Theory of Every Damn Thing

Hay everyone. I have torn my Achilles tendon and opted to get it surgically repaired. This means I am bedridden for a week while my tendon recovers from the trauma of 1) being exposed to the outside world and 2) getting stitched back together. I am trying to take this opportunity to deepen my understanding of life. This reflection is part of that process.

We exist in the margins of multiple worlds, though we labor in pretending not to. Try as one does, we fixate on lifestyles of control, disregarding the subterranean ebbs and flows of the world as it naturally appears. With our endowment of observational capacity, we profanely engage in narratives that champion the dichotomous conflict of individual fate and destiny against a confrontational nature. Life without engagement, growth, and productivity is scarcely considered a life worth living at all. Our experience is that of the waves, the ephemeral motions that rock the canoe of our consciousness on a moment-to-moment basis. These waves carry us onward, and consideration must be made to ensure that they do not cause us to capsize, critical negotiations towards righting the course of our lives. 

We know the ocean of our existence is much more than mere waves. Below the surface spans entire universes, closed cosmological systems where, for those lurking below, all that ever is and ever will be are contained in a finite space. Sure, there’s inputs from the great beyond. Extra-dimensional aliens may breach the upper limits of the universe and impose their own will. Even the distant moon, pulling the strings of the tides, exerts some influence on the system. Though these factors are entirely external to the undersea itself, they constitute a tangible, shapely influence on the rhythms of the universe contained within. No system is ever completely closed, not even the universe revealed to us from observations of deep space. Incomprehensible forces push apart the fabric of space itself on a large enough scale, forces that we may never be equipped to fully understand. It would be like explaining lunar tides to a minnow. 

Our journeys as living beings crest upon the rippling surface of another’s universe, a sensation resulting from infinitely complex interactions of elements that is largely taken for granted. What relevance do the circumstances of existence hold to our lives anyway?

It is not in the nature of our ontological beings to accept the world as it is without some sensation of curiosity. We tirelessly pursue grand questions – the more unanswerable, the better. But the collective with whom we grow to cohabitate tells us to dismiss this aspect of our being. Answers are abound wherever one looks, and dreams of progress fixate on a utopia where there are no longer any questions or mysteries left in the world, all to escape a nagging sensation of uncertainty. 

Uncertainty is incompatible with the lifestyle of control. To have made it so far in human history only to continue to accept uncertainties in the universe feels unacceptable. Flailing against the lack of an inherent anthropocentric reasoning to the universe, we respond by forcing the world to fit within the predetermined boundaries of our own understanding. We reduce our view of the ocean to one of just its waves, and convince ourselves that this is all it ever was. The ideal life of the technological age is one entirely absent of metaphysical context.

Despite all this, I don’t think we were ever meant to flee from the incomprehensibility of the universe. To disregard its complexity in the name of an authoritative God or to simply be indifferent would be to dismiss an authentic psychological need innate to our being. We are trapped within intersubjectivity, so we should learn to grow comfortable with discomforting ambiguities and questions with no answer.