About
It's hard to properly describe how a journey like this one started, more than anything it was a search for happiness.
Maybe even more importantly, today it's just a story–a collection of thoughts that make for an interesting read (and it's quite a ride!).
Surely I'm not the only one who realised from a young age that we've seemingly been given one life, how on earth are we to make the most of it?
There's an obvious template being given, listen to your elders, do well in school and stay out of trouble...
Get a decent job, build a family etc.
There seem to be plenty of people who follow that template and actually are happy!
But even more who weren't, and the way my trajectory was going I was pretty sure I'd be falling into the latter category.
The First Escape
My ex partner was truly a lovely person–but she was plagued with PTSD from a horrible incident years ago.
This was back in around 2012 and I was barely in my 20's.
Having had little experience of people with PTSD or any real knowledge of how it worked, I wasn't great at handling the sudden reactions that would come out of nowhere.
We had fights, and I just seemed to be getting further and further away from that happy life that I was looking for.
And of course, it was all her fault.
I'm not sure how or why, but Meditation came on to my radar.
By stilling the mind, I could tolerate more difficulty and live an easier life.
So I went in full-hearted and started meditating for 30 minutes everyday.
Lo and behold, life became easier!
I was less reactive, more calm and composed, and even better–I had somewhere to flee when the tough got going.
I bought into the whole lifestyle and became a vegetarian (yes it made sense to me back then!).
The Second Escape
So I had found a way to flee the great difficulties of life, and stay more composed in difficult situations.
But I wasn't any happier, I was just less... unhappy?
So it got me thinking...
What is it in life that I just absolutely love and cherish the most?
Couldn't I just do more of that and become happier?
Well you have to remember, this is a guy in his early 20's answering so it shouldn't surprise anyone...
The answer was...
Orgasms!
Yes, they literally just feel so darn good, wouldn't life be better if I just felt good more of the time?
Logic!
The caveat was the natural limited capacity of being a man.
But I'd already spent years as a lucid dreamer which had awoken me (sorry couldn't help the pun) to experiences that I never thought were possible.
Surely if we can put men on the moon, I could have more than one orgasm?
So I began doing research and eventually found an audio course from a sex educator called Jack Johnson who proclaimed that by simply using a specific sound, arousal could be amplified to multiple full-body orgasms without any refractory period.
Sounds way too good to be true but there were some impressive testimonials, and this was back in the days before small business owners could use AI to generate reviews on command.
So I bought into it, 20 minute sessions every second day followed by a reviewing whole experience in written format, regardless of how eventless it may have been.
It took approximately a year of practice to succeed (can't blame me for not being patient right!), and the experiences were mind-boggling!
Eventually, they could be triggered anytime anywhere by thought alone, what an unlikely and unreal skill to have.
So did it make me happier?
Sometimes yes, but mostly no.
I had developed a capacity for pleasure on command that in return, lowered my capacity to tolerate discomfort.
I was happy if the circumstances were right, but that's such a general statement that it didn't seem like I achieved much at all.
The First Taste
Eventually I found myself with a close friend of mine, offering up psychedelics.
By this time I understood what it was like to be happy, but not what to do about unhappiness and discomfort.
I had tried all sorts of self-help and spiritual modules:
- The Wonder Method by Alain and Jody Herriott
- Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) by Gary Craig
- Amygdala Tickling by Neil Slade
- Mnemonics (yes really)
- Quantum Touch by Richard Gordon
- The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin
- The Work by Byron Katie
- The Emotion Code by Bradley Nelson
- The Buteyko Method by Patrick McKeown
- The Wim Hod Method
- NLP
- The Joy Center by Pete Sanders
- Trauma Release Exercise (TRE) by David Berceli
- Holotropic Breathwork by Stanislav Grof
- Ho'oponopono
- Wholeness Work by Connirae Andreas
- Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- Non-dual mindfulness by Sam Harris
- Tons of philosophy (Nietzsche, Spinoza, Kant, Pyrrhonism, Epicureanism etc)
These are the ones I can remember, seems I've tried a thing or two.
What they all had in common–just like meditation–was how well they would function as an escape when the going got tough.
But the going always got tough at some point, and constantly running away from it wasn't a great way to deal with it.
Similarly, just solving the problem wasn't always a great way to deal with it either–another one would just pop up!
But there I was with psychedelic mushrooms in my hands.
I had done them before in high doses in The Netherlands, the experience was both hell and heaven.
Can't say I was really attracted to it but my friend was very much into it and so I decided to give it another go.
Besides, the dosage was a lot lower than what I had taken before.
This would turn out to be my first real taste of freedom...
In a subtle yet very clear sense, a shift happened that created a divide between my consciousness and my thoughts.
While I'd learned early on that there's a difference between thoughts and consciousness, I had never escaped the experience of them being indistinguishable in my lived experience.
But here it was, like a chasm opening up, I could clearly experience myself as a consciousness–and the thoughts as something external just happening.
I couldn't believe that I had spent my entire life listening to that voice and taking it seriously, assuming it was me!
How could it be, it just keeps blabbering on, I would never know what to say in a constant like that.
Besides, it just never shuts up–it would be exhausting to keep going.
So there I was, just observing those thoughts doing what they had always done.
But I was no longer in it, I was outside looking directly at it.
While the trip itself lasted roughly 8-10 hours, the experience itself lasted about 3 months.
