As a child, were you afraid of what was in your closet or under your bed, especially late at night when everything was quiet? Or how about your dark basement or that abandoned alley? Do you still feel that unease at the edge of your awareness, that nagging uncertainty?
Did you know your brain has about 100 billion neurons? Within this vast number, there are – for lack of a better term – super neurons and that they don’t just reside within your brain. In fact, there are 40,000 of these neurons in your heart. Scientists are not sure what they do, but they do know that the vast majority of the communication goes from your heart to your brain and not vice-versa. Did you know that 300 million of these neurons live in your gut? I guess this gives new meaning to the phrases “follow your heart” and “trust your gut.”
Don’t forget, we are intuitive truth-trackers that are sometimes way ahead of scientific explanation.
Did you know that, on the quantum level, quantum theory asserts that the act of observing changes what is observed? This is known as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. In fact, for quantum theory, the fate of a cat that is alone in a bunker with an equal chance of being alive or dead is not determined until someone goes into the bunker and observes the state of the cat. Until that point, the cat is in a flux state between dead and alive. The observation determines which state takes hold. This famous thought experiment is called Schrodinger’s cat. Put another way, the underlying (quantum level) of our experience is uncertain until it is determined by our observation.
Now let’s return to the small child and what is living in the dark closet. According to quantum physics, what is actually in the closet is not determined until it is observed. No wonder kids ask their parents to look in their closet before they can fall asleep. Perhaps kids are sensing the undetermined, underlying nature of their surroundings. I wouldn’t put it past them…their innocence makes them incredible truth-trackers.
There is a fundamental uncertainty within the space/time through which we travel, a fundamental indeterminedness to the human condition. It matters how we observe which, in turn, means it matters what we believe and the stories we tell to ourselves and to each other (especially to our kids). We are never neutral observers.
It is ironic that perhaps the best solution to this existential uncertainty is faith in a Being, the existence of which we can never conclusively prove. The potential of what exists in the closet depends on what we believe. We are all as innocent as children.