# Transmutation

Potentials and energy. Each individual can rise to the maximal potential given only the tightest focus. Can the same be said of a population?

Each outcome must occupy a position, arrived at through traversal of an oppositional landscape.

The landscapes polarize. Individuals resonate and align. Even a neutral position, a ground state, is relative to the surrounding states.

There must exist an overall charge in the population. A net energy potential.

We know the possible states. Some states appear to be better than others. States of our own choosing, requiring the perception of achievement. Goals and working towards them, and ultimately surpassing.

The alternative is to be aimless and follow the gravity wells, arriving at any arbitrary lower state.

You can reach stable, but undesirable places in life without possibility of change unless you exert energy to crawling back out of your hole. Digging oneself out of an addiction is one such possibility.

Are there similar islands of stability on top of mountains? What discipline is required for such balance on an unlikely peak? What individual could counter the forces of man and nature to reach a local maximum atop a shifting landscape?

It seems remotely possible for an individual of legend, like a saint or guru, but what of a collective?

Given such an impossible task, one explores all options. Can one alter the landscape itself?

This is the essence of transmutation.

It isn't enough to reach the peak individually, one must endeavor to alter the landscape itself.

Immovable. Perfect grace. All is balanced.

What sort of person are you? Do you believe in some good to work towards? Do you seek only pleasure? Accomplishment? What motivates you?

Do you persist in the face of adversity? Are you emblematic of your noble ideals?

Maybe you're not here to build anything. The resources and foundations are already here. They were here when you arrived. You don't need to build anything, really. The real work to be done is not physical.

This existence isn't even well suited for building things. Building is tedious! It takes so long — years, maybe lifetimes. We have precious little time, and short lives.

You will have time enough to build to your standards of perfection. For now, focus on what cannot be done in a timeless dream. Imagine a virtual realm for instance. That's the domain for pure work for pure form.

You are here to live. To perform deeds. To enact the drama.

“I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I'm guarding it until it blazes.”

— Gospel of Thomas