Shifting Dimensions

As we get closer to the release date of Revelations, Book Three of the Azellian Affairs and the world continues to be a very odd place where things are changing so fast no one can keep up, I’ve pondering the question: can we shift dimensions? Or is that just science fiction fantasizing?

Considering that some of the things that our science fiction authors like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke used to write about HAVE come true (cell phones and pocket computers anyone?), it’s hard to dismiss the notion out of hand. After all, the concept of a wheeled vehicle that can go a hundred miles an hour plus would have seemed like the most insane science fiction to a society dependent on a horses and buggies. Yet science got us there—and there are vehicles that go WAY faster than that. Although there are some REALLY tantalizing possibilities in the realm of quantum physics where alternate dimensions are theorized and even likely, science has not quite yet gotten us to the place that we can hop in our teleporter machine and go to another dimension.

In my own explorations of the highly-unlikely-and-on-the-surface-impossible, I have discovered that it is indeed possible to shift dimensions. It’s simpler than it sounds. And at the same time, much harder. Because it requires us to fully embrace our own selves, fully and completely and to wake up to what is possible. Not always easy. The key is choice. There is a statement I heard somewhere that changed my life once I fully embraced it: we can’t control what happens to us, but we are always free to choose how we experience what happens.

That is the key to shifting dimensions: choice. Do we see those who hurt us as evil jerks who deserve to have their heads chopped off for daring to damage us? Or do we see those who hurt us as struggling beings who are simply echoing the deep damage they experienced in their lives? It’s much easier to find compassion for someone else in pain when we ourselves are able to forgive the pain we’ve caused ourselves and others.

Pain exists. Anyone who says pain is an illusion is desperately hiding from it, hoping it will go away. Pain however, is NOT just that wrenching, ripping, tearing sensation that sears us to the bone. It is—something else. Our relationship with pain evolves and changes as we do, until we relate to it differently. Once that happens, pain becomes an opportunity, a message and a possibility. Even as we hurt, we are no longer afraid of it, and once we are no longer afraid of it … we are free. Free to choose, free to not choose. Free to be, free to not be. Free to do anything at all. We’re even free to hide, although once our relationship with pain changes, hiding becomes rather irrelevant.

The world we each live in is deeply colored by our perspective. To change our perspective, we have to be able to choose. To choose, we have to be willing to change our relationship with pain. Once we do that, freedom is ours.

Having said that, when do I shift to the dimension that I’m living in Italy on the coast enjoying the Mediterranean easy life?!

In my most recent Patreon post, I explore more about shifting dimensions and some of the ways I’ve done so. To find out more, check it (and my other Patreon posts) out below:

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Evolving Into Something New: Science Fiction

Science fiction/fantasy is an interesting genre. Over the years, it has encompassed many kinds of stories, from magic and futuristic space battles. Star Wars to Star Trek are two famous screen sci-fi epics and authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey offered print sagas of their own. When I was younger, science fiction/fantasy was a catch-all for any kind of fantastic storyline that wasn’t in the form of a reality based, traditional romance, mystery or real life drama. 

The genre has since matured into countless types of science fiction and fantasy categories (high fantasy, urban fantasy, hard science fiction, sci-fi romance, to name a few). Cross-genre stories have appeared, melding fantastic elements such as vampires and werewolves into mystery stories, or gritty detective crime solving. Spiritual elements introduced themselves, although the best science fiction has always had a layer of enduring spiritual truth to it, speaking of humanity’s struggles and fears about being alive. Many of the authors I read as a teenager: Marion Zimmer Bradley, Alan Dean Foster, Ursula K LeGuin, to name a few, wrote stories that were thinly veiled societal commentaries (and some of them not veiled at all), exploring real world problems in a fantastical way. Some writers were positive—humanity would prevail—and some were a bit less optimistic, but all of the best ones wrote stories that revealed our human condition in the midst of even these impossible stories. 

Hard core sci-fi, many stories written by bonafide scientists who could see what was coming, would provide warnings by weaving thrilling stories about what could be. Many of these have come true—try spending any time in the telecom industry and you’ll discover that artificial intelligence is not quite so fantastical as you might think, although as of now, we haven’t created a Terminator-esque SkyNet. Yet). Softer sci-fi explored culture clash between aliens and humans or alien races, de-emphasizing the technology aspect, but honing in on basic human experience nonetheless. 

Yet through all of this, the basic reality remains: the best stories explore our human experience, whether it be through technology or ordinary life with a science fiction twist. We might be writing about other cultures, but we are really writing about ourselves. We are writing about our hopes, fears, experiences, and the truths we are just now beginning to see and experience. It might have fantastic underpinnings, but the truth is, we are writing about ourselves. We are writing about something that we suspect, but don’t necessarily fully know yet. The best stories, the ones that resonate, are the ones with some germ of truth in them. And science fiction, like all of humanity, is evolving with us. We like to escape, but we want to hear truth. And to merge the two: truth cloaked in fun—well, what is better than that?