No More Foreplay, the Universe is Ready to Fuck

when it feels like collective existence is reaching a climax

The Ancient of Days by William Blake, 1794

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, my favorite Jesuit priest and paleontologist, proposed that the universe is evolving towards a state of greater complexity, consciousness, and unity, which he dubbed the “Omega Point.”

The theory: as human consciousness and technology advance in stride, all matter and consciousness will, eventually, converge into a single, ultimate point of reality. Think of this as Evolution’s Grand Finale—the heightened state of spiritual and cosmic consciousness. Or, if like me, you’re into cruder metaphors: soon, the cosmic dance between Man and God-Space will drop all pretense, cease its foreplay, strip down naked, and finally just fuck.

This thinking tracks with what Terence Mckenna, a psychedelic philosopher and writer, advocated with his “novelty” theory called “Timewave Zero.” As time progresses, so too does complexity, and thus the rate of novel events and experiences in human history inevitably increases. Because history unfolds in waves, the level of novelty in each wave varies. Like Ray Kurzweil, McKenna too predicted the exponential rate of technological growth would lead to a singularity or transformative event in the not-so-distant future.

Now, in the present day, it can feel like we are closer than ever to such a “breaking point.” The news keeps getting stranger. Amid incessant talks about AI doom, alien disclosure, the Sonoran cactuses dying from overheating (!), faux room temperature semiconductor fusion, plants failing to photosynthesize in the rainforest, more ungodly climate disaster—it certainly seems like the Omega point might be just around the bend. Especially if you can’t get those Taylor Swift tickets.

Okay, let’s say, in the coming months, some type of grand revelation arrives. We learn of even crazier news, like fully sentient AI. Or Jesus re-appears as a dude in Lake Tahoe who can walk on water, fact-checked with no deep fakes! Scientists say an asteroid is coming to destroy us in five years. We finally discover that aliens are real—that our government has known about it for decades, and we are, in fact, already members of the Galactic Federation. Or, god forbid, President ____ is reelected.

Then… what?

As the comic Duncan Trussell aptly says:

“You’re still gonna end up on a UFO, flying through space, and you go to the bathroom and see that some asshole pissed on the seat and you’re gonna be like, ‘What the fuck is wrong with people?!’”

His point: the human condition is inescapable. We can fret over the wildness of the news all we want, more crazy shit can and will happen, and you are still going to get a stomach ache after eating Chipotle. The perfect mixture of breathwork, sex, psychedelics, and funky music won’t make you enlightened or clear your eczema. Your neighbor’s ratchety garage door will still throttle your white noise machine every morning. The Omega Point isn’t going to change the fact that your relationships, right here and now, are what matter most—nor the fact that they define your daily reality. Are you being kind to your friends and family? Or are you too busy being a dick on the internet?

Put it this way: Would Larry David’s concerns be all that different if he lived in a community on Mars? His preoccupations would be identical, his frustrations and disappointments, his peccadilloes and bugaboos. As AA folks like to say, “There is no geographical solution to a spiritual problem.” So too, it doesn’t matter where the toilet seat is, if some jackass pissed on it.

Shove the influencing optimizers and TikTok tutorials to the side for a while; as we approach Global Weirding, I think we have perhaps most to learn from the comics and the tricksters. Please, give this collaboration between comedic philosopher Duncan Trussell and psychonautical musician East Forest a listen with your full attention, for the full length. Seriously, it’s sublime.

Also, cool story: a shaman in the Amazon once gave me the spiritual name “Omega.” He still claims that I should go by it. Maybe someday…