The Ocean

To understand some key fundamental cornerstones of my own beliefs on the nature of existence we have to reflect and understand some principles of basic science. These are the states of matter: solid, liquid and gas (we are omitting the fourth state of plasma as if you start to lose electrons then that’s a whole other issue). These three states can be and often are of the same stuff. For example water: the water in your freezer comes as ice, the water in your blood is a liquid and the water in the air is steam from the kettle. These compounds and basic elements of hydrogen and oxygen don’t magically disappear. Even in the event of sublimation where the solid turns to a gas skipping the liquid at super hot temperatures, it’s all the same stuff. The water we drink is the same water the dinosaurs drank. The water droplets in the air we breathe is the part of the same eternal Whole as the ice cubes in the freezer.

“Feel the air on your skin and push your hand gently about. Feel the movement of gasses and atoms and push it to your other hand. Catch it and push it back. It flows like a liquid. The free moving particles are all the same just with different amounts of energy. In water is just moves slower but it’s all the same stuff – same elements.” –Z

We exist in the same ocean of stuff as everything else does. It’s all a constant ebb and flow around us and the currents of time and space carry us. We humans exist on a speck in the ocean of stars. We in our very nature are cosmic sailors, travellers in the 4th Dimension hurtling forward in time along the riptide of the universal constants and laws of physics.

Even sociologically speaking, we exist in a symbiotic reef within our settlements. As we nurture and give to our environments, the environments give back like the clown fish and amoeba. Both of these things, are as carbon based as we humans are, with the same amino acids and sugars and lipids in their systems. Our birthing pools, the primordial soup of billions of years ago, is a bond we all share no matter the presentation of the now. This soup, this crevice in the oceanic expanse of time and space is a mere chemical reaction in the dark depths.

When we see the world and our perception of existence in this way, we can see the flow of The Way in motion and the flow of the energies and synchronicities. The butterfly effect is as relevant in the Atlantic as it is in a desert. What affects the minnow affects the whale and so forth. Similarly, what effects the proletariat effects the bourgeoise in the same way as beings of all the same stuff and same ocean. Like the oceans of our planet, our own perceptions remain unexplored, our information all surface in the aggregate never delving deeper to the trenches of darkest to take a look at things we may be fearful to see. From the sleeping cosmic deities in the darkness to facing our own demons, it’s all the same disquiet to overcome.

There’s a harmony about us, in our kinship as swimmers. Whether we see ourselves as noble solitary octopi, friendly dolphin or predatory sharks, we are one of the same kind and expanse. What hurts one of us in going against the nature of a shark, dolphin or octopus hurts us all in the same regard. Currently, in the oceans of our planet due to reckless overfishing and disregard for the ecosystem, the balance is fighting back with a resurgence of squid. Squid fill our oceans where there was before a rich biodiversity, and soon if we allow, we will be a planet of squids. As human beings we are the same with our own ideologies when we push and force our marks – the nature of the Whole settles the balance in the end. What that will look like, only destiny knows.

In the end all that we are and all the we know will be dispersed into atoms and re-joined in the ocean of reality, our living souls returned to the sea of consciousness. The water in our molecules will change to gas as our bodies are burned and the smoke and steam will rise into the atmosphere only to rain down into the reservoirs. Reflect on the flow and the flux. Destiny is the current that carries us and reality it the ocean that houses us. Be at peace with it. There’s no other way to be.

Amor fati.

Z3N0

New Moon in Gemini

Today I was informed of the new moon in Gemini and what that means. It means new beginnings, new synchronicities and a fresh flow and perspective on Providence or rather destiny in motion. Almost subconsciously, I have already been reflecting on deception and clear intentions – another gift of the new moon -, becoming aware and cautious of self-deception within myself and others. While I’m sure the deception in others is not intentional or malice yet I am watching it all the same, and will help bring clarity where I can. It’s easy to spot someone else being deceived by either themselves in some way or another but much harder to turn the same spotlight inwards.

