“Physicists achieve first ever quantum teleportation between computer chips” read the headline. https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-manage-quantum-teleportation-between-computer-chips-for-the-first-time

Kevin was awestruck. The implications were stunning – to think that they had actually transmitted information via quantum entanglement. Wow… He knew of course that most people would have no idea what that meant, much less care to find out. The words would just be a bunch of mumbo jumbo and they would go about their day, living as if it was just any other day. And maybe it was. But it wasn’t going to stay that way for long – at least that’s not what Kevin thought.

How in the world does a person even get into quantum physics? What made him so interested in that headline? It wasn’t as if he was a physicist himself. He’d been a developer for 12 years and gotten burnt out on coding, so he had transitioned into a business analyst role. And while he liked his job, he certainly wasn’t overly enthusiastic about it. No, his dreams, his passions, were centered around his three favorite topics: quantum physics, AI, and metaphysics – not necessarily in that order. I mean, the same things most people are interested in, right? AI, he read about all the time, and even had a Google alert set up to notify him any time an interesting new article or blog post was published. And metaphysics – Kevin was an old “New Ager.” He had come to learn about the many different aspects of new thought and spirituality in his late teens, and much of what he learned resonated deeply with him. The fact that young people were starting to get into crystals, astrology, etc was very uplifting indeed.

But what about Quantum Physics? In 2005, a friend had recommended a movie called “What the Bleep Do We Know?” to him. It was playing at a small cinema in town that played a lot of independent films. Watching the movie was a revelation – the way it explained quantum physics and interwove it with spiritual ideas and principles was breathtaking. But the properties they described in the movie – superposition, entanglement, wave particle duality – all sounded like just a bit too much. There was NO way those phenomena could all be real – was there? He knew he had to find out for himself, so he set out to read every book on quantum physics (all that were written for general readers anyway) that he could get his hands on, fully expecting to find out that what the movie suggested was a bunch of BS.

But that isn’t what he found. Not at all. At least regarding the quantum physics stuff. As far as some of the correlations that were made in the movie, those could be dismissed easily enough. But the actual properties of particles at the quantum scale – the world of the tiniest particles imaginable, electrons, protons, etc – those were real. Particles really do exist as both a a particle and a wave simultaneously until someone observes one; particles really can be “entangled” such that doing something to one of them will immediately affect the other one, in the same exact way, even if it is millions of miles away; particles really do seem to “know the future,” somehow ‘knowing’ whether or not someone is going to look at them, changing the way they behave BEFORE the person makes the decision whether to look at them or not. This is all true – it’s all real, and all scientifically verified. And with that knowledge came the realization that maybe it wasn’t quite so easy to dismiss some of the correlations the people in the movie made regarding metaphysical phenomena.

“Dude, are you ever going to do any actual work today?”

“Not if I can help it,” Kevin replied.

Jason was the closest thing to work BFF Kevin had, and he was grateful for it. He’d worked with quite a few different people in his career as a developer, having switched jobs numerous times, so he knew how rare it was to have someone to work with who was easy going, shared the same political views (golden, in an age of vitriol and ultra partisanship) and was a brilliant developer to boot. Jason was a great lunch companion – and made him look good, translating the requirements he gathered into awesome applications.

“I’m surprised you haven’t sent out any memes yet.”

“Yeah, I got hung up reading this article about quantum teleportation. But yes, I suppose it’s time to do my REAL job.”

It was the thing that Kevin was known for at his current company, and pretty much every one he had ever worked for: he was the “meme master,” and had collected images to cover pretty much any topic or emotion imaginable. Whenever possible when replying to emails, instead of sending actual verbiage, he would send an image of some kind – often times, ones that he had created himself using image editing software. Some of his favorites were ones with the faces of a particular group of friends he had made working at a healthcare company years past edited into funny pictures. In fact, they had a tradition of sending out “Happy (Monday, Tuesday, etc)” every day, and it always provided a bright spot on those days when work was just too much – well, work lol.

