I believe in science. I have a post almost ready that I’ll post someday about brains, because dear god, brains are just…extraordinary. Obviously. But the thing I learned when I was all consumed with studying brains? We don’t know a damn thing about them. Sure, we can measure and name and see connections and make assumptions, but at the end of the day, brains are fucking magic. They just are. They are divinity.

And so, assuming that we can nail down neurons and pathways and know, really, anything about anything that is so vastly complex is just hubris, in my opinion.

So…what works? When I was a musician, I visualized every concert, every audition. The one time I didn’t? I bombed. Is fifteen years of evidence enough to convince me that that shit worked? Kinda, yeah.

When we wanted to move and we had no way of doing it, the gf posted an affirmation about being an executive chef. We kept finding jobs, but not ones that paid enough for me to not work for an indefinite period of time. I posted, next to hers, “everything comes to me at the right time.” Three days later, she had an exec job that came with housing and a job for me. Coincidence? Maybe. But then…maybe not. I mean…everything we have posted as affirmations has happened. Every. Single. One.

This world we see, as you said, is simply what we’ve evolved to understand in order to survive. My personal belief (there, I said it) is that there is far more than we have the capacity to understand. Do I believe in The Secret? Not really. I think it was a load of marketing to try to convince people that they could become rich beyond their wildest dreams with no effort. But do I think that with effort and intent, you are more likely to create your own future, rather than simply stumble onto it? Hell yes, I do.

I think meditation is a great place to start learning about focus and about quieting distractions. I’m terrible at it. I want to do it, but I’m lazy and even though I know it will help, I don’t. But when I have, I was much more able to focus on what was important to me, and it definitely felt like those things came easier. And, of course, depending on what kind of meditation you do, you may well come to the conclusion that none of it is important. Which is a whole different kind of belief and brings very weird and kind of awesome things to you, if you can hold onto it.

And affirmations, too, help you to focus on what’s important in a more immediate way. Do I think I worked some magic joo-joo by hanging a note on the wall? Not really, no. But I do think that looking at them every helped us to focus on them and be ready when the opportunities came.

This got a bit more preachy than I intended…sorry about that. I find this stuff fascinating and exciting and get a bit geeked out.