Sitting atop the ridge at dusk, thinking. In the untamed valley spread out before me are millions, or perhaps billions, of things, living and dead. No two of those things are the same, not down in the fine structure, or mainly even on the surface. Like snowflakes and fingerprints, each of the things that I see is an individual.
Few of them are reasoning, not as we see it. Reminded then, in my mind, I look out into the world beyond this valley. Again, millions or billions of human things, this time reasoning beings, depending on how we define “reasoning.” Each one of these is different, as well, a wild profusion of the reasoning, and semi-reasoning, and rarely-reasoning. This is a place of individuals.
None of the dead things are alike, either. Even the little boxes made of ticky-tacky, little boxes all the same (courtesy Pete Seeger) are individuals deep in their fine structure and in the color of their paint. Even all man’s machine-made things have differences, and flaws, and are not thoroughly the same at all.
Looking upon this world of untold individuals of untold strains, I do not see the mark of a god. Each of the purported gods tries to make us all the same, with their rules, and their laws, and their edicts. This brands the purported gods with the same mark as our dictators, and politicians, and sheriffs. Instead, I see the mark of wild, rampant, life. I see individuals, producing more individuals, and yet more not-quite-alike inanimate things.
Even these putative gods, having been made by men, are not the same. Each is said to be the one true god, yet each is different from the other, despite having been made by men for the same purpose. Even these gods, each said to be the one true god, are enough different that millions or billions have been killed and persecuted by disagreements among them.
Life is riotous, and profane, and generally indifferent. Life is conflict, and change, and stress. Life is beauty, wonder, and love. Life is thought, and invention, and awe. Life is living, and eventually death. Death is final, and without redemption, and intimately shared among all of humanity.
Darkness on the ridge brings starlight and the tiny sliver of a rising moon. I see that the stars are different, and that the moon is our unique moon. All that I have thought on this ridge can be extended ad infinitum into the universe. Everything in that vastness is different, down in the fine structure. a god is nowhere. The randomness of nature reigns supreme.