“Happy Friday – TGIF” the email subject said. It was one of his – and the entire gang’s – very favorites: a picture of The Village People with the faces of everyone in the group (there just happened to be 5 of them, 6 including Kevin) superimposed on each of the members. He had taken the time to scan the Facebook profiles of each of them to snag pictures that matched the pose of each person – Jamie was on the guy who played the Native American, a giant head dress crowning him, crouched in front; to the left, crouched on the other side was DV, as the “guerrila warrior; behind him from left to right, were Mac, sporting a giant cheesy grin as the cowboy; Chuck looking smug as the construction worker; and Tex, with a sly, cool look as the gay biker guy. It was simply brilliant, and with the text “Just Another Friday for Us Freaky People!” emblazoned in the classic meme font on it. He clicked send with a sense of joy and satisfaction that no other job, to this point, could give.

So I get these email updates, alerts I have subscribed to via Google, for quantum physics and artificial intelligence. It makes it easier for me to keep up with all the latest advancements, and I let their algorithms do the work of scouring the internet for me. One of the funny things about the stuff that comes out on AI is the disparity in people’s thoughts, even experts, about it. Some say we are on the verge of the “singularity,” a moment in time when artificial intelligence will reach the level of thought capability of a human being. Other experts think we are still decades away, and some doubt that it will ever happen.

Me, I am a software developer myself, so I like to imagine that I have a little more familiarity with all that stuff (even though in reality, that’s pretty questionable). What do I think? I think it is definitely going to happen via an “intelligence explosion” – and I think it is going to happen fairly soon actually. In fact, my little conspiracy theory is that it has already been achieved, and “they” are keeping it under wraps, trying to prepare us all for the big reveal.

And it’s funny how reality has a way of boosting my conspiracy theory every now and then. Like today – this article comes out about Samsung revealing an AI that “will make you wonder which one of you is real.” https://www.pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2019/samsung-to-launch-artificial-human-called-neon/ Of course it remains to be seen just how “real” it is, but still – the fact that they are even making this claim seems to portend that great progress is being made.

Of course it’s hard to think about this stuff too much when working a regular 40 hour a week job. I, like everyone else, have dreams about winning the lottery so I can take the time I would need to write my book and begin my full-time job of bringing awareness to the masses. Ok, so maybe not everyone has that latter part, about the book. But pretty sure everyone has the wish to win the lottery. Of course, I sometimes wonder, what awareness could I really bring to people?

I’m reading a book now by a guy called Rene Guenon, and he suggests, as do some other proponents of the Primordial Tradition (more on that later) that there are only a few people who are actually interested in the truly deeper subjects of metaphysics, the nature of consciousness, etc. I used to think that I would get published and then go out and start proselytizing, trying to convince everyone that I knew the way to Truth, and that I would show them. But the cold, stark fact is that many people just aren’t quite there yet. I used to have people tell me all the time that I was an “old soul,” and – being fairly scientifically minded – wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. But it does seem that there are different “levels” of awareness, and it would seem that there has to be some kind of mechanism to account for that. So, to me, it seems somewhat logical that there is something to reincarnation, that there is some part of us that moves from life to life, learning, growing, ascending. But hey, that’s just me. Well, and Buddhists. And Hindus. And – yeah, I guess it’s not just me.

So if I were to write a book, what could I do to make sure it would be attractive to both people who are already interested in this stuff, and – more importantly – those who aren’t…? I was thinking about the old advice that I’ve heard in movies when people say they don’t know what to write about. Inevitably, the [] is “write what you know.” Thing is, I don’t really KNOW anything. I think a lot of things, have some strong hunches, have read a lot of stuff. But knowing, that’s something else. I guess what I do know, or strongly believe, is that we are living in a very singular time in human history – a time when there is a realistic possibility that we will create entities that are actually more intelligent than we are. And that, to me, is simply astounding. I guess I would like to share that feeling of astonishment with others. Perhaps I could write a book that somehow captures that?

I really need to start writing my book. Of course I’ve been saying that repeatedly over the last 30 years or so. I always get caught up in the functional details though. Should it be written from first person, or third? Should I write a metaphysical tome on the meeting of science and spirituality? An autobiography? A novel? What would the plot be? Little stuff like that.

