Yet, on the local front, and I mean here in the New Nepal, the news seems to be better, despite headlines like traffic cop dies in road mishap, school principal beaten up, four persons held for drugs, and that the entire village of Chakdaha was sold to Lattu Malik for NRs 20,000.
Our news is indeed sad, but overall not near as deadly as in other countries near and far. And in fact, if one looks hard enough in this paper and others, one can even find some good news on any given Nepali date. For example, the headlines today “Migratory birds increase in Chitwan” caught my eye as did “New hospital for deaf, blind kids being built in Bhaktapur.”
Our news tends to be sad, sometimes fatal, and often buffered with a humanitarian effort or act of kindness. In contrast, world news seems to be chock full of death, destruction, hatred and ultimate demise, lightened up with latest Hollywood scandal or something about the lead-up to the World Cup.
Based on this observance (and I don’t write news stories, I just read lots of them), I now believe that we are all in a lucky state and fortunate position when one pulls back and looks at the totality of the situation; we live in a small country on a blue ball hurtling through outer space at 107,279 km/h, and despite a one-week shutdown, we are all still standing with our feet firmly planted in earth that is spinning at over 11,000 km/h. Try that Finland!
In other words, we are fine when compared to say Somalia, Afghanistan, or even America, where more people are murdered each year than have died in this country’s decade-long civil war. This good fortune can probably be explained mathematically, although I don’t have the formula on the tip of my keyboard. I just know what I read, and I have found that relatively recent advances in quantum physics may explain Nepal’s good fortune of late: The Many-Worlds Interpretation...
Nepalis are fine when compared to Somalia & Afghanistan, where more people are murdered each year than have died in this country’s decade-long civil war.
The Many-Worlds Interpretation asserts an objective reality of the wave function, but denies the reality of wave function collapse. Prior to this thinking, world history could only be thought of as a single unfolding event. Now we have a model that allows for every possible outcome in a bodhi tree-like spread, where each branch represents possible history/future pairs splitting out to near infinity. Our current situation in Nepal is just but one leaf on this tree, and fortunately that leaf is still attached.
The Many Worlds Interpretation can be found illustrated in modern pop-culture in almost every genre: Literature, movies and TV, with video games being no exception. Back to the Future, Run Lola Run, Groundhog Day, Sliders, Doctor Who, LOST, and Command & Conquer are just a smattering of examples of the Many Worlds Interpretation at play.
But none of this is new to local Buddhist Rinpoches or Hindu Priests, as the quantum mathematics of the Many Worlds Interpretation are encapsulated in dharmic texts dating back thousands of years. Our existence is not described in terms of particles of light, double slit experiments, and dead/not dead Schrödinger cats. Instead, our existence in the here and now of today’s news is defined by the 31 planes of existence, karma, and the various Trinities of the Gods.
Both lines of study, faith and science, have converged and now agree, although the language of cosmology and mathematics may not gel into one in our lifetime - but are sure to reconcile on at least one of the branches on the quantum bodhi tree! So this is all good news, no matter what channel you are turned to.
However, what does this mean for the average Nepali on the street? I say it means we can count our blessings, so to speak, and that since the theories of modern quantum mathematics has historical roots in this part of the world (read Lumbini), this bodes well for all living here today (call it Quantum Karma), and since Nepal has been relatively untouched by the massive social experiments taking place over the past centuries in other parts of the world, we are neither dead nor not-dead like Schrödinger’s cat. We are just...fine.
I know it seems like grasping at straws for an explanation of why our news is so much better than world news, but for the moment, it’s the only explanation that I can come up with that falls within the guidelines of Occam’s Razor, where it is stated that the simplest plot is the one to go with.
And in this case, the simplest explanation of why our news is “better news” could be that we are indeed blessed, hence the expression of Namaste every day (day in and day out).
What else could explain today’s good news from US Ambassador Scott H DeLisi? He stated that the US would soon remove the Maoist party from his country’s list of terrorist organizations. Please feel free to add your alternate universe explanation below...
(Writer is quirky-kinda expat happily living in the Kathmandu valley with Nepali family, friends, and a very large dog – and is currently building a time-traveling Delorean in his backyard.)
herojig@gmail.com
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