Smashing the Universe

Your actions until now brought you to where you are. It’s a cute notion to explore the mathematical chances of all the ways in which the universe brought you to this place, right where you are sitting right now. As a mental exercise, it let’s others know that your knowledge of statistics is legendary. However if there were any other places for you to be at this moment, then you’d be there, not here reading these words.

I know, cute.

What brought you here to this moment? You have always been coming here. Though it’s a popular adage that the universe wisps us in and out of different states of being, in reality the place we end up is caused only by one thing, your decisions to be there.

That shirt, you bought it. You worked to have the money for it. You chose to put it on this morning. There was no mistake there. The people who see you in it will either like it or not like it and that is where people get the ubiquitous “universe” sense of . . . fate, karma or the funny way the universe works.

Listen. The universe in which we live is a wasteland. Cold, hot, wet, dry. It is random. You, however are its opposite. You bring order to that. If it’s hot, you turn on the air conditioning. If it cold you put a log on the fire. If it’s wet you reach for the paper towel. If it’s dry you moisturize. Place you in the middle of a jungle, and the apparent chaos you find yourself in will slowly be put into order as a camp, a system of acquiring the essentials and working to better your lot.

In our lives we forget this basic thing about ourselves because the systems have been put in place for you and kept in place by others. This is a community and you and I are part of it and help make it. It’s really the average of all of our efforts on this earth.

As water flowing down a hill, we take the path of least resistance. We have a lot to do so the least resistive path makes sense. We have taken on lives of rife complexity and forget we did it. We complain about time, about resources we do not have and we feel like we are in a rut. The kind of rut the water settles in to which we call rivers.

Water cannot do something we can do though. We can decide another path down the mountain. Every new years we resolve to do this. Everything that seems to happen out of our control in our lives happen because of the path through the mountain we decided on. The longer we have been on that path, the deeper that rut.

The analogy of the river aside we have placed into our respective universes the systems and communication lines and items that make our current life. So change our lives we have to change those systems, communication lines and items slightly. The average of your efforts in your life brought you to here.

Your success using your current rut is dependent upon how little your life doesn’t interfere with others, or in the case of your friends and family, how much it helps theirs. Other people depend on you for the same reason you depend on that little dish next to the door you place your keys in when you get home from work. When you decide to change, others get nervous and some will oppose you. You will see this and conclude the universe has it in for you.

No, as a society we created this little pocket of reality here on this planet. The universe has no vested interest in you, other people do.

I once had a conversation with a Buddhist. Not a “new world” Buddhist sporting their yoga pants and pumpkin spice green tea whatever-you-call-it. An old word Buddhist from a country who’s roots go back to Buddha himself. We discussed karma.

We laugh together at how westerners treat karma. It’s a bitch. Wishes of karma biting someone for this reason or that. Easterners treat it as a way of getting through this life and direct future ones. I feel it is like laying the ground work for a path through the mountain in a mental/spiritual way for their future lives.

The idea of karma on a short scale is a western idea I think. Instant karma is a prime example of this. My main issue with karma (eastern or western) is a feeling the universe is doing it. You be a bad person and the universe dishes out your karma. Simple.

What I posed was if it was the universe, or people, that dished out the karma. Again, the universe in the form of stars, cosmic rays and asteroids doesn’t care what kind of life you live. Only those with the ability to observe and make judgement can.

You dish out karma, knowingly or unknowingly. Someone else’s efforts on the universe causes you to react based on whatever your rut states should be done. The sum of those reactions are the feeling of the universe acting on you because we often don’t see those counter-intentions as we are too polite to make it obvious.

Instant karma is only vengeful thinking. It’s direct and to the point. It can cause us to change our path on one part of our river like a rock thrown in that diverts the water. Rarely does it make lasting change except in the case of public shaming which the internet is great at.

Be kind. It really just means don’t tread on your neighbors prized tulips and they will in turn not walk on your immaculately groomed grass.

How do you change your life if every time you try to change your path you meet the karma of others? Keep moving despite all the machinations against you. You have to. You cannot avoid walking on the grass, all you can do is make sure what you do helps more than it hurts. Life is about juggling all of this.