Turning within to walk outward
There is no such thing as dishonesty. It doesn’t exist in any meaningful sense. In our deepest selves fluctuating values constantly tug on the strings of our wills. Behind any deceptive act is a value held to be true; a belief which, no matter how wrong might appear to another, completely informs the actions of […]
Life is organic; an unfolding web of cause and effect. Free will and the sense of self are illusory, and we all come laden with evolutionary, cultural, and familial baggage. Our neural networks are infinitely nuanced, such that no two people in a population of billions are exactly the same. Life is staggeringly complex, seemingly […]
In response to a recent query. I thought it worth sharing, as it highlights the motivation behind the seemingly tortuous mission to ‘know thyself’. ‘For me, I not only glimpse into the ether, I spend days, months, years, living within and breathing the ether. If by ether you mean the unknown, the fear and anxiety […]
Note: this commencement speech was given in 2005. It was recently recommended to me by a close friend. It distills and conveys an approach to living that, in my mind, should guide each of us on our journeys. YouTube audio can be found here. “Greetings parents and congratulations to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005. There […]
Each path a life; the worn and barely used alike. The majority of your fellow travellers rarely, if ever, escape their guiding illusions, their paths crisscrossing the world, forming wide corridors and highways of frenzied activity, leading nowhere. They may have tread many more an empty mile than you, but in your stubbornness and reluctance […]
You are blessed and cursed to have found your meaning in the question of meaning itself. Blessed to be motivated to take a journey of deepest discovery, not only of the universe without, but of the universe within. Cursed to be born in a world of believers, who are constantly and continuously tricked by the […]
Immediate thoughts after meditation session: For a brief time I was able to invert the common experience of consciousness being located behind the face and in the middle of the head. I was able to expand the location of consciousness to fill the four walls within which I was seated. I am still pondering this […]
Don’t mistake the crowd for the truth; failing to fit in does not mean you’re broken. Your horizons might extend further than your neighbour’s, your colleague’s, your friend’s; trust in your own eyes, let others trust in theirs. With deference to Hamlet, might I add: there is also nothing either right or wrong, but truth […]
Heed not too quickly the disapproving gaze, it may be the clearest proof yet you are on the correct way.
There is plenty of interesting science demonstrating that we choose, subconsciously, fractions of a second before we are consciously aware of the choice. And yet, test subjects are adamant, they freely, consciously choose. These results are interesting, but are not, to my mind, necessary to dispose of free will; the concept itself is logically unsound. […]
Arrogance is bad. Arrogance grounded in ignorance is even worse. Independence may be a defense from the truth, a form of self-righteousness and silent arrogance. Don’t seal yourself from the world, and claim superiority. We may be our own worst (or forgiving) judges, yet removed from the tempering wisdom found only in human contact, our […]
Don’t hide behind clichés to justify yourself. Don’t blame the craziness of this world for your crazy actions. Take some goddamned responsibility. Yeah, this life is crazy! Simply acknowledging that does not excuse your craziness, does not give it justification, does not clear the path to forgiveness and understanding. Let me tell you, you don’t […]
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. – Henry David Thoreau
I’m not reaching out. I’m not playing the victim. I’m not drowning in self-pity (though my knees are definitely wet). I’m reaching inward. I am fighting. I may be drowning in tears of frustration, sadness, hope, joy. I am suffering, but I am not only suffering. I am healing. Slowly, methodically, not always patiently, always […]
Stop feeding off my pain. I cannot take it any longer. The burden, the weight, is far too great. I am no longer your scapegoat, your bearer of misfortune. My pain cannot heal you. I am not your savior. Though I love you, I need my strength for me. For me and for them. (When […]
At the Bahnhof I headed toward my favourite salad bar. Located in a renovated wing of the station, one must first walk through a small corridor and a foyer, and as I did so, the smell struck a blow like an invisible acidic wave assaulting my sinuses: sour piss and stale sweat. A moment later […]
I can’t force the parts of me to emerge, to come out from hiding. That is one of the paradoxes here: set the mind to let go of control, make that a goal, and the mind automatically elects an executor, gives it the label ‘I’, and sets to work. But by that very act, the […]
Stop that grasping, and just let it go. I don’t exist, and never have. This body, this mind, these cells of bone, muscle, nerves and skin. I am an illusion, emerging from a neural network, unifying through gross abstraction, these multiple, interacting, embedded parts. I am and I am not. I am here, but I […]
Outside a café by the central bus station. Wasps. A gentle breeze stalling their forward propulsion. They hover, drawn to the foamed milk and cocoa powder topping my cappuccino. Enlightening places: central transportation hubs. A congregation of humanity’s diversity: addicts; homeless; drunkards clasping and gulping bottles of warm beer; schoolkids travelling home from school; workers […]
Twenty-four fountains. Spitting vertical spouts of clear water a foot high. Each stream pulled down on itself by gravity; unfurling liquid ferns held together by surface tension. At the tip of each transparent crystal frond quickly accelerating towards Earth’s center, fracturing and division as multiple single droplets break free; the droplets pit patting, pit patting, […]
The Abyss Post 