Slightly hungover and still prickling with mortification about last night (though hard to be specific about what, which makes it all the worse - comedy is the hardest job in the world) I started work on the Meaning of Life show. I am aiming to get ten minutes together for a new material night that I am doing on Wednesday in Islington and I have to have at least 40 minutes for my work in progress set at the Tabard in Chiswick on Sunday. Obviously these gigs will be rough and ready and involve quite a lot of rubbish, but it's going to be fun (kind of) trying to knock together what is basically half an Edinburgh show in the next three weeks. It's a slightly terrifying prospect and we're going to be working out the practicalities as it goes. But there are a few safety nets and if stuff doesn't work on the night of the record on the 17th November (tickets only a tenner), then we can always have another crack at stuff in future recordings. I want to make these shows as good as they can possibly be, given the time constraints and our basic lack of budget. It's a bit of an experiment, but would be really helpful if we had a good (and patient) crowd on the night. So come along if you can.
I imagine that I will be trying to work out some of the ideas on here. That's my plan today. So, you know, if you're coming to a gig you might want to not read this. Episode one is about creation, something that mankind has been obsessed with understanding ever since our brains started being able to imagine. But whether you believe that the world was spunked up by a wanking deity or is the dream of a sleeping ostrich or the result of an explosion of superdense concentrated matter, all creation theories seem to stumble on the same point and it's a point made by every six year old child with any ability to form a question. "If God created the Universe then who created God and who created whoever created God and so on to infinity." Even science can only tell us that the Universe started with a massive explosion, but it can't tell us what was there before or where the stuff that exploded came from or (as far as I can tell and I haven't got too deep into Big Bang Theory yet) what caused it to explode.
The curious minds that started all this, by believing that something just couldn't exist so must have been created by someone or something weirdly seemed satisfied that the thing that they imagined had done the creating just existed. Which seems odd. I have heard religious people argue that the world is too perfect and balanced and beautiful to just exist without a divine creator, so that is proof that there is a god who conjured it up for us. But surely if there is a god then he or she (or other) is more perfect and balanced and beautiful than the world and religious people believe that god can just exist. Why this odd cut off point? It's like we're searching for an answer and then just decide to give up before we've got anywhere. As if you wanted to find out where the idea of entertainment began, discovered the invention of television and decided to leave your research there. It's like the police discovering that a terrorist attack had been caused by a bomb and then leaving their investigation there. "We've found out who did it. It was a bomb. Case closed." How did the bomb get there? Who put it there? What was their motivation? "Didn't you hear me? We've found out it was a bomb. What more do you want?"
Let's take a look at the Bible's attempt to explain things. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."
So what was happening before. Where was God prior to this decision to create the Heavens and the earth? What was he up to? He was just skulking around in the dark oblivion trying to think of something to do. He hasn't invented light yet and even if he has some kind of night vision goggles on him (not mentioned in the Bible as far as I can see), then there would be nothing to look at. If I'd been him the first thing I would have invented was light. Just to give myself something to work by. He created the earth and the heavens first, though at this point the heavens must have had no stars in them, so that's essentially nothing. And the earth is formless, which isn't surprising because dumbass God has decided to get on with creating stuff without being able to see a thing.
But then he has his light-bulb moment. He turns on the lights. Which makes things much easier for him. He must have felt brilliant about that, but also pretty stupid. Up til then he's been stumbling around in the void, bumping into stuff (if there had been anything for him to bump into), tripping over his own feet and now he can have a look around and see what's going on. He's learned a lesson - if you're going to invent stuff put the light on first and luckily there was no one to see him working in the dark, hovering over the water like an idiot. If I'd been him I wouldn't have told anyone about this mistake. I would have told people that I'd invented light first and then done the earth and the heavens. They'd never have known. And I quite respect God for his honesty. Even someone perfect can screw things up.
But the point I am making is it's sad to think of this human-shaped God waiting in the dark nothingness for something to happen. If he himself wasn't created by anyone else, he must have been there for infinity years already. Again it's embarrassing that it took him eternity to come up with light. The greater mystery than creation is what came before all of that.
His bumbling, improvised creation continued though (and this is all still the first day's work) "God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day."
