bringing it into existence while doing so? For something not to exist it must not have any qualities. And it is impossible to describe or,, indeed, understand anything without giving expression to its qualities. Intellectually is therefore impossible to treat non-existence in any other way than as an existence with a prefix, that is, treat all of it as some form of anti-existence but existence nonetheless. The most accurate description of non-existence would be to say that non-existence does not exists. Thus one ends up with existence only.We are coerced to bring into existence whatever we try to imagine.
Non-existence cannot have experience of its own non-existence.
Existence endowed with self-consciousness is a biography. A self conscious existence such as human life appears as an autobiography of a decidedly uncertain duration (uncertain duration belongs, by and large, to a cultural side of the story). While process of dying may be conscious, being dead cannot be so by that ancient well-known definition (if you are experiencing anything then you are obviously conscious and alive).
If then non-existence does not exist, and there is only existence it follows from this a form of immortality where conscious life is like a never ending series of autobiographies attached seamlessly one to the next, end to beginning, where seamlessness comes by virtue of annihilation of life's memories on the death side and absence of knowledge on the new-life side. What falls in between (for us unspeakable, unimaginable and above all unexperiencable) in non-existence - it which isn't -returning no value since it cannot consciously experience itself. This, it seems, is how subjectivity (a human being if you prefer) should perceive itself; a never-ending experience. Thus one arrives at a peculiar form of secular immortality, the immortality of subjectivity as a direct result of the impossibility to experience the state of non-existence.
I have been constructed by the rules of the Universe - whatever those rules and the universe may be. The scientific formulations of those rules change nothing and are irrelevant to subjectivity since subjectivity is a biography and functions happily with any set of cultural and scientific beliefs.
A biography has one endearing and reassuring characteristic; no matter who you are you will always be yourself simply because you can only experience your own biography.

Nil Penna Sed Usus

"Nil Penna Sed Usus" is a motto on my ring. Latin ambiguity makes it hard to decide on original intention: "Not the wing but its use" as well as "Not the pen but its use". I have not been able to trace the origin of my ring. Because it is an old ring and has been re-sized many times all the marks normally left by the jeweler are no longer visible. What institution would have used such a motto, and who was the intended recipient of such a ring if it was a prize? A pupil of the English Public School perhaps? I wish I knew where it had come from before October 2001 when I noticed it in the window of antique jewelry shop on the top floor of Queen Victoria Building.
It is a gold seal ring. A scroll with words "Nil Penna Sed Usus" runs along bottom edge of the face; in the centre there is a shield with three feathers (quills) placed diagonally. Above the shield there is an armored head in a circle of laurels. The ring's band is in the form of two intertwined serpents.