This is something I've been wanting to do for years, on again off again, but rarely do I get the chance to actually follow through.

This was spawned by me doing some research for my novel, and part of that research involved reading a lot about Biblical stuff, and concepts like Lucifer, Satan, etc. (All of this for largely background lore I don't strictly need, although in this case it's slightly more needed because I am technically working on defining an ability of the protagonist Vee, so it's got relevancy.)

The first disclaimer I want to give; my beliefs are always ever-evolving. My understanding of the world is always changing. This will not be my final belief system, not even remotely.

The second disclaimer I want to give; I don't explain things very well. I might explain a concept you actually agree with, but my explanation is so bad that it makes you disagree with it because I am so bad at explaining it. A lot of what I believe in is stuff that if I were able to properly explain it, I think a lot of people would actually believe in, in some form or another.

And the third disclaimer I want to give; this is just my personal belief, that ever-evolving, poorly-explained belief. It is something I personally believe, but I would never push this belief on others. I will share it, I will discuss it, but mostly because I am actually looking for other perspectives. My perspective is mine alone and is limited to my own knowledge and ways of looking at the world. Others will differ, and fundamental in my belief is a need to incorporate the beliefs of others, because they have perspective and knowledge I lack.

So with that said, a loose outline of my belief system;

Loosely speaking, I believe that 'God' and 'Heaven' are one and the same. That at the highest level of existence, all entities are one collective entity combined, outside of time, space, reality. At this highest level, this level of existence sees everything that ever was, everything that ever could have been, everything that is, and everything that could be. Sees every universe that exists and every universe that could exist and every universe that could have existed. All that has ever been, all that ever could be, all that ever will be, all exist together in this form, collective, but also still containing a level of individuality. Basically a hive mind, one unified being, but also made up of all beings that ever exist in any reality.

It's important at this point to bring up those universes, and the nature of the illusion of time and space, so I'm gonna talk about 'destiny' and 'fate' here.
There's two terms in relation to universes:
"Every universe which could exist from the current point in time", what COULD happen in 'the future',
And,
"What universe will exist from the current universe in time", what WILL happen in 'the future'.

It's important to note that everything that could happen, does happen in a universe, but every universe has a version where things did happen. So the former is basically all of the possibilities viewed before they could happen (or looked at after the fact); the latter is basically what in the current universe actually did happen (looked at after the fact, even if it's thought of as before).

In this sense, the future is both mutable and subject to change, but also set in stone, and has already happened.

Because what you can do is many things, but what you will do is only one thing.
You do one thing in every universe, just a different one thing in those different universes. So you do everything across all the universes, but you do one thing in any one universe.

For these two concepts, what can be done and what will be done, you use the terms destiny and fate.
They are not interchangeable, and which concept you tie to which word is totally arbitrary, the important thing is to be consistent in your application of which concept has which word.
If you say what will happen is fate, always stick to fate being what will happen;
If you say what will happen is destiny, always stick to destiny being what will happen;
Never use what will happen to occasionally be fate and occasionally be destiny.

In recent times, thanks to the influence of TVTropes (although in older times, I had these as vice-versa--again, my belief system is ever-evolving!), the way I tie the concepts to the words is,

I call "what will happen" as 'fate', because of the Trope "You Can't Fight Fate". Fate is what will happen in the current universe.
I call "what could happen" as 'destiny', because of the Trope "Winds of Destiny, Change". Destiny is what could happen.

Notably, we cannot consciously change which universe we are in. We can consciously control our destiny, because we can control what we could do, but what we end up doing is always set in stone. However, I've come to the belief that subconsciously, a lot of us do forms of timeline hopping, where we go from one universe where something was set to happen to a different universe where a different thing is set to happen. But I digress.

I wanted to talk about Fate and Destiny, because it's important to understand by my belief, 'God'/'Heaven' exists able to view both, as this state of being is above both, is everything. And in this state, there is both a level of inherent empathy and also apathy towards what happens in the lower levels of existence. Because everything is going to happen, there's not much use in trying to influence the lower levels of existence, but there is a level of "that really sucked"/"this should happen in less universes"/etc. to those experiences.

There is simultaneously an understanding that no amount of intervention will prevent at least one universe from taking the sucky path, while also an understanding that the sucky path sucks, and should be as few universes as possible.

Because this level of existence is every experience possible, it inherently has a level of love, care, and understanding. Having experienced all of the pain and suffering of every possible person, it knows the profound level of harm to come from lives lived under the pain of harsh lives...but it also knows the intense level of joy, of creativity, of passion, of all the good and positive from lives lived while bound by existence.

And having seen both the bad and the good, this naturally biases existence towards a net drive to influence Destiny to be the better paths whenever possible. In short, basically all entities that exist on lower levels of existence, including humans, are naturally biased towards trying to do 'good'. What is 'good' is hard to define, but loosely, it involves showing care, compassion, love, empathy, understanding, and learning from others that exist, to provide assistance to them, and to help the future be better than the present.

​I believe humans evolved living by those standards, the standards of a community. Where we would help others, where we would support others. People would pursue what they most wanted and do what they thought they were best suited to do, and receive support from their community to cover their weaknesses. No human can be good at everything, but all humans can be at least good enough at enough things that in a community, you can cover the bases where anyone weak at something can get the help of a human who is good at that something. Covering each others' weaknesses with each others' strengths.

