Excerpt from interview at 650

Q: So, you’re 650 years old today. I guess I should ask: How do you feel?

M: Yeah I feel good. Thanks.

Q: Do you feel any different, now that you’re 650?

M: No, not really. Why should I feel any different? I’m the same. I’m always the same.

… [bunch of intervening questions]

Q: So do you remember when you were, say, 40 or 50, and all the people back then?

M: Of course I remember them. I remember everything. All the people who were around me. What all the people said. The things that they thought were important. And the things they apparently didn’t think were important.

Q: Anything in particular?

M: I mean, everything. All the people who were there back then. I mean, they all died not that long after that time. All the people. Where could I start? The leafblower guy who thought it was his priority to terrorize the wildlife and annoy the people who lived in my apartment building. He died of cancer about 15 years later. The building manager, who always though I was wrong and that he knew better, died not long after. All the politicians of the city I lived in, many of whom I tried to communicate things to and who basically didn’t give a shit, almost all of them died of cancer not long after. The police, the people who control and run things, the people you see everyday. They people who had disdain for me for whatever reason. The people on tv. They all died not too long after then.

Q: You’re really outlived everyone.

M: Yes. And I would not be here if I had just followed along. Listened to them. Obeyed the rules. Had just shut up and fallen in line as everyone is supposed to do. You can see, clearly, where its gotten them. And me? Well, here I am. I’m 650 years old and I feel great.

Q: It amazing. And I mean you also look great.

M: Well of course. And I mean, now, of course you can look around and see all the people who’ve extended their lives. But I mean, is it worth it? Do I need artificial organs and all that other stuff, all the supposed “benefits” that modern science offers? I didn’t really need it then and I don’t now, because all that stuff is just another way to enslavement ultimately. Those people don’t look healthy. The body does not thrive through being manipulated like that, from being subject to that kind of violation and forcing.

Q: So what is it that makes you so healthy? Is there any secret?

M: Its all in us already. The reason we weren’t doing it then and we’re still – far too many of us that is – doing it now is that we forgot, not because that’s the way we inherently are. And its funny, because you read about all these advances and discoveries in medicine, for example about how some genetic circuit controls such-and-such an aspect of the body’s physiology, thereby controlling or affecting in some way some ability to be healthy, and you realize that, of course, all of that is already there. I didn’t need a study for it. And I don’t need artificial ways to activate, manipulate, or control any of it, because I, my body, knows exactly how to control everything about itself. Why shouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t it?

… [bunch of other intervening questions]

Q: So, getting onto a deeper level, about not just the reality of who you are and how you are, there is also the question about the meaning. We all know that meanings are interpreted. Not everything has the same meaning, depending upon the context, upon who is conveying it…

M: Years ago I was reading something written by the theoretical physicist Roger Penrose – now also long since gone unfortunately – and in it he explained how the net energy flow with Earth is basically zero, meaning that the amount of energy that arrives at our Earth – mostly from the Sun – is the same as that which leaves. There are several intriguing things to consider here. First of all, when you consider how much energy is arriving at the Earth from the Sun, of course it is an enormous, a vast amount. So to think that that much energy also leaves… I don’t know, I find that interesting in a way. But anyhow, getting on, understanding that all this energy is arriving, and it is responsible for everything: for plants, for weather, for life, for us, our ideas and our creations – all coming from the Sun – and then the energy is leaving too in the same amount, then – wait a minute – where does all this stuff come from? What is it that enables all this stuff to be generated? And the answer – an amazing answer – is that the energy that arrives here is highly organized energy, and the energy that leaves is not. What do we mean by “organization”. Organization in some way is information. And it means that, fundamentally, we are information. Everything is information. We are not necessarily programmed to perceive reality in that way, but that is a fundamental thing. We, and everything, is information. And this gets back to the question you asked, which is not just about the appearance or the presence, but about the meaning. The meaning is information. I am information. You are information. And one of the earliest things a person comes to understand in the world is that almost all information has an agenda. Even while we inhabit a society in which there is the prevalent idea about the importance, about the significance of “objective” information, of data, of science, etc. in fact the reality is that information is almost highly agendized and often agendized in subtle yet very deliberate ways. And these ways of agendizing information themselves have attributes almost as entities. They themselves replicate and propagate. They exist as extended dynamics which interplay at levels of personal, cultural, and social identity.

Q: Let me please interrupt you there for a minute. Going back to my original question…

M: Thank you for keeping me on track…

Q: … well going back, I wanted to ask you about how you see the meaning of, basically, yourself.

M: Its funny isn’t it. Because, like, what or who is myself? Nothing really. No one really. I mean, yes I’m here. We’re all here. But then, the me that I or you might be searching for, is there such an entity? Maybe not, but yes, there is also meaning, and to be means to be in the context of the agendas of whatever time, those attributes of reality which are intent on propagating and on replicating – replicating both in the minds of beings and also manifesting physically, even if such manifestation results in the absence of manifestation, that is death.