So I left the room. Then, still hearing her ear-piercing, or rather her heart-piercing screams, I left the waiting room also. Standing outside in the blistering heat of Chiang Mai, Thailand. The heat was nothing, I can take it all day compared to this. I tried distracting myself with my phone because feeling it was overwhelming. Well, I tried. It was too much in my face to ignore and I could still feel it fully.

I had to write about it, if anything to let it out a little bit.

We are not what we think we are. At least, not really. The way I identity and present myself is through a set of attributes, which includes my name, age, gender, political point of view, religious background, work, education, sexual orientation, ethnicity, particular interests, etc. When I meet you, I am putting forward these qualities as a sort of bundle neatly packaged in my favour. In reality, I do not really feel like this. When I am simply drinking coffee in the morning, I am not this amalgamation of characteristics. I do not feel this sense of identity simply because I do not think about it. It is, in other words, irrelevant. When we look up at the moon or at the quiet morning lake or anything that beauty exudes in times of silence, there is no need to show up as anything. If there are no critical eye watching, there are no critical I-watching. When there are no thoughts directed towards how I present myself, the me that I usually think of is simply not there because the "me" that shows up for others is my own creation. Unlike my breathe and my beating heart, the qualities that I use to describe myself are things that I have amassed over time. What I consider as "myself" is an combination of these things — no more, no less. If I were to drop this assortment upon which I have built this "me", would I still be me?

Eve 4.1 by Jabbar Muhammad

When some of the traits that makes up my identity change, which they inevitably do, then at what point, if any, do I stop being "me"? I have an ideal image about myself which is all righteous and perfect that I strive to maintain or become. The further away from that image I am, driven by my life choices, the more anxious I feel. The bundle of thoughts and experiences that constitute my identity is a fabrication made to be relevant only in so far as it is socially valuable. It is engineered for social convenience. It is a measure whereby others relate to us in the interest of relationships. It is a convention. I have been educated to believe that I need to be someone and thus, like everyone else, I have accumulated and built a sense of identity. In a similar way that the Greeks used the Trojan horse to infiltrate Troy unsuspectingly, I was unaware of the consequences of letting this identity infiltrate and fossilise in my mind. It now has taken control over it, with fear as its weapon of choice — perpetrating the idea of myself as only, or at least mainly, that identity. It has become the de-facto lens upon which we observe ourselves and everybody else. It is useful in the social context, but a great obstacle outside of it. This anxiety of distance between where I am now and where I want to be is an attachment to this idea. A failure to see that this idea or concept is but a mirage with no substantial existence created by my imagination. I am attached to a fabrication of my own mind. Some might say "But who cares? What's the problem?" See, if you point out and criticise a cornerstone of my identity, then I would feel compelled to defend myself, thus creating unnecessary disturbance in my life. On a certain plane of existence, we can observe the absurdity that is the act of defending oneself from something imaginary. On the other hand, what if I could distance myself from this identity? Can I imagine how that would feel like — being in this world without striving to maintain or become someone other than what I am now, unchanged — surrendering how I show up as? Is this possible? If all attributes of my identity were to fall away, which would undoubtedly delete any frame of reference for what I now consider "myself", would "I" be the same "I"? What is that "I" and where is it felt?

Some of us may think of the body as that "I". If I have a good healthy body, it is wise to want to maintain it — for a healthy body is necessary. It is after all because we have a body in good health that we are able to investigate this very question. It is the vehicle that helps us walk our path. But are we this body? Suppose I lose both legs and both arms in an accident, have "I" disappeared? No, I'm still very much here. So I'm not the legs or the arms. If I point to the heart, a surgeon is liable to say that some people have had successful heart transplants. They are still "them". So we are not the heart either, at least not in the physical sense. Soon enough, it becomes quite obvious that the body is something I own, not something I am. In many languages, we say, in some form or another, "I have a body", not "I am the body". It is implied that there is a "higher me" that owns this body. But what about the brain?

Huike said to Bodhidharma, "My mind is anxious. Please pacify it."
Bodhidharma replied, "Bring me your mind, and I will pacify it."
Huike said, "Although I've sought it, I cannot find it."
"There," Bodhidharma replied, "I have pacified your mind."