During that time, I would go on long walks without any music in my ears, just listening to my thoughts and being endlessly fascinated about what they were saying, and how external they were from "me".
During this time I came across a book called What the F**k are The Three Principles? by Amir Karkouti.
He just seemed to explain my situation and experience so well–and with a great sense of humor too!
But after those 3 months, the experience of my thoughts and my consciousness integrated and I no longer had the lived experience of that separation between the two anymore.
In fact, I could hardly even relate to what it had been like.
The Third Escape
So I had gone through tons of self help and modules, had an amazingly insightful experience...
Now what?
No longer having that deep insight into how my mind worked, I went back to my old ways.
It seemed to me that everything I had done so far was an attempt to flee discomfort in order to have more pleasure in my life, leading to more happiness (or so I thought).
That's when I picked up William Irvine's book A Guide to the Good Life.
It absolutely blew me away, he spoke of things I already noticed in my life...
How avoiding pain causes more pain.
How chasing pleasure leads to less pleasure.
How we want to live a good life that we can be proud of, and prevent being filled with regret on our deathbed.
I dove right in and started applying these concepts to my life.
I began doing more uncomfortable things like waking up earlier, training harder, putting others needs above my own regardless of how inconvenient, and avoiding harmful things such as sugar, porn, fast food etc.
During this time I bungee jumped from 134 meters in New Zealand and ran my first marathon in Cyprus.
All cool stuff!
It took awhile to realise that the Stoicism William Irvine was promoting and writing about, was quite far from the original Stoicism that we normally read about from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus etc.
So understand the differences I dug into the books of Donald Robertson, who–along with other authors–had taken the time to modernise Stoicism so that it'd be palpable to a modern audience.
The classical stoicism was deeply religious and there was no getting around it.
Did embracing discomfort both voluntarily and involuntarily make my life better?
Yes and no.
Unlike before, I was now a lot more resilient and actionable than I'd ever been in my life.
In a sense, I felt quite unstoppable.
However, the joyful feelings of happiness and ease that would visit upon me so often in the past, had left me.
Suddenly life was now a big framework of right and wrongs–and life seemed so serious.
The Final Taste
I had spent some time reading books on the 3 principles, the same sort of philosophy Amir Karkouti had been talking about in his book.
I read a lot of books on the subject, and one of my favourite authors were George Pransky.
However, my experience of the 3 principles was a rollercoaster ride.
I read it and liked what I read, and it clearly jived with the experience I had while on the low dose of psychedelics–but I just couldn't understand it on a deeper plane beyond the intellectual, leaving me quite frustrated.
George Pransky was just releasing his latest book The Secret to Mental Health and it kept showing up in my inbox.
At that point, I had really tried to wrap my head around the whole concept of 3 principles that would explain how life is created and primarily a psychological experience.
I decided to unsubscribe, I had enough of the nonsense that was the 3 principles–even if they made sense–how on earth would just a simple description of something be useful in my actual life?
Besides, I was currently touristing Japan and had better things to do.
Well I hit the unsubscribe button but must have forgotten to confirm wanting to be unsubscribed–because I got another email with the same book promotion.
Strangely enough, I decided to buy the book as an ebook to my kindle, I had no better idea at this time on how to live a good life–and at least this was I could fully confirm that the 3 principles were a bunch of baloney so I could let it go forever.
I had read about 20% of the book, there was nothing new, nothing impressive.
I visiting the area Fujukawaguchiko which has a beautiful view over Mt.Fuji.
Me and my partner decided to go for a long walk around the lake in the area, called lake Kawaguchiko–this would turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.
I have never wanted children, ever.
All my siblings have children, and my partner of then 8 years always wanted children, and we knew we had this dichotomy between us–both hoping the other would change their mind.
What came to happen is something that I'll never be able to justify in words, and I'll make sure to write a separate post about it in the future.
But I was walking along the lake early on, and suddenly, we're talking a split of a second–my whole entire world changed.
First came the profound shift inside me, it's like 5,000 things changed at once and I knew what had changed, and only afterwards came the words to explain it to myself in my mind:
"You don't know what it's like to have children."
The words were after the fact.
In a split second I could see my entire world view that I built on the fear and resistance of having children... being no more than a soap bubble that had popped before my very eyes.
I was a changed man.
I could see beyond the content of thought, into the process and principle that is Thought.
I realised I wanted children, a lot.
I also realised everything George Pransky had been talking about in his books, and all the other authors describing the 3 principles.
This was a big deal, and I didn't want to get ahead of myself and just blurt it out to my partner only to change my mind later.
But I knew deep inside, this was a permanent change.
It couldn't be any other way.
But I gave it 3 months, and after those 3 months I told her my feelings on the subject and what happened.
She didn't believe it at first, but as time went by she knew it was true–she had seen the change.
Insights
You've heard me mention the 3 principles several times, the best source to learn more about it is here:
Emil Arge
I spent a lot of time studying it not really understanding it before a deep insight hit.
But when it does hit, it's the final stop along the infinity-shaped self-help path.
Insights go beyond the intellect, they teach something before the form of words appear as thoughts that we can then explain.
This is why I want to dedicate this website to sharing such insights when they hit us.
Both big and small, there are endless things to learn and realise.
And perhaps we can get even more insights by hearing about others realisations.