Healing and community have potential to lift us from the suffering in the stories of our lives.

My research and explorations have been steeped in:

• Buddhist and indigenous philosophies;
• quantum mechanics and cosmology;
• evolutionary theory and synthetic biology;
• the deep mathematical underpinnings of our universe;
• experimentation with psilocybin;
• resignation to the realities of us truly not understanding what ‘consciousness’ is and how much of it is effectively under our control;
• the absurdly accelerating rates at which humans, technology, and the climate, are evolving;
• the painful disconnect between Western humans and Nature;
• the implications of our finding life (likely microorganisms) in the cosmos;
• the current trajectory of mankind to drive itself towards extinction;
• and the surreal notion of not knowing what ‘I’ really am, among other topics.

Ironically, in attempting to calm my mind, its thought processes have sped up — and I can’t seem to find a ‘pause button’.

Yet this journey, for the most part, hasn’t been draining, or painful, or scary. Rather, it has been… Enlightening. I don’t have a better word for it. I don’t think I need one.

Humans are very strange creatures

During a truly short time (on the geological time scale), we have been ‘awakening’ to the realities of the universe and our selves. And not only is there so much that we do not yet understand:

Our sensory features, the means on which we rely to make sense of the universe, are incredibly manipulative.

I don’t mean that in the sense of our senses being emotionally vindictive. Rather, they filter information to incredibly small scales, and this information is processed by some rather primitive (in evolutionary time) structures. And humans are very, very ‘emotional’ beings. Our emotions paint vibrant colors on the canvases of our experiences.

Everything we experience is a dilution of reality — stories that we tell ourselves.

Our abilities in language, abstract reasoning, storytelling, and introspection, are some of the key qualities that allow us to remain the dominant species on planet Earth — features so powerful that we now threaten our own survival. Our minds are truly powerful (and strange) pieces of the ultimate puzzle.

We are creators

Our minds do not just allow us to understand the world around us: they help us to create. Our physical creations are all around us, many of which allow us to live comfortably away from the struggles for survival in the natural world. And the more we looked inside, the more we realized that there are universes within us.

We exist collectively in the physical realm, governed by mathematics, yet each of us seems to simultaneously ‘live’ in the private zone of consciousness.

By facing our fruits and our trespasses, we created the concepts of gods and demons, metaphors for the divine and monstrous aspects of human nature. By facing the seeming impermanence of everything, we created the concepts of heaven and hell, reincarnation and cyclical time, eternity and the void.

I point out these profoundly prolific plot points of the stories we tell ourselves, as a stark reminder that mankind has been boldly, and sometimes desperately, seeking to explain what might be unexplainable.

We are in a dysutopia

Twelve thousand years after the agricultural revolution, Homo sapiens sapiens are now living in a futuristic dysutopia far beyond the wildest dreams of even their recent ancestors. We are deeply enmeshed with means by which to create, and we are enamored by the powerful and unpredictable arcs of our narratives.

We are actors in the greatest detective story, searching for answers to our own existence while creating meaning, designing purpose. And like the characters in the stories we put on paper and on screen, we sometimes ask: What’s the point?

I think we go through existential crises throughout our lives. We can, for a time, be lulled into sleep by the sweet lullabies of our creations. But our perceptions and emotions always seem to catch up with us. We and/or those around us, come to recognize the callings of some ‘thing’ deep within. We face the startling reality that we are not, in fact, perfectly in control of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and behaviors. Yet we all do well to learn how to regulate our minds — for ourselves, for others, and for Earth.

Regulation is not a goal but a process. Once ‘reached’, so to speak, it must be maintained yet willing to change, lest it devolve back towards chaos.

And no one can do this for us. We each have to discover and embrace our own self.

Making sense of the seemingly senseless

I acknowledge the seeming dissonance between questioning the existence of a ‘self’ and advocating for healthy, autonomous control over the mind. For as much as I have learned and evolved, I am still confused.

