absolute/absolvent

the secret is that my last post was meant to be titled with the word 'absolute' but i somehow changed my mind.

what was i going to write about? swedish vodka? adjective forms? mathematics?

well, i think i was going to write about truth.

my dad used to tell me (and i think this would make a very good object lesson) that there are two kinds of truth: relative and absolute.

my shoe is on my foot, he said, that's a relative truth. if i take off my shoe, it's not true anymore.

how can a thing be true one minute and not the next? and if i don't see my dad take of his shoe, which statement is true to me?

so truth perhaps, sometimes, exists in your own perspective. billions of things are true to me that might not be true to you. relative statements. personal experiences. specially tailored ignorances...

just a noun. abstract, naked. it doesn't tell us much.

absolute--that's an adjective. and a particularly rich and versatile one, i think.
perfect
pure
unrestrained
undoubtable
fundamental
complete
independent

absolution, the noun form, is a beautiful word also. freedom. cleansing.

i once read a book that alluded to perfection as death because to be perfect seems to mean to be pure, empty, colorless--lifeless. life is naturally messy. original sin and all that. the dust gets everywhere.

makes sense. how does absolution work then?

for me--a creature so dissolved in a world of otherness, connected with this and that through countless natural forces beyond my understanding, forced by social habit to smile at strangers and laugh at chubby children, to abuse words like 'awesome' and 'sweet' in reference to things i don't really, not deep down, think are all that awe-inspiring or dulcet--for me, the concept of absoluteness seems pretty impossible. to exist means to be defineable. definition means boundaries. to exist without reference, without connection... how is that done? how is it possible to be separate from everything that seems to define life itself (the blood and sweat and filth of it)?

these are the same old questions. infinity. forever. immortality. now. yesterday. God. who?

triangles. tetrahedrons. chemical bonds. throwing darts.