The problem with everything

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, But not simpler.”

— attributed to Albert Einstein

The problem with everything is the problem of absolutes. It’s the same problem as nothing, always and never. It’s the same problem as zero and infinity. Even though mathematicians have found a way to utilize these concepts they don’t work for everything. You can’t buy zero eggs or drive to infinity.

It’s the problem with whole and hole. What is a hole? Is it a thing or is it the part of a thing that is not the thing? You can’t have half a hole. Every hole is a whole hole but if you make it bigger it doesn’t overflow. It is still a whole hole but it only exists to the extent that it is not part of the whole. But is the whole still whole if it contains holes and if not, where did it go?

The problem with everything is that it lacks perspective. If everything is everything then where does it begin and where does it end? Like a fish in a fish bowl we can never know everything if everything is all that we know. But if we can’t know everything does that mean we know nothing?

The problem with absolutes is that they lack perspective. For anything to exist it can only exist to the extent that it is not something else. At least that is the simplest way to understand anything. But can everything be reduced to binary understanding?

Einstein taught:

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

I would like to suggest that both are miracles and perhaps there is only one way to live your life.