To a polar bear the whole world seems cold and snowy. To an ant living on a mountainside all of existence is steep and breezy. It is not that different for modern Men and Women…..the world is a large echo chamber of far left or far right views….or everyone is an avid distance runner. We all find ourselves in little “potential wells” that seem to comprise all place and time….but it is just an illusion.
Think of life as a great field, extending out of sight in all directions. We are free to roam about this giant expanse, but we find that after wandering for a while we realize that we have been circling around a little valley, a well. Think of either a spiral wishing well, like one sees at science museums or the classic explanation of curved space-time, where a mass distorts a flat plane into a curved well or depression.
This is where we live. It is even truer today with the infinite amount of confirming data and “news” and opinion that we all have on the devices in our pockets. We think we are moving freely and covering vast distances but in truth we are just circling around whatever celestial body is at our “universe’s center”. Wells form around ideas or ways of life or hobbies or beliefs or illnesses or fears or hopes. We may occasionally pop out of one of these wells, free ourselves temporarily, but we likely stumble into a new one shortly thereafter. And, some wells are so massive; the central distorting entity so great that there can be wells forming within that well….wells within wells. On the gently sloping sides of say “climate change will doom us” may be new smaller wells forming of “income inequality inevitability” or the like.
There is life outside of our current well. It may have been years since many of us have broken free of the strong pull of the central thesis or activity of our lives. The best way to venture outside this field is to just do it. Turn off and disconnect from whatever touchstone source of orientation you find most comforting or familiar. Take up a new hobby. Go for a walk. Read to a child. Do something outside your normal routine with your normal associates. Take a class. Join a new group. Eat a new food. We don’t need to worry about our former “well”….it will survive just fine. We don’ need to worry about being “well-less”. We will likely stumble upon a new one at some point in the future, if we haven’t already done so. It is often difficult to tell if we are in a well or not. Maybe it is impossible to tell. Maybe all of existence is constructed of wells within wells within wells. Maybe wells form and join and annihilate like black holes. We will likely never know. But if you find yourself day after day having the same thoughts, reading the same sources, having the same fears or anxieties, it may be time to blast out of your current well. It probably won’t hurt, and may just help.
