A HYPOTHESIS OF EVERYTHING pt 1: YOU ARE HERE

CHAPTER 3

Your Life in Seven Dimensions

The intention of this Chapter is that you do what is necessary to clarify who you are in this world.

DIMENSION: From the Latin root to “measure out”.

The first four dimensions are time-space dimensions. The fifth dimension occurs as the most prevalent in all aspects of life. It also provides a gateway to the final two dimensions of consciousness.

The zeroeth dimension is more of a philosophical discussion than one of physics, yet for this model is worth mentioning. If the first dimension is a line, dimension zero is a point. It is an infinitely singular instance with no length, width, or depth but necessary as the source of all measurements.

You are the point from which the occurrence of your universe begins. You don’t live outside of your body nor outside of your consciousness. Your perception of everything comes from you, no one else. Yet your self-image isn’t how you see yourself – it’s how you think others or your environment perceives you, and you manage yourself accordingly. The measure of everything in your perceived world outside of yourself originates from dimension zero – you

However, you are also a singular point of an infinite number of points that make up the first dimension line. The line of your life represents you as a point and whatever quantity of other points with which you connect in the very short line, or hyphen between the year you are born and the year you die.

When a pen rests on the paper to write, that landing coordinate is you full of potential for what is next. What will be the expression of that pen? Will it write out words to create a story or letter to someone dear? Will it draw a picture to illustrate life? Will it make numbers to formulate a problem and proceed to solve it? Or will it be random and aimless scribbles until the ink runs dry?

By reason, a lower dimension cannot include a higher dimension. A line doesn’t contain a plane, and a plane doesn’t encompass a cube. If a lower dimension was given thought, it could not even conceive of higher dimensions – like an ant imagining what it’s like to bake the cake from which the crumbs are its food.

The first of seven dimensions in the model is a line – X. It has potentially infinite length. Fortunately, because of the zeroeth dimension, the line can be measured from an immutable reference point. There is no philosophical association to the first dimension besides the comparison to the hyphen, as previously mentioned.

The second dimension is a plane by introducing an intersecting line – Y – to X or XY. I call this the dimension of everything visible because we see only light reflecting off of surfaces. If we were like Superman with x-ray vision, that would be different. Our perception of the world is two-dimensional, even though we experience it mostly in three dimensions. When we grasp something, our hand doesn’t go through it. In reaching into a pile of sand, we still touch only the surfaces of the grains of sand. Your foot slides into a shoe, but your perception is merely the two-dimensional surface of the inside.

The second dimension’s length and width are augmented by another line providing depth – Z – the third dimension. Our five senses live here, observing empirical evidence of reality. Logic and theory are absent. The third dimension is the domain of everything that exists.

For the physical realm to have movement, it requires time to arrive from one point in space to another. Time is the fourth dimension.

Although other calendars exist, the most popular and globally common is the Gregorian calendar. Even though the Gregorian calendar has BC and AD signifying the zero point of the birth of Jesus Christ, there is no negative time. And there is no year zero. It is 1 BC or AD 1 before and after Christ’s birth. Although the religion-neutral terms “CE,” common era, and “BCE” before common era are standard in science and academia, the event in time zero is still the same; the birth of Jesus. Will we ever adopt another time standard of measurement? Well, there used to be nine planets in our solar system. So, if they’re smart enough to kick out Pluto, I’m sure that they can convince the world to have a different type of calendar and units of the duration of time, which is already evident by the initial adoption of the Gregorian calendar. 

The fourth dimension’s unique aspect of time is that it is linear and moves only forward – never backward. Ironically, most humans hold on to the past with an iron grip like their future depends on it. We can take a lesson from this dimension. Time holds no regard for the hour that just passed nor is consumed by regret. Time doesn’t worry about the hour ahead, either. Why should you?

There is abundant evidence of the past before you are born. The past also makes the future predictable. But time is the dimension of only the living because there is no experience of time before and after you are alive and being alive, you are acutely aware that your time is limited.