I know what kind of subjects I would want to talk about. Of course it would have to be about spirituality in some way – most likely my attempt to “prove” that mystic principles can coexist with science. And AI. There would have to be stuff about AI, just because I am so interested in it. I mean, how can anyone not be? I am quite the fanboy, and am fairly certain that most people have no idea just how quickly it’s progressing and what an impact it is going to have on our world.

In fact just the other night we were having dinner with my daughter who works at an electronic payment company, and she was telling us how she is growing uncomfortable in her work. She is a customer service rep, and talks to people on the phone. But she was telling us how “the robot” guides and directs them as to what they can and can’t say – serious – and that she doesn’t even know why they have people working there anymore. The general consensus we came up with is that the humans provide the “soft” touch to deliver news to people in a way that makes them feel more cared about, or something like that.

What was really disturbing though was how she told us that lately, they have been working on “training the robot” on how to detect certain kinds of fraud. In the past, they had a human override button or something like that that would allow the human operator to flag an account, suspend it, etc, if he or she noticed illegal activity. But her bosses told her that they were taking that away, that they needed to let the robot detect that stuff to train it. So now, if she sees something bad happening in real time, she has to just let it go in the name of training “the robot.” She was telling us how sad it made her talking to people who wanted her to do stuff to help them, knowing that she couldn’t do anything, and she certainly couldn’t tell them why she couldn’t. And that’s happening NOW, today. Even I, Mister AI fanboy, was taken aback at how incredible that sounds. So yeah, my book would have to have something about AI in it.

Oh, and quantum physics. At least I would like to work something in about it. Especially considering the incredible advances they’ve been making here lately. A little while back Google claimed that they had created a quantum computer that could perform a calculation that would take a regular computer 10,000 years in only 200 seconds. Damn… Just think about that for a minute – it’s incredible, and portends some amazing advancements just on the horizon.

But I don’t think most people really care about all this stuff. Most of us are lost in the day to day tasks of going to work, taking care of kids/parents/animals/spouses, hanging out with friends, keeping up with social media, be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, keeping up with our favorite band/sports team/YouTube star/etc. We truly live in an age of distraction the likes of which has never been seen before – especially for young people. The new old cliche of everyone having their heads down looking at their phones is all too real. So what kind of book could I possibly write that would hold anyone’s attention? That truly is the question. Hence, it’s still just an idea in my head. But someday…

The writing of the book, that is. At least I’m giving it a shot. I honestly have no idea how it is going to turn out – or if it even WILL turn out. But I have finally made a decision, after praying, meditating, and contemplating about it, to just start writing. I have a good idea of what I want the plot to be, just not sure where it will go ultimately. I’ve also been struggling a bit with the mechanics, like whether to tell it in first person, third person, present or past tense. I have opted for first person present tense, but that can always change later.

It’s kinda funny, because I have made a somewhat risky decision to actually write about writing the book in the book – I guess you could think of it as a fractal novel lol. I think it would be good to do that though, especially given the ideas I have for the plot progression. And I had a hunch that first person present tense might be perfectly suited for today’s younger audiences, and I just read an article stating that very thing. So I guess I will go with my hunch!

I guess the question now will be – do I keep writing stuff about the book separately, here on this blog, or do I just do it there, since it will be self-referencing anyway…?

It seems a very easy correlation to make to me – between the two pillars of mystic life, prayer and meditation – between Christianity and Buddhism respectively. The Western Traditions, including Judaism, have long been known as based around prayer, and any kid who ever attempted to go to Catechism knows that memorizing a ton of different prayers and hymns – which are really just musical prayers – is a huge part of it. But when it comes to meditation, it’s not exaggerating to say that it is pretty much non-existent within the current Christian traditions that have been taught over the last 400 years or so. Which to me, as a modern mystic, is somewhat astonishing, considering just how crucial meditation is to any effective practice. Now that’s not to say that it has always been this way. If you look back to the medieval times or ever further back, you find references to meditation in the works of people like Meister Eckhardt, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc. They may not have explicitly stated it as such, but they definitely alluded to it.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have Buddhism, which one could say is built on the practice of meditation.