Suppose I keep with this thought experiment (literally) and I entertain whether or not they are "me". "I think, therefore I am" Descartes said. My thought are in my head and those thoughts come and they shape my reality. Do we know where these thoughts come from? Do we control what thought will come next? It seems that only once the thought arrives in my head can I do something about it. I can not control what thought will land in my brain next. It is a mystery. We are thus constantly in mitigation mode trying to manage all of these thoughts which span the entire range of the human imagination and experience. The thought will come and I won't know what it is going to be. If I'm aware of this, then I simultaneously become aware of being not the thoughts but the observer of these thoughts. I can feel the distance between me, as the observer, and the thought. A thought hardens only if attention is brought to it. On the other hands, if it is paid no attention, a thought will emerge, linger a little bit, then vanish. Similar to tagging a certain type of email as SPAM, we can deem a thought unimportant. Thoughts have no power over us if we choose not to engage with it. If I conduct my life in this way, if I'm aware of the cost and benefit of attention, it becomes the most precious quality of my life. In complete awareness or attention, there is a sense of stillness whereby thoughts come into frame and subsequently out of it. The observer is there looking at a continuous stream of thoughts, choosing which, if any, to interact with. When I choose not to take part in any thought, I feel the unadulterated experience of being — right here at this very moment. When I do not think, I am therefore not. And if I am not, I can be everything. An empty vessel, a clean slate able to navigate life easefully, freed from my mind.

"Ophelia" by John Everett Millais

If we are not the body and we are not the thoughts that stream through us, what are we really? If we aggregate the writings and oral transmissions of wisdom from scholars, monks, sannyasis, mystics and sages from around the world through time into a common denominator, we get consciousness. Consciousness is felt, but unspeakable — we can't say anything conclusive about it. Consciousness is really another word for absolute awareness or attention — to be completely raptured with the happenings of this moment. Awareness is what the observer is. This observer is me, the real "I" — clear, unblemished and pure.

Consciousness is imparted to every one of us by the mysterious cosmos. It is, however, very difficult to be aware of this in everyday life. We are thrown into a storm of events and are expected to "just be aware". No one is immune to the disturbances of daily life. Certain decisions in our lives are necessary, yet have little to do with awareness directly. Awareness is what I am. I navigate the waves of daily life through it. In the depth of my being, I feel that each one of us is a manifestation, amongst everything else in existence, of the one fundamental light. The form is different, but the centre is the same. Have you noticed how we can sometimes tell what the other person is going to say — or in thinking of them, they magically reach out to us soon after?

So why the heck do I bother?

Well, I've wondered that myself, many MANY times. A few years ago, I discovered a game called Stardew Valley. My spouse and I started playing and we fell in love with the touching story and the heartwarming and evolving characters. It invoked true feelings that I hadn't felt in a video game before. Feelings that were felt through other medias like movies and books, but never in video games. Despite having been a gaming addict for many years, I solely played competitive games. I would rarely read dialogues or take the time to let myself be taken by the story. With Stardew Valley, it was different. I wasn't playing alone. This time, I was playing a new game with a non-gamer. It was fascinating going through the game and story with someone who had no preconceived notion of game mechanics, controls, flow, what objects you can and can't expect to interact with.

So naturally, I took my time... and what a gift it was. Through the feelings I had for Pelican town (the main village in the game) and the relationships between its inhabitants, I realised the potential that a game developer has in moulding a story and evoking deep feelings for the player — an unconventional medium of delivering your message to the world.

Stardew valley itself was amazing but what really pulled me to make my own game was when I found out that the entire game was made by one person. All the music, all the story, all the programming, all the characters, landscape and objects made by hand in a pre-LLM era (2016) by ConcernedApe. It's incredible. It took him four and a half years at 10 hours a day, seven days a week. That's quite the dedication.

In a recent interview, he said that when it takes this long to make a game, often by the time the game is towards the end of its development cycle, you will have become a completely different person and thus will tend to want to change or at least tweak everything you've made in the early stages of development. This is a journey. A journey that I would like to experience. "Maybe my struggles are just the "downs" of the "ups" that are coming"... is what I tell myself. I know I have to go through a laborious learning period in order to eventually fly on my own and be able to express my story.

The mountain cafe

I've been toying with a game idea over the past few years: A cafe situated at the top of a mountain in a small and remote village. It is home to a few dozen inhabitants. The owner of the cafe is your dear friend Mujo, whom has gone away on a journey. He has asked you to take care of the cafe while he finds what he's looking for.

