Parties All the Way Down

There is (and always has been and always will be) a tremendous party going on. Often there are innumerable parties, provided one knows the right place and the right people. For the sake of understanding, I’ll be focusing on a particularly lavish one, though it is by no means the only party going on. This one is a masquerade, and every partygoer is done up in all the associated fineries. Men (and some women) are wearing sleek-cut suits of mostly neutral colors, with eye-popping ties flashing from underneath. Women (and some men) are wearing flowing robes and dresses that sparkle and whip formlessly about their bodies.

Everyone is wearing masks. Some are mean; some are nice. Most are embellished with fine metals and gems, though there are plenty that are plain. What’s important—for the sake of the party—is that all of them hide the faces beneath, and their expressions.

The venue centers about a great hall. The hall has a vast open center for the dancers, and tables are arrayed about the perimeter. On each table is a unique work of art, a matching set of dishes, and a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio (in case a table member is feeling particularly nostalgic). In an alcove on a stage there is a jazz band. They play the music the dancers dance to. There is a door behind the band, which I will get to in a moment.

Spreading out from the great hall are smaller rooms where the masked partygoers can get away from the noise. There is a dark smoking lounge with regal wood-and-leather chairs shrouded in the haze. There is a quiet reading hall with ebony tables surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It is lit only by low lights bent over the tables and the intermittent handheld lights carried by the book-seekers. There is a room that consists only of smaller alcoves where masked couples can find privacy. There is a boisterous room of billiards and darts and other manner of games. The list goes on from there, but I’d like to get back to that door behind the jazz band.

A curious and attentive partygoer might watch for the times when the door opens, peeking at the events that occur within. Such a partygoer would catch a glimpse of another smaller party going on inside the room beyond. The partygoers inside need not wear masks, for the door itself is the mask. Inside, the partygoers are resting band members, book-seekers, cooks, drink distributors, floor sweepers, table cleaners, and so on.

The masked partygoers on the outside might guess that behind this door, the help and service rest. They’d be quite wrong. At a party lavish as this one, the attendants get to party too. The room behind the door is austere but cozy. Practical for its purpose, it has chairs and tables and enough extra space for whatever the partiers get up to. The ceiling is low, and the walls are covered with hung linen, keeping the sound inside softened and intimate. The smoke-obscured room has two doors on opposite sides. One leads to the stage in the great hall where the band plays unceasingly through the night. The other leads further into the building.

These unmasked partygoers were hired for the masquerade, and this party-in-a-party is only a small part of their payment. In this room, they can lounge, dance, eat, and drink. Anything that can be done at the masquerade can be done here. The smaller scale only serves to emphasize the revelry in the room.

Sometimes the second door opens, and attendants enter, bringing more food and drink. These attendants live in the building. They don’t wear masks, and they don’t speak a word. They simply bring the supplies, do some cleaning, then go back through the back door. A curious party-within-a-partier might try to peek through as they pass the door, but they’d only see a hallway with another door—a third door, if we’re counting—at the end. They couldn’t possibly know or understand what goes on beyond that third door.

But I happen to do both.

And I’ll tell you what I can: beyond the third door is a third party. This party never stops, for if it did the parties raging outside would falter and fall apart. It is upon this party that all lavish parties depend. These third-nested partiers don’t need much. They prepare their own food while they do the same for the parties raging outside. They are content with water and coffee from the machine in the corner of the immaculate room about which they bustle, only stopping to rest with the utmost efficiency and cooperation with their fellow third-nested partiers.

I should briefly mention that I use the phrase third-nested for explanatory convenience. It is a number relative only to our starting point in the masquerade. However, as I hope you’ll understand shortly, the number itself is quite irrelevant and arguably meaningless.

But I digress, in this “third” room is a nonstop party, and don’t you doubt that there is indeed a party happening here. To the uninformed, the flurry of activity inside might seem to be a daunting—if nightmarish—effort. However, you can’t possibly know the nature of these partiers of the third-nested party. As I mentioned before, they don’t say anything to the partiers a level up from themselves. What must be understood about these partiers is that, from their perspective, the conditions of their existence are a party. They are well-cared for, their needs are always met, and that coffee machine is seriously really nice.

While I’m talking about the coffee machine, it is worth taking a look inside. While there are no doors to peek through, I nonetheless know what happens on the inside. Perhaps you see where this is going, but if you don’t, I’ll tell you: Within that machine rages an electro-mechanical party of a very different—and yet still quite comparable—nature. Inside that machine, gears are dancing, this software process is chatting with that one, magnets are spinning and singing through electric fields. A motor that calls for power always has its needs met. It does what it was designed to do, and it has a damn good time doing it.

It’s hard to say if that motor knows who brings its power. It’s hard to say if the gears know who brings their lubricating oil. It’s even not so easy to tell if the software knows where its instructions come from. Whether or not they know, they party on anyway.

I could dive deeper to, say, the power that flows through the motor while it works. You might be surprised to find another party going on at the other end of those wires. You might be surprised to find one raging within the wires themselves. On the other hand, you may not find that surprising at all. I could dive still deeper until even the most educated of minds unravels into unbelief. Yet I tell you still, it’s parties all the way down.

On the outside of it all—outside the coffee machine, the parties-in-parties, even outside the masquerade—I like to step back and watch the parties happening all over the world. If you back up far enough, but not too far, you can watch them too. They are beautiful things. You can’t tell which are dances, which are masquerades, which are birthdays, retirements, or just parties for the sake of partying. Sometimes they converge, sometimes they break apart. No one is like another. If you step back far enough, you might learn something very few partiers have realized: that all of everything is really just one big, inextricably linked, lavish party. Just don’t step too far back; what you find out there might surprise you (but then again, it might not).