Why isn’t my site, The OUT, more popular? Or should I say, why haven’t more than 3 people in the entire world actually checked it out and enjoyed it…?!? I’ve recently thought that maybe I need to edit or change it somehow to improve it, to help it be more successful, more appealing. But I just looked back over all the pages, and honestly, it’s awesome as it is! It’s really, really good! Hard to believe in fact that it was I who put it together. Of course, I had a little self-reflection during my morning prayer/meditation on the way to work and realized that it isn’t I who does those things really. I mean, when something that great comes out, it truly is something working through me, I am just the vessel. And I am ok with that! But back to what I was saying –

So yeah, why isn’t the site gaining any traction? Well, my recent discovery of the writings of Rene Guenon could actually shed some light on that, if he is to be believed. In the introduction of the book I am reading about him, the writer who penned it mentions that he (Guenon) wasn’t necessarily interested in becoming “widely read” or famous. The way he understood it, the information he was providing wasn’t for everyone; it was for those select few who would follow in his footsteps and become mystics themselves in search of Ultimate Truth. In other words – and this is important for me to hear and remind myself – try as we may, there is simply no motivating all of humanity to join this Quest. Many, many people just aren’t able, ready, or even interested in doing so. But that doesn’t mean that our efforts are in vain, because we, the True Seekers, are fulfilling our sacred duty to the Truth, and leaving clues, advice, wisdom, encouragement, etc for the others who will come after us – few as they may be.

And that has been a bit of a bitter pill for me to swallow honestly. I always dreamed of being a famous writer and being able to spread my wisdom (lol! This sounds horrible now) to all those who would listen. Of course now I know what a fool’s errand that would have been – to think that I could control that which works through me to such an extent. Perhaps one day I will reach that place, but not yet. What I haven’t really thought of until this moment though is the idea that I could still be a famous writer – just via other genres or subjects. In other words, I could write a novel maybe, or some short story, or even a work of non-fiction, but not focused specifically on the spiritual principles with the intention of “saving the world.” Maybe that’s the realization I needed. I could still harness my writing talent, become a successful writer, then – under a pen name for anonymity – I could afford to publish the important stuff to get it out there. Hey now – this is sounding like a real idea here!

Now the question would be, what the heck would I write about? What kind of book..? And how in the world would I find the time to write anything like that? These are questions that I have yet to really figure out. I guess maybe I could shift my creative intention process and start asking the Universe about that? I’ve had some ideas, but nothing fleshed out enough to write an entire book about. But maybe I could just start writing – see what happens. I have my Chromebook, I have time at lunch every day. Maybe I could just start banging away on the keys and see what happens..? I think I even started an outline one time – maybe I can see if I could find that.

Of course, I always remember how grateful I am that I make a pretty darned good living doing what I do for a day job, and whether or not I ever become a commercially successful writer, I have MUCH to be grateful for. I am not a “starving artist” by any means, and I was even blessed enough to get a chance to move out of heads-down coding finally after 7 years of praying and hoping, so I am extremely grateful. Becoming a full-time writer would merely be the cherry on top of a blessed life – the fulfillment of a dream I’ve had for over 30 years; an opportunity to give expression to a creative force inside me that has revealed itself throughout my life in a manner that has caused many people to tell me that I should be a writer. And all of that would be wonderful.

So I think I have a plan going forward. In fact, I even bought a voice recorder a while back to capture my thoughts, but now Google has added a great one to the Pixel, so I can use it, and it is much more convenient. I can at least give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work out, or I lose steam or ideas for the plot, I haven’t lost anything really.

I was just thinking this morning that my silly “Scarred Nail Prophecy” hadn’t really come true, even though that nail is pretty much completely healed. But I also thought that perhaps I just hadn’t given it enough time. Who knows – maybe this is all part of it, and the prophecy is actually true. I guess only time will tell. But of course this is getting into the realm of self-fulfilling prophecy now, because it seems it is up to me to at least put the effort in to make it come true. It will be interesting to see what 2020 brings for sure. Although I am still in favor of the “winning the lottery” path forward! Lol

So I recently discovered a spiritual writer that I had never read before, Rene Guenon, and I am blown away by just how similar his thoughts are to mine, and how deeply I resonate with his beliefs. He lived from 1886-1951, so he is not contemporary by any means. Still, his writing seems as poignant and pertinent as one could expect, and I am greatly enjoying reading it.

