The Alternate Universe

The universe is often defined as "the totality of existence", or everything that exists, everything that has existed, and everything that will exist.  Our perception of everything that exists and our relationship to it is our reality.

My new year’s goal to disconnect from social media and my phone got me thinking about the concept of what our reality is in the 2020’s.  We have all become stimulation addicts.  We wake up and look at the phone and often fall asleep looking at a screen.  We can get every NFL game on and sometimes more than one on the same screen.  Last night we were playing cards and at the same time had music playing, a bowl game on the TV (albeit the Dukes Mayo bowl) and each person had their phone within reach. 

Looking for some stats online I found the following:

• The average American spends 7 hours and 3 minutes looking at a screen each day

• Daily screen time has increased by over 30 minutes per day since 2013

• Almost half (49%) of 0 to 2-year-olds interact with smartphones

• Gen Z averages around 9 hours of screen time per day

These are not fact-checked but I suspect they are not too far off.  Assuming this is a trend that is not going away any time soon.  What will “Reality” look like in 2030 or 2050?  How will future generations view the universe and their place in it? You can’t have this much influence from media and not have it affect your perception of reality.  Whether we look at Fox News or the Atlantic to get our news- constant inundation from the preferred source distorts our reality.  Constant ads drive our desire for more and newer/cooler things.  Images invade our mind and form what makes someone “Beautiful” or “Normal”.  I honestly feel like we are heading toward a world like that the movie Surrogates where people never leave their house and live out “Reality” from behind a screen.  Not a great movie (6.5) but very disturbing concept. 

Last weekend I closed out the 2025 Hunting Season and looked back at the notes I kept.  One theme pervaded this season:  The joy of hunting and the hunting experience is not killing deer.  It’s getting back to the peace and beauty of nature.  This reflection and my current situation here in TN this weekend developed the concept that nature is an Alternate Universe.  It is an escape from the day-to-day connected reality.  Books and movies have used alternate and parallel universe/reality concepts to tell sci-fi stories like Surrogates, The Matrix or The Sixth Sense.  The irony is that nature is the alternate-rather than normal- universe.  It has been around for a million years and will be for a million more.  It is solidly unchanging while dynamic, powerful while delicate and deadly but life-giving all at the same time.  I have been blessed to feel nature’s magnificence not just with my eyes but also in a deeper way.  If you spend enough time in this alternate universe, you can’t help but be moved in a spiritual way. For me nature puts my position in the REAL universe in perspective and provokes thought about my relationship to it, God and humanity.  It grounds me and transforms my reality if only for a short time while I am there. 

So whatever your beliefs on who we are, how we got here and why we are here, I strongly suggest you make time to spend in nature, a universe contrary to the daily stimulation culture, and find peace and enjoy how it transforms your reality. 

The Alternate Universe exists for anyone who wants to experience it.