When I imagine June 8th, it feels like just another day in the parallel reality without a coronavirus pandemic spreading across the world. And yet I know COVID-19 outbreaks will most likely still be occurring. The universe I sense and wish to surf to has the following characteristics:
I don’t think about or talk to anyone about coronaviruses or pandemics;
Everyone I know who wants a job, has a job;
The local newspaper only has an occasionally story about a new local coronavirus case and there are no sustained outbreaks nearby;
Daily whitehouse.gov press briefings are no longer happening;
Doctors have a standard treatment procedure for COVID-19 that brings the CFR down to the same level as seasonal flu;
The stock market has recovered somewhat and volatility is rare;
Unfortunately, the confirmed number of COVID-19 cases and deaths will have far surpassed the number of confirmed number of Influenza cases and deaths; and
Grocery stores are fully stocked and N95 masks are available at normal prices.
I took this photo yesterday at sunrise near Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz, CA
Santa Cruz, CA: The entire state of California is now on lockdown by order of the Governor Newsom. California is the most populous US state with over 40 million residents. At the time of the lockdown order, there were 19 confirmed deaths out of 910 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in California. This compares with at least 5300 confirmed cases in New York and almost 1400 confirmed cases in Washington.
Santa Cruz County and other counties around the Bay Area have been under similar “Shelter in Place” orders for the last two days. The “lockdown” orders appear to be the same. All non-essential businesses are shutdown and social distancing is required when people are out in public.
Local BBQ Place under Lockdown – Take out only, except for beer
How did we get here? It seems like a good time for a review and also a good time to start thinking about how we are going to get back to a universe without all of this social distancing and scary coronaviruses.
I awoke this morning in a new universe – a new reality – a different dimension of reality – a parallel world. As I type this, I feel myself moving through these different dimensions – I feel the influence of the different dimensions in my body, in my mind, and in my soul.
I described my experiences of being in this new universe and what it felt like in my body, mind, and spirit. I ended my blog post with:
It’s 1005 and I now feel complete with this share of my experience now having arrived in what feels like a “far away” reality. I’m curious if I have developed my universe surfing skills sufficiently to stay here for a while and explore or if this has been only a short trip.
My curiosity was around if I would just write one blog post and then go back to my previous set of universes where I wasn’t blogging. I was also curious to explore what was true in this new set of universes I felt myself in.
On the second day, I could feel the prior universes trying to pull me back. My notebook battery didn’t make the leap to the new universes and wasn’t holding a charge. I felt a wormhole closing behind me as I wrote: 2020 Day 2: Feeling a Short Trip and Closing the Wormhole Behind Me.
In 2020 Day 3: In the Wormhole of Consumption and Creation I talked about how I wanted to move from universes where I was spending my time consuming content and move to universe where I was spending my time creating content. I also started talking about stocks because I wanted to eliminate my habit of checking the stock market multiple times a day. It’s interesting to see the stocks I picked to diversify:
For 2019, I was blessed to have AAPL and AMD as my top two investments. I hedged these growth stocks with some value stocks (IBM, WETF, DS, SFM, and NOK) which also provided a bit of diversification. I sold some AAPL and AMD to rebalance my portfolio for 2020 and plan to now only check my portfolio monthly.
Well, the selling of AAPL and AMD turned out to be a good move, but the diversification of buying the other stocks did not protect me from the recent market crash. Of the pick, Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM) is the only one that held up. I should probably think of DS as “dumbshit” and WETF as “WTF was I thinking”. Note to self – always liquidate stock holdings before surfing to a new set of universes!
2020 Day 7: 88% Charge was just another example of how different sets of universes interfere with one another. It seems that my working battery from the prior set of universes was affecting my bad battery of my new set of universes.
As I try to restrict my attention to world and financial news, these both start shouting louder for attention.
Wow, how this insight turned out to be an understatement. On the ninth day of me surfing into this new set of universes, I felt my first synchronicity involving the Chinese city of Wuhan. In 2020 Day 9: New Strain of Coronavirus found in Wuhan, China, I blogged about the “novel coronavirus” as it was called then. Almost a year earlier, I had traveled through Wuhan as a random stop-over on the way to Thailand. I was able to walk around outside and take photos such as this one:
and this one:
I remember noticing how cold it was in January and how cloudy the sky was. In my blog post, I wrote:
Today it is being reported that the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak “mystery illness” that has infected 60 people in the last 2 weeks is caused by a new coronavirus.