Some physicists calculate higher dimensions to be the result of vibration or frequency. Many spiritual gurus and self-proclaimed masters teach that we operate on vibrational planes and attract what we have in life. I believe that there is truth to both the physicists’ and the gurus’ claims that the fifth dimension is vibration and frequency. Included is rhythm, energy, patterns, light, sound, brain waves, and specifically for this paradigm, imagination and language.

Medellín, Colombia, is globally recognized with various awards that spotlight its metro transportation system of busses, trains, and cable cars that connect every barrio in its metropolitan footprint. The scale of this undertaking astounds me every time I board one of the trains or climb into a cable car. I wonder what conversations happened to fuse the various ideas that encapsulated the project’s initial vision. What happened that created the agreement of all of the municipalities to participate? The Medellín metro system prides itself in the “cultura metro” sentiment that fosters cooperation and prioritizes the disabled, elderly, and pregnant women. Every bus, cable car, and train and every inch of concrete, glass, and steel was formed and perfectly positioned because of language. And how many conversations happen daily to maintain and expand this massive entity?

Magic spells are cast in language. Sacred texts are revered and regarded to contain a higher power than just words written on a page. The United States Declaration of Independence is foundational to the framework of the American culture, as is the Emancipation Proclamation. The same verses of the Bible and Quran that give us promises of hope and connection are in the same books of verses that have ignited endless wars.

When the English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” he could have never predicted what social media would do to incite rage and shame and obliterate the reputations of others – even unto death. How many playwrights, movie producers, comedians, and restaurant owners place their fate in the words of reputed critics?

Politicians and religious and military leaders marshal the media to spread propaganda and orders for citizens to kill their friends and neighbors in the furry of genocide. In 2014, two high school seniors at Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City, California, produced a film called “Cut the Tall Trees: The Killing Power of Words.” The short documentary by Noah Bennett and Max Cho was about the Rwandan genocide that happened in 1994 before the students were even born. 

In Kigali, Rwanda, a popular radio station filled its programming with energetic cultural music and announcement breaks between sets of songs belittling and dehumanizing the Tutsi minority tribe. The masses of Hutu listeners were being conditioned over the airwaves to carry out murderous brutality. All that they were waiting for was the right set of words to take action.

As mentioned in the first chapter, language is the dimension of order and chaos.

But there is also language that does nothing. It is the product of entitlement, survival, and fear. It includes but not limited to:

1.  Lying
2. Complaining
3. Making excuses
4. Gossiping
5. Blaming
6. Superstition
7. Tantrums of fearful anger
8. Worry as in attachment with no action
9. Projected false empathy, i.e., “you must be so embarrassed,”
10. Exaggeration
11. Most Sarcasm – some well-placed and well-timed sarcasm has an illuminating effect like shining a light on ignorance or apathy. It’s also useful if there is a humorous intention. Please leave it to the professionals.

This language has only a negative value or is, at best, totally useless.

Here is a list of some useful speech:

1. “Yes”, and “No”. Keep it simple.
2. Gratitude. Say, “Thank you.”
3. Affection / Affinity. Say, “I love you” or “I like you.”
4. Positive acknowledgment. Tell the truth to someone about them and be generous with the truth. Apply effort.
5. Promises. Declare and keep them with integrity and clear communication.
6. Say things that help people have fun and laugh.

As you can notice, useless speech requires no responsibility and mostly denies responsibility, whereas useful speech is clear, illuminating, and creates a meaningful future to enjoy.

So then how does language relate to the fourth dimension of time? All of us regularly manipulate time with language. Did you buy anything recently or enter into an agreement that required your signature for a future reality of ownership? When was the last time you called or sent a text promising to meet someone for lunch or coffee at a specific time and place in the near future? Every promise that you make includes shaping time at some level.

What about traveling to the past? Isn’t the past unchangeable and set in stone? Consider this. Has anyone ever apologized to you with the depth of sincerity that changed your relationship with them? Did the trauma of the pain that they caused lessen when they humbly took full ownership of their words and actions? When they told you that they desired to have a better relationship with you after their confession and apology, did you feel a sense of redemption? Did some of the resentment and bitterness you had against them fall away? Did even your memories of bitterness and resentment fade? THAT is traveling to the past.