“It makes sense thought. To accept you’re being deceived is to let go of something you wanted to be true. Having faith in things you want and not allowing yourself to notice the deception, even if unconsciously, makes you feel good in that moment. Seeing other peoples’ is easy because you’re not emotionally invested in the outcome. Nobody wants to admit something is too good to be true because that means being pulled out of the fantasy they’re selling you, no matter what that is, but nobody wans others hurt by someone else’s deception so we’re more in tune with it.” – X

This advice, of course, arrived right on time for the new moon and some rather draining distractions. It’s a fresh flow indeed, yet perhaps rather simply less murky waters as I, as we all, traverse down the stream of life itself. In fact so did a gift I treated myself to: a green quartz crystal to aid my quest to ensure the softness yet fortifications of my heart. It’s a reminder to be clear in our own communication and wants and needs and show our true face to the world. When we hide our goodness, the world does the same in kind. Because we all as human kin share a common humanity of some regard that transcends politics that provides an essential goodness in our being. The need for unity of the self and with others is a biological imperative that has created our society – with all its flaws still yet a work in progress – and not a Mad Max: Fury Road 2021. For those who are with a faith, we were made in the image of the creator, so surely by that fundamental concept, we are inherently good? Underneath all of the shit and self-deceiving concepts we cling to for a little comfort in a world without answers or rather a world without answers for those who are afraid to look.

“Dig inside yourself. Inside there is a spring of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging.” – Meditations 7.59

Keep digging and you will also find truth to all the answers you seek. Most of the questions you have for yourself and your own moral and emotional turbulence can often be summed up by single words. The most common of these words: fear. Fear of so many things, things that will keep us in a grip of our own making if we refuse to seek clarity within and expose them to the light: the light of the New Moon in Gemini.

Self-deception is a disease of a destructive nature and as contagious as the common cold. When you have bene able to rid yourself of its symptoms and exist as a tranquil crystal clear lake in a tropical morning, then you will find your peace. While the waters are choppy and full of pollutants either their of your own accord or deposited by others, you will poison your own lands. Of course this analogy falls flat on its face when we confront the reality of real world pollution as lakes are not sentient and we should all be avoiding Nestlé products. Just bare with me for this, for the sake of the mental exercise and see yourself as a lake.

Perhaps be a little excited as much as your nature allows for the new cycle and the new dawn that will come to you. To quote one of my favourite pieces of music in games, specifically Dragon Age: Inquisition:

“Shadows fall
And hope has fled
Steel your heart
The dawn will come

The night is long
And the path is dark
Look to the sky
For one day soon
The dawn will come” – Trevor Morris

Z3N0

Being The Outsider

I’ve recently picked up a new game to play with friends, Conan Exiles it’s called and effectively it’s Minecraft with an emphasis on gratuitous violence and slaughter. You may have heard of it, it’s the game that allows you to fine tune your character’s endowment – I know, I’m a learned and sophisticated man (!). Yet this feeling hit me, a feeling so familiar when I spend time with others. It’s the feeling of being the outsider and not quite fitting in as the rest; being the spare part left on the shelf, only used for the sake of using it; the idiot little brother of the team of equals like the glorified side kick. I became frustrated at the game and frustrated at myself for feeling that way, with an unshakeable feeling of inadequacy and rejection.

It’s my personal nemesis: insecurity. It’s the cause of mistrust between me and my friends because I don’t trust them and in turn they don’t trust me. I’ve spoken before to no end about the need for trust and how vital it is to be a member of the Whole and wider human city yet I’ve not been able to take my own advice for one reason or another. I’m much better at giving advice than accepting, even if it’s my own. It’s an alienation of the self and in turn of others who feel hurt by the questioning of loyalty and little tests and fishing expeditions. It’s not perhaps as destructive as it once was in my life where I would actively commit acts to prove things right to myself. It’s funny, I can look back now and see it and recognize it in so many others that I’ve seen it in since. I can’t judge them for my own sins nor any other, I suppose as in the end it’s all self harm to the soul.