Had I not been to Wuhan a year earlier, I doubt this story would have caught my eye. I used my universe surfing skills to notice it and blog about it. It was already an unexpected event for me to travel through Wuhan, and then seeing a “mystery illness” unexpectedly show up in Wuhan was very synchronistic for me. It was a marker that I was in a connected flow of universes. As I reread my post, I’m noticing how much I focused on researching coronaviruses at the time. I’m also remembering that I was sick:
I’ve been sick with a respiratory infection for about two weeks.
I didn’t have a fever. It seemed like just a long, mild symptoms cold. But with my partner later getting sick with (supposedly, according to the second test) FluA, maybe I had the flu. Or, maybe the universe surfing was stressful on my body. Or, maybe my parallel self was traveling to Wuhan this month instead of a year ago, and I was feeling symptoms of him(/her, parallel selves can be any or no gender). My best feeling now, is I was infected with one of the 4 coronaviruses endemic in our population which I also wrote about:
Four identified coronaviruses (HCoV-229E, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-OC43, and HCoV-HKU1) are endemic in humans and cause up to 30% of respiratory tract infections worldwide each year.
The next day I found myself in a universe where I was a runner. I hadn’t run in quite a while and never longer than 3-4 miles. I periodically wrote posts about my running progress – basically every time I ran. I’m no longer in a universe where I’m running, but feel I will return one day.
At this point, I noticed that I was having more difficulty blogging each day. To continue my habit, I would blog something – anything – whatever popped into my mind. Numbers and spirituality/mythology/religion seemed to guide me as I blogged:
In another universe in which I didn’t run on the 16th day, I blogged about hexadecimal numbers. Then, the novel coronavirus returned to my notice as Thailand and Japan reported confirmed infections: 2020 Day 17: Wuhan Coronavirus infections in Thailand and Japan. It’s interesting to see what I focused on in this post:
This is interesting because China lobbied who.int to not refer to the novel coronavirus as “Wuhan Coronavirus” and today Trump is only using the name “Chinese coronavirus” to describe officially named SARS_CoV_2, which causes COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019).
I also wrote about diagnostic testing by WHO, which is the test rejected by the US.
Testing has become a big issue as South Korea has used widespread testing to “flatten the curve” and control the spread of COVID-19 while the US has struggled to get a working test deployed.
I also showed a graph of the phylogenetic tree of SARS_COV_2. It is still unproven from where SARS_COV_2 arose.
The last paragraph of this blog post reads a bit prophetic to me now:
This story is still not widely reported, but has made it to The Economist. I hope to surf to a universe where this is not a big story, but the synchronicities that found me posting this make me worry that the odds are against me.
Day 18 still feels like a random post – not sure what future this is connected to: 2020 Day 18: Ned Snead. In another universe, I blogged about hanging out with a friend and his family.
2020 Day 19: My longest run 4.67 miles and chair entanglement tells a story of me donating my double-recliner to Goodwill and making an analogy to entanglement. I am not a physicist in this universe, so if you are, please correct the analogy where needed.
Quantum sensing can also appear as a déjà vu feeling. Laurie Garrett, a reporter for CNN, reported yesterday that when she read reports of patients exhibiting symptoms of pneumonia as early as December 12, 2019, she had a “chilling sense of déjà vu”. Seventeen years ago she reported on the SARS virus pandemic that caused illness in at least 8000 people across 37 countries and was associated with at least 774 deaths, including 299 in Hong Kong.
I also wrote this interesting sentence:
I’m now beginning to wonder if these two blog posts will be understood more clearly through a universe surfing viewpoint that does not require time to move in only one direction, and instead allows for anyone to quantum feel possible futures.
I then wrote a story about my experiences feeling, and also my brother feeling, multiple universes as my brother’s washing machine breaks and get replaced with a new one.
