In Finity

For a while I’d been searching for a name for this publication, but nothing seemed to fit. I was looking for something, a word or phrase, that could unlock the strange tension I kept encountering in my writing.

Back in summer ‘24, I found myself drawn to reconciling the animate with the inanimate. This led me through the physical concepts of kinetic and potential energy, entropy (chaos) and work (order), the biological survival and reproduction, and then to the metaphysical: certainty and uncertainty, peace and suffering, the purposeful and pointless. Each pair seemed separate, but the more I explored the more I saw how they intertwined. It was as if paradox itself threaded them together.

From there, I thought about how we can change without moving, and move without changing. Or how we receive nothing when we demand everything, and everything when we demand nothing. Or the beautiful cyclical nature of life, where what was forgotten is remembered, and what was remembered is forgotten. The list of paradoxes goes on and on: rationality and creativity, object and subject, self and other, masculinity and femininity, survival and reproduction. These seemingly separate concepts confuse us when we hold them apart; it is only by considering them together that they start to make sense.

And so I was left wondering: What title could possibly capture this seemingly formless phenomenon that captured me?

Then, it finally clicked.

In Finity.

Something fascinating happens when you make the word infinity more finite. First, the Latin prefix in-, meaning “opposite,” becomes the English in, meaning “inside.” Here, we encounter two identical symbols holding opposing meanings that together embody paradox. The oppositional nature of in- implies separation, exteriority, and disintegration, pushing us beyond boundaries. Meanwhile, the unifying nature of in implies integration, interiority, and wholeness, drawing us within. What’s more, the oppositional in- gains meaning when united to a word, while the unifying in (generally) gains meaning when separate from the proceeding word. Even more fascinating is that this duality is coincidental: the English in is, for the most part, unrelated to the Latin prefix in-. And isn’t coincidence itself the unification of the separate? How interesting.¹

It gets deeper. When we break Infinity into In Finity, Finity (the finite) is found waiting to be entered. We gain knowledge through entering the finite, breaking things down into discernible concepts. But true understanding comes from reconciling these fragments, grouping them together into a maturer, higher step upon which we can stand. In doing so, we move from the finite back toward the infinite: we reunite the in with the finity. This cyclical process—dissecting to comprehend, then reuniting to transcend—simultaneously brings us closer to both the finite and infinite. This, I believe, captures the essence of philosophia: the infinite binding force of love and the finite discerning force of wisdom, both revolving around truth.

Fundamentally, the goal of this publication will be to break things down and reunite them into something more meaningful. A metaphysical engineering, maybe? Throughout history, humanity has found finite embodiments of the infinite, whether in the divine expressions of religion or the universal laws of science. My aim will be to gather wisdom from each and reconcile them into something coherent, cracking open the finite to reveal the waiting infinite within.

Welcome to In Finity.

1. The word “interesting” comes from the Latin interesse, meaning “to be between.” Well, well, well, what a coincidence.