The Universe Doesn't Give a Sh*t!

Here we go--from the mundane to the ertzatz sublime.

In one of those big public workshops someone was whining about the tsouris in his life and the trainer said, "The stars don't care. Look up at the sky when you leave tonight. Ask if the stars care. They don't." It was sort of a shocking moment and I sat there thinking, "He's right. The universe doesn't give a shit."

Later on doing some academic work in semiotics, the meanings of things, and narrative studies it anchored for me.

The meaning we make is the meaning we make. That's all there is.

That could seem bleak, but it doesn't feel that way to me. It informs my beliefs and politics and how I try to live in the world. If that's all there is then shouldn't we be doing our damnedest to make what we do have during our short tenure mean something? If that's all there is why don't we work together to make things better for each other?

I used to have a list on my office wall. I still have it on my computer. It was Sheldon Kopp's ‘A Partial Register of the 927 (or was it 928?) Eternal Truths’ from his book "If You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him." I won't reproduce it here. You can find it in multiple places on the web. But there are a few of the 43 items he listed that bear and are worth repeating anyway.

• We have only ourselves, and one another. That may not be much, but that’s all there is.
• How strange that so often it all seems worth it.
• We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
• All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
• Yet we are responsible for everything we do.
• No excuses will be accepted.
• You can run, but you can’t hide.
• It is most important to run out of scapegoats.
• We must learn the power of living with our helplessness.
• The only victory lies in surrender to oneself.
• All significant battles are fought within oneself.
• You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.
• What at do you know … for sure … anyway?
• Learn to forgive yourself, again and again and again and again…

We make our meaning. If you have to have a big father figure in the sky to give you meaning, fine; but either way you and I are not likely to be having this conversation in the hereafter. If you are right, I'm pretty sure to be in that other place. If I am, we will be quietly decomposing and giving up our atoms to the universe, which doesn't give a shit, remember?

I heard a beautiful man give a sermon once entitled, "If Thine 'I' Offend Thee..." in which he played with the biblical passage about plucking out the offending "eye." He told us to look around the room. That for some of us we would only pass this way once, we would only intersect with the person next to us once. He suggested that letting our 'I' get in the way of making the human connection that was possible in the moment called for "plucking it out."

So I guess this post is about ego. The arrogance of ego is an overwhelming force in our interactions with one another that we could well do without. Even if the stars don't care, it would make our world a better place.

Now, just where is that rock?