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…
“It is not our souls that are broken but, as neuroscience teaches us, it is our minds, These minds, the faulty walnuts we interpret reality through, did not evolve in ways that render them easy companions in the harried conditions of modern life. And it’s not just we who are broken. We live in societies…
Where do you go for information? … internet? Where do you go for knowledge? … university? science? history?Where do you go for wisdom? John Vervaeke “We long for beauty, wisdom, and purpose. We want to live for something more than just ourselves.” Alain de Botton WHY — is modern life so vexing? In 2022, the…
Public convo about psychedelics has been absurd for decades. Some say miracle. Some say danger. Occam’s razor says the truth is probably in the middle. Science, medicine, and politics are all vying to clarify this. Legalization for the average citizen is estimated to happen toward 2030 or beyond. Yet even then, the experience might still…
Brain Constraint: The Source of All Suffering (read more) Brain constraint is the ultimate paradox – the one that underwrites all human suffering. How do we know what we’re not seeing? How do we know our unknown unknowns – feelings, perspectives, and possibilities. Imagine driving into a mud pit and getting completely stuck. You slam…
Look in the mirror. Better yet, close your eyes. Look inside. Whether or not you care for Harry Potter – there is one scene absolutely burned into my memory. Harry has a premonition. He observes himself, looking across a lake, and his deceased father appears as a deer and saves everyone from some catastrophic dementor…
The implicit or explicit TLDR of spirituality is Let Go. Let go of what? Everything. And, OK, fine, but does that mean, give up on life? No! It means moving artfully, skillfully. In alignment with the flow of things. Not forcing it. This is beautifully captured in the concept of Wu Wei, as articulated here…
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,…
[Note to a friend] Never let the wrong things influence your sense of worth, either as an artist or a person. Unfortunately… perception is part of life, and perception is way more often wrong than it is right, including our own perception of ourselves. Your worth is a pearl to be protected – make sure…
My favorite example of one human being discovering peace. What Merle Antoinette Roberson, (Gangaji) describes here, I had tasted myself, months prior. Seeing this experience in another person changed me. After listening, I vividly remember walking to work that morning in an altered reality, which has only deepened with time. Her and I traveled different paths,…
20 unfinished essays – some will be published – others will never escape the Darwinian gravity of “draft”. 50 books I’d love to read, which will invariably lead to 100 more. Podcasts that need a second listen. Places I want to travel. Photos I need to edit. People I need to have long conversations with.…
The date is January 1, 2024. One year ago, two people, Sarah and Tom, stumbled upon a helpful resource while searching for help. Sarah Sarah has since quit the job she didn’t like, left a relationship that was terrible, moved out of the city to be closer to nature, started playing piano (a hobby she’s…
What does it mean to be Buddhist? All I’ve ever done is study it casually – no monkhood, no monastery, no meditation retreats. At the very least, I AM a sincere admirer and explorer of its ideas. And if Buddhism were somehow wiped from the human record tonight, I am convinced something like it would…
My father would love nothing more than to finish one last half-marathon. Last year at 70, shortly after our last run together, his hip started bothering him. Was he running too much? Was it simply old age? Either way, after taking four months off to give himself a rest, and testing the water again, it seems…
This is not a “life hack”. This is a SHORT/SIMPLE lesson about optimal eating, based on years of playing around. Optimal both physically and mentally. I will summarize my N-of-1 results at the end. I will also cite independent scientific sources that inspired this. The intention is not to prescribe a rigid diet, rather, it’s to teach…
“Loneliness is the doorway to unspecified desire. Loneliness can be a prison, a place from which we look out at a world we cannot inhabit; but loneliness fully inhabited also becomes the voice that asks and calls for that great, unknown someone or something else we want to call our own.”– David Whyte I. Consider…
Dear fellow human, No matter who you are, no matter what you are feeling, no matter how much you pain you feel, no matter how simple or complex your problems, I wish you relief. The ideas here range from fundamental – like sleep, exercise, nutrition – to complex – addiction, aloneness, work, love, sex, victimhood,…
Apologies to donkeys – the carrot on the stick is a metaphor for humans to consider their illusory happiness! To humans: without a doubt, your life is made of patterns. Look at each one closely. Leave no pattern unchecked. Ask yourself, what good does it bring? Go slow, don’t be harsh. Consider the following two…
Forget physical appearance. Diet has a profound impact on how we *feel*, sleep, and live our lives. Yikes. One of the most confusing topics in human history. Some gall I have, to add my two cents… Consider this: As much as this is about food, this is about something deeper. This is an opportunity to…
Why start here? It’s the easiest thing to change and affects all conscious experience. That’s a big deal 🙂. Quality sleep is the soil from which all things thrive. Deprivation of sleep can gradually lead to dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other health and psychological issues. Memory, intelligence, clarity, emotions, relationships, physical ability, and prevention of dementia…
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…
[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…
Three years ago I was sitting in this same chair, listening to the “gentle low-pitch hum of a dehumidifier fan, operating at 160F, drying 30 or so magic mushrooms I harvested from a plastic tub in my kitchen.” Through the psilocybin portal I go I had never tried a psychedelic in my life. And I…
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