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New choice of words. Or of worlds, maybe.
"Change the world", "be the change", there are hearts for whom that is still absolutely the right language.
But not for you. :) Let's find some language for you.
Steer into the world you want to see, maybe? Or perhaps tuning, like picking up a radio signal? Curating? Selectively settling into?
The trick here is to emphasize the element of choice without minimizing any aspect of what is, without erasure. There is no erasure. The world you are in is here, in every beautiful and terrible detail. It is real, and you are in it, and it all matters. Has to matter.
But from a universal perspective, this world is bound to this singular moment, eternal and unchanging — and with every breath you move from one world to the next.
The game isn't to change the world. The game is to catch hands with all those you love, and to look upwind to a world that serves you all better.
Upwind. Unexpected word to come up here. "Upwind" means you can catch the scent of it on the breeze, maybe make out a word or a laugh if the wind is just right. The wind is carrying traces of your best future down to you, giving you hints of what's ahead. It's up to you to navigate. (Desire is radar.)
You don't move through the world, and you don't change the world. You move from one world to the next, and you change the worlds in your field of view. Those are your tools.
The reason that the worlds look so similar and the transition so seamless, one moment to the next and one world to the next, is that you are deeply, passionately connected to so many living parts of it — and they are all coming with you. (They're experiencing their version of this too, by the way!) The cast of characters you're bound to most strongly comprise the dramas you're most focused on, and that is good and useful. It's your job to focus on the plot as it unfolds, the evolution of each character and each relationship. The scenery, though, is not your job. The curtains are not your job. The play of your lived experience unfolds on a stage, and every element of the stage is constantly being adjusted and exchanged to suit the story. You don't need to get hung up on the set. And if you want a better set, tell a better story. What words would pave the way for something more beautiful, more safe to experience? If you-as-your-own-audience are exhausted or bewildered or afraid, what segue can you add? What transition can you set up that would usher in an experiential balm, a relief for your audience and the cast alike? The stage is responding to you, offering up backdrops and set pieces that support where you're going — you and your fellow cast members, and here we pull focus to the primary point we hope to make.
There's a nuance here that y'all get stuck on, and it's a good one. The other characters are persistent. They do matter. Their joys and sorrows matter. It's all real. And you want to help! That makes so much sense — that desire (desire is radar!) comes from the same place that spurs the universe into supporting you. But the universe doesn't give you aid by fixing you and your life. The universe prepares and holds new scene changes in the wings, and waits for you to carry the audience into the next act. It is eagerly prepared for whatever you might do next.
The scene supports the story, but the story always leads.
No element goes unused. Nothing appears that does not serve a purpose. Not because the purpose was prewritten, but because it'd just be bad storytelling. Chekhov's gun, and all that. You had a feeling you might need an umbrella, so you brought one, and you ended up needing it after all? Great! You caught a trace of a scene change upwind, and you used it. You sailed into the wind. Had you followed a different storyline, you may have ended up in a world where it didn't rain after all — and that also would have been perfect. You would have found your fellow cast members there as well, just the same. :)
All possible worlds exist, just as all possible numbers exist. The magnitude of that array isn't the point — the point is which ones you experience, and that counts for worlds and numbers. (Is there a connection? STAY TUNED.) The elements of your world that you hold in your mind filter the worlds that you may move into next. This is why it's so beneficial to focus on the good: it ensures that the worlds in your view are the ones where those beloved things remain in the next scene. Inversely, this is also why letting go is built into the experience: it frees you to queue up worlds that you couldn't see when you were trying to hold on.
Your guilt does not serve the world. Not because of your guilt, though. It's because you cannot serve the world at all. What would that mean? How could you serve one world, among infinite worlds?
All worlds exist, unchangingly. You and yours are navigating seamlessly between them in a beautifully improvised group performance. You cannot change a world as you pass; you're moving too fast for that, and your velocity is only growing. All you can do is set your sights on a better world — whatever that means according to your very best sense and understanding — and then carry the very best in your cast-mates with you.
:)
Exciting, no?
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