Living in Universe Two

Training yourself for a universe where your only goal is to create.

One of the most compelling concepts in True and False Magic, Phil Stutz’s new book which I co-wrote with him, is the idea of Universe One and Universe Two. It’s also the concept I’ve gotten the most questions about: So how do I live in Universe Two??? (We discussed the Universes on the podcast.)

Wassily Kandinsky, “Cossacks,” Custom Prints at Tate Modern

I’ve got some answers, answers you may not love.

So first, let’s define these two reality structures. Here’s a condensed summary from True and False Magic, though there’s so much more about this in the book—along with Phil’s description of “The Biphasic Fantasy.” You’ll have to get the book to read about that. ;)

“The value in Universe One is defined by mathematics. Anything dominated by mathematics, whether it’s a culture or a religion, eventually becomes completely money driven. The bottom-line value is money. In Universe One, nobody is satisfied, and the field is very narrow. People are pissed, because someone else is getting more than they’re getting. Money, in itself, cannot create what you need, and you end up with all kinds of conflict. Higher forces do not exist in Universe One because they cannot be quantified—in Universe One, you cannot access them. No matter what happens in Universe One, even if you make all the money in the world, you end up feeling like a loser, because the only real value is in Universe Two, where you must create something.

“Universe Two is a very different playing field. In Universe Two, money means nothing. Outcomes mean nothing. The only thing that matters in Universe Two is the present: this moment. The value of Universe Two is creativity. The most valuable thing you can do is to create something out of nothing.

“When you find something to spend your time on even when no money is present, that’s a sign that you’re leaving Universe One and entering Universe Two. Your Life Force is revealing itself to you. How much ‘power’ you acquire depends on which universe you think you’re living in—and by ‘power’ I mean the word in its broadest sense, which is the power to create, the strongest power on earth. Your real values—and what you choose to do to serve those values—make up the job the universe needs you to do, but money really fucks the whole thing up.

“If you’re stuck in Universe One, you’ve given up. You’ve sold your soul to the Devil: You’ve given up on the most complex, most brilliant, and most indispensable part of the universe, which is the evolution of human beings. God doesn’t give a shit if you went to Harvard, or worked at Goldman Sachs, or won a Nobel Prize. God doesn’t care if you have job A, B, or C—God only cares that you not quit.

“Human beings are God’s hobby, you could say. He doesn’t care about anything else. The only thing God cares about is encouraging humans to reach up and look for the higher level of Universe Two—the spiritual part of you needs to breathe in some of this level. You can’t do it with thoughts and concepts, and you certainly can’t do it with mathematics or anything hierarchical. Why? Because you’re playing against yourself, not playing against anybody else. If you’re not working toward what is innate to you, then it doesn’t matter—you can kill someone else financially, but it has no meaning. Meaning has to be discovered inside of you, and this meaning is very specific.”

Many of you wrote me after the podcast to ask if the goal then is to live in Universe Two exclusively—and how this would be possible.

I asked Phil, and this is what he said: “It is impossible to fully avoid Universe One. Something that is impossible can still be very useful. In fact, sometimes, the more impossible it is, the more you get out of it. There’s a dynamic here that upsets people: It’s a complete commitment to get out of Universe One, simultaneously knowing you’re never going to get out of it. You live everyday with the goal to live in Universe Two and hopefully you gain the faith that that will benefit you and everyone else.” (Yes, sometimes talking to Phil is like talking to Yoda.)

When we were working on the book, Phil didn’t define Universe One as the material and Universe Two as the spiritual, though it feels in some ways like they are proximate to those ideas—particularly in his invocation of some sort of space that we occupy in between, trying to bridge the creativity of Universe Two with the base reality of Universe One. (A few weeks ago, I wrote “How to Bridge the Spiritual and the Material, which means I’m still circling the same drain. :) )

Phil would say that we’re all creative, whether we write things, or paint, or make movies, or not—anything you make is an act of creation. But this tension does feel acutely real for “creatives,” in particular. Straddling Universe One and Universe Two as a writer is a different vibe than doing it in a sphere where there’s already the assumption of market value. You’re not supposed to put a price on the vertical—there’s something about this that is supposed to be free, particularly if your goal is to help people.

And yes, I recognize I’m writing this on a platform that’s a marketplace for writers, though few of us seem to know how to strike the balance between “audience development,” i.e. trying to attract as many readers as possible who might buy a book down the line by keeping everything open and accessible, versus closing down a community or putting it all behind a “paywall.” This is the toughest conversation amongst fellow writers—it’s natural to want as many readers as possible, particularly in our content-drenched landscape. But it feels particularly acute for women, in particular, as we are often ruled by scarcity and fear—and arguably feelings of low self-worth. It’s really complicated. I wrote about this as part of my series on “Ending the Manel” in a newsletter aptly called “The Perception (and Reality) of Scarcity.” The tough thing here is that scarcity for women is both real—and something we perpetuate and promote through our own behavior. There just aren’t as many influential women in our world, whether we’re talking about business, or podcasting, or government—there’s legitimate scarcity—and we have trouble getting behind each other to ensure that these dynamics shift. (I’ve written about this a lot, and it’s at the center of On Our Best Behavior, but it’s the Venn diagram of Envy (our undiagnosed “wanting,” or “how is she getting away with something I’d never be able to get away with or let myself do,”) and Scarcity (“because she has this thing, I can’t have it too.”)

I still don’t have any answers or resolutions on this, but I will continue to think about it and poke and prod. And there’s definitely more to come soon about money, and the spiritual + material, in particular. (On that note, I’m thrilled by the number of people I now know about who work in the Venn diagram of spirituality and finance.)

Phil might have some answers, though. In True and False Magic he writes, “Universe One is a way of thinking that gives you the feeling that you are either winning or losing. Universe One is a way of looking at the world where people tell themselves they can be God. Universe Two is a way of looking at the world where you no longer have to compete to discover who you really are. Universe Two trains you in a way of looking at the world where value lies in your ability to create.”

I love this in the sense that it suggests we don’t need to look around and see what everyone else is doing (or base our success factors on theirs) and focuses us instead on our path. It’s a hard road to walk though, anyway you cut it.

Onward ho! See you next week!