In fact, the other day, I experienced some awesome synchronicity with it/him. On the ride to work, I was thinking about my blog, my writing, and how it has always seemed there is no real audience, no appetite for it. I then thought about Rene’s work and the fact that, as far as I am aware, it is little known of, at least here in the US. My line of thinking continued, and I got a bit of an intuitive thought about the idea that people like him, me, Gaetan, etc, weren’t really writing stuff for mass appeal. We were/are leaving clues, information, ideas gained from our experiences for those who will follow in later times. I even thought about that old phrase in Bible where Christ talked about not “casting pearls before the swine,” and how it might relate.

Later that same day, as I was reading the Guenon book, I was a but stunned to read exactly what I had been thinking that morning – about how he viewed his purpose as just that, leaving information for those seekers who would follow, and even included that very same verbiage from the Bible about casting pearls! It was pretty breathtaking, and an awesome example of synchronicity, the kind that lets me know I am on the Path, and I absolutely LOVE! I truly feel a kinship with this guy, and am devouring the book I got.

I’ve been really keen on making some progress on the spiritual level, about deepening my understanding of and my connection to Source. I’m feeling like this Guenon material could be the next “Ultimate Frontier,” the next “Templar Tradition” – 2 books that catapulted me into new levels of awareness. Indeed, it seems that way so far. I am excited to continue reading and grateful for the new guidance. I love how, whenever I think I’ve discovered all the wisdom there is to discover, more appears. And I say thank you God!

It’s official – I am in a funk. After blowing up a little bit on Sunday at the wife and daughter, then having a bit of a reprieve yesterday, I find myself completely down again this morning – very cranky to say the least. I’m sure part of it has to do with the political climate right now, and the fact that I have been keeping close track of the impeachment proceedings, to the detriment of my peace of mind I’m sure. But it’s kind of like a car wreck – you know you’re going to regret looking in some sense, but you can’t help it. It’s truly astonishing to think just how divided this country is, and how almost half the country can support such a detestable, narcissistic, self-aggrandizing, cruel, rude, bully of a person in Mr Trump. I just don’t get it.

And it makes it especially difficult for me knowing just how many people at my work, including my boss and the developer who’s working on the big project I am on, and how many people in this state are Trump supporters. Even several members of my own family, including my brother, and those back in South Dakota and Montana are Trump supporters. Most of them, in fact. My mom has completely cut those people out of her life because she just can’t reconcile it. I’ve done a pretty good job staying clear of political stuff with family, but I think the repression of my true feelings is starting to weigh on me on a psychic level.

And it’s not just something that is going on here in the US. Britain is going through a very similar situation, with a similar cast of characters. It’s happening in Canada in some respect, in several countries in Europe. There is a true split of human ideologies happening right now at a much deeper and more pervasive level than I’ve ever seen or imagined. And with the rise of social media, the alt-right “fake news” narrative, YouTube, and companies like Cambridge Analytica that specialize in persuading “persuadables,” it seems that those with enough money and desire can leverage data and technology, along with people’s weak intellects, to influence their beliefs in an extremely effective, efficient, and surreptitious way. It’s truly disturbing, and I find myself getting more anxious and despondent these last few days than I’ve been in a long time.

So yeah, I’m pretty down in the dumps today, and not in the mood to deal with Jerry, or anything really. It probably doesn’t help either that I’m losing faith, again, for the umpteenth time, that anything I do as far as the blog or website stuff goes is ever going to take off. I’ve had several people encourage me over the past several years to keep going, telling me that I’m a great writer, and so on. And I was doing some great writing a number of years ago. And I thought the website for the Order was brilliant – I still do. But no one else does. And any hopes I had of attracting or helping to found some kind of “Order” appear to have just been some silly pipe dream – which makes me feel silly for refusing to give up, and continually putting myself through this. If the Universe really does have some higher purpose for me, I don’t think it’s to be any kind of literary figure, spiritual leader or anything like that for that matter. Even though i’m 16 years sober, I guess some of those old delusions of grandeur from my using days have persisted, much to my peril.

