The Universe.. What is it?

The  universe.. everybody has his own understanding of it. I had one too. But, unlike some, and more like many, I am always ready to change my views. So, now I don't really have any understanding. The more you think you come to know about the universe, you get even more confused. The problem is, you have to imagine something, which you think can never happen. You have to get over your rebelling mind and actually picture stranger that fiction things.

Earlier, the people never had to do this. They just thought of something and stick to it like super glue. Just think of this, earlier people thought that out earth is supported on one of the bull's horn and that when the bull gets tired, he sifts the earth to the other horn due to which earthquake occurred. This explanation is not at all easy to digest. But people did believed in that. So, its just you who can picture your own universe. And who knows.. what happens in your imaginary universe, may actually be exactly what is happening right now in some different part of the universe.

Now, after all that chit-chat, lets come to the point. My picture of the universe is more of a question than an answer...

 What do we think makes the universe? Is there actually some kind of boundary? 

You never know what you will find up there!!!

suppose, we do develop the technology such that we can travel at high speeds and cover way to big distances. So, we set off from earth and just travel pointing at just one direction. The thing is, how will we know that we actually are going in the same direction at all times? See, if you are lost in a big desert, the sahara for example, you just cant simply keep walking and get to the end of it. You are bound to change the direction. even way to small changes in direction can result in a big change in direction over time..

You may even be going in a very big circle!! One solution is to calibrate your direction with the sun or a compass. But i wonder if we can even build something like a compass that will work in space.
Then there is the problem of recognition. How will we know that we have actually reached the end of our universe and are entering in a new one (if more than one do exist). So, what we need to do, is picture a boundary. With out an end, one can not define a universe. Like we can not define a system in thermodynamics. But then, what if the universe expands infinity and there is no other universe.
Now, if we say that we are just simulations of some computer program then an infinitely big universe is possible. If you are familiar with basic computer programming, you will know we can always put an infinite loop. For those who don't, think it like this. Is we start going in just one direction from a starting point and keep going straight, after covering a fairly big distance, we will see the point from where we started from. Just take it like we have copied the whole block and pasted it just ahead of it. So, this way, an infinitely big universe can be thought of.  
Similarly, one can think of millions of things. We can have millions of explanations, millions of ideas for how we can picture our universe. The most idiotic one to sound may be actually the right one. May be the most boring one may be true. I can't say. What matters is, never completely agree with someone else's model. Make your own, challenge it and see if it makes you smile with satisfaction. The universe is what you think it is.
The more ideas we have, the more we get to the reality. That is the very reason we our brains with us. To think, to dream and relate the two.