What the book says about the eternally desiring nature of the universe is starting to make more sense to me.
For example, I am getting hungry. I am looking forward to eating. I will eat. It will be good. I will be satisfied. Then, at some point, I’ll get hungry again.
It feels good to satisfy desire. And new desires are constantly created by the ever-changing variety and contrast in a dynamic universe.
Combining this with “The Power of Now” …
Be present. Joy is the standard of success in life. You feel joy by satisfying desires. How does being present relate to that?
What happens if you have a future-based desire?
Is there ever a case where you should deny yourself the satisfaction of a desire in the present in order to satisfy a future-based desire?
For example, I desire to relax in the present, but I am going to keep working because I desire X in the future.
Or, I desire to spend my money in the present, but I am going to save it, because I desire to do X with my money in the future.
What is X?
What do I desire in the future?
What do I desire in the present?
With work and personal finance, I’ve gotten into the habit of neglecting my personal desires in the present in order to achieve X in the future.
To an extent this makes sense. Some things take time.
I’m in the habit of abandoning my present self.
What would my life look like if I was solely focused on satisfying my present desires?
I would wake up each morning and do whatever feels good.
There was a moment
When I was holding my journal
And the wind would blow
A few pages would blow over
And it would stop
On the page with your handwriting
And I remembered
When you wrote that page
On the train to Paris
Just to see your handwriting
Here alone in the desert
Made me smile
Whatever will happen will happen. We are humans with desires. Some desires will be fulfilled. Other desires will be unfulfilled. Even when desires are unfulfilled, there is immediately a new desire. So is desire ever really unfulfilled? Or is it just a new desire?
You are here with me, teaching me. You came in the form of youthful beauty. You entered my soul through the corporal path. And here you are, still with me in my soul, even when our bodies are apart.
I feel my various spiritual lessons converging.
It is what it is.
This too shall pass.
The force of life is desire.
I will continue to have desires until I die.
And my consciousness is in a bodily form so that I can satisfy my desires.
When I am dying, what if my desire is to stay alive?
I think I will be able to satisfy that desire. I will be able to keep myself alive until it is my desire to die.
I am part of all this. I am not separate.
I love you because you are beautiful, of course, but also because you understand. You tell me of your death anxiety. The way you look into my eyes when we’re both on drugs.
Parts of the universe are satisfying their desires, down to the subatomic particles. The universe will go on desiring and satisfying, even as I pass away.
Perhaps what I identify as my own consciousness is really just the universal consciousness as it has occurred in my unique corporal form. The universe has no desire for consciousness to persist in my corporal form, just as it is. I am part of it all. It all comes to pass.
Art occurs to me now as a channeling of this primordial awe of life into a form. It is the mark of a master to imbue a form with enough of their own awe of the first lived experience that the secondhand consumer of the art can almost experience the same awe as the first. And all that is ever inspiring the art in the first place is life itself. So why do we even channel the awe of life into an art form? For others to consume it, of course. But the point here is that life is art. Your life, as you are living it now—seeing whatever you see with your eyes, hearing whatever you hear with your ears—is art. Sure, sometimes it’s more sensational, which is why the famous art pieces are of bloody battles and forbidden loves. But even your everyday life is as sensational as any of the greatest artworks. And you have a front-row ticket to the film. Even more, you are in the film. You are its main character.
What do I desire in the present?
I want to do this—what I am doing right now, as I write this. I want to think and create. I like writing because it is the fastest way to create what you’re thinking.
I’ve been doing the work I’ve been doing because it pays well. I want to keep being paid well. But the problem is that I’ve been prioritizing the pay ahead of what I actually want to do.
I previously thought I could compartmentalize the money making work life from the rest of my art/spirituality life, but I don’t want to do that anymore. Now, I want to do what feels good in the present. This is my first and primary desire. Secondarily, I like to think and create. I like to write. I like to have conversations.
It’s important that the topic of my thinking/creating/writing be free-roaming. I’m a human being. My interests and desires change.
It all changes, even my desire to think/create/write could change.
This is why it’s important to remember that my primary desire is to do what feels good in the present.
The world is a creative playground. I have been given an opportunity to experience joy.
So what do I want to do in practical terms?
Orban is fine, but it requires me to focus my thinking/creating/writing on topics that don’t always interest me.
It happens subtly. It seems rational to focus on my Orbit work and nobody is telling me otherwise, but I feel like I desire to be focusing my energy on something different.
What do I want to do if I really dream?
I want to do what I am doing right now. I want to experience life and write about it. And I want to be paid well to do just that.
It is a holy experience to be alone with yourself. I realized this when I rejoined a group of my friends immediately after a period of deep personal meditation. In communicating with them, there is a layer between me and what is. That layer is ego. Everyone is trying to seem impressive by making a witty comment. If you make a comment that you think is witty and nobody laughs, you feel personally offended. This is the arena of the ego.
