"Just Right" and Other Impossible Things

Since I was pretty young (relative, of course, to my current youth), I’ve swung back and forth between two extremes in terms of my beliefs about the nature of existence. Call it a hobby, or something akin to one.  Both extreme notions can be summarized in simple statements: “everything is temporary,” and “everything is permanent.”  The former seems to hold dominance in times when I feel the most ill at ease.  It is when I am insecure and afraid and sad that I think to myself that everything fades eventually, and one day it will be me that fades: completely temporary.  The latter, as you may infer, predominates when I feel the most consistent joy.  When things seem to be going right, when I feel the most supported and loved, I am thrilled to feel as though those moments live on forever, inside of me, etched on some cosmic record somewhere: infinite and permanent.

Today, in my Indian Religion and Philosophy class, my professor read from The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.  He read about theories on how the universe came to be, and he explained how they connected to what we have been learning about orthodox Hindu traditions.  He read a passage about the mathematical tendency of the universe to expand after shrinking enough, and the potential tendency to crunch back down once a maximum expansion has been reached.  He read about the location of the Big Bang — right here where I am, right there where you are, and everywhere (and every time) between and beyond.  He described how this mirrors the belief in Hinduism that God keeps three roles — creator, maintainer, and destroyer of the Universe — and that those roles repeat themselves over and over infinitely.  Expanding, crunching, humming forever, as we all move back and forth together.

I admit, in answer to the question I’m sure you’re asking, that I cried in class today.  I cried both because the notion of infinitely repeating the life I am living, of recreating the world in which I live, is heartbreaking, and because it is breathtaking.  There is so much I would not wish for my worst enemy to have to live through that I already have, let alone wanting to live through those moments again myself.  But to repeat this world millions of millions of times would also be to repeat sitting in the grass with my friend on a warm spring evening.  Some iteration of me would hug my dad again, would read the first book I ever loved for the first time again, would fall in love with my best friends over and over and over again.  

My professor mentioned also Friedrich Nietzsche’s discussion of infinite return, the suggestion that if we are living in one of an infinite number of universes recapitulated just this way forever, we should live in a way that we would be proud to live forever.  The suggestion is not determinism, but destiny.  There is nothing we must do, but there are ways that we can live which result in the most beauty, success, and grace.

Recently and accidentally, I mentioned a sort of smallish existential crisis to someone I did not know very well.  Immediately, I tried to mitigate the impact of the statement, because I do not want near strangers to think of me as some frightened or weak or unstable person who needs to be looked after, despite how it may sometimes appear.  However, the person at whom I was rambling did not seem to need these reassurances.  He simply said that he understood, that it’s about that time of year.  He did not know that what I truly meant in an offhanded comment about an existential crisis was that the two beliefs I have always been able to decide between regarding the nature of the entire universe no longer seemed to make sense.  My reality’s fabric seemed to suddenly have a hole.  But his response was Goldilocksian.  Not too hot, not to cold, but just right.

Lately, it’s felt as though every time I meet someone new, I have to spend a few days crying about it.  I, as I know many other people do, hunger for connection, friendship, intimacy.  This life offers so many opportunities to experience these things with so many beautiful, breathtaking people.  Sometimes, we are fortunate enough to really dive into those opportunities.  Sometimes, we meet our soulmates, or our mentors, or our best friends.  More often, however, we meet people who stop being strangers for a few minutes wherein they share a brief excerpt of one of the most beautiful stories in the world, the rest of which we are not entitled to, and which will continue on their own, unique trajectory which is so, remarkably different from our own.  

My relationship with this category of people consistently breaks my heart, causes me stress, creates unnecessary existentialism; I want those stories, to understand those trajectories.  For me, that person seems unbearably temporary, even as I know that their permanence is at the heart of the matter.

If I’m living this life forever, if I’m experiencing today for the rest of eternity, then it’s somehow both permanent and temporary, just like the books from which I only get a sentence, just like the people I love but do not know.  This breath is only happening once in this life, and then this life will happen millions, billions, trillions of times.  It’s the same breath, and yet it can never be the same breath.  The opportunities that exist in this life are unique, they are temporary, but the consequences of how I interact with those opportunities can be very permanent.  I want to live a life I would be proud to live forever.  I want to approach those people whose stories I am not entitled to with grace, being as good and uplifting to them as they are to me, even in the short ten minutes we may know one another.  I want to be the most that I can for the people to whose stories I am blessed with greater access.  I want to carve a place for myself in this life where I can continue to experience in joy for the rest of the expanding, crunching, humming, universe.

“It’s that time of year,” was the perfect response to my moment (or lifetime, depending on the viewpoint) of crisis.  The moment, the confusion, was temporary.  It was unique, and it was going to alter things from then on out.  But it was also regular, almost destined.  It was what was happening, what may have happened, what might keep happening for a very long time.  

It was right on time, and it was not.  An answer, but only in that it answered nothing at all.