Personal Singularity vs Multiverse
One wrong decision is better than a thousand correct ones.
The idea is simple: a decision should be singular. Having two means having none at all.
I believe the roots of this concept go back to classical physics, which describes the world we live in. While quantum physics may offer a more accurate and nuanced model, and although it may not always be as binary or deterministic, it does not invalidate classical physics. Classical physics still describes the majority of our everyday, observable experiences - this world we inhabit - with superior clarity. And classical physics is deeply grounded in determinism: every effect has a cause, and everything unfolds within a linear timeline.
This perspective isn't arbitrary or isolated, it reflects how we think. And how we think is inextricably tied to the environment in which we exist and conduct our observations. Backed by the authority of this framework, we can conclude that life as we know it unfolds as a sequence of events - an unbroken, singular reality. Unlike elementary particles, we humans can only exist in one place at one time. Physically, we all agree on these laws.
On the other hand, our thoughts, interpretations, and understanding of the world are plural. There are billions of people, each with their own mind, their own opinions. This diversity can be generalized, categorized, and reduced to manageable models, but it can also be endlessly subdivided into individual views. Even when two people agree on something, breaking their views down to components will inevitably reveal divergence. And divergence emerges even within a single person. People change, opinions shift - sometimes in seconds. We can even hold contradictory beliefs without noticing the conflict, and even when the conflict becomes apparent, we excel at reconciling contradictions.
And here lies the core conflict: at the boundary between the singular, deterministic physical world and the plural, interpretive mental world. There's a constant process of consolidation between the two. On a societal level, this manifests in science, where the pursuit of objectivity represents the frontier of this consolidation. But it also happens on an individual level, where each of us tries to align our varied beliefs, assumptions, and understandings with the singular external reality.
Perhaps this deep conflict arises from the reflective capacity of consciousness. Animals, presumably lacking this capacity, likely experience a smoother, more fluid world - they just flow, like rivers across the land. And we can too, temporarily, until our complex brains activate the reflective process and spiral into recursion, mapping mental artifacts to our observations. This may be nothing more than advanced signal processing. But just as we disregard the true relativistic quantum nature of the universe because we live in a classical framework, the same applies here: regardless of the mechanisms behind it, we actually live in the tension between a singular physical world and a divergent mental world. And we are bound to it.
In this conflict, the physical side is the rock. It's a rock we built with our own hands - it wasn't given. But we need it to hold onto. The singular world is essential. The other side - our perception and interpretation - is fluid, shifting. We constantly reshape it, refine it, repair it. This is how we grow. Attempts to fracture the rock are, in most cases, acts of despair, naivety, or ignorance - failures to realize that attacking the foundation is dismantling the ground you stand on. That's only a good idea if your goal is to plunge into chaos (and that's your right). But if you want your predictions to be reliable, you will return to the rock. The variable is always on our side - in our mental world.
This process of reconciling the conflict appears throughout life. It's also the core of personal development. Whenever we grow, whenever we achieve results, it is through compressing and distilling our vague internal world into monolithic shards of "truth." From these, we build our worldview, and through that, we build ourselves.
In this context, fewer options simplify the process. Ideally, no choice at all: with only one option, there's no decision to make. Everything is determined by external conditions - a kind of perfect slavery paradise. Having options introduces pain - the difficulty of choice. Yet this is true freedom: the ability to choose your slavery. This is also where responsibility enters: choosing one path out of many, knowing that consequences follow from your choice - you become the cause of the outcome.
There are compelling theories that deny the existence of real choice, suggesting our behavior is statistically predictable, shaped by countless preconditions. That may be true. But again, it doesn't really matter. Whether our choices are real or illusions, history is always singular - we experience only one version. So we can never know if free will exists or not, and it makes no difference in this context. What matters is that we live through the process of choice. When we see the outcome, we link it to prior choices, and in making that link, we assume responsibility.
Returning to the plurality of choices - freedom doesn't just emerge from having options, but also from being able to see them. Not only in decision-making, but in all aspects of life, the ability to see alternatives, to recognize different opinions - to be open-minded - is essential. That's part of being free. The broader your view, the better. But with more options come more difficulties. Not just because some choices are hard, but because every option requires processing, evaluation, understanding. The quality of the options matters, of course - and that, in turn, comes from accumulated experience.
Both the generation of options and their reduction to a singular choice are important. While this is a general process relevant to many areas of life, it is undoubtedly central to personal development. It illuminates the idea of "being yourself": first, you must open yourself to the ocean of everything. Then, you reduce it down to the one that is you. Finding that singular self in the chaos of "everything and nothing" is the true process of becoming yourself.
Just be yourself. Just one of the most challenging things you may face in your life.