I have made a few animations, characters, objects, buildings, parts of different songs and some of the coding so far. I halted the development of the game when I was faced with the inevitable: My coding skills were not up to par. I relied too heavily on vibe coding and arrived at a point where I couldn't develop the game any further. I tried for many weeks to implement the A-star pathfinding algorithm and couldn't get it to work properly. The NPCs would find a path to the correct coordinates but whenever an obstacle would get in the way (e.g.: the player's character), it wasn't rerouting properly. I couldn't figure it out. The development was at a stale mate. It has been on the back-burner, but always in the back of my mind, since then. I know I will come back to it one day. The story is a part of me that needs to be expressed. A true artist paints to express his being to the world. I'm not saying that I'm an artist, but rather that this is how I'm feeling. In our world, If one desires his expression to be felt/seen/experienced by others, it suffices not simply to desire to express but to know how. In this situation, the form is as important as the intended message. The way someone dresses or how they speak not only conveys itself a message but also shapes the way the intended message is received.

What makes a great game? A captivating story? An ingenious core gameplay loop? Beautiful graphics? Emotionally moving music? Maybe the difficult challenges you go through in the game? I don't know... Probably a combination of everything, but also not really. I'm not sure that anybody knows. There is no answer, no absolute recipe or formula. It's definitely more an art than a science — A secret mix that some developers find and are able to harness and others not. And if you ask the people who tap into that secret, I'm not convinced they would be able to articulate what actually makes a game special. I don't know how either, but I'd like to try. I must try. Expressing oneself is the reason why we are here, in this world. Look at the bird in the tree. Why does it sing? It expresses itself: "Look, I'm here. Hello!". Making a game is just a much more complex version of that.

This year I will focus on making a tiny little game, unrelated to this one, in order to expand my toolbox. This is the goal for this year. The mountain cafe will be a long-term project. It might take me a few years for that one, maybe a decade... I don't know. It doesn't ultimately matter. What matters is that I try my best to express this part of my being.

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I knew nothing of sensors, ePaper displays, GPIO modules, Raspberry Pis, Microcontrollers, barely anything of programming and no real knowledge of how electricity ACTUALLY works. So I had to learn a little bit about all these things. I had quite the task ahead of me, but I also had a girlfriend to impress. She knew what was being built, but I had a surprise up my sleeve. Having someone in mind other than myself that will receive whatever I conceive makes it an order of magnitude easier to keep grinding and chipping at it until it is completed and ready to be exposed.

I knew I wanted it to be portable, so I had to be mindful of the power consumption aspect. That was my first roadblock. I needed to study what components usually utilise the most power and 1) Find a power efficient component and 2) try to reasonably reduce their power consumption as much as I could.

Display

In first place for the most power hungry component is: The display. The size, the brightness and the technology are the main factors to look out for. With the size and brightness, it is fairly straight-forward... the more pixel dense and the brighter the light is emitted through or emitted from (depending on the technology), the more energy they hunger for. On the other hand, the display technology is quite a bit more complicated. There are Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), Light Emitting Diode (LED, like your modern light bulb), In-Plane Switching (IPS), Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED), Thin Film Transistor (TFT), ePaper and many, MANY more. There are a lot. In choosing a display, there are additional specifications other than power consumption to look out for in order to fit our specific project. Output signal, quality of the image, screen resolution, physical dimensions and more. Now, in order to choose a screen, we need to know 1) What we want and 2) What we are willing to pay. In my case, since I knew that I was going to use Wordgrinder, which is a terminal-based application (more on that later), I knew that the quality and screen resolution was not important at all. I initially wanted to use a monochrome TFT LCD, the kind that was used a lot in electronics in the late 90s/early 2000s. However, those don't display the same way a "normal" display, like the one you're reading this from right now, does. At least, not the cheap ones. To spare the details, because God knows this entire article could implode into a giant rabbit hole, the most commonly available and cheap ones are called Character LCDs. They display single characters in a fixed grid-like layout like 4 rows of 20 characters each (20x4), 16x2, 20x8, etc... That would not have worked in my case. The reason I went with Wordgrinder is that it's a simple word editor that is a Linux command away from being installed on any computer. If I went with a Character LCD, which would've, on the one hand, saved a lot on power consumption, would've required me to program a word editor from scratch on the other. Considering, at the time, my beginner level of programming knowledge -- that was a non-starter. I decided to go for a 7 inches LCD display that would output an HDMI signal, mainly because of its price and ease of setup. In retrospect, the main downside of this LCD is that it consumes more energy than I would've wished because of its size.

Main board

Next in line was the main board, the brain. The thing that would make the whole thing thang. For the center piece, just like the display, I initially had a grand but naive vision of programming a word editor. A simple word editor would not need a powerful chip. A simple microcontroller would do the job. This would've had several advantages.

1. Speed: Running an entire Operating system simply to launch a minimal word editor is easy but slow. Running a word editor directly via a microcontroller would get the user sitting and writing an order of magnitude quicker.

