It is a real question

whether the universe and I

can ultimately be

at odds, 

considering the degree

to which we are 

aspects of 

each other.

The universe must not be indifferent to suffering, at least to the extent that I, also, am an instance of the universe, and express its nature as much as anything else does. It cannot be described as devoid of concern for personal, human existence, for comfort or for nurture. At the same time, that quality of the universe that I might characterize as disinterest or detachment--whether cruel or placid--lives also in the background radiation of my own soul. 

There is no laboratory so tightly sealed (or, for that matter, no thought so private or subjectivity so deep) that the signature of the surrounding universe, including everything from the Big Bang to the leaven of my own consciousness, does not seep in, inform, and influence what happens inside, as freely as if the walls and everything inside were merely expressions of the same universe--which they are. Nor can what happens inside fail to shape both the events and meaning of the universe in which it occurs.