The Twain Shall Meet

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat."

--"The Ballad of East and West," Rudyard Kipling, 1940

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From THE BOOK OF PRIMUS, -A, -UM

Chapter 1: Verses 1-18

In the beginning, the very beginning of all things, before all things continued, there once was Primus, -a, -um, the Original Being. Primus-a-um was the whole universe, and there was nothing that was not Primus-a-um.

Primus-a-um felt utter completeness and perfect finality, but they were dull. This Original Being had finished everything there was to do in the world, in the next world, and in all possible worlds. But there was no satisfaction. There was no actuation. There was no fun.

Nothing was what constituted life for Primus-a-um, and Being was boring. The Original Being's spirit went unchallenged, as was its very existence. There had to be more than this!

This Original Being realized that although all things were final, there were two ways of thinking about them. How could that be?

Might it not be that everything is finished? Primus-a-um asked itself. This conflict excited the being and it thought long and hard--new thoughts that had never been considered before. This stunned him, but not as much as what was derived therefrom, what the Original Being called Conclusion: Primus-a-um sundered itself into two beings--one for each of two ways to think about things.

Now there were two.

When the two cleaved beings regarded each other, they each saw persons quite different from how the persons--so viewed--felt themselves to be.

This is what Different means, each thought.

They regarded each other again and again. They approached each other. Different, but the same, was the something in each of them that lured them together. It was East meets West; night meets day; Earth meeting sky. It was an approach-and-retreat sequence, like how the Moon circles the Earth, always falling toward it but never catching it. Lured-in evolved into locked-in.

And the beings called this Dance.

The beings realized that Dance could happen in ways other than motions between them in space and time. Dance could happen in thought; it could happen in ambition; in goals toward happiness and stability.

As the beings danced, they realized they were traveling together, but in one place. It was vicissitude-in-singularity. They felt comfort in this camaraderie, but something else was happening. Feeling--that is, because as from the Original Being as they were, they were far from anything new or fantastic in their lives--they were blindsided by a new thing called Wonder. By a unique thing called Amazement.

The two beings, suddenly, couldn't imagine being without each other. They longed to close the distance that Dance created between--while yet including--them. That the Moon should catch the Earth! It would be wondrous, and it would be amazing, the lack of both creating the void in them that craved filling. Craved in them a Longing for each other.

Longing turned into interception, and it was the longing to be together that recapitulated the unification of the Original Being: reunification.

The two beings interacted, interlaced, interwove, and interdigitated with each other. Parts complemented other parts. Tabs and slots found purchase, physically expressing the sentiments arising. There came upon them something called Union.

Union was ecstasy, fulfillment, and actuation in all purposes higher for which to strive. It was a précis, a monument. Union obviated self-indulgence, instead obtaining as raison d'être.

The Original Being, Primus-a-um, knew that what was before had been incomplete, pathetic, and the reason for meaninglessness; and what was now was the final outcome.

For it is the longing of two beings for each other that is the desire of them to join in godlike unity and completeness.

It is the divine attraction that transcends ambition, partnership, or even society. This longing for two beings to reunify the god in them is a thing called Love.

And that is how Love came to be. And Primus-a-um saw that it was good.