Pushing a Button

The world is complex – sincerely, immensely, imperceptibly complex.  So much so that some things are actually unknowable, especially when it comes to quantum mechanics and the behavior of subatomic particles, but I won’t pretend to know more than I do, nor more than Albert Einstein, who admitted that he knew less than one percent of all there is to know.  I, for one, believe this to be a vast overestimation on his part.  But let us suppose, for simplicity’s sake, that there are no such things as kite-boards, nor boomerangs, nor cellos, nor chocolate, nor microcircuits, nor monkeys, nor nebulae, nor nets, nor cars nor cameras but only people and exactly as many little red buttons as people.  Simple enough. Or so it would seem.  Very shortly after Rene Descartes helped us all realize that we exist and the buttons do too, there would begin a cascade so complex as to simulate the complexity of the real world, with just these little red buttons.  Some people, I estimate a good number, would push their red button a few times to see what happened and after nothing climatic ensued after a few taps would grow bored and begin asking others about themselves and their red buttons, learning from others’ similar experiences.  Some aesthetics in the group would sit by their button, meditate and cynically smile with a flourish of one corner of the mouth at the over-indulgence of others who just couldn’t help themselves to pushing the button and wish that everyone could be as self-restrained as they are (or actually, probably not, because then they wouldn’t appear as suave and vogue when this became the new norm and would have to delve farther into their aestheticism to appear relatively debonair, for which they would likely not have neither the ambition nor patience).  Some would learn how to tap their button in such a way to produce a sonnet worthy of a local concert, with every recoil of the spring being utilized as a potential harmony after discovering the resonance frequency thereof, and some would conduct their own orchestra of button-pushers.  Some would devise conspiracy theories about the buttons and how when a certain sequence is pushed the universe of button-hood would be invaded by the aliens that made them.  Some, more scientifically minded, would study the buttons, their structure, layout, temperature, the way they reflect light and the statistical probability that pushing a single button versus multiple buttons has on producing an effect.  Some may become religious about the buttons and forbid touching them in a certain way or on a certain day or how close one can get to a button if others are near it.  Others would assemble factions, or parties, around clusters of certain buttons and likely try to dictate who among them could press certain buttons, how many and for how long and penalize anyone who violated this regimen and prevent outsiders from pressing this select group of buttons.  Still others would recognize a button for what it is – something to be pushed; not in an obsessive-compulsive way, but in a simple, humble, and likely functional way.  They would thank God for the button, since buttons, like universes, don’t arise by chance on their own, and be thankful for the ability to push it of their own volition and the free movement of their limbs to turn their volition into action.  They would seek to discover what it meant to push the button, and when they had learned the secret, they would then help others learn it and appreciate it, too.