This is a disjointed collection of my meditations on life, mostly in aphoristic form. After reading, some would ask, "Why publish it at all?" and I would answer, "Why not?"
You will get nothing here, dear reader, and the best you can do is move along.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
– Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"
Nothing, then something – some experiences, emotions, thoughts, desires, and words – all robotic, puppet-like, then nothing again… "I see no problem with this," I comment. "Who?" the little bastard interjects.
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Retract into and dwell in the source, the background of your personal cognition. It is prior to memories and concepts.
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Endless religions, science included, are selling prescriptions to truth. They have been institutionalized and encapsulated in myths and stories of their own making. "Gotta search elsewhere," I sigh with relief. Seconds later I am sound asleep.
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Today all of my questions vanished. I am peacefully drowning in this eternal stream of nonactivity.
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Unendurable will not be endured; that is in the definition of the term. Stand up, affirming everything with your whole being. Merge into this wonderful symphony, play your part as best as you can, and endure.
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While eating frozen raspberries, I was taken over by a contented stupor – go where, achieve what? What drivel.
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Authentic arrogance is much preferred over the learned false humility.
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Be wary of a virtuous, moral, and sincere world improver. He will use his own crooked ruler to bend what is already straight and will lay any injustice he perceives on the Procrustean bed – all this in good conscience.
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It is easy to judge, incomparably harder to understand.
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I wonder where all of my ambitions have gone. All the beginnings have endings. I see them all collapsed into a singularity of nothingness.
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This uncanny marionette is being pulled by endless strings – so many conflicting directions, entanglements, and strangleholds. Observe, examine, and cut them all one by one until you are left with a bare minimum.
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"But I don't want to achieve anything," I assert. "I guess I am succeeding by writing these lines. Hold on... Isn't this 'success' an achievement?"
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The preoccupation with the outside and the private lives of others is a sure sign one is lost.
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The man of action achieves success; the man of non-action becomes a success.
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Most people seek to prolong their lives. Wouldn't eternal human existence be an unbearable bore, insufferable torment?
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Of all the animals, we are the ones endowed with the most consciousness. We have various ways to celebrate it: meditation, fitness, reading, movies, shopping, social media, computer games, alcohol, drugs, etc. – anything to reduce it if only for a minute.
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"But I feel that it is true" is becoming such a ubiquitous sentiment – almost an argument – today. It seems that in the West, feelings have triumphed over sound epistemic rationality.
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All of our questions stem from our ego, from being someone. Remove the person and everything becomes meaningless.
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The selfish gene has manifested as self-love – everything we do is budding out of it.
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A humble person is a contradiction in terms. True humility annihilates; there is nobody there anymore.
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"I think..." he begins. "Ok," I cut him off. "Try to stop your thoughts; see how it goes."
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Happiness is ever elusive while you are seeking it. It will show itself uninvited, but only after the search for it – even the idea of it – ceases.
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Do not build your castles on beliefs; belief is a shaky ground.
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Indoctrination is one of the strongest sleeping pills known to man.
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Are you unhappy with your genes? Behaviour of some people, maybe? Don't fret about it; neither you nor anyone else is at fault, save for the main villain – the causal chain of the Universe.
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I feel that I have free will; I know that I do not. Knowledge has no effect on our deepest feelings.
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Compared to the ego, the body feels weightless.
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The ego has a pull of a black hole. Nothing will escape.
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Don't wake up… You will end up in a lonely, desolate place, and there is no way back, only further.
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An incessant stream of thoughts throughout one's life, until that final thought emerges, followed by eternal nothingness.
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The spell of herd instinct is so enchanting that we often resort to self-sabotage – disregarding our inner warnings and succumbing to docile, inert irresolution.
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The truth is indifferent to our feelings.
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Don't let yourself be offended by insignificant things – it will become an addiction you can't shake.
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The one who is easily offended is easily controlled.
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We exaggerate everything about ourselves: our intelligence, our achievements, our virtues, and, most of all, our significance.
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Education is not something you get; it is a lifelong transformation, a continuous becoming.
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We all seek to belong, to be part of some tribe; in doing so, we create divisions – countries, religions, traditions, ideologies – mental distinctions that separate 'us' from 'them.' Ultimately, we all belong to the human race, but what of it?
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We are so accustomed to wearing a mask in public that when we look into a mirror in solitude, there is an alien imprint, not our own.
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I'm weary of the Man; I've looked within.
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At the beginning of some unwanted task or some chore, how attractive, how interesting everything else suddenly becomes.
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On our scales, beliefs outweigh everything else placed against them.
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How can your personal responsibility be demanded when the entire Universe has conspired to place you where you are?
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Would we be able to live a meaningful life if we knew our final hours in minute detail beforehand? Even the best story is spoiled if you start at the last page. On the other hand, we all know our ultimate end.
