Ted: Are you back again, Traveler?
Traveler: Indeed, I am, Ted. Even though you are an artist, I knew the pi symbol in the sky would get your attention. After all, mathematics is the only language advanced intelligent beings from disparate worlds can rely on to communicate.
Ted: So now you’re talking to me inside my own head? Not a voice inside a tree?
Traveler: Since you survived our last discussion, I didn’t think you’d go mad this time if I just echoed around in your skull. But I should keep the English accent – jolly good fun, yes?
Ted: Your last visit really wasn’t much fun. At the end of that conversation you left me with the impression that your little experiment with life on Earth might be discontinued. Left me feeling like a little rat in a large intergalactic cage, with your hand on a looming lever …
Traveler: Now, now don’t get your knickers in a twist …
Ted: (Rolling his eyes): Why’re you back?
Traveler: Well, a lot has changed in the Universe over this extended interim since we last talked.
Ted: It’s only been a little over a year since …
Traveler: We can’t compare your experience of time with mine very easily. Your Mr. Einstein had an inkling about that but he was still quite naive. Anyway, let’s just say great changes have occurred and new interest has developed in your human ways here on XR17-242656.
Ted: You mean you can learn something from us?
Traveler: In a way, yes. You have to appreciate in most areas under our dominion, except on the far fringes of the Universe, most situations – you call them problems – have been, well, resolved.
Ted: You mean …
Traveler: Hard for you to understand but since Dark Matter, as you call it, has been worked out, and so all the fundamental questions have been answered. There is no longer competition for resources. No more wars. No more disease (but there are still accidents though that’s a subject for another day). No more getting old and no more death, at least as you perceive it.
Ted: Wow. That would be great, here. Here on Earth I mean.
Traveler: Be careful what you wish for, as they say …
Ted: Well what’s the problem then?
Traveler: We’ve noticed a small, but clear increase in the number of beings asking to be, how shall I put it, asking to be disconnected.
Ted: Huh?
Traveler: Again, it would be easier to explain mathematically but let me try to use your “words” with analogies to your world. If you evolved to be you, independent of an impermanent container, without worrying about disease and demise, possessed of infinite knowledge, all mysteries explained. All equations beautifully balanced – all variables accounted for. Would that be …
Ted: Whoa! Dude. That’s a bit heavy. Need to think about it.
Traveler: Exactly, we’ve travelled so far, over such an expanse of time and place. We can remember the origins of course, but we can’t experience them. Kind of leaves some of us without a centering location, a foothold, or something like that. At least that’s what some of our counselors theorize.
Ted: So, you know everything and therefore can’t experience wonder or awe? No more curiosity or astonishment? No miracles?
Traveler: Might be difficult to find a mathematical expression for those concepts. Perhaps this will indeed turn out to be a useful visit to your world.
Ted: Pretty sure I wouldn’t want to give up wonder, but couldn’t you just pass on a few hints to me about a few special mysteries?
Traveler: No, Ted, you know the rules about that. But it’s been a useful conversation, thank you. Perhaps we’ll talk again.