I meditated on it – something I do when I can’t find clarity in the moment, and something I recommend for everyone else. I found comfort in my own disquiet, seeing myself float through the endless expanse of universe alone, an island to myself. I held out my hand, not to reject the experience of it being held but accepting that it wouldn’t be. Then I heard a voice that was not my own and felt a tugging on my physical body. It was calling to me, to remind me that I wasn’t alone and despite by attempts to sweep it away to bask in my own solitude, it was stubborn and wouldn’t leave.

Not even an hour later, I messaged my friend who watched my grow increasingly isolated in myself for something to write about since Sundays can be quite slow for a spark. They suggested this very topic. That from my own perspective that I was a spare part but I was appreciated and was missed when I quit for the day. It made me smile, for a stoic I quit in a rage but then as a stoic reflected on the why and Universe provided me my friend’s insight. I’m grateful to them and fate, and I’m grateful to fate for the friendship.

Sometimes, we are outsiders in life. As stoics, as philosophers in our own right even people who simple wish to experience meta cognition, we separate ourselves to see the bigger picture. We need to to be able to observe the truth of things within ourselves and others and form a healthy and natural poise. Yet, something I need to manage is to not allow that separation to alienate me from the people I care about the most, my fellow human beings beyond that and my environment beyond that, et cetera.

Fellow outsiders, something to take notice of:

Batman can’t exist without his friends. Not without: Alfred, the first Robin, the second Robin, the third Robin, the fourth Robin, Catwoman, Oracle, Batgirl, Spoiler, Nightwing, Batwoman, Batwing, The Signal, Lucius Fox, James Gordon, even the Justice League.

And that’s Batman.

“‘I shall show you,’ said Hecato, ‘a love philtre compounded without drug or herb or witch’s spell. It is this: if you wish to be loved, love.” – Letters from a Stoic IX

Z3N0

The Snap

Yesterday I had a nap – not really a nap, more like lying on my back staring into space not exactly thinking about anything – to let my day melt. Throughout my work, I pick up stowaway energy, become fixed on minutia, and allowed the immaterial to stick like gum on a shoe to my conscious. I felt myself in conflict with my own calm. It was a strange panic to be in a form of fuzziness, a fuzziness I didn’t realize that had existed before.

It creeps up on you, this heavy clammy feeling. It’s like unwashed sweat after a run that sticks to you and you only really notice it when you pause and think.

A friend messaged me to tell me they were worried about me, that I seemed different and aggravated. I had no idea what he was talking about. I do now and it took me to follow his advice to see. The advice: meet a buddy, have some drinks and unwind. I didn’t do the first due to COVID but the latter I did. Strangely, in that moment after my beer and moment to unwind there was a snap.

It was a snap in my own mind. I woke up, my head was clear suddenly. It was like hitting the refresh button on a crashed webpage without even realizing it was crashed. It opened up my mind to the power of peace. Peace within, taking a moment to meditate on the reality of things, despite not sensing anything wrong.

Maintenance perhaps? We all need a moment to check in with ourselves like an spiritual and philosophical MOT. That’s what it is, isn’t it? An awakening of the true mind, a true self in to see reality for what it is. And in this reality, I was fuzzy, focussed on the wrong things, experiencing a rather passive expression of anger and irritation without even realizing it.

I need to share this video, of Mooji’s thoughts on the subject, of the realisation of observation, observing this strangeness of the self.

Please subscribe and like this video to support his channel

Sometimes, a little pause, a little moment to see the self enables you to see others and the Whole as it truly is not what we perceive it to be behind a haze.

“I have withdrawn from affairs as well as from society, and from my own affairs in particular: I am acting on behalf of later generations.” – Letters from a Stoic VIII

Act on behalf of the future, the future of you and the future of the Whole. Take a breath in this moment, find your centre even if you never thought you’d needed to find it before. You will find a strange new peace, a shower of light washing away the fuzz stuck to your skin; a lightness of the mind and soul as you embrace the world with wider, clearer eyes.

It’s an instant snap when you find it. As if Thanos clicked his fingers to allow you to see and embrace your power as a human being and expression of Universe rather than turn to dust (then reappear five years later following the valiant sacrifice of Iron Man, of course).