When You Suddenly Realize the Universe Was Laughing All Along

1. The Setup - How We Get Trapped in Seriousness

The moment we’re born, we dance onstage as a laughing, bubbling, sobbing mess. Laughter and tears drawn forth without thought. We soil ourselves and spit up. We smile during our sleep. With eyes darting and hands reaching, our tiny fingers grasp clumsily about until they latch onto anything: mom’s finger, clothing, hair. In these moments, we know. We see. We feel the ripples of mirth resonating through the universe. We know the truth. It’s only as we lose our innocence that we begin to feel the burden of life upon our shoulders. As we mature, we begin to argue, wound each other, wrestle with unease, and collapse under our own lofty expectations. We endure heartache from broken relationships and watch people slip away into darkness. We love and hate. Without knowing or understanding why, we wrap ourselves in the confines of an identity and accept it for who we are, forgetting that we are all the same spark.

In our maturity, we think ourselves wise, believing ourselves to be somebody. We look in the mirror and say, “This is me. I am real!” an assertion that we have meaning in this frightfully short existence. Through this fear, our ego strives to prop itself up as someone, incapable of understanding that it is no one. In doing so, we adopt a serious outlook on life—trapping ourselves in a cage of our own making. 

It’s this cage that introduces suffering, and we suffer not because we must, but because we think we must. We grip it with such ferocity because we don’t know any other way. The suffering distorts what was once open and weightless into the narrow confines of our own seriousness. As Alan Watts said:

2. The Reveal - Understanding the “Cosmic Humor” of Existence

Seriousness in and of itself is not the problem. The problem is that we take being serious seriously. We search for meaning in everything: in life, in work, in play, in jokes; through laughter, tears, and bloodshot eyes. We make seriousness such a business that we wage wars over our need to be taken seriously. We cling to it in ways that often don’t make sense. Family members will go years, decades, and, in some cases, the rest of their lives without speaking to each other because of things that happened years ago, because they can’t bring themselves to let go. 

We worry and stress about how we’re going to live our lives, what we’ll eat or drink, and about our bodies and what we’ll wear, instead of embracing the unknown. The resounding innocence and truth that we once knew as children is lost to our serious adult minds. We miss the “joke”, and it’s only a joke because we’re bound by seriousness in the first place. Rather than living, we choose to struggle through life. Rather than being filled with joy, we oppress ourselves with trivial frustrations that arise when we forget that life is a game.

Let me be clear: life isn’t just a game; it is the game. The only game worth playing. Once you can wrap your mind around this, you begin to see that everything you took so seriously was, in fact, frivolous in nature. You are both the piece on the board and the player moving the piece simultaneously. However, most of us view ourselves as only the piece on the board and forget there’s even a player moving the piece at all. 

The Cosmic Humor

Our nature isn’t to overcome life, which has been the endeavor of so many before us, and is still now the pursuit amongst most of us, but to be one with it. The “joke,” here, is simply that we take the temporary as permanent, the experiential as existential. We try, we strive, we clamber atop one another, reaching higher and higher to become something, anything that makes us feel fulfilled. This could be as simple as the desire to become a mother or father, all the way to the lofty ideal of one day becoming a titan of industry or the president of a country, only to find that once we reach those goals, we continue to long for more. 

Let me try to give you an example of this “cosmic joke”: I was watching the Frankenstein movie by Guillermo del Toro, and, as I’ve done many times with shows or movies, I observed how the characters live in a world of make-believe, believing it to be real. But we, as viewers, are drawn into that world and suspend disbelief long enough to believe it’s real as well. However, as I’ve been prone to doing more recently, I have started to see our world as if we were all actors in a movie or play, forgetting that our current incarnation is merely a role, and one day, we will “wake up,” or maybe “remember” is more apt, that we are in the performance of a lifetime. 

Does this mean we never cry, feel hurt, or experience suffering? No! All of those things are a part of the game, just as the actors in the movie experience those feelings within their characters’ arcs. The difference is that when we see it as part of the game, the suffering doesn’t last. The hurt doesn’t linger, drawing us down into despair. The tears dry as we begin to smile in remembrance of the truth: that we are in the role of our lives!

3. The Twist - Why This Realization Is Liberating, Not Nihilistic

One may ask, “Then what’s the point? Is all of this meaningless?” To which I would say, yes, and no. You can choose to devolve into nihilism, or you can choose to transform into a deeper understanding of meaning itself. 

The joke doesn’t make life meaningless or pointless; it makes us realize we’re playing a role. It makes it more meaningful because we can finally drop the charade of seriousness, allowing us to become fully present. Without presence, meaning is void altogether, but with presence, you begin to understand that everything isn’t life-or-death, it just is. You free yourself up to just be. To truly live as you were meant to. And when you do that, your life fills with meaning and purpose because now it’s no longer about survival, it’s about playing the game, and playing the game well. 

Seriousness is a game the ego plays. It’s all important, structured, and attempts to derive meaning for itself in what I would call “base things”—the mundane—your job, house, car, etc. 