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Which is more conceivable: existence or non-existence?
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Who is the author of your ideas?
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You are enjoying yourself in a state of perfect peaceful contentment when misfortune strikes – you notice that everyone else is wearing these new, fashionable red shoes. Before you know it, you're wearing them too. We call this free will.
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How tiring is this incessant animation of personality, this labyrinth of its reflections within society. Only in solitude do I find myself.*
* An oxymoron. In the words of Chuang Tzu: "'No-Self' Is 'True-Self' / And the greatest man is Nobody"
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The Absolute – I don't believe in it, I know it. My very existence is its assertion.*
* Later, I understood that this was my version of Descartes' "cogito, ergo sum", originally "je pense, donc je suis".
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Lonely is the one who seeks self-reliance, not authority; authenticity, not companionship; joy, not pleasure; beauty, not attractiveness; creativity, not employment; curiosity, not utility; self-knowledge, not gain.
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Language and qualia are separated by an insurmountable gap.
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Life is a rebellion against entropy – futile individually, effective as a whole.
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Don't squeeze the Universe into a narrow box of your desires. Do your part and let go.
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Consciousness gave birth to language; it will not work in reverse.
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Do not praise me; I carry enough of a burden of my own.
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Beware, a powerful sorceress may bewitch you out of your own life. Civilization is her name.
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It is a big LEGO park. We share multiple atoms with those who lived; and nothing is our own. We're all guests here – everything will be returned, intact.
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I ran into an acquaintance I hadn't seen in at least a decade. After some small talk, he hits me with, "Yeah, we should definitely meet!"
"Oh..." I hear my internal groan.
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A stream of words, eloquent and captivating, to say nothing.
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A man has achieved unimaginable progress, especially of late – alas, it is all external.
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My experience left me with a single certainty – all of my certainties must be renounced.
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It is easy to destroy what is alien, what is theirs; it provides a sense of power, revitalizes, and feeds one's self-importance. But where is this destroyer when it comes to one's own self, with all its heritage, traditions, and beliefs?
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In the marketplace of ideas, the one who sells the truth has no customers.
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Happiness is personal and subjective. Find your own formula and stake it on yourself; otherwise, you'll fall back on a vague, herd-based, external one – wrapped in vanity and illusion – perpetually out of reach.
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A myth is much preferred over the truth, especially when it challenges one's identity.
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Do what you love, consistently and with diligence, and you will become successful. The inverse doesn't hold – accidental success will not ignite a fervent interest and will eventually fade.
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So much energy is expended for show; for the majority, the way they are seen by others is more important than how they see themselves.
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"Darling, it seems you've been speeding," a husband begins. "We've just received a fine based on a speed camera photo," he continues calmly, with some accusatory, passive-aggressive undertones coming through.
"I wonder how I looked in it..." she responds genuinely.
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There are so many lessons to be learned from history. For one – everyone dies, always.
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We have a tendency to idealize and exalt certain people, especially those we haven't met – people who have answers, who may act as authority, especially if their ideas reinforce our own beliefs.
At some point, however, we find that they are only human, with all the human vices; and our idealization is simply an illusory reflection of our own self-love.
My idol has no faults nor vices and is eternally tolerant; his name is nobody.
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Those fighting for their survival are immune to trivialities – if you are easily irritated by the trifles of life, you are truly well off.
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To be wise, first allow yourself to appear foolish.
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Our escapist mantra: get distracted, shift outward, and mingle with the crowd-mind.
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Through my ruthless honesty with myself, I became far more tolerant of others – the corollary is that I also lost interest in them.
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The thought of a causal chain linking eternity to the present, to me, is paradoxically liberating.
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Unceasing analysis and narration of life are a chain and a veil; the secret to life lies in an earnest inattention to it.
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Existential superposition – being both in and out of the game.
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A pretense of something, an imagination, a mere act sprouting from nothing – this existential impasse is both depressing and liberating at the same time.
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In seeking spiritual fulfillment, we may feel we've achieved something – and there may be truth to this – but there is nothing spiritual about it.
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There is a release – even wisdom – in dementia.
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Each of us dutifully hangs a carrot on a stick against the backdrop of the abyss.
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Our evolution took us far – from a monkey trembling with fear in a cave, to a monkey trembling with fear in a skyscraper office.
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Publicity: an advertisement or a plea for validation – an outsourced self-approval.*
* Yes, I know – wink.
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Entropy, a symphony of decay.
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Yesterday, I was proficient in a foreign language. Today, in small talk, I search for words. Who knew the language, and who forgot it? Who is this 'I' that knows and forgets? If my identity is unchanging, can I know anything? If my identity is fluid, who is it that knows?
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I search for affirmation, I'm ready to imagine, to cheat myself; and a symphony of collapse is playing in the background.
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Tradition is inert – a democracy of the dead. We, the living, submit unquestioningly to it.