20200202 Day 33: First Palindrome Date since 11/11/1111 notes a date for millennials to celebrate. That it’s the 33rd date of the year and this is also a palindrome strikes me as such a rare numerical event. An “exercise for the reader” is to determine if the palindromic qualities of this 33rd day of Gregorian calendar will ever be seen again.
I then pivoted from palindromes to Coronaviruses and discussed palindromic RNA sequences. This lead me somehow to looking at finding a phylogenetic tree of SARS_COV_2 which included a Bat SARS-like coronavirus WIV1 (ID: KF367457.1) that I had happened to find through my own BLAST searching. I documented this unexpected event to see if it had any links to the future:
I made some more posts about politics and the democratic political race:
Assuming no outbreaks in other countries, using the official numbers reported to date by China, and hoping for the best, the number of worldwide reported cases peak at 145,000 and number of deaths peak at 2,000.
20200209u Day 40: Conspiracy Theories in Multiple Realities is about how universe surfing and quantum sensing can lead one to sound like a conspiracy nut. If you sound like a nut, you’re doing it right. Just know that you sound like a nut and you’ll be ok. The final quote I made in this post deserves to be repeated because it is linked to the future:
At this point, the origin of 2019-nCoV is still in a superposition of states (wild and man-made), at least for most of the people on the planet.
Then cruise ships made the news for all the wrong reasons and China changes the way it counts COVID-19 cases for a few days.
20200317T Days 61-77: Definitely in a New Universe Now! is continuing to feel into the changes in the universe. I am now using twitter and consuming news much more instead of creating. I fell down a wormhole of COVID-19 pandemic and into a set of universes that feel very foreign to me.
20200318W Day 78: It’s a New Universe! is me feeling a desire to leave this set of universes I have found myself in and travel back to one in which there is no pandemic and everyone isn’t worried about the loss in value of their 401k or how they are going to pay their rent.
Santa Cruz, CA: I did something this morning that I haven’t done in a while – I got up early to watch the sunrise. I drove to the lighthouse where I first learned to universe surf six years ago. Even though seven million people are sheltering in place around me, you wouldn’t know it by walking along West Cliff right now. It feels very much like the old universe I still remember where people are doing their same daily tasks and getting ready for the day. I see a couple with a baby in a stroller. The church bells are ringing. The surf is crashing against the shore. Runners are getting in their morning run before they go over the hill to work – except they most likely won’t be going to work today.
I’m amused at how the Universe is such a trickster. Yesterday, I went to top off my car with gas. The cash price was cheaper, and so I asked my partner if she had cash. She gave me $12.25 for a $12.04 bill. I asked her if she had a nickel. She looked and looked in her purse and didn’t have any more change – only the quarter. So I went to the cash register with the feeling of wanting to hold on to the quarter. When I offered the $12, the attendant said that was good as he reached his hand into an empty penny-saver tray and pulled out 4 imaginary pennies. I kept the quarter in my hand and returned to my car. There were a few used disinfecting wipes to throw away, so I grabbed those and put those in the garbage. I noticed I was about to throw my quarter away! As I pulled it out, I noticed it was now a nickel!! I showed it to my partner and asked “Did you give me a quarter or a nickel?”.
“I gave you a quarter”, she replied as she quickly took the nickel and threw it back into her purse after noticing it was a nickel.
“Wait, let me see that again”, I requested. She dug threw her purse and finally found the coin. It was now a quarter again – although it looked like a different quarter to me with lots of crumbs on it.
I meant to go through her purse when we returned home, but forgot. I actually don’t have an explanation for what happened. My only clue is when I returned home, I felt in my pocket and pulled out a quarter. It was like the Universe knew it had flubbed up and needed to give me a reason to be able to rationalize what had happened.
The synchronistic part of this story is how a day earlier I was telling my new housemates about my grandfather’s experience during the Great Depression. My grandfather told me that when he lost a nickel, he would get physically sick because money was that precious. I wonder if the Universe was letting me feel that yesterday – which I definitely did.
We now live in a world that operates on a currency that is no longer backed by gold. Dollars are not worth an ounce of Silver anymore. They are only worth another paper dollar. And, if toilet paper continues to be in short supply, you may not even be able to get paper dollars soon – only digital.
