B

 The universe is benevolent.

You may choose to believe it, or not. Your lack of belief wouldn’t alter the fact.

The benevolence of the universe refers to the universe’s neutrality towards you. At some point in your life, if things were just coming apart one after another, it was not because there was a vendetta out for you. Senseless accidents didn’t happen to you because you were singled out for punishment.

(Aside: My context here is the normal, ordinary human experience. While the universe remains neutral, stoic and detached from human affairs, the canvas expands when applied to collective events like genocides or devastating natural disasters. Through all such events- however senseless- the nature of the universe remains unaltered. It does not interfere in the lives and choices of humans.

It stands by stoically and lets us bear the consequences of our choices. Just as individual consequences arise from individual choices, so do collective consequences arise from collective choices. It can no longer stop us from doing what we are driven to than to insulate us from what follows choices that violate natural laws and principles.)

Benevolence doesn’t mean that the universe will violate natural laws or principles to accommodate your whims and desires. But if you obey its laws and are aligned to its principles, it does conspire to bring things together rather magically.

The belief your own North Star- in its validity and in your own ability to reach it- is bolstered by a belief in the benevolence of the universe. In fact, this belief is  foundational to your belief in your own destiny. Your inner compass works perfectly in a climate of your belief that the universe is benevolent; a place which gives you a leg up when you need it the most- and when it is time to do so! (Yup, that’s the escape clause!)

This belief is a choice. Some people never acquire it; some hold it for a brief period of their youth and then trade it for chronic cynicism. For some blessed people, it is a flame that lights up their heart to the end of their days. Which one of these people you will be, is again a choice.

To believe in benevolence or not, that is the question.

We do not think that that tragedy is our natural state. We do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it, and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness, but suffering, that we consider unnatural. It is not success, but calamity, that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life.

~Ayn Rand