There’s this movie I once saw … or maybe it was a book … about the main character living in parallel or alternate universes. In one universe the character gets up on the left side of the bed and in the other on the right. And that little act changes everything from that moment on.

I didn’t even need to get out of bed today to experience different universes. My usual news feeds documented a global stock market crash which hadn’t been seen since COVID. But this time it wasn’t a virus but due to a US President who is causing extreme global uncertainties in the markets.

I then learned that Fox News TV wasn’t showing its normal stock market ticker in the lower third. So in a most unusual move for me I brought up Fox News (and set my VPN to pretend I was in the United States) to see how it was reporting this most significant global news. I scrolled and scrolled looking for news about tarifs … nada. Front page was about a ‘pretty sketchy’ US District Judge.

So I started thinking of another book I read. It was about this totalitarian regime of Big Brother. The regime maintains power by manipulating truth, rewriting history, and limiting language and thought through what it called ‘Newspeak’. Or wait … was that a book I read or is that really happening? Wow. What universe did I wake up in??

I decided I’d better crawl back in bed and try getting out on the left side. And then maybe I’d check my retirement fund and see that it was back to the levels it was 74 days ago.