However, the realization of the joke is ego-dissolving, and what follows is humor, lightness, and play. Joy, love, and freedom. These aren’t mere luxuries to strive for; they’re simply forms of spiritual clarity that evolve from not taking yourself so seriously. It’s the understanding that you are nothing, yet everything, all at the same time.

4. The Application - How to Integrate This Perspective Into Daily Life

Feeling as if there’s something wrong with you, or that you’ve missed something along the way that would allow you to experience the life you long for, is a normal experience. It’s where most people live because, except for a select few, most don’t know or haven’t been taught how to play the game. 

Most people are so focused on the game, they think it’s real; and well, they should, because it is real, but not in the sense that they believe, which is the paradox we all struggle with. It’s why we question whether there’s life after death, or if we live in a universe of mulitudinous dimensions. It’s the question of consciousness, the underpinning, paradoxical, and philosophical ruminations that have plagued our minds since consciousness first took spark as we opened our eyes in wonder.

If you want to stay lost in the game, that’s perfectly fine. Many people don’t want to “see behind the veil,” so to speak. It’s too much to take in. Others long to see the deeper side, so here are a few practical steps to do just that.

Step 1: Remember You Are the Awareness Behind the Actor

As stated previously, you are both the actor and the awareness behind the actor. The trick is not getting caught up in the role while simultaneously remaining aware of both parts. Similar to an actor who directs their own movie. There’s a special spatial awareness that comes with this.

Step 2: Let Outcomes Matter Less and Experience Matter More

This step trips up most people. We want the end goal without having to trudge through the experiences that lead us there. Many times, we give up on the goal because we deem the terrain too difficult to traverse. Instead of being solely focused on the final outcome, begin to allow yourself the grace to enjoy the experience even when you’re pulling your hair out in frustration. Take time to step back and view yourself from a third-person perspective, and see yourself as the actor in the game of life. Then breathe, and relax. 

Step 3: Practice Humor in the Middle of Difficulty

This is one I have been adopting more and more in my life. I catch myself in frustration, then reframe it as a game, and, instead of allowing it to drag me into despair, I join the universe for a good laugh at the situation. 

This takes practice. I will often catch myself slipping into frustration almost as soon as the laughter ends. Then I remind myself again. Slip. Remind. Slip. Remind. However, the more you practice, the longer you can go before slipping back.

Step 4: Release the Myth That You Must Earn Your Worth

We strive to feel worthy in the eyes of man, but that’s searching for water in the desert. Our worth isn’t found in the things we do or the people we associate with, although those things can reinforce our beliefs of self-worth. Instead, our job is to find the worth within. Everyone has this within themselves. It’s the hidden door waiting to be cracked open, revealing the beauty hidden within. Stop searching for it outside of yourself.

Step 5: Reframe Mistakes as Part of the Game, Not Proof of Failure 

This ties in directly with the idea presented in Step 3. You must catch yourself when you indulge in self-depricating thoughts or feelings, or when you believe yourself to be less than because of a specific, negative outcome. When you can learn to let go of the feelings of regret, anger, and frustration, and see yourself playing the game of life, you understand that they’re just obstacles you get to overcome. The frustration then ceases to exist because you now play for fun. The frustrations are the joy of the experience.

6. Return to Presence

Presence has been taught for millennia because it’s the only thing that’s real. What happened yesterday is no longer your reality. What happens tomorrow isn’t a part of it either. The only moment that’s real is this moment right now. Not the moment that happened a few seconds ago, this moment. It’s the only one that matters. If you focus on this moment, what happens to the stresses and burdens of your life? They often dissipate because they belong to the future or the past. 

Is all of this easy to do? No. It’s not. It takes time and practice. I’ve spent years working to get where I am today. However, the practice is worth it. My life is infinitely better as a result of following these steps. You will find there are moments you remember to follow the steps, and many more where you forget because you get caught up being the character within the game, forgetting you are the one playing the game. 

The only thing I’ll say is don’t lose heart. Remember, seriousness is a destination derived by the ego. Freedom comes from letting go of expectations and learning to play the game. In the end, when it comes to our personal lives, none of this really matters. You just need to decide whether you want to have fun playing the game or struggle through life. As you work through this, consider the words of Marcus Aurelius:  

5. The Closing - The Moment You Wake Up to the Lightness Beneath It All

Laughter will begin to reverberate through your being when you finally start to let go of the seriousness created by your ego. When you learn to release the things you hold onto, that’s when a certain lightness takes over your soul. The universe is only laughing because it knows the ending. It knows that no matter what we struggle with during this life, it’s only momentary. It knows that we are a mere breath—that we are born and then die within the blink of an eye. 

As you learn to play the game, you don’t lose meaning; you discover it. All of a sudden, meaning erupts in your life, and you see it in the setting sun, or when you smell a flower. The laughter of children, or sitting in traffic, all being to coalesce into a beautiful orchestra of meaning and fulfillment without you having to do anything. You understand what it means to just be—like Ram Dass said, “Be here now.”

Life has always been lighter than you believed; you only forgot how to live in its simplicity.

Until next time,

Josiah