Thirty-Five years ago, which was 12783 Days and approximately 306794 Hours and 18,407,604 minutes ago (and somewhere in the order of 1,104,458,400 seconds), there was a singularly unique event that occurred.1 Matt S. Trout came into existence.
So figures have to be messed with here as I don’t know the exact times of anything and it is all assumption that the online system I checked even used UTC/GMT for it’s basis so this is all a big IF that’s going on. But hell figures look impressive even if they have a lot of fudge (and by a lot I mean more than a bloody finger worth) to them.
I have known the Stupendous one for the better part of two decades, in fact we are fast at the point of crossover when I have known him for greater than half of his life, which of course means he has known me for longer than he has not known me. It is why this year in notice of his passing another circle of our Solar captor I thought I would wax a little lyrical.
And if you read the news item on the SC site for this day you will realise what I mean about halves being important, but greater than, above half, more than and proportionally disproportionate all indicate a larger significance in any understanding except the one that matters (which is the one we place upon such things).
Truth be told we already passed that this year (as in within the last 12 months not in any sense the calendar period) but it seemed more artistically right to do it on a birthday notice.
So why am I calling him Stupendous and why is it on the company blog and not one of the many other blogable sources I maintain. Well to answer some of that is easy and the rest is a secret I will take until I tell you it… (oh and do not that this is a very lyrical piece, you want this in easy digestible form it will cost you a visit and some severe affinity to an amber nectar :) ).
In the beginning2 there was the upstairs neighbour, though there were few momentary encounters before that it wasn't apparent until afterwards even though rats were worn on shoulders. When we say the upstairs you must understand he wasn’t my upstairs. I wasn’t who I am now. They were not who they were then. And it doesn’t matter as the upstairs were there and so was the neighbour. This would be your introduction to how the narrative will flow hence.
So the neighbour wasn't even my neighbour and my wife not my wife but the neighbours' partner, soon to be the other person’s partner, the neighbor to the upstairs neighbour, well one of the neighbours but that’s because the neighbour downstairs was two neighbours but one of them was the downstairs one and the other the sublet of the downstairs who had their own downstairs.3
The upstairs neighbour became the downstairs buddy to the buddy I had and to whom the partner would soon partner. But that's possibly hearsay (or heresy) and mentioned hence and already. They would squat and debate and slay pixels in mass teams for multiple hours. Soon the neighbours formed a bond and at that point they joined a different type of game. There was still slaying but it was in a shared imaginary space and one which I held position as deity. In that I should recant that I did tease them once whilst they all rested in a state that was not desired with speech of speed and then sloth upon how to construct stories and narratives.
And so time passed, as annoying it often does. The pixel slayers changed number and type, partners moved to other partners and yet stayed vertically adjacent neighbours and the shared table top experience continued. Those that share an experience of imaginary space, where stories are formed raw, where life is given to forms that exist only in our own personal understanding, but yet also have life to others and share a common understanding.4
At this time I was still the artist. Oh I had an interest in science and a love, maybe even a penchant, for technology, but I dwelt in the arts and that is where I laboured each day. In this realm, though my technical competence was greater than those I shared servitude with, I was tasked to build the organisational profile on the webs, or nets, of ether.
I soon encountered great difficulty. I wasn't up to the task of automation and abstract relational thingymyjimmery that these computational vampires desired. And so I sought a greater power. I may have been the deity in a meatspace shared environment but in this realm of digits and noughts there was an angel of a different sea.
An aside, why is one an angel and the other a deity? Simple: in the shared table top gaming world one has been a most beautiful angel and the other almost always a deity. There stands no hierarchy, just a wonderful series of tales.
And thus it came to pass that the upstairs neighbour and the old man who ran the tabletop game did work on a project together. And it was good. In fact it was lots of fun, involved squatting in a home office, sharing new experiences and learning to enjoy the company of each other. A friendship was born. A relationship where things were shared and learned and in which the seeds of great trust were sown.5
This new lifeform had no clear distinction to start, it was born from their shared experience and seemed right. At points along this path both neighbour and old man moved south to experience the smoke and noise of different pastures, but both returned. They were changed. Experience had given them loss and also given them a hole to fill, and they filled it with the one the gave birth to.
In the time since then there have been many rides on the rollercoaster of existence. There have been many divergent streams and cul-de-sacs to wander into and get lost. There has been much water passed under the bridge. A few days hence from this date that is recorded here it will be the fourteenth year, so the thirteenth birthday of their child. For one of them it is the passing of a folkelorish half. For this dear tale teller it is the end...of this tale.6
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However let's be fair it is unique for every creature, even twins are born one after another. Very few creatures spit out multiples at the exact same moment. In fact if we measure down to the smallest unit then there's a strong likelihood that all events are that level of singular. However what I am suggesting here is that there is a little more than the norm, a soupcon of something other. Also singularly unique, frack that’s like saying very unique, as TV has taught us it is either unique or it isn't unique. You cannot be singularly or very unique, bloody stupid language. ↩
Should really be a beginning, not the beginning, as it is our beginning and not their beginning if you see what I mean. ↩
There is a real concern that this abstraction will drive you away, I think of it as I write in this manner on my normally semi-serious company blog. But stay with us as this is how it must be. I feel for you. But at least you can find me and berate me in person ;) ↩
The subject is also the narrative’s only cogent respondent with all the facts clarified and understood (for any measure of understood), and that’s how it must be. And for all of the rest of us we travel along and read the story ↩
More so that trust, more so that relationship. Welded is a much more understandable observation. The grinding burden of existence passed a pace with much to-ing and fro-ing. The two formed a one, as the upstairs neighbour in a Stupendous act declared the forming of a bond that rose above what had previously passed. ↩
At this time I would like to thank all those who stayed with me until this end. Find me. Sit with me. Let us talk of many thing (sealing wax, cabbages and kings). For everyone else, you are really going to miss asking me to explain all of this... ↩
