Deeper Meaning in the New Year

On these first few days of 2024 I'm being flooded with all sorts of different emotions. I can be sad one moment then hopeful the next. Through it all there's a sense of a deeper self trying to touch something. Something "more," something more deeply meaningful. It feels like something I've been in communion with before but my current self has lost its way from it and is trying to return to it. I get the sense that whatever this "it" is, it's expansive. I can at moments feel myself a part of it. In a flash of an instant I can feel myself everywhere and part of everything. 

I went to a friend's house for a small New Year's Eve gathering, but I'm feeling unfulfilled from the experience. I felt as if I belonged somewhere else that night. Marking the passage into another year feels like something that should be done outdoors beneath the expanse of the sky and the Universe. Noisemakers, funny hats, and glasses of champagne feel trivial and insulting to what the moment truly means and is. Somehow it seems cheapened by the way we celebrate it. When I imagine celebrating I picture myself alone on a beach or in an open field being one with my surroundings. The sky and nature spread before me, offering itself to me as I am to it.  

There is something more I'm meant for. I feel it as true as anything in my heart and soul. I don't have very long on this planet. None of us do. I need to connect and find the deeper thing or things I'm trying to connect to. I don't know what "it" is, but I know it's there. I feel it calling me through my kenshō moments, the dream snippets I have that take me other places, and the flashes I have of being someone totally different in scenarios I know I've not experienced as the person I am now. I've come to believe that a lot of my actions are me trying to get there, but the actions are misdirected. I've been using the wrong things to accomplish the right goals. 

Interestingly, this all comes back yet again to the strange yet comforting feeling of a need to pull away from certain people, places, and things (PPTs) even more. I can feel my deeper, inner self wanting for something “more.” Some more meaningful thing that the “superficial” world can’t provide. An almost indescribable feeling of my inner essence self needing to commune more deeply with the authentic and shun the superficial. I sense it to be some sort of larger current I should be swimming in that has larger and deeper harmonies. It’s almost clear in flashes of understanding that some activities of my past (drinking, smoking, sex, indulging in food, etc, etc) were attempts of the “surface self” to capture that harmony. These, as my friend Dan says are nothing more than red herrings. Incorrect activities for the correct sensation, so to speak. 

As he has said, "I think when we're in a heightened state of awareness, we are especially susceptible to the negative influences of others. We need to keep our distance." He is so correct and I would add "other things" to that statement as well. I think being more of an empath than the average person is what causes some of that. I see under the surface of things much more than most people. I don’t just skim the surface like they do. I can "feel" the more, and that's what calls me. 

I'm finding more and more anything that stimulates my brain, the endorphins, or other "feel good" hormones is worth the effort. That excludes things like drugs and alcohol of course. Those are false arousals of the mind. They do more damage than the temporary euphoria most mistake for the real thing. My friend Dan refers to them as "wonders inisde." An interesting and most accurate phrase. I find the internal journeys are much more fun. Sleep and dreams are good examples. Some evenings I can't wait to get to bed so I can start dreaming. And moving throughout the next day with the influence of those dreams on my mood and outlook feels incredible. It's like I've been able to shed the skin of mundane traps of an everyday, ho hum existence and walk within a new, deeper perspective that nourishes my deepest inner self. 

Maybe that's what this is exactly all about. Finding clarity of mind more stimulating than anything else. Putting my mind to work in true and meaningful ways it enjoys. 

This entry's image was AI-generated.  

I've always been a very vivid dreamer. Sometimes I can have as many as three, four, or more dreams each night that I can clearly remember the next day. To explore the themes, patterns, and meanings of my dreams I've started a blog to record them. It's both fascinating and fun.

Click the image above to visit the blog.

Living Life Through Different Lenses

I was just in the kitchen cooking myself an omelet (plant-based egg product called “Just Egg,” sauteed asparagus, red onion, microgreens, and smoked gouda cheese with an avocado on the side) and I got to thinking about how we move through our lives. As morbid as this might sound when I focus my life through the lens of mortality, finiteness, and finality I tend to see my life as something that should be filled to the brim as much and as often as possible until it practically overflows.

In that moment I “saw” the rest of my life. It wasn’t filled with “stuff,” job titles, fancy cars, or emotionally vacant McMansions. It was filled with experiences. Things that, possibly over time and an onset of old age and possible senility I will forget. But the memory will still be there inside me. Memories of a life lived fully and presently. Knowing that I have so much life yet to live and experiences yet to live filled me not with anxiety but with excitement at what the next moments are going to bring.

The Loneliness of Meaning

Being an introvert and empath can be a lonely thing sometimes. I find myself now and then feeling lost, not knowing where to turn next or what to do next. Sometimes I feel that hole inside so strongly. Like this morning. I feel directionless. I feel so much of the gropingly desperate despair that's out there, all that forced adherence to what we as society have conditioned ourselves to. Right now it's all crowding in on me demanding my attention. I know what's fueling that, too, Suffice to say there are certain "empath triggers" that turn these deeper feelings of despair for humanity on, which in turn aggravates my introversion and empathic nature. Don't misuderstand, I enjoy being alone. I value my Me Time. Now and then, however it all seems desperate and well, pathetic. When I'm my dad's age, will I have spent my entire life alone? Will I have regrets about it? What will my life have meant? Will I have played it safe or will I have turned my back on conditioned society and gone my own way? Will it have been worth it? Today I honestly don't know the answer to those questions. I don't if there's even supposed be an answer. Probably not. The curiosity and pondering that seems to be inherent to humans is what really keeps us moving forward, isn't it? Perhaps I'm projecting in ways I don't need to. There's no need to ponder the future to the point of worry. Worry is a dividend paid to something that hasn't happened and may not. Fearful adherence, as I heard someone recently put it, is no good. But dammit, what does it all mean?!

Funny thing is, I know what the remedies for these times are. Writing, meditation, the gym, healthy eating, focusing on my conscious awareness, yoga, tai chi, or just great music filling up my living space. I've finally realized that in life the lessons never ends. It's an ongoing, lifelong thing. There is no destination, no arrival point, only stops along the way. I have to remember that.