Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
This is the name of the movie that came out in 2022, which was extremely revolutionary. Well, to me, at least. I resonated with every part, every scene of the movie, even the chaos and unorganizedness of the film. Especially, that part.
But we all know the story, we can watch the movie anytime if we wanted to. Today, it’s a different story I wanted to talk about. In the film, there’s this specific scene where the mom and daughter go through every parallel universe, simultaneously experiencing everything. Even the universe in which they were just two little rocks, laying next to each other. The daughter then tells her mom to just relax and be a rock, don’t try to be anything else in this universe. Because their whole purpose here is just to be a rock. To which she replies, “it’s really calm here.”
This is very important to note, because I recently finished reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. It’s a very small, thin book with just a few pages but every word seemed important so I took my time understanding and grasping everything that was going on within the book. Every page, every space, every single letter was important to me. It’s a very simple story — a boy named Siddhartha goes through an identity crisis, he questions all the buddhist knowledge he gained, he questions reality, he questions his purpose and the universe’s purpose. Throughout the book, he grows up, he goes through phases of life and in the end, he truly discovers what nirvana is. What the purpose of this universe is. In his own simple terms.
Towards the end of the novel, he tries to explain what he learned and his philosophy to his friend who was still struggling to achieve nirvana. This is a direct quote from the book:
Siddhartha stooped down, picked up a stone from the ground, and weighed it in his hands.
“This,” he said, “is a stone, and within a certain time it will perhaps be earth, and from earth it will become a plant or an animal or a person. Now, in the past I would have said: ‘This stone is merely a stone, it is worthless, it belongs to the world of maya; but, because in the cycle of transformations it may also become a person and an intellect, I assign some value even to it.’ That is how I might once have reasoned. But today I think: this stone is a stone, it is also an animal, it is also a god, it is also Buddha; I do not revere and love it because it may some day become one thing or another, but because it has for a long time, always, been everything — it is precisely the fact of its being a stone, of its appearing to me as a stone now and today, that makes me love it and see value and meaning in each its veins and cavities, in the yellow, in the gray, in its hardness, in the ring it emits when I strike it, in the dryness or moistness of its surface. There are stones that feel like oil or soap to the touch, and others like leaves, others like sand; and each one is special and prays ‘om’ in its own way, each one is Brahman; but at the same time and just as much, it is a stone, it is oily or soapy; and that is precisely what I like and find marvelous and worthy of adoration. But do not let me say more of it. Words do no good to the secret meaning; everything always immediately becomes a little different when you express it, a little falsified, a little foolish — yes, and that too, is very good and pleases me greatly, I am also perfectly contented that one person’s treasure of wisdom always sounds like foolishness to someone else.”
As I was reading the book, I immediately thought of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” because now it clicked. Now it clicked why they were traveling through many universes, simultaneously experiencing everything but decided to come in terms with it, to make peace with all that chaos, to find peace in all that noise. Universe of rock wasn’t also just a coincidence, it is a very famous Chinese philosophy. Which just so happened to be derived from the Buddhist philosophy.
Everything is getting messier as I’m trying to explain, but the main point in all of this is to be content with oneself. Truly.
Because in buddhism, there is no such thing as pure individuality — which is a complete opposite of what we’re so used to in western culture.
Everything comes and goes, there’s no complete stop or beginning, it’s a long continuous line of everything.
We are a small blip in a huge, ginormous world. But that world is also a small rock consisting of huge things.
What you’re experiencing, as hard as it may be, or as beautiful as it may be, at some point in the history of universe, has happened before. Someone has felt that before, someone went through it. Problems you and I are facing, they’re nothing unique, someone went through it, faced it, and overcame. These problems give us pain but they also give us happiness. And that’s why everything is simply just beautiful. With all its good and bad.
Everything is interconnected. Everything is happening everywhere, all at once. And that’s exactly the definition of both chaos and calmness.
It’s simply beautiful.