Santa Cruz, CA: I walked along West Cliff earlier today, on this first day of the county’s Shelter In Place order. Exercise is allowed, provided that people maintain a six foot distance between each other unless they are from the same shelter home. I also went to Home Depot to buy some tools in order to renovate my RV. This feels like a universe where I’m preparing for an apocalypse. When I started this experiment in universe surfing 77 days ago, I remember being curious and excited. The excitement has turned into frustration and the curiosity has increased. I’m frustrated at my apparent lack of control. The last 16 days have felt increasingly volatile – as if multiple sets of universes are combining together. My curiosity is increased because this universe feels so different. I’m also curious if it’s possible for me to feel more in control. Can I surf back to the universe I was in 77 days ago? If I do, it will almost certainly be different because the timeline of my surfing experiment must somehow fit into that universe.
Before I try to surf back, I want to document this universe find myself in. Some things I notice different are:
Instead of blogging daily, I’ve been tweeting daily;
The US Congress is able to write and pass bills with bipartisan support;
The retirement savings of most Americans is significantly (up to 33% or so) less, measured in dollar terms. Oil is also significantly cheaper;
A growing percent of the world’s population is under some form of quarantine or shelter in place;
Stores have run out of certain items and people have gotten into fights over toilet paper;
Fewer people are working and more countries are planning to distribute money directly to their citizens;
Countries are beginning to close their borders to foreigners; and
“Social Distancing” and “Coronavirus” are now in the general vocabulary.
— Updates After Posting —
Since this blog post covered so many days, I want to add to it for the days I missed. I also want to reference blogs from others.
Crestone, CO: I’m at the Elephant Cloud Tea Shop in Crestone, Colorado – elevation 8000 feet. There’s a band on stage with a drummer, clarinet player, and piano player. I feel like I have surfed to a different universe because this universe I’m experiencing feels much different than the one I was in five days ago. Some of the differences I notice are:
The global stock market is not at such an inflated value;
COVID-19 has verified community spread in the United States;
The US now has a coronavirus czar, VP Pence;
China is no longer a country with increasing confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths;
I’m now in a different state, at a much higher elevation, and there is snow on the ground;
A friend of mine is now living in my home – my home is now on the road;
I don’t seem to blog daily in this universe – or maybe the surfing to get here disrupted that;
My diet is more vegan – just drank hot chocolate with hemp milk;
I don’t run any more;
The who.int COVID-19 risk assessment is now VERY HIGH for Regional and Global Levels with over 16 countries having confirmed local transmission;
COVID-19 response is now being politicized in the US;
There are more new confirmed COVID-19 cases outside of China than inside of China;
Coronavirus is now a topic of conversation in the US at the family dinner table and the local coffee shop, including the one I’m in now;
The COVID-19 CFR is now closer to 4% than 2%;
Medical experts in the US government must now get clearance from the executive branch (VP Pence) before discussing the COVID-19 pandemic;
US President Trump holds white house press conferences much more often;
The first death from COVID-19 has been confirmed in the US;
Afghanistan’s Taliban and the US are no longer at war;
Pope Francis has cancelled the last 3 days of events due to cold-like symptoms;
All 16 COVID-19 patients in Vietnam have been discharged from the hospital and declared cured;
The Shincheonji Church of Jesus, founded in 1984 by pastor Lee Man-hee and with an estimated 240,000 followers worldwide, has been associated with the COVID-19 outbreak in South Korea;
scmp.com is reporting that The Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) in Hong Kong is associated with the Shincheonji Church of Jesus and it seems that this religious institution is being linked, with questionable evidence, with the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan;
South Korea is able to test 10000 people per day for COVID-19 while the US can seem to test only 1% of that number;
Thousands of migrants are now allowed to leave Turkey for the EU;
There are long lines outside of COSTCO – panic in the US is taking hold;
Iran’s former envoy to the Vatican, Sayyed Hadi Khosroshahi, has died of COVID-19; and
Travelers from South Korea and Italy into the US will be medically screened before boarding.
surfing the universe 