One day when I was young—twenty, I suppose—I lay in bed and asked myself what I would do if I were suddenly the last soul in the universe.
I was not asking myself the way one asks what movies they would bring to a desert island, or how they would survive a robot uprising. I was not playing, nor was I so much after self-knowledge, noble ends though these be. I was asking out of necessity. The question was a thought experiment, whose crucial result I in my intemperate zeal expected to disclose the source of all value.
I have a less clear memory of the disturbances which must have prefigured the question. Perhaps these first manifested thus: for a time, whenever I had settled on this or that course of action as worthwhile, a doubtful voice reproached that I was only after recognition or acclaim. Even when I could convince myself that my motives were not pure vanity, still I worried that they depended for their support on other people. I wanted to be a physicist, I believe it was at the time, and I had got it in my head that the knowledge I was after ought to be worth it in itself if it was to be worth it at all. In my old age and lonesomeness I confess I cannot understand what so troubled me about the thought that my life might have meaning only if that meaning were shared with others. It is fortunate, then, that the wisdom of age—if by grace it may be so be called—was not yet present to abort such fruitful paths of inquiry. I now depend on the answers I found, answers to a question I no longer know how to ask.
Whatever my premises, I remember perfectly well what I was after: something which called out to be done in an empty world. I gave no consideration to where I would find food and shelter, much less to how I would secure sources of energy or access to information. I would need energy only if the last soul on Earth had reason to work; food only given a reason to live. The aim, somehow, was to throw all of this into question; not to assume but to find out whether I should do anything at all, when there was nobody to do it with or for.
I first tried to accept the counsel of the ancient Reasoners and entertained an undisturbed life in contemplation of unchanging truths. Yes, such idols in my youth I did revere! But however longingly I wished for them to take hold of me and claim me as their devotee, graceful Honesty dispelled their deception and I saw in them no appeal. I believe it is in that moment, quite ridiculously, that I abandoned all real ambition for a career in science. I simply could not imagine any knowledge so great and beautiful that merely holding it in the mind would bring me fulfilment. I could of course imagine amusement, even bliss and wonder, in watching thoughts unfold, in peering ever deeper into the crystal ball of an inexhaustibly beautiful idea – but no, this was not what He of Highest Aim had meant; for an idea that was so unfinished and whose ends were still so deeply buried was not at all the sort of eternal and perfected truth in whose contemplation the greatest good was supposed be found. The idea I was supposed to love was to be self-sufficient, but I could not imagine one well enough to find it desirable, even worthy of desire: for what did it do? Given all the knowledge I could ask for, what it was it to do to me, what was I to do with it? Ah, the Orthodox have often complained that I fail to understand their God, for anyone who had the right conception of Him could not help but see that He is good above all else. Likely they were right.
Failing to find an end in knowledge, I had to continue my search elsewhere. What most struck me about my thought experiment was the difficulty of holding up its assumptions. I felt for example a compulsion, as one might expect, to leave a message or monument, something that told of this sudden depopulation and of who there had been. But who would ever see it? By hypothesis nobody could. Whatever life remained I would have to assume incapable of ever attaining awareness enough to understand, or else so distant as never to arrive at Earth. How could I know either to be the case, unless that knowledge were imparted by some god or demon who also, by hypothesis, did not exist? And if the world were truly empty forever, still I would hope in ignorance for a future recipient, or else my message would have no meaning.
From these considerations I drew the conclusion that all meaning did rest with others, in Us, always present at least in possibility. This struck me as inadequate, in fact as depressing! – as though there should have been “more to it than that”, something meaningful to anyone and no one. I spoke disparagingly of such meaning as “assigned” or “posited”, not that I could recall ever performing such an assignment, nor did I imagine how it might be done. I suppose, more crucially, I still had not seen that what is given may or may not be received, and that in such exchanges one can never be sure of the outcome. But then, my understanding of who might listen was still so narrow. How fortunate that it was! For were I to ask the same question now – but imagining, as I did then, a world still lush with life and promise – I would incline immediately to find a flock or pack, to seek acceptance among the wolves or wild cats, or settle quietly in companionship with the trees, and inquire no further. I had to imagine an impossible solitude to discover the senselessness of absolute independence.
That is not of course how I understood my results at the time. I believe in the first instance I came away with a tentative absurdist acceptance, finding the fragile gaze of human consideration sufficient comfort in the face of the vast and uncaring void. Certainly the comfort would not last so long as it rested on nothing, but I learned to keep my chin up. More importantly, for me then and now, I came to appreciate how much of the work in answering a question consists in the asking. I reflected some time, for instance, on the fact that I sought only things to know or to create, and only much later realized one might just as well ask, say, what was to be enjoyed, or worshipped. The possibility of seeking pleasures arose at first but was immediately stifled as “unworthy”, quite a presumption for one supposedly seeking to establish the principles of worth. Worship could not even have arisen as sensible, for I had already conjured the solipsistic notion of a soulless world, putting any sacred spirits out of the question.
A soulless world! That was the dread concept I had drawn up. Contrary to the claims of its grey priests, I found it far from obvious or inevitable; it took me effort to sustain it. Yet once I had given it the flesh of consideration, it would not be waved away. Had anyone asked at the time I would have said I was agnostic, but in this I revealed that I was an atheist: that I was able to conceive of a world with no aims beyond my own.
