Do you remember that story* about the two dimensional world, and what happens when a sphere goes through it? First the sphere looks like a dot, then like a circle, then a larger circle, larger… max circle… then smaller, smaller circles, then dot, then gone. And how the inhabitants of that world must interpret what they just saw?
I often feel like there are beings in higher dimensions than us, that give odd little clues they are here as they intercede —or just waft through —our lives. I’m also wondering if higher necessarily means “higher” in a moral sense. Maybe, maybe not.
I think this because I am such a being.
As I was running this morning, I saw critters much smaller than me crossing the paved path I was on. Frogs, squirrels, caterpillars, and loads of worms. Sometimes, I am moved by the efforts of a given worm to cross the path that I’ll pick it up, and drop across to the wet grass on the other side. Other times, I’ll put a worm back on the wet grass where it just left.
My worm-saving activities are sporadic and inconsistent. Some days, I’m so caught up in my own mind, that I may only just hop over one at the last second. On a slogging, uninspired day, a worm may wind up as a literal “slip” on they way.
My intentions, on good days, are good. At least, they make me feel good. But I am no enlightened being, even to a worm. I often decide, with little more than my own convenience at heart, whether to accelerate a worm on its trajectory, or whether to push it back from whence it came — if I even guess that correctly. I have no sense of the merit or purpose of their journey. It’s about me, and how I feel, ‘saving’ these little creatures.
I wonder what these worms think of me, if they can perceive the entirety of that moment that came along and next thing they know, they are in a new place?
To worms, I imagine I am a mystery. To critters that usually live underground save a random above-ground jaunt, a human being must be too much to grok. I am something that they feel, a confusing movement that flings them across a new universe that includes “air” and “height,” then lands them squarely back on a familiar ground.
Worms don’t know that this mysterious force is trying to maneuver them “for their own good.” After all there are perils of runners and bikers, birds and hot sun to take them out. So, maybe I am LUCK?
Or perhaps I am REGRESSION? An odd feeling, air, lights, and a wicked return to where they had just been. Or, maybe I am REINCARNATION that robs them of their intended slither to a chosen death.
Or maybe, just maybe, I am DEJA VU?
Who’s to say?
I guess I know that if I could be a mysterious, godly force to a worm, maybe there are mysterious godly forces working on my life; haphazardly, sporadically… Those times when unexpected LUCK careens me toward my goal, or when REGRESSION sets me back to a familiar starting line.
I honestly don’t know, and can only understand what my 4-dimensional little brain can handle. But if I were to get wildly surprised by the super-natural, I think I would appreciate the intention of caring, even if it screws up my dirty little bit o’ free will.