A Re-Introduction to Changing the World
Alec Zeck, founder of The Way Forward, asked me to “publish philosophy/spirituality based stuff!” I’m starting off with a Re-Introduction to Changing the World. Any and every one seriously following (and hoping to change!) the sociopolitical landscape these days has felt, at one point or another, that the world is a bit beyond saving. But before this determination can be made, one must have a clear perception of what it means to ‘save.’ Likewise, those hoping to Change the World — or the Universe, as the case will be made below — must know what ‘change’ implies. And what the ‘world’ is. If people still read these days, I’ll be writing more for TWF ❤
∞∞∞
Explode a star in your galaxy — what happens to the galaxy? It has been warped.
Take away a tree from the forest and the forest has changed.
Adopt a child or have a baby, and what happens to your family? Your tree will never be the same.
Now, add a belief or a thought to your mind. As apparently Wayne Dyer, Norman Vincent Pearle, Martha Beck, and the Buddha all said, as shown by an Internet search, “Change your thoughts, change your world.”
Add a note to the chorus of a song and it’s now a new song.
Attach a 1 to 2+2 and it becomes 5 instead of 4.
Did you know that changing just one of your thought patterns can change the operation of your DNA? As Dr. Bruce Lipton writes, “Perception rewrites genes!”
Take a sentence out of this article, or add just one word. Is it the same document? At the very least, you have to admit that some things change the world, even if not all things do.
This short essay is about changing the universe. Or, changing the world, if that sounds easier. Or, changing your Self if that sounds yet less intimidating.
These words were written with a specific audience in mind: the dreamers who dreamt of Changing the World for so many years, only to find out that the Matrix is a lot harder to change than one might have originally thought. What if it’s not that hard to change it, though? What if our conditioning and old belief patterns just rendered us unable to perceive these alterations?
The fact of the matter is, the Matrix is hard to change. And paradoxically, it’s constantly changing — it’s virtually the only constant, as Heraclitus observed. It’s hard to change if you expect people to act as you desire them to act. It’s hard to change if you’re pretending to want to change things, while the reality is that you want to actually control things.
The former concept of changing the world turned into something of a cliché — not only a cliché, but something entirely unreachable. And it involves a whole lot of control. Meanwhile, the opportunities for changing the universe were actually right in front of us, waiting to be seized.
So, we are discussing Change the Universe, as opposed to the expected: Change the World. My original title was actually world-centric, but can you change the world without changing the universe? Just as a tree is inside an apple seed, isn’t the world inside the universe? And aren’t you a part of the world? Assuming this is true, can you change yourself without changing the world, and furthermore, can the world be changed without changing the universe?
Hence, as to evolve our perceptions of what the universe is and our relationship with It, this document shall, for the most part, refer to World Change as Universe Change. Anytime you feel Change the Universe intimidatingly grandiose, you can just pretend like this article’s title is, “How to Change the World.” Or if that’s even scarier, “How to Change Your Self.” (If you’re really feeling bold, you can replace the word ‘universe’ with multiverse). That being said . . .
Universe Change, from .0035 to 99.9965 Percent Increments
Can words change the universe?
How about just the essay’s title in and of itself?
What if the two previous sentences have already changed the universe?
This can lead us to a few important questions:
If these things can, can anything else?
If not, is world change possible at all?
HOW can the world be changed?
Must our actions be BIG and bold?
Can our impact be small and {unsung}?
Let’s get even smaller: can changing the font types for this article change our perceptions? (Dammit, Medium doesn’t allow for font changes).
If you said “no,” what if you’re wrong?
Ultimately, human beings are stuck perceiving only 0.0035% of reality.
According to the U.S. Energy Department, we as humans are only able to observe 0.0035% of reality. “The entire rainbow of radiation observable to the human eye only makes up a tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum — about 0.0035 percent. This range of wavelengths is known as visible light.”
→ This means: 99.9965% of our existence is completely hidden from us.
So what if we can only see 0.0035% of the universe’s changes?
What if just by writing these words, I changed .000000000000035% of the universe and you didn’t even realize it?
The noteworthy paradox here is that even whilst committing only 0.0035% of world change, you are creating a 100% change in the universe. It’s no longer the same universe, once you have disturbed it. Even if you only make up 0.0000000000000[insert 3 Googolplexes worth of zeros here (which is 10100 zeros)]000001% of our universe, that is the universe.
From here on out, I’m going to type the rest of this document in . . . Georgia font. (Unfortunately, Georgia font will not show up on this platform. Either pretend this is Georgia font, or copy n paste into Docs or Word and change to Georgia font).
After all, this font was supposedly named after it was used in a newspaper headline, “Alien Heads found in Georgia.” So maybe fonts can change the world . . . ?
Whether or not they do, I have decided for this reason to write this article in Georgia font.
What if we start capitalizing Change the Universe — is this enough to change it?
What if simply italicizing certain words is enough to change it?
Doesn’t that just do something. . . energetically to these very words?
I started using italics to mimic Hunter S. Thompson’s book, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, in an attempt to find my writer’s voice. I suppose this is some quality anecdotal evidence. If you can hear the subtleties of language.