And this is what gets me excited about Authentic Relating. Authentic Relating melts away that ego layer. How can we be in community without our egos? Just the energy of our souls joining in Source. You can’t explain it, but you can feel it. When someone gives you a hug and it has that energy, you feel it.
Maybe my form isn’t supposed to be poetry. Maybe it’s this prose-diaristic style. Similar to Kerouac’s Dharma Bums. I can take the time to learn poetic meter, but that shouldn’t stop me from writing in this style in the meantime.
Some bits of the sand are shaded now, as the sun starts to set behind the rocks. The wind rustles rigid aloe vera leaves. The day is coming to an end. It had its stages. We were excited as the day began. We packed the cars, made the drive out, walked the trail, climbed the rocks. We were ecstatic at high noon. Observing the desert desert terrain off into the distance. Feeling the texture of the rock under our palms. And now we are quiet, almost mournful, as the sun starts to set behind the rocks.
Okay, so I want to experience life and write about it.
Now, what do I want to experience?
Up until somewhat recently, I was choosing life experiences based on the needs of my ego. And there are still certainly remnants of my ego.
Perhaps what I want to experience is just living a human life.
Remember, you are not a human being having a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being having a human experience.
In the car, listening to a good song, I notice I get jealous of other artists.
As a spiritual being having a human experience, I choose to be an artist.
So the life experience I want to have is being a human being who is realizing that I am a spiritual being.
My most recent discovery on my spiritual journey is manifesting my desires and feeling good.
So, I arrive back at the same question: what makes me feel good?
It’s a question I’ll have to keep asking myself because it’s constantly changing.
So it’s this practice of being present and consciously aware of my ever-changing desires.
For some time, I will continue to have strong desires. As long as I am having the desires, I can pursue them. I wonder if I will gradually have less and less desires until it gets to the point that what I desire is just to be and I will continue to be aware of my present human experience, but I will have little desire to do anything other than sit and be aware of my experience.
But I am still young and full of desire. I have strong energy to fulfill my desires, but I have not been aligned. I have been focusing my energy on work that I don’t want to do. The only reason I’m doing work that I don’t want to do is because I think I can’t get paid well to do the work that I want to do. And that is where my next step is. I will do the work I want to do and I will be well paid for it.
I will write a book about my spiritual journey. The writing I’m naturally producing as this prose-diaristic style on spiritual topics. I can collect these writings into a book.
I desire to be well paid to be a spiritual being having a human experience.
Orbit will be my last traditional W2 job.
After Orbit, I will be well paid to be a spiritual being having a human experience.
I desire to be well paid to …
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Write about spirituality
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Write poetry
For a second, I asked myself, “Do I want to be well paid?” For a second, I thought no. But the only reason I think that is because I think I can’t have it all. I previously thought that I can’t be well paid to do exactly what I want. I’m done with that thought.
I can be well paid to do exactly what I want to do.
I really enjoyed talking to Connor about his mindfulness, relationship, etc. just now.
Something I personally want is a therapist who also understands Buddhism, mindfulness, etc.
Perhaps I could become this therapist.
I could be a therapist who helps people like myself …
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Burning out at work
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Deep thinking about spirituality
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The struggle to get paid to do what I really love
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All the other emotional stuff
Listening to people and taking notes is what I do in my sales job already.
Therapy is like Authentic Relating. It’s different because therapy is one-directional.
I think I’m doing that thing where I try to find the most profitable path. But that’s okay, as long as I’m not sacrificing what I desire for profitability.
Do I desire to be a therapist?
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I like talking to people.
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I like connecting with people.
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I like helping people.
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I like helping people to feel better.
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I like thinking talking and writing about how to feel good.
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A big part of feeling good is mental/emotional.
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A therapist can help with that mental/emotional part, whereas a normal physician just helps with the physical part.
I would also love to study to be a therapist. Just the reading and writing involved with becoming a therapist would be a lot of fun.
And I’m already thinking of starting a therapy startup …
Pain point: when I wanted to find a therapist, the first place I looked was the insurance website.
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I didn’t know which therapist in the search results was good, e.g., education, skill, etc.
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I didn’t know which therapist would be good for me personally, e.g., Buddhism, mindfulness, etc.
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I didn’t know which therapists are covered by insurance and what percentage is covered.
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I wanted to do in-office visits, but it seems like virtual visits via Talkspace would be easier.
Being a licensed therapist would be a platform for me to publish my writing on death, anxiety, emotions, etc.
Active inference—Kyle says this relates to thinking feeling a future state in order to bring that future state to be. I told him it sounds a lot like what Kirissa explains with regard to abundance and spending money to experience wealth in order to manifest wealth.
Kyle told me, “You’re good at asking questions.”
This encourages me that I would be a good therapist.