There are many things that do not make ‘sense’ to me, and I still question what the ‘points’ are of many of our normalized practices here in the privileged West, while we are catapulting towards irreversible climate change that could very well kill off large swaths of our species, likely starting with the underprivileged and disenfranchised in the countries that have contributed the least to the accelerating catastrophe.

And I am still healing my heart for the youth that was stolen from me by the COVID pandemic, and I am still healing something deep within for the loss of he whom I believed to be my ‘soulmate’. Nothing that you learn can magically heal or ‘fix’ you.

Life is a process; so, too, is healing.

So, if my journey and efforts have not brought an end to my suffering, what even is the ‘point’ of such a venture? I’m not sure. But I think it’s less about ending suffering and more about diminishing its power.

We understand, and yet we don't

I cannot provide you with any answers to what consciousness is, what happens (if anything) after we die, whether or not we are but avatars in a finely tuned simulation that seems to be glitching, or even if humans truly have ‘free will’ amidst the quantum fluctuations within us all. I don’t know if dark energy, which permeates the universe yet remains out of our reach, is the same as the ‘spiritual’ energy which our ancestors may have intuited. I’m not even sure if I am actually at the moment of my death and watching my life flash before my eyes.

Life is truly a mystery, and we have only just scratched the surface to understanding.

Yet, regardless of many of these existential musings, we seem to be here, strange creatures on a strange rock, hurtling through a strange solar system around a strange star, in a strangely tiny pocket of a strangely expanding universe. The more I study and learn, the less ‘sense’ it all seems to make. Maybe we aren’t meant to understand it all. But we can do great things with all that which we do understand.

Embracing humility

I think the boldest lesson I have learned this past year is to practice humility. We are all human. Each of us is navigating a journey through the material world and through a private dimension (for lack of a better word) that we struggle to understand.

We thrive, but we hurt. We create, but so, too, do we destroy.

Life is a delicate journey. For all we know, this is the only chance ‘we’ get. I find that humbling.

I think it is undeniable that we are living through incredibly challenging times. Many of us are enthralled with yet overwhelmed by technology. The future seems far less certain yet rushing towards us. I, too, am unsure about many things. I just feel something, deep within, calling on me to continue healing myself and to connect and reconnect with my core, with others, and with Earth.

Healing and community are critical for our survival

I don’t know if I’m intuiting something surreal, or if I’m experiencing a form of dissociation, or even if I’m just telling myself a story that I want to believe is real. But regardless of what I’m ‘sensing’, I find it fair to ask:

What is the harm in healing? What harm is there in connecting with ourselves and others, let alone with our one and only Home? How would it be detrimental for us to come together, to face the consequences of our actions with humility, to create a better world for ourselves, our posterior, and all our fellow creatures? What, truly, could befall us by learning how to love?

We are, by nature, vulnerable. The agricultural revolution occurred after an ice age that threatened the very survival of our awakening-to-consciousness ancestors. Once upon a time, their ancestors climbed down from the trees, the start of a journey towards bipedalism and an enormous prefrontal cortex.

This is not just a story: this is reality, something that I find profoundly breathgiving. We are here after billions of years of biological evolution.

We are messy, and we are flawed, but we are all connected — both to one another and to Earth. We are creating our individual stories while writing the larger one together.

To come together

The human experience is not easy. We hurt and are hurt by others. I, too, am working to better myself and to reconcile deep pains that I have recently caused people about whom I care deeply. I am no saint. But I am trying to do and to be better.

Embrace compassion. Strive towards healing and forgiveness. Focus on the global unity of ‘us’ rather than the geographically isolated units of ‘them’. Spread love.

I truly believe that love, whatever it is, is pure. We cannot put enough of it into the world. Right now, I think it would do everyone well to crank up how much we love — including loving ourselves.

Life is beautiful. Let us not waste it.

Be well.

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(originally published on Medium)