The only access to traveling to the past or future is using the fifth dimension of language and incorporating the sixth dimension of responsibility. In fact, your promises and apologies are only as effective as the degree of responsibility applied. You’ve heard promises from friends or politicians that hold no weight because there is no evidence of reliability. Your credit score is the only window into your level of responsibility that the car dealership has so that they can trust you to pay them or the bank over time.

In our magical thinking about manipulating time, responsibility is usually the last item in our list of considerations. If time travel does exist in the dimension of frequency or vibration, the igniter and fuel that drives it resides in the sixth dimension of responsibility as a dimension of consciousness.

There is also a passageway between language and responsibility. For language to manifest action, motivation is required. Basic motivations are responses to physical needs such as hunger, thirst, shelter, and fundamental comfort. We are also motivated to protect ourselves from danger and react to pain. Besides the primal urges of instinct and the survival of the species, however, motivation comes from one of two sources – inspiration or fear. Lusts for power, money, and attention are all based on your fear identity. Fear of loss, rejection, or looking bad drives most of humanity and is a compelling motivator.

Motivation that creates emanates from inspiration. Inspiration is future-based as opposed to fear, which is a reminder of past trauma and failure that implies a predictable tragic outcome. Words like “faith”, and “hope” lead us to responsibility that, in turn, gives us meaning and purpose.

Reputations exist only in language, but the results are genuine and also dwell in the portal of motivation.

The phenomenon of agreement is one of collective consciousness. It’s how we measure reality. Whoever receives the most votes is president, governor, or mayor. Authors are more real if they are on the bestsellers list. Facebook pages are measured in “likes”. Youtube designates your channel as more real when you reach 1,000 subscribers agreeing that your channel has value. Advertising and marketing are forces for establishing reality in agreement. Social media influencers get paid to make you or your product real – all inside of this passageway between the fifth and sixth dimensions.

Note: not all reality is given only by language and agreement. PAIN is very real independent of agreement or language.

But none of this has any impact on the world without the sixth dimension of responsibility. Responsibility takes language and translates it into intentional results. Responsibility is uniquely human. It is the dimension of meaning and purpose.

Not only is the sixth dimension uniquely human, it is also necessarily human. The denial of responsibility is a paradox. Yes, you can pick and choose which responsibility appeals to you most. But without responsibility, you go crazy, literally. Emotional support animals aren’t there just to look cute or charge up your egocentric demand for unconditional love. Without you, your pet dies. It generously gives you the gift of being responsible. Depression and anxiety are alleviated when you have something to do that makes a difference.

I have a friend named Charlie. Charlie is in his late sixties and has suffered from chronic depression since he was a teenager. Most days, he can’t even get out of bed feeling crushed under the pressure of acute anxiety. His mania is polarized, as is typical with that type of mental illness. Periods of hyper-discipline of walking many miles per day and eating only healthy food with a focus on low-calory meals are contrasted with spells of binging on sweets and fattening food. The only time that he leaves his house during his binging periods is to buy his daily liter of ice cream. The events or notions that trigger the pendulum to swing from one side to the other are elusive, even to himself. Charlie has a prescription for an SSRI antidepressant but doesn’t like to take them.

As a retired teacher, one of the saving graces that alleviated Charlie’s depression was a volunteer job as a teacher’s assistant. It gave him a familiar routine, a predictable destination, and, most importantly, responsibility. When that job assignment finished, he told me on multiple occasions how he wished there was a similar opportunity to give him another sense of responsibility. Without it, Charlie resigned himself to filling his days binge-watching downloaded series of mostly crime investigation shows with a redemptive ending for the hero and the villain getting what they deserved.

Responsibility was the thing that Charlie needed to feel better and consider himself a functioning part of humanity. In the absence of something meaningful, Charlie was visited daily by his demons that incessantly mocked him and left him sobbing against the rail of his sixth-floor balcony, desperately wishing that he had the courage to end it all. After a few months of sharing life with Charlie, I’m convinced that if he ended up in hell, it would be an existential upgrade.

