The Universe is a Dick
“The Universe is indifferent” is a common refrain. Common enough, that it’s almost taken as an article of faith, and normally met with sober nods of assent. There is an air of scientific objectivity to it and also a bit of poetry and stoic bravado. It feels grown-up to acknowledge the cold reality of life, to put away childish dreams and to move on sensibly and perhaps lovingly from there.
When examined more closely, it becomes clear that there is more going on here. The statement is true if viewed in a certain way, grossly presumptuous in another but generally inadequate as a conceptual approach to life.
First, the truth.
“The Universe is indifferent” is a spiritual statement in the guise of a scientific observation. It pretends to be saying what the Universe is, when it is actually telling us how to feel about it. It is a projection of a very human quality onto the outside world. Think about how the word “indifferent” might be normally used, particularly in reference to other human beings. Think of how it feels to describe a mother or father as indifferent, and it’s clear that there is an implicit sense of painful disappointment in the use. When we are describing something as indifferent we are not just saying that it does not care, but that it does not care in contrast to our desire for it to do so. It’s clear from the contexts where this statement is normally used that this is usually what is intended. It is meant to disabuse us of the naïve hope that the Universe, or some god orchestrating it, has our best interests in mind.
Good. It just so happens that that is the perfect place to start. It is essentially a restatement of the First Noble Truth of Buddhism — “Life is Suffering”, or as it has been alternatively translated, “Life is Unsatisfactoriness”. Life the Universe and Everything is going to be — in some sense and in some way — disappointing. Sometimes subtly so, but inevitably and also tragically so. Once we accept that we can make some very powerful choices. We can choose to be loving and kind in the midst of a Universe that could care less. It moves us to take ownership for our lives and to fill the void with love. There can be a profound purpose found in comforting one another in the midst of our shared suffering. This is a useful perspective to take, but we should be clear that it is a perspective and therefore drenched with subjectivity. It is a way for us to think about the Universe, and sometimes a very useful one, but it does not tell us what it is.
When examined from an ontological perspective the statement is on much shakier ground. “The Universe is indifferent” assumes that the Universe has a very specific and very limited orientation towards us, and that that orientation is, well, “universal”. As an objective statement, this is clearly not the case. Human beings are part of the Universe, and we clearly give a shit about one another. Then there’s all the mind blowing variety of life on our planet. While I’m not going to project some sort of cheery human qualities on it (with the exception of dogs) there is clearly a massive variety of orientations that life takes toward humanity. I would include indifference within that variety (cats, obviously), but I wouldn’t consider it to be anywhere in the majority.
Even all the other stuff that we don’t consider alive is hardly sufficiently described as “indifferent”. We are in a constant flow with the world around us. It’s full of chaos and order, volatility and inertness, emptiness and abundance, mystery and immanence. Taking in substances that we convert into what we perceive as selves and excreting them when their energy has been harvested. Our very life depends on the constant interaction with the volatile oxygen we breathe in and transform into energy within our bodies. Our boundary with the world around us is fuzzy and only gets fuzzier with increased examination. If we as humans are not indifferent and our boundary is uncertain, where then does the indifference of the Universe end and where does our human sense of caring begin?
For all the rest of the stuff out there, if we are going to be ruthlessly empirical about the question, the truth is that we don’t know. Projecting love onto that mystery may be an error, but so is projecting indifference. Mortifying humility in this regard is a far better starting point.
If you do choose to take it as a spiritual perspective, roughly analogous to the First Noble Truth, it is still a limited perspective. There are, after all, Truths that follow “The First Noble One”. You can take the Buddhist route and jump right into “There is an end to suffering” but more generally there are other warmer perspectives we can take on the Universe, each of which have their place. But to be quite frank, chronically thinking of the Universe as indifferent is also just a really fucking depressing way to live your life. It may sound great while high and impress pseudo-intellectual dating prospects but it may also lead to a premature death by suicide (not that the Universe would care).
I can understand how this point of view might seem appropriate when summiting the parking berm on the way to your mind-numbing office-park job or browsing for an acid reducer in your local WalMart. There is much indifference, and no shortage of overt hostility that surrounds us. But we have to ask if what we are seeing is some inherent quality in reality, or a milieu manufactured by human error. Either way, it doesn’t seem the right perspective to take when hiking in the natural world or exploring the side streets of a pre-automobile city, much less sharing a laugh or a loving embrace. Sometimes the Universe feels cold and unforgiving and other times it is magical and generous. Sanity and wisdom is found in finding peace with the former point of view but happiness can only really be found in cultivating openness to the second. How the Universe feels about us can’t ever really be known, but how we feel about the Universe is entirely up to us.