“I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens.I’ve been knocking from the inside!” – Rumi We are free. We are always free. It’s not that we have to do anything to feel this way – rather – we have to let go of all the distractions…
Something bigger has all of this to offer. I am merely getting out of the way. Of course, this is me, writing this… but even here, there is something wordless, being refracted through me, into words. There is some bigger thing, to which we are all inextricably attached. This bigger thing is gently asking you,…
If Sam Harris could leave one sentence behind for all humankind to lead their best lives, this would be it.
In the novel Infinite Jest, a film makes its way around that, upon watching, is so damn good, it kills the viewer. They literally sit there … stupefied, soiling themselves, failing to eat or hydrate or move, until their body goes cold. Anyone attempting to save the person will invariably catch a glance of the…
“Took me exactly 53 trips around the sun to realize that right now I’m as young as I’ll ever be, and as old as I’ve ever been, here in the honeyhole between already and not yet.” Matthew McConaughey When’s the last time you stopped in your tracks, completely absorbed with what was going on in…
I keep a list of coincidences in my phone. A few times per year I toss things in. I keep the bar high – there should be a real, “no f’ing way” aspect to whatever lives there. Otherwise, it doesn’t belong. One just happened. I’ll share. November 3, 2022 A housekeeper visits my place monthly.…
For reasons shared previously, I don’t enjoy using the word “spirituality”. It’s fraught with misunderstanding… hocus pocus and religion. But there is something simple and legitimate at its core – I see it as the following: Spirituality, in short, is embarking upon the never-ending journey to understand who you are and why you do everything…
Your life is a work of art that is already beautiful and complete. Each moment, a new opportunity to paint, but never for a moment lacking in completeness. When it ends, it ends, but at no point were you missing anything. It was beautiful all along. Part II. Art, literally, is expression on canvas. But…
I’ll start with the punchline: If you store your mushrooms in capsules, they will probably last a long long time, regardless of container, humidity, and temperature, and lighting. (But, may as well keep them in the dark with a dryer packet, room temp). A year ago I harvested mushrooms from an single batch and packed…
[60 minutes into the sunlight dose] Definitely feel “the glow”. I’ve done this enough to know varying shades of potency, due to variables such as: time of day, empty stomach, mushroom batch, etc. The glow [in this moment] is completely obvious. Feeling the familiar characteristics – the undeniable wordless feeling that everything is fine (always…
Serve Others. “Take in what you do not want, and give away what you do want. Take in what is unpleasant, and give away what is pleasant. Take in pain, and give away joy. It sounds a bit insane—emotional suicide, as one person put it. But it counteracts that deeply ingrained tendency to focus on…
I suspect many of us spend a significant portion of life waiting our turn. We may be anxious about waiting, but certainly, we’ll have our turn. Just like the moments at the deli counter, or the doctor’s office, when we sit, keeping busy, watching each person go before us… trying to estimate how much longer…
Ever see life as a movie you started watching in the middle? No idea how it began, but it doesn’t matter, because you feel the plot and need to see what happens next. Life really is this way. We (allegedly) start as infants, but most likely remember none of that. Crying was our one tool.…
My younger self had this recurring intuition that any human mind, given enough experience and space, invariably finds optimism. It will see that it’s own wellbeing relies on the wellbeing of others. Others who are fundamentally the same- conscious creatures each making sense of their own pyrotechnics show: the emotions, the urges, the ever-accumulating stories,…
“The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the ‘Oh how banal.’ To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and…
“When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything.”– Waymond Wang What is life? Any attempt to distill it will fall short. Here goes one, anyway: Life is grappling with the idea of infinite potential realities for…
Where do you see yourself, within these cohorts? People who confidently believe human consumption is unsustainable, people who confidently believe everything is fine, and everyone else in the middle — just trying to get through life. Wherever you fall, there are 4 billion others ready to contradict you. People take positions and defend them like…
The most incredible joy- a complete and utter absence of hunger or desire, a total ease which needs no improvement whatsoever, can be discovered within. When one glimpses this, even only briefly, even only once, all subsequent behaviors and drives can be considered in relation. It becomes apparent, despite even the most Herculean skepticism, all…
“Oh the joy of missing out. When the world begins to shout And rush towards that shining thing; The latest bit of mental bling– Trying to have it, see it, do it, You simply know you won’t go through it; The anxious clamoring and need This restless hungry thing to feed. Instead, you feel the loveliness; The…
“At certain moments, when alone, we feel a great lack deep within ourselves. This lack is the central one giving rise to all the others. The need to fill this lack, quench this thirst, urges us to think and act. Without even questioning it, we run away from this insufficiency. We try to fill it…
Pretty obviously I am fascinated how we are all entangled with a brain, and barely have any idea how it can deceive us. This seems like the cause of most human misery and suffering. On my reading list for at least two years is “The Master and His Emissary”, by Iain McGilchrist. Our brain creates…
Over 41 years I’ve been intermittently enchanted by several exogenous substances… Sugar, coffee, alcohol, cannabis, and adderall. (Psilocybin is distinct, I’ll get to that.) In each case, my introduction felt utterly normal and justified – friends and culture validated me, and the consequent mental experiences were extremely pleasant. Each was a “golden nugget” – eagerly…
[This interview is part of the Varieties of Waking Up series] Intro I found Russ when I ran into his youtube video on Perennial Philosophy. The video is one of my favorites – only three minutes long but masterfully potent. I enjoyed it so much I reached out and started a conversation. Russ kindly took…
“We do not see reality as it is. We are shaped with tricks, and hacks, that keep us alive.” Donald Hoffman “We are touchingly prone to mistaking our models of reality for reality itself.” Maria Popova “The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality.” Daniel Kahneman “We are never seeing what’s…
In my public invite to talk to anyone about reality, I offer this prompt: “It baffles me, how we are all entangled with a black box hallucination machine known as the human brain, and barely anyone, broadly speaking, is curious how this works.” Discuss Reality With Me I nearly fell out of my chair when…
Loading…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
