I’ve been accused of overthinking things. Like, a lot. My friend says that when I stare at a jar of pickles too long, it looks like I’m about to solve the riddle of the universe; or have a small stroke.
And I suppose that’s fair. I mean, I once cried during an episode of Antiques Roadshow because I thought the furniture appraiser was some kind of an enlightened being; possibly my new guru. He had a kindly mustache and seemed to know everything about 19th-century sideboards. I mean, who wouldn’t feel spiritually seen?
But lately, my brain has turned its neurotic spotlight toward the possibility that we aren’t exactly individuals, per se, but rather fleshy little antennae tuning into some kind of grand quantum consciousness; like walkie-talkies from a divine RadioShack, or the movie Cell. What if thoughts aren’t ours at all, but rather something we catch, like colds or late-night jazz standards?
I first heard about this idea from a man on YouTube with suspiciously smooth skin and a necklace made of what I think were raccoon teeth. He said, quite convincingly, that we’re all just localized expressions of a unified field of intelligent awareness, and that time isn’t real.
Then he asked for donations.
Still, something about it stuck; probably the way things stick when you’ve had too much wine and your cat is staring at you like it knows you’re faking confidence.
Given all the talk lately about AI agents, I was thinking: If we are agents of quantum consciousness, it would explain a few things. Like why I regularly forget my ATM PIN but can remember the exact wording of a conversation I had in seventh grade where someone said my eyebrows were “kind of indecisive.”
It might also explain why every time I think of someone I haven’t seen in years, they either call me, show up on social media, or die. Coincidence? Or just the universe poking me with a very large, very cosmic elbow?
There are other signs. For instance, whenever I meditate, which I do at least once a year, I feel this brief flicker of something vast. It’s like the moment you realize your rental car has heated seats: surprising, slightly euphoric, and gone before you fully grasp the potential of it.
During these moments, I entertain the idea that the ME I know (cranky, mildly lactose-intolerant, always forgetting laundry in the washer) isn’t the full story. Maybe I’m a neuron in a brain I’ll never see. Maybe we’re all just the universe whispering to itself through mouths full day-old cheetos.
It’s comforting, in a way, to think we’re not alone in our heads. That our inner monologues might be part of a greater dialogue, even if that dialogue sometimes involves yelling at squirrels or wondering whether this rash is cosmic punishment for a night of too much drinking and — let’s just call it amorous behavior.
The idea of being connected to everyone else, even the guy who refuses to use his turn signal, gives life a certain tragicomic poetry. Like being at a family reunion where everyone is distantly related and just as emotionally unstable as you.
Of course, the downside to being part of a grand, thinking universe is that it makes my day-to-day pettiness feel wildly inappropriate. Like, if the cosmos is using me to think Big Thoughts, should I really be this upset that my neighbor trimmed my hydrangeas without asking? Probably not. But here we are.
If quantum intelligence really is flowing through all of us, it must be exhausted. I mean, think of all the idiotic things we funnel through it: small talk and conspiracy theories about birds being government drones.
And yet, somehow, the intelligence keeps beaming in, like a very patient parent trying to explain taxes to a toddler holding a crayon up their nose.
And so, I live in uncertainty. Not the romantic kind that leads to spiritual awakening, but the kind where you forget what you came into the kitchen for and suddenly question your entire identity. Still, I like to imagine the universe enjoys this ridiculous experiment. That somewhere in the quantum void, there’s laughter; warm, curious, a little exasperated.
After all, if we are vessels of a cosmic mind, maybe we were designed not for perfection but for amusement. To make the unknowable a little more knowable. To marvel, to mess up, to microwave things that really shouldn’t be microwaved.
And maybe, in those rare moments of clarity, when you remember the name of that actor from that thing, you’re not just remembering. You’re aligning. Tapping into a vast, absurd, intelligent whole that thinks, despite all evidence to the contrary, that you’re doing just fine.
Join us in making the world a better place — you’ll be glad that you did. Cheers friends.