I really need to just let go of it – whatever “it” is. Part of me wonders if that means letting go of everything related to it, including my spirituality. I have certainly felt the “fuck it”s again, and feel like just throwing all of the pendants, bracelets, figurines, pyramids, yadda yadda – just throwing all of that crap in the garbage can and just giving up completely on any kind of spiritual development or progression. I mean, it’s completely possible I am just deluding myself, as Richard Dawkins claims. Maybe the atheists are right. Maybe I’m just an idiot at heart to believe there is something more, some deeper meaning to all of this.

I seriously started to think recently that I might just be past all this; that I might finally be free from having to encounter another “dark night of the soul.” And sure as shit, as so often happens, no sooner do I think that then BAM – here it comes again. Ugh. And this time, there is a bunch of negativity, confusion and division brewing in the collective consciousness as well, which makes it even more stinging.

I guess all I can really do is pray and hang on at this point. I may end up throwing everything away in a fit of anger. I may not do anything like that. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do. But I do know that I would love some kind of helping hand from HP right now. I’m feeling pretty weak spiritually, and could use a little recharge of some kind. Fortunately, this isn’t my first time through this mire, and I know this too shall pass. I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to pass this way again, but who know – maybe there are yet new things to see. I certainly hope so.

Everything isn’t always – well, you know. Today, for the first time in a very long while, I was actually in a bad mood, quite angry actually, and for more than just a few moments. I have been on an epic roll of good vibes, and was a bit taken aback at just how unhappy I got today.

Sure, there were some small things that contributed to it – a perceived lack of appreciation from a daughter, the wife not happy about the mildewy smell left after a carpet soaking tub dribble, etc – but nothing truly worthy of putting me in such a foul mood. And so I find myself sitting here tonight wondering why exactly I was so pissed…? And not just mad, but that lovely sense of general hopelessness and apathy is starting to crop up – the one that has, or had, dogged me for pretty much my entire life, on and off; mostly off over the last few years, thank God.

And honestly, I think some of it has to do with the whole political/ideological situation in this country right now (and actually in other parts of the world too). I watched some Sunday morning news programs this morning at the hotel, and it caused me to re-realize just how completely detached from reality, how wholly hypnotized the Trump supporters (a senator and campaign aid in this case) truly are. It’s depressing, demoralizing, and really a tough thing to reconcile, knowing that there is a large percentage of people out there who will believe anything this man says, evidence be damned. I mean, in a recent poll, most of them (Republicans) think Trump is a better president than Lincoln was. Are you f_ing kidding me..?!

But why is it so depressing? It’s so depressing because I am a bit of an idealist, and I had hoped that we would be entering some “new age” of human awareness by this point – that the populace would have woken up to the fact that we are all in this together, and that politics and the division being sewn are all just stupid BS to take our eyes off the real prize – raising the level of our consciousness. And certainly one could argue that I am engaging in it myself, taking a side by railing against Mr Trump and his supporters. But the curious thing is, and honestly it is a bit disturbing to me, that most everyone who seems to have some level of intelligence and rationality, and does NOT have any latent racism or xenophobia, almost all of those people agree that he is not a good person, should not be president, and that he is just the worst. And I think what is depressing is that there are so many people out there who I think are pretty good people, but support him – and I can only believe that, at some level, even though some of them vehemently deny it, they are either racist or xenophobic, or at the very least afraid of what a country without old white guys in charge might look like – particularly for them.

