The Universe Is Not Trying To Tell You Something
Except that the universe has nothing to tell you
Very Unpopular Strong Opinions Blog by Christyl Rivers
Bad vibrations
Some phrases really make me cringe:
The Universe is trying to tell me something.
I must silence the negative voices in my head.
The law of attraction will draw what you need.
Everything happens for a reason.
It’s Karma, dude.
We are all just made of energy.
Stay positive, lean into your good vibrations.
Your energy and aura are really great today
Crystals will raise the vibrational energy.
And, so on.
I am absolutely sure that most of these things are said with good, or at least harmless, intent.
Yet, I pull away when I hear them.
My automatic response is negative, not positive.
Don’t get me wrong. I do believe the universe has much to teach us. Everything. In fact. It’s just that it is not tuned in on you. In humility, we have to recognize we are one animal, on one fragile planet, in just one galaxy.
This should make us special to each other, including the life supportive biosphere to which we belong.
Losing my religion
Please don’t assume that new-age nonsense is somehow worse than some organized religions. A few new-agers are out to sell some oils, tinctures, and crystals, but by and large they are not collecting your last paycheck to keep some racist, nationalist, sexist, “Christian” in power.
This is good news. A new enlightened age is a small step in the right direction, I guess. So, why do some of us find these kinds of notions so annoying?
There are many reasons.
First, there is overlap. Many religious people (all faiths) also believe in things like astrology, reincarnation, psychic power, and energy in objects and people. The overlap tells us that people are searching for whatever positive thing they can grasp. They also align, and randomly mix their strange beliefs. They sometimes have hovering about them angels, ghosts, and demons as well as vibrational energy objects.
Second, the more powerless that some of us feel, the more we reach toward finding some power and direction in our astrological sign, or in what our chakra is saying that day. Another indication of this is that women, generally with less power than men, have seventy percent of their beliefs centered around energy, astrology, afterlife, and psychic phenomena. Whereas men, just over half, self-report such beliefs.
This suggests that a need for empowerment is influencing thoughts more than the vibrational energy is doing.
Third, in the context of countless religions, belief systems, histories of cults, and more, we can find just as much contradiction as we find overlap. There is a strange tincture, after all, a Molotov cocktail of things that merge, mix, and sometimes ignite one another, obliterating any chance at all that I can swallow the concoction.
Fourth, when we hear, or repeat these ideas, it sounds, somehow, too pat and patterned.
How would we know that the Universe is trying to tell us something? One reason it is hard to swallow is that it’s a common phrase, meme, or an idea that is not truly thought about, just repeated. It sounds like a very kind and inclusive thought.
This triggers our confirmation bias. We’re in, baby!
It may very well be that the Universe is trying to “tell us something.” But what interest does the Universe have in us? If we can’t have some kind of reasoned idea, maybe panpsychism, or at least a handful of fully developed theories on how that might work, it sounds meaningless.
Lock her up!
When it comes to powerful, vibrational energy and positivity, we have to listen to an inner voice that says negative feelings are just as powerful. And, necessary. They inform us of important and sometimes, urgent truth. They snap us out of denial when we address them correctly.
The movie Don’t Look Up is a parable for our times that tells us we are stupid to just meme a three word phrase and pretend it is ultimate truth, or good advice.
Truth, reality, and most often, Earth, are referred to as a “she”. When we freeze and lock up our planet and universe as something designed solely for us, we miss the bigger picture, a bigger meaning here, that we can be in awe of more truthfully.
Finally, yes, we are made of energy and matter, and true enough, we are, as Carl Sagan has said, made of “star stuff” Yes, in an obvious sense we are one. Or ONE, because space time and chemistry are involved, but new age thought is not about physics as much as it is about thought, opinion, and most of all, feelings.
Feelings are great. In fact, we don’t use our feelings — informed by our senses- nearly enough.
Open your senses to the positive, but also the negative, “signs” that will inform you of fire, flood, smoke, dead animals, pandemics and more. These things are real. They are happening.
The Earth, (and not the universe), is trying to tell you something.