So he's realised that although spending so long in the dark has been a bit daft, that having the lights on all the time will be just as irritating. It's a bit too light and after an eternity of darkness it must have taken even his eyes some time to get used to that. He sets up a rudimentary system, I am presuming involving some kind of spinning sphere around the earth (for now) which is half light and half dark. Remember there is no sun as yet. I don't know if God is already planning to upgrade or if this spinning half dark half light sphere thing is initially thought to be good enough. But we have day and night and morning and evening and a load of water, so that's not bad. Not bad for one day's work. Especially given there is no sun yet and thus no real concept of what a day is.
After his hard work on day one, especially given that half of it was in the dark, God starts to slack a bit on day 2. "And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day."
I am a bit confused by this. Earlier he was hovering above the water, and I had pictured him in the sky, but there was no sky apparently, just water. And to make the sky he had to divide the water into two bits, the water on the earth and then the water above the sky (I am guessing the over sky water is where rain comes from??). Personally I think he could have got some more stuff done on day 2. There's a definite sense that he's improvising this. Doing all this stuff with the water is like when I tidy my office when I'm meant to be writing a script.
And you know, even when you're dicking around on the internet (or making a sky vault) you're still thinking about the job in hand and this really shows in what he gets done on day 3
"And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day."
He's made land and all plants, which is a fuck of a lot to get done even if he's working a 16 hour day here. My only slight concern about it all is that God says stuff and then it happens and I wonder who or what is doing the actual creating. Is he just like someone walking around a house saying, "I want a bathroom in here and can you paint those walls yellow and do something with this carpet"? Who's doing the actual building work? It does seem a little vague, "according to their various kinds". I like to think that he has invented all those, rather than leaving it to someone else to come up with based on his very loose directions. Think of all the different kinds of plants and then imagine having to try and invent them from scratch. He must have been doing this in his head when he was making the sky. That's probably why he didn't realise that all the above sky water was just going to float off in the sky.
And on day 4 he shows that he is not above admitting an error. He's realised that his hasty creation of the spinning light/dark dome around the earth is just a bit mechanical and boring and that maybe total darkness is a bit too much. He comes out with a new version of light and allows some subtelty to interplay with the dark and invents the sun and moon and stars thus, "And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day."
The way it's written it almost sounds like he's forgotten that he's already seperated light and dark, but he can't have done. This is a lot more sophisticated than his rather crude light work on day one and a much better system for keeping all the plants that he's just created alive. He sees that this system is good, but then he did think the previous big light idea was good too.
You can see that day 4 was not in the plan. He created light and then the earth and then the plants and then he's gone back to light again. Surely the animals would be next. Something had gone badly wrong there and God hasn't let on what it was. It must be really embarrassing because he didn't mind anyone knowing about the half day hovering above the water in the dark. I almost wonder if God might be covering for something. Did he actually invent the sun and the stars and moon on day one (that would make more sense) and then on day 4, maybe a bit over-tired or just wanting to try something different filled the world with vampires or monsters with four cocks each or sentient space hoppers. He's covering for something here. To be honest it might just be the dinosaurs. Did he get distracted by making ever more elaborate monsters and making them fight each other and then realise that he wasn't getting any closer to making a creature in his image and becase things were so badly out of hand now that man wouldn't be able to live amongst these fantastical beasts. So he killed them all, realised he'd wasted a day, felt embarrassed and then pretended he'd spent all day adjusting the lights?
Whatever the case he returns to a more natural progression, creating fish and birds on day 5 and then livestock, wild animals and animals that crawl on the ground on day 6. And then at the last minute, possibly having run out of ideas, he makes an animal based on himself. And makes the mistake of telling him that all the seed-bearing plants and all the animals he's just made are for man to do what he likes with. Which doesn't show much foresight. And then expects him to leave one specific plant alone, which seems short-sighted.
Well there's something in that probably.
And whilst I am impressed by science's slow crawl to understanding that the sun does not revolve around the earth and found a way to measure the distance to far away stars and work out that nebulae are far away galaxies like our own and that everything that is is hurtling outwards from an initial enormous explosion, that still doesn't answer anything does it? It was a bomb, but where did the bomb come from and who put it there and what was there before?
None of you are giving us any answers, just more questions to ignore. I can't help wondering we might have had a nicer time on this planet if no one had ever given a fuck about where we'd come from.