Now here I go on a bit of a tangent – personally, I had always hoped that there would be some kind of “great awakening,” or spiritual development, or some kind of something that would happen that would allow people of a certain ‘vibratory level’ to rise up, become empowered, something like that, to be able to break the chains of history, false belief, apostasy, ignorance, materialism, etc, to get to that next level of psychic development and achieve another step in the evolution of consciousness. I mean sure, I have gotten very comfortable with life as it is, the whole acceptance thing, and practicing and believing the principles of Buddhism has really helped that. But still…

Still, I long for something more than all of this stupid shit – and by stupid shit, I mean the idiotic political division, the unnecessary poverty and homelessness, the whole “haves and have nots,” the totally unnecessary suffering that so many endure, the materialism – oh God, the fucking MATERIALISM. And I mean in the greatest sense – the philosophical, scientific, social, economic, even spiritual MATERIALISM. It is just complete bullshit. And a lot of people are waking up to that. But as many are waking up it seems, others are becoming more emeshed in it, following one of the greatest prophets of materialism ever seen in the halls of government, mister money himself, Donald J Trump. Yuck.

Now I normally do a pretty good job of keeping things realistic, focusing on what I can do, being extremely grateful for my life and blessings, praying a lot, practicing love and kindness when and wherever possible, and accepting that everyone has to go through what they go through – countries, societies, etc – and I can’t control anyone and anything else, and I don’t know all of the “the plan.” But there was – I guess there still is, must be – a part of me that wished, hoped, even thought for a while, that I could do something more than that, that I could help out in some way, or that I was perhaps even being prepped for something bigger. But then the more I think about it logically, the sillier it sounds honestly. Prepped for what? How could I really help?

Many times over the years, I’ve had the thought/hope/dream/delusion that I would get “discovered” as a writer, that I would write some awesome book that would contribute to the great store of human spiritual wisdom, and I would gain some kind of voice and influence that would allow me to communicate a message of unity and connectedness that maybe no one else had in a long time. Oh, I know how egotistical that sounds, but I have at times thought that I was just the vessel, the whole “God working through me” thing. And certainly, I’ve had some trippy experiences, series of them, that led me to think that was a real possibility. And many, many times, I have tried to do my part to realize those dreams by putting my writing out there (or at least trying) – and as many times as I’ve tried, nothing has ever come of it. So has it all just been delusions of grandeur?

I don’t know. And I guess that’s really the rub of it all – those 3 (or 4 without the conjunction) words : I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen in this country, in the world – if the far-right whackos are going to takeover, or if there will be another civil war. I don’t know if there is any kind of spiritual awakening or psychic boost or evolution awaiting those of us who have been praying for one. I don’t know if I am meant to do anything more than just be a BA at SRP, try to be a good husband, dad, pop-pop, etc. I don’t know if I will ever get “discovered,” or if I would even really want to be. I don’t really know anything. And, in some sense, that is depressing. Because after almost 50 years of being alive, and spending many of those years seeking spiritual wisdom and self awareness, I had really hoped to know, or at least felt like I knew, SOMETHING.

I created this website called “The Order of Unifying Truth.” Came up with a cool structure, pages that talk about different aspects, yadda yadda yadda. Even purchased the domain name. Put a fair amount of work into making it look nice. And for a few months, I was posting to it regularly. I was pretty sure that I was “inspired” to do so. But hardly anyone ever reads the posts, even when I push them on Facebook. It honestly seems like it was a waste of time at this point. So I’m letting that whole thing go, and going back to just personal posts. And I don’t care who reads this stuff anymore, honestly. I’m done with trying the whole ‘writer’ thing. I put my heart and soul into my first real attempt with “The Quest” back in ’90, and now, 29 years later, I’m calling it. Time of death of my hopes for a writing career – December 8th, 11:24pm.

In its death, maybe I will find some peace, some release. Of course, if things go like they have over the last 29 years, it will be reborn again at some later date, miraculously “resurrected,” and I’ll try yet again. But who knows – maybe this time will be it. I just think the world doesn’t really want what I want for it, at least not now, and that is sad – at least to me. But I know I’m not the only person who feels this way, like I used to think, so at least I have grown in that respect. It would just be nice to have something truly remarkable, something truly miraculous, something unquestionably incredible happen to reignite the flickering flame of Spirit within me. The material world can be a real drag sometimes, and even though I’ve gotten much stronger and better able to deal with it, I do still have my limits. I’m definitely up against it now – hopefully not for long.