On Novelty

1 February 2002

As the world winds its unsteady way toward the so-called zero point in 2012, the chief characteristic of our remaining time promises to be "Novelty." Indeed, this is the concept Terrence McKenna used to identify the meaning of the end of time as we know it. And all through our 2- or 7-billion year history, each step forward--while rising and falling with the inevitable ups and downs of resistance and change along the way--has been fueled by that same motive force, tending toward that same inevitable conclusion.

Is it the creative energy of the universe at work here, in us, and in less than ten years are we finally going to give in to it utterly, to get out of its way altogether?

In the moment, now, we realize like a hungry teen that there is something to be had just beyond our grasp. Eagerly we await the next intoxicating substance, event, morsel, gift. The mystery of waiting is made both more anxious and more delicious by not knowing exactly when or if that next satisfaction, however temporary, is to come.

The mystery of not-knowing threatens to throw us back into the chaos we have been escaping ever since our birth. We keep our backs turned, then, at all costs, toward the future, toward novelty. We crave the certainty of achieving...something, it hardly matters what. As long as it's new and different.

Imagine what it might be like to crave--no, to dwell within--the very heart of novelty itself. Then we might know something like the true satisfaction of desire, not in any small object or passing experience to be gained, but rather in the essence of desire itself. Remaining desirous, yet without object. Dedicated to novelty, yet again without object.

We will have then graduated from the status of hungry teen, to that of spiritual adventurer. It won't really matter what comes next, because we'll be at peace riding the crest of the wave.

Hold onto your hats, kids. It won't be long now.

--Nowick Gray