My experience with the sacred medicine, ayahuasca.
Last night, I died and met God.
These were the first words in my journal the morning after the first of three ayahuasca ceremonies last month.
My readers know that I’ve been grappling with existentialism and purpose.
Could the point of life really be something like a donut of endless suffering with happiness sprinkled on top?
Are we just cogs in a system that doesn’t care about us—something like a concept of the human batteries in the Matrix… Useful as we feed the machine energy and given a simulation with ephemeral pleasures that always keep us wanting more, thus staying…
All everyone is ever selling is the future.
Now isn’t great, but tomorrow will be!
Get this new thing today…for tomorrow.
The present is history, baby! Live for tomorrow like there’s no today!
Everyone is selling it. Everyone is buying it too.
Plan ahead. be a chess player. work hard now, enjoy later!
suffer while you’re young! you gotta work hard and hustle… and …
Unfortunately, we’re trapped. because by not operating by those standards, the world heavily penalizes us. Delaying gratification, I mean.
Society lives by this kind of philosophy and incentivizes it {for the greater good of the whole* {whole meaning whole group of decision-makers at the top}, of course}.
So rebellion begets misery as well.
But what if there was a society centered around different things? Have you read 2150 AD yet?
You have to separate thought from the activity of action,
Which requires release,
which makes it hard.
For those of us with hyperactive minds, letting go of thoughts is hard.
But we should be doing our thinking BEFORE the action not DURING the action.
Be wary of the procrastinator mind. The insidious Resistance that seems to justify new thinking to delay action or distract focus long enough to have to do something else.
and it will launch attacks disguised as really important thinking, or essential planning, or re-examining the proposed method of action MID-ACTIVITY.
It’s a trick.
It’s just Resistance.
Resist.
08.30.2020
In life, I’ve had few things that speak so loudly in my psyche.
I woke full of energy just to write.
It’s an elevated form of talking to yourself. Like, I want to make sure I hear it.
I’m scared to write.
Scared to speak up and say what’s on my mind. To be transparent.
I’m turned off by other people’s transparency bc I don’t always feel like it’s authentic.
and I’m always waiting to be a little better, a little more accomplished, a little wiser, a little cooler…
I’m scared people won’t give a fuck. Why would they?
Aren’t we preoccupied with all…
When you’re fueled by inspiration
it’s like pouring jet fuel in your engine
you take off and the runway seems endless.
You’ve been there. You feel motivated to start or you do research. You buy a domain or start a new action list.
Depending on the task, you expend minutes to hours or days, if you’re lucky, in this zone.
But usually, hunger, a phone call, your dog, your partner, something, or someone steps in as usual.
and when you try to come back, it’s hard to pick up where we left off.
Jet fuel burns quickly.
Life is not…
You are the only one that lives your life.
Everyone’s advice, help, and prayers are all just that.
I coach a friend who seldom takes my advice.
As someone who cares about someone else, it’s important we remember that no one's life is up to us but our own.
No parent can step in and continuously make decisions for their child.
No partner can force someone to change their habits.
Life is up to them.
Life is up to you.
Whenever you want to change, it’s up to you to decide when.
Life is shaped far more by our actions…
time does not betray us.
we betray ourselves.
You’re not supposed to watch time pass from the seat of endless thinking
or let lethargy lull you into its foggy bosom.
During the week and the normal work hours, I know it’s not the time to squeeze in personal projects and productive leisure, though it is always clawing at me to catch up.
But even on the weekends, that time gets squandered too and it makes you think,
it’s not a matter of having time, because I had it and it’s gone…
It comes down to making space within time.
I’ve…
Who do you become through change?
I know of a few friends who have lost jobs/no hours.
Do you maintain your faith in the outcome or fixate on the anxiety that precedes it?
People say well, how can I have faith? I need very specific actions and to figure something out right now if not I’m going to…
going to what?…
Do things happen to you or for you?
Is anything that’s happening to you right now individually unique to you?
Everyone in healthcare is serving society around the world.
Everyone in food, shipping, and logistics is working overtime for…
It’s true what people say “the more I know the more I realize I don’t know”. My naivety of youth has begun to wear off.
Missteps, challenges, and defeat have painfully demonstrated what growth is like when you aren’t perfectly mentored through life.
I’m not alone amongst my friends when I claim to be largely self mentored, outside of books and podcast interviews. If anything, I’ve largely rejected the attempts of others to influence me.
We are in fact getting older. and this world is in fact fucked up.
We all ride the train toward death together, arriving at different…
one of my favorite quotes of all time is from writer Annie Dillard:
“how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives”
half of life is spent taking care of our bodies. i.e. sleeping, eating, bathing, grooming.
that leaves about 12 hours for everything else, if you’re lucky.
everything we spend time on requires focus. it’s like we have expendable units of focus, or tokens, that we constantly choose to spend.
thinking about someone that wronged you? focus token.
Our focus is limited both by time and energy (will).
some things require more focus, like studying…
