Haiku 2023–247

the ones and zeroes

of my meditation bell

both present and not

— —

As I’ve mentioned before, I use a computer script to drive me through my morning. Part of that script consists of a subroutine that times my meditation. Until yesterday, a computer ‘beep’ ticked off the minutes. It worked, but wasn’t exactly the vibe I was looking for, so I decided to so something about it. I found a mp3 file of a pleasant, resonating Tibetan bell that I like. Every minute, the mp3 file plays drawing my attention back to where it’s supposed to be. It spurred interesting thoughts — the sound of the bell clearly exists and is present — at the same time it only exists in ones and zeros and isn’t present materially as the sound is reproduced by something that looks very unlike a bell. I attempted to wrangle my thoughts on this philosophical puzzle into haiku.