Balaji Prasad
By Balaji Prasad
“What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?” – Woody Allen
The universe is big. Really big! It is so big that we couldn’t even begin to comprehend just the miniscule speck from within it that we directly intersect with. In fact, that speck of the universe, for all practical purposes, is what we treat as the universe.
There is another universe though: one that is potentially much larger in some ways than the universe that we think we deal with. It is helpful, using a bit of a twist of language, to reframe this other universe as our “Uniferse” so that it is clearer what this is, and what the stuff that makes it up is.
What better way than a verse that helps delineate the universe from our Uniferse?
The Curse of the Uniferse
This is the curse,
That u ‘n’ if,
Spin word perverse:
Crass hieroglyph.
Tame mind; be terse!
Don’t jump off cliff,
In Uniferse;
So, play your riff,
Off universe;
undo your curse!
The key difference between the universe and your Uniferse is that there is a big “if” in the middle of the latter, making it a place populated with the creations of human imagination, creativity, words and “logic”.
Are two better than one?
Although we are prolific and create wild uniferses, reality is stubbornly persistent. However hard we may try, it is all but impossible to completely escape from the universe into our smoke-and-mirrors uniferses. Whether our conscious minds are aware or not, there is a nature-bestowed intelligence under the surface that keeps our feet at least partially planted in the real universe. Even as our conscious “intelligence” does its artwork with logic, language, words and other creative fabrications spun up by our imaginative minds.
Is this parallel universe – our Uniferse – a blessing or a curse?
As with many other things, it depends. It depends on how this internal simulation engine is used – whether as a useful adjunct to the real universe, and subordinate to it, or as a substitute that attempts to displace and exile the real thing into oblivion. There is a worst-case scenario too: it may also be possible to combine the two parallel universes in a manner that is potentially highly destructive. Like a horror story that you write but are compelled by unknown forces to live inside your creation.
Destruction; and a path to its destruction
Destruction may be the outcome if powerful forces of nature are unleashed in realms carved out by your imagination. For example, the ability to feel an intense sense of fear is bestowed upon us from birth, by nature. Fear has the power to keep us alive in the face of real dangers that are present in the real universe. However, when that same fear is unleashed in all its fury against an imaginary foe, it can result in immense harm to oneself and to others and, to the universe.
Imagination, unbridled, can lead us to strange places, as it did to Alice in a Wonderland where everything sane was insane, and everything crazy was the way to be.
It can be worse than that, though. Our imagination may not even be our own! Human beings copy the products of other human beings’ imagination. We can end up using the vocabulary, cause-effect logic patterns and the word play that have been established by others – both living and dead – over decades and centuries. We may have copied these constructs thoughtlessly and made them part of the fabric of our existence. We may also not have the benefit of the child who dared to proclaim that the proud emperor was draped in a fabric that had no fabric. And so, we keep marching on, unaware of what we do.
So, the curse may not be just that we are doomed to live with one foot in the universe and the other in our Uniferse. It may be that we don’t even spin our own uniferses; others may. The first step, therefore, to undoing the curse is to tune in to where each foot is planted, and to what degree. The next step would be to understand what part of your Uniferse is spun by you versus someone else.
The universe waits, eternally patient, for you. Will you embrace it in all its splendor?
Balaji Prasad is an IIT/IIM graduate, a published author, SAT/ACT Online and in-person Coach, and K-12 Math Tutor at NewCranium. [email protected].
