There’s No Place like No Place

Are you really on the inside looking out?

I’ve written about the Inside-Outside Distinction. This distinction holds that everything we experience around us is based on a single idea: there is everything inside me, and there is everything outside the boundary of my skin. Everything on the outside is not me. Fundamental to this distinction is another concept: the idea of boundary. Without boundaries like skin and walls, the Inside-Outside Distinction dissolves. In fact, there can be no me, no you, without this idea of boundary.

On the micro level of the profound descriptions provided by quantum mechanics, these boundaries don’t really exist. Boundaries are, therefore, at least on the quantum level, more like choices, beliefs and assumptions than they are realities. They are perceptual ‘defaults,’ if you will; patterns which our meaning-programmed brains impose upon reality.

If this is so, then the Inside-Outside Distinction has implications, doesn’t it? And some of those ramifications have to do with our sense of place. Particle physics has introduced another concept to us, and that is nonlocal cause, or nonlocality. It’s the description of reality which illustrates that information can travel faster than the speed of light. In fact, data can be transported instantaneously without regard to distance. Space isn’t something we have to cross in order to move information from one point to another. With nonlocal cause, there is no here, and there is no there.

If there’s no ‘out there,’ then there’s no ‘in here.’ If there’s no out there, then there’s no there. If there’s no there, there’s no here. This means there is no place, no location where anything really is. Everything’s all here. In a sense, everything is within.

You look out at the world, and you see everything out there. You believe that everything that isn’t you is out there. Yet without the boundary between you and all of it, there is no out there. There’s no place. Most of us have come to think in terms of me/not me, here/there, now/then. And we engage with these dichotomies in a rather disempowering way. We wish we were the other person, or at least with the other person. We pine away for being with someone, and when we ‘get’ that someone, we want someone else. Or maybe no one at all.

We’re here, but we wish we were there. And once we’re there, we’re just here again, only to wish we were someplace else. Finding another there never seems to make us happy.

We’re now, and look forward to a future when we’ll have something better, something else. and once we’re then, we’re just in now again, only to wish we were in another time. We’re really not happier then than we are now. We’ve even invented a place called paradise where we’ll always be ultimately happy. It’s the ultimate place, so it brings ultimate happiness. And it’s always in the future, in some other time than now. And it’s always in some other place than here.

All these places and times are right here, right now, since there is and can be no other place and no other time. All these places, even the bad one we call hell, are reflections of a place inside, an idea. If it’s hell, it just mirrors a feeling of supernal emptiness and loneliness. If it’s heaven, it’s an experience of fulfillment and belonging.

The choice is really ours, since the place is a state. It’s state of mind. It’s a condition, and that condition is chosen. It’s not a location or a time, since everything’s always right here, right now. There’s no running from here and now. We can’t escape it.

A couple other implications of the Inside-Outside Distinction. One, no one out there can make you happy or unhappy. The source of all your problems is inside. The good news is that the source of all your solutions is inside, too. Why? Because nothing inside is caused by the outside world. And why’s that? Because there’s no inside, and no outside.  Cause and effect are both ‘located’ in the same place. So that means no one is doing anything to you, and either is anything outside yourself the cause of your problems. This also means that the source of happiness is right here, right now, too.

I know these are radical concepts. But unless you want to spend the rest of your life unhappy, blaming everything and everyone else, you’d better get used to the fact that there’s no there there.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within