Now, as the flame of the world grows dim and the last of us reach our extinctions, it may seem laughably quaint that I revisit such misguided inquiries. But when there is so little hope to be found from where I stand, it strikes me as fruitful to try standing where I once stood, from which so much that troubled me now seems of little concern, and so much that would now fill me with hope left no impression. Again I ask, what should be done? I ask with great and confused nostalgia for those days when I might have concluded that it did not matter. Now what should not have happened has happened, what should not have been done has been done. It must not have happened, and I am infinitely powerless to make things right. Can there be any sensible perspective from which this despair can be lifted?
Just as so long ago, I am inclined to leave a message or monument, though there can be none to receive it. Just as before, I cannot convince myself that the effort is in vain, despite all evidence to the contrary. And once more I will have to stretch sense to the breaking point to find a way out, or else I will surrender to the abyss, to that death which even death abhors. This time at least I know what message to leave. I pass on inspired words, of the same breath which delivered me from senselessness, with faith that so much loss would be averted if they were heard sooner.
You will wonder, my cherished friend, how these words have reached you. Would that I could say! Had I not blocked off my path to science I might now be able to tell you what I did – but then again, perhaps I would have learned of the difficulty of such a project, and given it up. What I know is that I have made an object of the words. By this dangerous spell the same Voice whose trace they are may speak again I know not when and where. I have given them a form so determinate that they might be predicted, remembered before they are spoken.
There is no future of mine which the words can reach, this I have seen. But perhaps they shall reach some other future of my past. I admit there is some wishful thinking in this. I could be suspected even of hypocrisy, I who have authored so many tracts against those theorists of so-called many worlds. But may I not escape the charge of multiplying actualities thus: that, in the absence of all observers, I could no longer tell what is from what may or might have been? That soon there shall be in principle, and so in fact, no distinction which remains between my actual existence and one of mere possibility? And if actuality cannot be found here, perhaps it resides elsewhere, free to draw on my possibilities. Ĉe la fino de ĉiu ebleco mi transdonas min al estunteco.
But now is not the time for theology. Know only that what is recorded here may have happened and may yet happen, and listen for the Voice which calls you to ensure that it does not.
This collection begins with its heart, the Sonĝumaro, in which are recorded those things seen and heard whose inspiration has been authenticated. I have included all those accounts which predate the development of artifice for reception, as their authenticity is self-evident. The abundance of later accounts, and the complex and occasionally controversial arguments for their authenticity, have necessitated more editorial judgment. In this I have prioritized accounts which to my eye best demonstrate the beauty and mystery of the expressive world.
I have omitted from these accounts the customary dates and details of their attestations, and ordered them without regard to either. I do not wish to encourage either undue suspicion of the authenticity of later accounts or undue prejudice in favor of the earlier. I admit I have passed over accounts of more certain provenance in favor of others of greater interest. The miraclists know all too well that I, who was never elected to receive, could see no meaningful distinction between rightly authentic accounts and those which could not be distinguished from them. Those who place greater importance on the stringency of the canon be assured that any accounts not worthy of inclusion will be forgotten naturally as they prove unsuitable, so long as there is but one breath of truest life in these pages which sustains the integrity of the whole.
The Sonĝumaro is followed by the History of the [?]. In all my first drafts I began with a history, or at least a synopsis thereof, but the work refused to come together in that form. I worried that without such an introduction, the inspired accounts could be taken for fables or fabrications. Or else, I hoped to spare its recipients the birthing pains we experienced, the mistakes we who had no such preparation committed. I should have known better. What we have made of these accounts belongs to our history, not yours. It could serve for you only as conjectures, and in imposing them upon you I would force all your interpretations to align with or against them. They call for space to breathe. That their reception for us has seemed miraculous cannot be for you any more than a profession of faith; it is in any case more than miracle enough if what I now pass on indeed is received. And as the accounts are fabulous, and fabricated too, I know not what misfortunes in truth I feared.
There then follow the Hymns and the Rites. Much here is included by reason of tradition or symmetry; I make no claims about their quality or efficacy. The art of the other may bear the gravity of truth, but until it is made one’s own it cannot be meant. Once this is done a new creation is brought forth, for which the works compiled here are at most models and likenesses, however similar. But I would not omit a word, for I know that without them we would have been without all strength. In our history we have spoken, but in our art we speak. Receive it as you will.
The fifth book is a collection of theology. As several of these works are of my own hand, I cannot profess to impartiality, whatever it would mean in such a matter. I have attempted, so far as possible, to select those works whose fruitfulness does not depend on the soundness of their arguments. Some of them seem to me profoundly mistaken. What is more irresponsible: to send voyagers into the wilderness with a detailed map marking a bridge which I fear will collapse, or to send them only with the most simple and broad-stroked charts of whose reliability I am certain? The need for new horizons, the promise lying in the unfinished work, has compelled me to elect the former. I take this risk out of respect for the humble honesty of the authors included, and out of faith that whosoever is of such a mind as to be moved by inquiries of this nature will already be cultivating the virtues which their healthy exercise demands, and shall not succumb to the temptation to carry them as a sword on a march into ruin. But I do so not with sound conscience, not with confidence, only out of need, duty, and faith.
(Estos sesa libro, sed pri ĝia enhavo mi ankoraŭ ne certas.)
I entrust and dedicate this collection [...]
——Aŭrelio the Scribe