If the universe is perfect, why am I not?

The universe fits together perfectly; the word is a combination of unus (“one”) and versus (“turned” or “rolled”), the universe is everything turned or rolled into one; everything has its place and does what it does, working together, no exceptions, perfect.

It works so well that we can formulate laws that perfectly describe its workings. However, when we look at ourselves, things appear to be far from perfect: our bodies are subject to accidents and disease; the artefacts we make break down, and our production methods cause our environment damage; we make our own and each other’s lives a living hell for reasons I, for one, fail to understand. How does that then work?

How can the universe be perfect whilst we, a part of that universe, and therefore presumably part of that perfection, do not experience it that way?

The answer is not that hard to find. We might start with the question: Does our life need to be perfect for us to consider the universe perfect? We are a product of the universe, not its precondition. We are just one of the many things a universe is capable of making. For it to work perfectly does not mean it can only produce things that are happy with themselves. As if producing happiness in a tiny disturbance within itself were what universes do, surely no one can be fatuous enough to think that.

The universe is perfect from a strictly analytical point of view. Everything fits together and works perfectly to make one whole, whilst that whole is in constant flux, making and remaking without a single error. Errors only appear when you presume a purpose. Toasters are only seen as broken by people who want to use them; for the rest, they are just stuff cluttering the place.

The universe does not have the purpose of making us happy. In fact, the universe does not have a scrutable purpose of itself. It might have one, but it has so far proven inaccessible to our limited understanding.

It is rather the other way around: happiness is an instrument that has evolved within the universe, which we use to judge situations. Sadness is just as useful in that way. The system of happiness and sadness, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, quiet and disquiet works for all mobile creatures we have evolved into, who grow and develop as we learn to accommodate ourselves in our changing environment.

To do that, we assign ourselves and the things around us uses and purposes. With that, we enter the world of the knowledge of good and bad, of the beautiful and ugly, true and false. Some things make us happy because they are good or beautiful, other things make us unhappy because they turned out badly or proved themselves false. Happiness and sadness are instruments of selection. If we are happy with something, we keep it; if not, we change it. It works!

We use that instrument to help us better accommodate ourselves. But what better means to different people partly depends on their beliefs.

Few of our beliefs help us desire the right things to help us and our sometimes hostile environment flourish. Finding beliefs that truly help us flourish takes hard experience and real learning.

Why doesn’t the universe automatically provide us with the right kind of beliefs so that we desire the right kind of things, thereby preventing both stress and boredom? Why does it not make ‘better’ human beings? Why can’t evolution produce a humanity 2.0? Be careful what you wish for. Such a move would rob you of the little freedom you have.

The universe is busy evolving humanity, but that humanity won’t be better in any sense other than being better adapted to the situation in which it evolves. What that means is anyone’s guess. Stress and boredom, cruelty and ignorance are part of what makes us perfectly human at this moment. Who knows what comes next? It could go any which way. In a world full of autocrats, the meekly fawning will inherit the earth; if we start interfering with our evolutionary progress on the basis of our misguided beliefs, I do not hold out much hope that things will become kinder or more amenable to an easy life. On the contrary.

Whatever our own foolishness, flourishing, happiness, and health are not the universe’s concern; it has made them ours through evolution. The universe made us evolve into creatures capable of thinking and learning; stress, boredom, and everything else that makes us human are part of what makes that possible. We are all perfect examples of what we are, even though we might want to be different. But that too is part of what we are.

That we do not conform to our own ideals is not the universe’s problem; it is ours. It is a shame that ideals crafted by human beings are not always very intelligently conceived.

So, just for fun, try to imagine desiring things that do not make life a living hell for others or yourself. That, too, is possible in this perfect universe.

© Jacob Voorthuis, 2026. Please cite Jacob Voorthuis as the author, The Theoria Project as the title and the page address as the location. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, under the following terms: No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.