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Affirm impermanence and decay, learn to dance with it, to love it; this is a way to peace and happiness.
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I lift myself from forms and names, and merge with an incessant stream of creation. True compassion, love and peace are found here.
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To live authentically, ignore what others do – competition is bondage.
Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
And between the two my life flows.
– Nisargadatta Maharaj, "I am That"
Close your eyes and see,
Retreat into silence and hear:
All your yesterdays and tomorrows dissolve
Into the space where no money takes hold,
And appearance is but a shadow of a faint whisper.
Release, and let yourself expand –
You are limitless, boundless, undone.
At the edge of infinity, transient repose,
And with firm resolution, you plunge...
I have never been, will never be, and yet I am.
I am the present, the life of life.
The ocean has merged into the teardrop.
Does the one drowned in infinity exist?
I am eternal nothing and everything, the giver of dreams, the inexhaustible potential.
Can infinity be aware of itself?
Yet I am aware of the present.
I shine through every experience, and the dream goes on.
Who is dreaming? Can the dreamer wake up if he has never been?
Isn't he just a concept, a bundle of memories and thoughts, a dead structure that can only be found in the past and in the future?
A haunting hallucination.
I am the present. Timeless. The damned contradiction.
Who can dissolve oneself in being,
To hug oblivion and be born anew?
Who can drop words and polarized seeing,
And be done with all of this through?
To be alive is to have ambitions;
To have ambitions is to know no peace,
And if we're woken early in the morning,
Most of us are content to fall back asleep.
Before me stands a beautiful young woman.
And she is old. Wrinkled.
A collision of stars – and life.
A corpse.
Everything.
Nothing.
And myself.
The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.
– David Foster Wallace, "Infinite Jest"
The information we get from our senses is adapted for survivability, not for the accuracy of representation – evolution has no 'interest' in optimizing for that. Humans evolved the language based on their sensorial information; it cannot be used to adequately describe the Reality.
Language is inherently metaphorical and anthropomorphic: contextual, symbolic, subjective, and open to interpretation. It is not the adequate tool for the task. As per Lao Tzu:
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
This is also aptly expressed by Niels Bohr:
We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.
For millennia, mystics from various traditions have claimed that free will is an illusion, and that our lives are being lived through us. Modern science, particularly discoveries in neuroscience, appears to converge on the same conclusion: free will is a trick – an illusion played by evolution. Our nature and nurture shape our volition; we are, in essence, special-purpose machines designed for gene propagation. While nature may be fixed1, nurture can still be improved – enter chaos theory2.
What you are now is the product of a constant feedback loop between your nature and the information you process from the outside world. While your actions may be 'mechanical,' the state you will be in the future is unpredictable. Steering your course in a desired direction – by seeking better company, refining your epistemology, expanding your knowledge, etc. – will improve your subjective life experience in ways you can scarcely imagine.3
Even the most minuscule positive transformations matter. They may seem insignificant at first, but over time, they compound. This concept is perfectly captured by Charles T. Munger, who said:
Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Systematically you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. Nevertheless, you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day – if you live long enough – most people get what they deserve.
Moment by moment, you are reborn as a new person.
1 At present, the general population has no access to gene editing.
2 Chaos theory – the study of apparently random or unpredictable behaviour in systems governed by deterministic laws.
3 Butterfly effect.
What does it mean to exist? Let's narrow it down to existence in phenomenal reality. In this context, something exists within the confines of space and time1. Does nothing exist? Is nothing a precondition for something to exist? Are nothing and something bound by the ties of duality, or are they separate, self-sustained notions?
Close your eyes and try to imagine nothing. What do you see? Do you perceive absence of any quality? It's not empty; it's not black; it's not silent, etc. It is unimaginable, eternally elusive.
Isn't nothing just an invented concept, like numbers or sets in mathematics?
Could it be that time, space, and something are different names that describe the qualities of the same phenomenon? Nothing may be associated with negative qualities, like timelessness and spacelessness. Nothing exists negatively then, in spaceless timelessness. Or we can say that nothing doesn't exist.
But does space and time exist? This question doesn't have a well-defined meaning, since we've already defined existence through space and time themselves. Infinite recursion, turtles all the way down...2
I drop all this nonsense, stretch my feet, and choose to enjoy my thoughtless, effortless pure being. My intuition suggests adding the adjectives 'timeless' and 'spaceless' here. Is nothing the source of my being?
1 'Space and time' is taken as a postulate.
2 'Existence' seems to be context-dependent.
Late in spring, beautiful flowering grapes bathed in the sun. By August, they were harvested, crushed, and pressed into juice. Then, through the slow process of fermentation, the juice transformed into what we call wine.
When does this substance truly become wine, and when does it cease to be?
Not a single atom of the chemical compounds that make it up will get destroyed after we drink it.