​They built towards a future better for their community, by helping support each other and set up for success, because of an innate inherent drive to show compassion and care to each other, and a drive to build a better future for those yet to be born.

​But I digress. 

Below this Heaven/God is various levels of entities in various forms of existence on various levels of understanding and knowledge about Fate/Destiny and such.

Here is where my understanding is at its weakest.
I'll say fuck the idea of angels/archangels being higher than pagan deities/gods/entities. That's repackaged Christian bullshit.

I vaguely believe that deities/gods/entities/angels as we know them are all different names for the same thing, entities that exist on a higher level than our own world, but lower than the afterlife of 'Heaven'/God. (By the way I use the terms Heaven and God out of convenience. It's easy to understand, but not something I actually prefer.) Connected to both.

It's important to recognize there's numerous levels, but I don't know what those levels are precisely.

I will say this; those entities at all levels can and do exist in lower levels too, but largely by choice. Connection to higher self is something which can be damaged by baggage but never truly severed entirely, whereas connection to lower self is something always there and chosen to experience, loosely speaking.

​I believe deities can and do frequently incarnate as humans. That these deities, these entities, these higher selves, frequently exist as humanity. 

Every human ever has multiple levels of existence, essentially. And these humans receive guidance from both their own higher selves and the higher self of others--guides, if you will.

Some can see all possible worlds, some can see what the current possible world is, some can see both, some can see neither.

And they try to guide every human to the best version of themselves and their communities.

I'm a little tired so I can't really complete this, but loosely, people have a high degree of agency and choice, and guides try to guide that agency towards futures better for both the person and the community and the people to follow.

People can be whoever they want to be, but some choices are better in some ways than other choices.

This is not nearly all of the belief, but it is as much as I have the energy to convey today.

I hope this, despite being incomplete, is entertaining and engaging and not offensive. Hopefully I can talk about my beliefs and how they retain to our actions and communities and such more next time.

To be technical, it was a dream after I had woken up for the morning, work was canceled due to the snow, and then I went back to bed, so it's more like a dream this morning.

But this was no ordinary occurrence.

I had a dream that felt real. And more than that, it felt like I was viewing flashes in time. Memories sent to my past self, from my future, but like memories often are, not in chronological order.

The first I saw was of me and my wife, Kelsey, raising a daughter. (One I felt had a name starting with A and at least one more a in it, and which felt like it was primarily softer sounds rather than mostly harder ones.) I saw her as a young girl, somewhere in the age range of 4 - 9, and we were raising her in a relatively large space.

The second I saw was of her, now a young adult, visiting us with her own daughter (our granddaughter), around the same age range of 4 - 9. What initially confused me was that she was visiting us in a smaller space than the one she was raised in, but it was still her and she was still visiting us.

Then I saw a vision of us buying what felt like a mansion--a place large enough to raise our infant (she was appearing as a baby less than 2 years old, felt less than a year old) and to let Parker, our puppy that we just got, run free. (Oh yeah I haven't blogged in nearly a month, so I forgot to share the news in a blog. kels and I have a puppy now! He's a 4 month old white Shepherd mix. We don't know more yet.) We somehow managed to get a place for the both of them.

And then I got a vision of us, after our daughter was an adult, going back to a smaller residence, it felt like an apartment. It wasn't something we needed to do, but for whatever reason we wanted to.

And it felt so real.

I shared it to my wife, thinking it important...

...And then I was blown away to learn...

Kels had nearly the exact same dream.

kels had seen us raising our daughter.
kels had seen us having a larger house.
And kels had even seen us making the decision to downsize.

We had nearly the exact same dream at the exact same time.

That feels like it can't be coincidence.

Like...obviously, there's no guarantee that what we saw will come to pass. This felt like it wasn't a vision of an alternate reality, it felt like it was a premonition of what's to come in this one, but at the same time, the future is fluid. What happens isn't set in stone. So there's no guarantee this will be a life we live.

But at the same time?

...I want that vision to come true.

I want to make what we saw come to pass.

I don't know how we'll pull it off.
Every step of the way is uncertain. How we'll raise a daughter (method of getting a daughter), how we'll get the funds to procure a place for her, how we'll make all of it happen.

But...I want that future. And kels does, too.
And that has given me a whole lot of hope for the future, too--if it's a future we currently hold the power to make, then it is a future that is worth living in and raising a child in, where that child may choose to have a child of her own. 

I don't know how we'll pull it off--but having seen this future so vividly and clearly, with my wife having seen it too, and both of us wanting to make it happen, we'll find a way. We have to.

I'm not giving up on that future, on having a family we raise. What we saw felt like it was a gentle nudge, a reminder, of the lives we want to live. And it doesn't need to be perfect, it doesn't need to be exactly as we saw, but, I believe if we take actions in pursuit of that future, it will happen.

We're facing overwhelming challenges. Illegally high rent, medical insurance exploitation, health issues, work issues, car issues, and more ugly surprises at every turn. It's not going to be given to us, and would be easy to be taken away from us. We need to not only take action, but also prevent those which close off that future.

But, I believe in that future, and want it. How we'll get there, we're still figuring out. But it is a future worth fighting for.