What if tish essay has some typos — do we dismiss the words and idaes of the writer?
Or i speak in fragmented/incomplete/run-on sentences, long ago denounced by professional Englishmen . . . indeed, it seems that 0.0035 percent could be enough to stir up just enough dust particles to enter the nostrils of a dog that sneezes which causes me to wake up at 3 am and I can’t fall asleep and I have to get coffee cause I’m addicted so I meet my new best friend and we start a Change the World Church and this leads to feeding the hungry and feeding the thirsty and clothing the naked, and that’s how this chapter ends, with an incomplete run-on paragraph containing an extreme hypothetical that changes your perception, which of course changes the
∞∞∞
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
~Leo Tolstoy
“Everything you do in life will be insignificant, but it’s very important that you do it anyway.”
~Mohandas Gandhi
“Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so does the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.”
~Marianne Williamson
“The game is not about becoming somebody, it’s about becoming nobody.”
~Ram Dass
“why don’t you make like a tree and slowly grow while helping others around you grow too”
~@tinyobscurae
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone — we find it with another.”
~Thomas Merton
These words are the heart of this article: transformations within Change the Universe. Changing the world is a pretty monumental task, and while you may feel insignificant, your impact is vital. The goal is, ultimately, to untangle your attachment to expectations. The universe is changing, regardless of your desire to change it. Another way of saying this is: when speaking to people you are trying to shift, speak out of love, rather than a hopeful result. If you’re posting, say, something truthful regarding pharmaceutical companies on Instagram or some other platform . . . speak to the actuality: the people who you know will see your post, rather than a theoretical and hopeful 1 million followers.
Since the world is part of the universe, it seems self-evident that we are more so Changing the Universe, rather than only the World. All these people, plus billions more, along with an immeasurable number of insects, animals, single-celled organisms, and slight wind gusts, have changed the universe.
Hopefully by now, this is becoming observably evident.
The Universe: what is it made up of?
1080 (ten quadrillion vigintillion) atoms of dust and antimatter, all of it swirling everywhere, and wherever the dust settles, it huddles together and creates everything inside and outside of us, the visible and invisible, from the DNA helices and Fibonacci sequences to clouds and dark matter, different-but-same forms of consciousness, light and blackness dancing with one another, as incomprehensibly gigantic black holes magnetize starlight into their impossibly dense centers.
And then there is life inhabiting the world, which is part of the universe. The universe is made up of you: a combination of stardust and consciousness. This article seeks to connect the big to the small, so we can see reality as One. The world isn’t just trees and volcanoes and beehives — it’s literally you. It’s not just stars and earth-like planets, it’s a cluster of self-aware psyches with the trees and volcanoes and beehives! Insomuch as you change just a fraction of the universe, this limitless universe changes us. Richard Rohr reminds us that infinity divided by any number is still and always will be infinity.
“Anytime we speak, we’ve just disturbed the universe,” my Pir/Sufism Professor Netanel Miles-Yépez once said during dhikr. “There is nothing you can think or say or do without affecting the universe.”
Indeed, thinking small can reveal much. Anytime we think, the universe is affected. Where else do you think revolutions are first birthed? From the thought, you then speak about [Monsanto corruption] with some friends. And then you do it — you take to the streets, and next thing you know, India is experiencing the biggest protest in world history. And it’s all connected.
Your voice, along with others, are part of the street you just disturbed. The street is part of the neighborhood; the neighborhood is part of the city, the city a part of the country; the country a part of the world. . . the world, it turns out, is part of the universe, and the universe was just agitated. The “revolution” used as an example can be replaced by almost anything. Before an empire is built, people think of building buildings. Before a war is started, politicians think of all the natural resources they’ll be able to ‘liberate.’ Before a baby is born, people think of . . . never mind. That’s a philosophical discussion for another day.
Perhaps Changing the World became too big of a concept and too cliché of an idea for humans. So I thought, hey — why not come up with another way of thinking about how transformation works and make it even bigger? For the duration of your life, you can use universe and world interchangeably, as I will, because they are, in fact, interchangeable. I will be doing so often — just keep in mind they are the same thing. And so, it’s not just possible to Change the Universe, it’s inevitable with every blink you take and breath you take
Meditation Participation
- Come up with a short list, perhaps of 10 times you’ve Changed the Universe. Start with the smallest of things — morning stretches, journal entries, high-fives rendered, and onto bigger things like lessons you may have taught a kid, old folks you have made feel less alone in the world, social media posts you knew would upset your friends but you put Truth first.
- Change the Universe 33 times today — take 11 conscious breaths that will Change the Universe. You may think, “My breaths won’t do shit,” but the reality is: you can’t quantify or qualify Universe Change. Remember the aforementioned 0.0035% number. For all you know, you changed .000000000000035% of the universe just now. And since you *are* the universe incarnate, is it possible that if you changed .0035% of your self, you changed .0035% of the universe?
Think on these things throughout the week. And Change the World not for the sake of seeing it changed, but for the sake of Love.