When you look out at the world, you might think you are observing something outside of yourself. However, you can see nothing but your state reflected onto the external world. Notice how when you’re happy or sad, the same exact situation could mean completely different things. If your identity and experience are relatively stable over time, you might begin to think that the world is objective. In a sense, it is, for as long as you hold the objective worldview.

And perhaps that is what objectivity means - stability of the inner state. However, once you go through some extreme highs and lows, especially in a short period of time, you can begin to notice: what seems to be an independent and objective external reality is really just your interpretation of the inner creation.

If you don’t like what you see, you are the problem—Not someone else, not some external situation. This is what it means to take on the ultimate responsibility.

Jordan Peterson introduced me to this quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky:

“There is only one way to salvation, and that is to make yourself responsible for all men's sins. As soon as you make yourself responsible in all sincerity for everything and for everyone, you will see at once that this is really so, and that you are in fact to blame for everyone and for all things.”

There is nothing more worth living for than the adoption of the ultimate responsibility. The responsibility begins with the acceptance of all the contents of experience. When I wake up in the morning, that half-asleep/half-awake state is one in which consciousness is coming into contact with the real world, all over again, and it’s a painful process. Especially if I had peaceful dreams and woke up to pains, anxieties, difficult thoughts, and so on. The temptation for me, each day, is to avoid facing the totality of that experience all over again. To spend as long as possible in the warmth of my bed and remain in a state of small awareness.

As it turns out, my responsibility to interface with the real world always comes knocking. At first, gently. Then louder and louder, until eventually, it’s a deafening insistence on my participation in life. Often times that comes with powerful negative thoughts that wrap me up in a bundle of self-defeat. I’ve never found a way to avoid this process, except to go straight into it voluntarily. If I don’t choose my challenges courageously, they choose me.

It has also come to my attention, relatively recently, that in facing what I might consider “undesirable” about my experience, the depth of its meaning can be revealed through a new narrative, one that more closely resembles those I find deeply meaningful in books and movies. Everything can make sense from one point of view, but that doesn’t take away from it making sense from another point of view.

“I’m depressed and can’t get out of bed” isn’t nearly as inspiring of a story as the one where I am a part of the divine drama (and each individual needs to discover this for themselves). My story is the center of the universe in the same way as our solar system is in the center of the observable universe, and any other point in the infinite universe is just as centred. So stop orbiting and align with the central narrative.

At the center of many spiral galaxies is a black hole. At the center of the multiverse is the all-seeing eye.

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