I wanted to do this post at the end of last year and then ended up procrastinating on it. It’s somewhat late … but here it is: my favourites from last year.
Continue reading “Best of 2024”Best of 2024
Fear, Control, and Spirituality
In my twenties I sought advice from various people in spiritual positions. I wanted to resolve my inner turmoil. My sense was that I was missing something fundamental: purpose, connection, and inner peace. I also had an enormous amount of latent trauma beneath my awareness.
But no one that I came into contact with ever really helped me. Many people in authority positions were sorely disappointing. The majority of them were controlling and tried to force compliance by instilling fear in me and others. Some were dangerous. Many lacked compassion. Nearly all of hem lacked true wisdom and presence.
But something good came from all those years of searching. I learned discernment. A foundational thing when it comes to the religious or spiritual teachings of others. Today, I only take in those teaching that resonate with me. I do not force myself into some prescribed doctrine that stands completely separate from experience and my own inner knowing.
Here are a few specifics to watch out for.
Continue reading “Fear, Control, and Spirituality”Are you afraid of everything? | Lessons from Jon Snow
When Jon Snow first meets Samwell Tarly he is struck by how incapable and frightened the ‘fat boy’ is. Sam doesn’t fit in with the hardened brothers of the wall. He doesn’t care for hunting, cannot fight with a sword, and even proclaims himself a coward. But when Sam tells Jon that he doesn’t like high places, Jon can no longer keep his thoughts to himself. Jon asks in baffled frustration, “Are you afraid of everything?”
Continue reading “Are you afraid of everything? | Lessons from Jon Snow”State Of Consciousness Matters
Whenever I draw something, there might be a part of the drawing that is repetitive and “not fun”. The challenge with these parts is to stay present and avoid just-get-it-done mode.
With drawing, parts with low variability and high repetition—like say the wing of a bird—can evoke restlessness and carelessness. But rushing screws up the drawing. This is always the case. Rushing is the enemy of good work. So is carelessness. I know that if I want the entire drawing to be of a certain standard then I need to be present for the boring parts, the difficult parts, and the enjoyable parts.
Continue reading “State Of Consciousness Matters”The Benefits Of Meditation
I started meditating circa 2010. Six months later I noticed fundamental changes in myself. My baseline anxiety went down by a very noticeable degree. Large crowds no longer freaked me out. I slept better. I quit smoking. And tests and exams became a breeze.
Before discovering meditation, tests were the bane of my existence. University level math is not a joke, and I’d had panic attacks in a bunch of tests. Always math. In one of those, I had to walk out after writing only my name and a scribble of a matrix. Not being able to breathe in a large lecture hall is horrible.
Continue reading “The Benefits Of Meditation”Thinking Anaesthetizes The Emotional Body
Thinking anaesthetizes the emotional body. This is an important point that is often overlooked in mindfulness teachings. There is a reason why incessant thinking is so addictive—it shifts awareness from the emotional body to the mental body.
Continue reading “Thinking Anaesthetizes The Emotional Body”Emotional Immaturity
We spend years in school sitting behind a desk learning how to read and do math but have no capacity to uncover our buried emotional drivers. There is a reason for this. It is difficult. Reading and math are important. No arguments there. But our emotional immaturity shows up everywhere we look: Politics. Business. Relationships. Health.
Continue reading “Emotional Immaturity”Find Joy In The Process Of Creating
You don’t need validation. You don’t need permission. You can just create something.
You can just decide to switch off the conditioned voice that says that your art has no value, you will never be good enough, you will never make money, or whatever else it has to say.
Do this instead: find joy in the process of creating. Create from a state of presence.
No Progress Without Presence
Years ago I wrote a post about how we should favour process over progress. In that article I make the argument that we should not aim for predefined goals to get to some predefined top of the mountain. We don’t always know how long something will take. And we don’t know how the journey will look, so our best strategy is to settle in and focus on what we are doing in the moment.
People—especially large institutions and organisations—fixate on progress to the point where they no longer realise that their checkbox approach has nothing to do with real work. Peter Thiel makes a similar point in Zero To One. Here’s a quote:
“In the most dysfunctional organizations, signaling that work is being done becomes a better strategy for career advancement than actually doing work.”
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Create From A State Of Presence
I once heard Brandon Sanderson (author of The Way of Kings) tell aspiring writers that they should not think of their first novel as the product. Instead, he said, you should think of yourself as the product. His argument went something like this: The first book that you write won’t be good. No matter what you do. You don’t have enough skill to make it good yet. But each story that you write, makes you a better writer. And so, even if your first stories are not publishable, you can rest assured that you are becoming a better writer by writing them.
Continue reading “Create From A State Of Presence”