My Fascination with Infinity

     It's not an uncommon thing for a child to like big numbers. Counting to a hundred is a big step for a lot of kids. Counting higher and higher becomes a mark of achievement for many children the older they get. Once you introduce infinity, well, the game's over, haha, so to speak. It's the go to choice of kids in number contests. Once "infinity" is dropped, the contest ends in a definitive victory for the 3 year old who learned how to use the biggest number he or she could think of to obliterate the competitor.

      Of course, most kids (and most adults) can't completely wrap their heads around infinite things. People are finite. We're a very small species on a very small world in a very big existence. Every person has a degree of cognitive limitations in regards to comprehending the big stuff. The infinite stuff.  Sometimes I wonder if children have a better grasp of these things than many adults do, to be honest. 

      Infinity and infinite things are a fascinating topic to engage in and a mind expanding concept to entertain.  The infinite holds a level of mystery and a level of power and wonder that is incomparable to most other things humans encounter in our existence.  

     To me, puzzling over infinity, and developing concepts like an "infinite existence" or "infinite forms" or "infinite ideas" is liberating. It breaks the confines of my mind and makes me realize how large and how complex creation really is.  Thinking about these things, for the time I spend on them, gives me a sense of higher purpose and a sense of higher wonder. For those moments, I regain a little bit of that childlike curiosity I lost over the years, and even an innocence to an extent that was destroyed by much of my traumas and the disappointments of this life.  

      An infinite existence, an infinite God, an eternal adventure. These concepts give me hope for my existence as a conscious entity, and placing my faith in their existence helps cut through the sadness, disappointment, and bitterness of a life that did not live up to what I hoped it would and a world that feels like a cruel purgatory, even a hell pretending to be a heaven.  

    The meditation on the infinite, and how many infinities exist, and the vastness of what could be an infinite existence, with an infinite amount of realities and an infinite amount of universes and an infinite amount of worlds and cultures and an infinite amount of opportunities and jobs and challenges and victories and infinite love and infinite glory and so on and so on...liberates my thoughts. It blows my mind wide open, and, at least in my mind, I attain a liberty and a sense of purpose that life cannot offer me in the external world in any way shape or form. 

    A liberty that this world is incapable of providing. I think about this stuff primarily because of the longing and the hunger for more in my existence. I meditate on these things because of a life that took from me much of my dreams and much of my desires. Because of the loss of my friends, the traumas and tragedies I have faced, the disappointment and the failures, I find solace in infinity. I find solace in how small I am. I find consolation in the thought of my friends who have died entering into a broader existence where the possibilities are truly boundless. Truly endless. Enveloped in the infinite love of God and the infinite opportunities of his infinite creation. 

       My life hasn't been easy, but I was still blessed with my mind. I was still blessed with the fact that I am relatively intact. I am relatively secure and safe. I wouldn't be able to think about this stuff as much if I wasn't, so my gratitude to God and my friends and family for providing the support and safety they have in my journey. Thank you. 

   Thinking about the infinities and thinking about eternity gives me hope for an eternity of wonder, an eternity of adventure, and an eternity enveloped in God's love and glory, of which I believe those loved ones I have lost get to bask in as well. An infinite existence, and an infinite God, provides the avenue for faithful and hopeful people to achieve whatever life, whatever existence, they want.  

 This hope is an immense comfort. The thought of my friends being allowed to have whatever dream or desire they want fulfilled and being immersed into that infinity, the infinity of God, and being liberated from the pains and darkness of this earth gives me such a hopeful sense of joy. This hope is what gets me through the day sometimes. The hope that there is a bigger existence than this tiny world. The hope that I will share in God's glory and God's infinity as my existence continues into eternity.

      Even in the midst of life's disappointment, of the restrictions and confinement of society and the deprivation of opportunities and freedoms that come with being a human in the world, even with the lack of finances and resources to travel and have access to finer and more rewarding earthly things, the liberty of the mind that comes with thinking about infinity is a bliss that, at times, is enough to render these earthly things in their rightful place; the rightful place of smallness and triviality.

The hope that the thought of an infinite God and an Infinite Existence brings to my mind is exciting, euphoric, and glorious in its own right.  It can be overwhelming too. Sometimes it can get me in trouble with people of smaller minds and a world focused on vain and trivial concepts and zeitgeists. Things that are so fleeting and so vain that they amply reflect the primitivity and simplicity of humans and the human condition.  Sometimes I can get mentally compromised by my own thoughts. This has happened occasionally in the past, but I am getting stronger and more responsible as time goes on.

      No one can truly comprehend infinity. I am no exception. I think of mathematicians like Georg Cantor, who developed set theory and pondered over sets of infinity, and he drove himself mad at times, having to be institutionalized here and there to get him back to stability. I think of this, and reflect on my own mental health history. My own madness. 

   For me, however, thinking about infinity isn't as mentally crippling as thinking about my traumas, my past, my unsatisfied desires, and my bitterness. Infinity detracts from these things. Infinity is the mind liberator. My fascination with infinity has given me a hope and a joy and a sense of purpose that no job, no career, no friendship, and no challenge has ever given me in life. 

   Some people don't like to be made to feel small. I do. The sense of smallness infinity brings to me actually puts me in my place a bit, especially the infinity of God.  It also reminds me of how loved I am, that something that infinite can love me unconditionally. 

  Thinking about these infinities completely obliterates my fear, if sometimes only for a moment, and it makes my problems like depression and mental illness feel as small and as trivial as they should feel, and make me realize that my problems on earth are but a wisp of vapor in the wind, a zero point in time in the scope of an infinite and eternal existence, and it makes me realize the potency, value, and eternal purpose the infinity of God brings me in my relationship with Him.

      My problems are nothing, absolutely nothing, if existence is infinite and eternal. My problems are nothing, absolutely nothing, if I am loved to an infinite degree by an infinite and eternal God.