Knowing Charlie was a gift of grace. I knew that this book, A HYPOTHESIS OF EVERYTHING, demanded a specific enlightenment that only exploring the dark and treacherous underbelly of the fear identity could offer. My personality type isn’t given to chronic depression. Even spells of sadness are rare. I remember contemplating the necessary exploration in this book and praying to God to help me understand depression more intimately. I didn’t ask God to spare me from making me go through it, but I hoped that He would read between the lines. He did. I met Charlie days after that request, followed by another man named Paul, who suffered from a different flavor of depression. My time with them has taught me much. I’m not sure that deeply depressed people are allowed to have friends, but I think that I was close to being one for each of them. It wasn’t my idea of a barrel of fun, but if there is something in this book that touches you in a way that speaks truth to your sadness, regret, or shame, much credit goes to Charlie and Paul. 

We have access to whatever we declare in this world and for which we can be responsible. Culture and society rely on responsibility for balance and community. However, there exists in this dimension, a natural gravity like the gravity we experience every day. There is nothing inherently “wrong” with gravity. We learn how to use it, get around it, or get over it. The gravity in responsibility is “significance” and “fear,” usually wrapped up in some form of shame or regret. These pull at our declarations, promises, and intentions. When the choices we make are made in a powerless context, we always see how significance and fear are at work. When we notice that our communication falls lifeless in front of us, we can focus and try to make significance and fear disappear, or we can simply add the Seventh Dimension to our choices and responsibility.

I believe that the seventh dimension is an intertwining of love and truth. They are not the same word nor concept, but each is bigger than our experience and shares an indication of something essentially perfect, absolute, and ultimate.

The icon I use to symbolize the Seventh Dimension is light overwhelming darkness. There is a lot we now know about the sun that also reveals how much we don’t know. For sun-worshippers, there is the acknowledgment that the sun nourishes us and that there is no life without it. Whether we bless it or curse it makes no difference. The sun still manifests and maintains whatever it wants. There is something much higher and more true than our comprehension of it. As an example of ultimate power, the sun is definitely the biggest kid on the block. We cannot look directly into the sun on a clear day for much time without injuring our eyes. I believe that love and truth can be similarly brilliant and penetrate us in immediately uncomfortable ways. Our first response is to turn away from it or quickly shut down our consciousness. As the symbol that I use for the seventh dimension, there is illumination, authenticity, nourishment, and life. And something inherently unknowable is inviting us to engage in it and discover more.

Like responsibility, love/truth is a dimension of consciousness. I believe that it is naturally embedded at birth in each human because both love and truth function as proprietary receptacles. Examples would be a coffee mug or a shot glass. Tossing back a shot of milk doesn’t work. A shot glass is designed for something much more potent and mind-altering. Your ceramic mug labeled “coffee” isn’t for lemonade unless you’re playing a practical joke on someone.

My Christian friends explain that there is an emptiness in every human that only God can fill called a “God-sized hole.” I believe that there is a space in the human psyche uniquely designed and capable of holding love that only love can fill, and it is the same for truth. There is also something about love and truth that function as mirrors that each reflects back to the giver. The only access to truth outside of you is the recognition of truth within you that connects with the external. Everything that isn’t love or truth blocks or smudges the mirrors to the extent that neither are discernible in their capacity to reflect anything. Clean your damned mirrors once in a while. Practicing gratitude is the perfect glass cleaner.

The next chapter is about ideals and aiming higher than yourself. If your highest ideal is family and you think that you already know everything there is to know about it, you have already failed or are about to. Ideals are everywhere in life as we will explore, but your highest ideal is something for which the notion of sacrificing your life to it is both the obvious choice and evident lifestyle. And that sacrifice does not occur to you like a destiny of suffering; it is an immediate encounter with joy and meaningful responsibility. Your thirst for your highest ideal will never be fully quenched, and you will never stop trying.