2. Energy efficient: By-passing the need to boot an OS speaks for itself. The tl;dr is that the Linux operating system controls, directs and runs a LOT of processes that are not necessary to our little word editor. Each one consume energy.

3. Price: Microcontrollers are very cheap. An ESP32, which is a very common one available pretty everywhere, is only a few dollars.

As mentioned earlier, configuring and running what would become a modern typewriter on a microcontroller would not be feasible for me at the time. It wasn't worth learning all the necessary skills to make this happen. After all, the point was to have a functional writing device in a reasonable amount of time (although it took much longer than expected). I didn't want it to be power efficient at all cost. So what I ended up choosing is a Raspberry Pi Zero W.

The reason for choosing it was that it is one of the most power efficient SBC (Single Board Computer) out there as well as the most thoroughly documented one. Yes, it was going to boot an entire OS to open up a simple word editor and yes it wasn't AS efficient as using a microcontroller nor was it going to be as quick, BUT, it was super easy to use and it has 40 GPIO pins that were going to be very useful for several modules.

Batteries

In normal computers, we usually see Li-Ion batteries in the form of Lithium Polymer (Li-Po) which are pouch-like shaped. However, not only are those very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing (pointing at me), they are not modular. 18650 battery cells on the hand, are much less dangerous as they are encased in a metal shell much like your typical AA battery, they are also modular. You can solder them together in series or in parallel or a combination of both to build custom battery packs. So that's what I did. I originally soldered 6 18650 cells in parallel (6x 3500 mAh) to get as much juice as possible in the form factor that I was going for. However, since I cheaped out on them (bought on Aliexpress - I wouldn't recommend doing that), two cells were malfunctioning and bulging (no bueno - mucho dangerouso). I had to dispose of them and ended up with a 4-cell pack. Less juice but still got me around 6-7 hours of use.

So those are the main components that were used in The Goose Writer. The other components were chosen for necessity or fun. For the little surprise – something I knew my girlfriend, who has a soft spot for Japanese traditions, would appreciate – I built in a second display. That display is a 2-inch ePaper display that cycles through the current Japanese microseason. These displays use power only when they refresh their image, making them ideal for projects that benefit from having a constant image displayed that seldom changes. For this project, the image was going to refresh only once every 4 days: a pixelated image representing the current microseason, matching the vibe of pixelated Japanese images I was going for. There are 72 of these microseasons in total, each lasting 4 days, and alongside the image, a mini description is displayed at the bottom of the main display. This, I thought was putting a little touch of beauty and perhaps giving a bit of inspiration to the writer without creating too much distraction.

On the side of the device, there are two buttons. The first is a safe shutdown button. SD cards are notoriously susceptible to data corruption. There are quite technical explanations as to why that is, but one of them is due to their size. The physical size makes them prone to corruption from electrostatic discharges from brown outs or black outs as they have less physical shielding and fewer internal protective components compared to larger storage devices. This is why I have programmed a button that the user can press in order to perform a safe shutdown which closes all processes of the Operating System cleanly before cutting off the power. Along with this and for the same reason, I have soldered a ADS1115 module that is able to detect changes in voltage. Below a certain voltage, a piezo buzzer will beep alerting the user that the device will perform a safe shutdown in 2 minutes in order to prevent the device from power cutoff and possibly corrupting the SD card.

The second button, when pressed performs the following tasks:

1. Connects to WiFi.

2. Perform a check between the local markdown files in a specific folder (on the writing device) with the files in a specific folder on Google drive.

3. If it finds files that are either new or have changed, it will upload or overwrite those files to Google drive. Otherwise it does nothing.

4. Disconnects from WiFi to save on battery.

This button is quite helpful for later either posting writings as blog posts from another computer or simply as a mean of backup. Another very useful use-case would be to upload whatever markdown files that are upload to X folder on Google drive as a blog post. Platforms like bear blog allows you to do that. Writing a blog post entirely from The Goose Writer would be really cool.

Making this device took quite a long time as I knew nothing of this world prior to starting this project. It was a fun and sometimes frustrating journey. I thought it would be interesting to share what were my choices and why I made them.

If you are interested in building a distraction-free writing device yourself, check out The Goose Writer’s Github repository.

The repository walks through the entire process. It goes through the entire process of building one yourself from A to Z in a fairly beginner-friendly way (according to me):

1. Every component (except the case) is listed with a link to the store and its price at the time of purchase.

2. Every piece of hardware soldered and wired is explained.

3. Every tool needed is also listed.

4. Every software installed and configured is explained.

5. All 72 pixelated microseason images are included.

If you have ANY questions or comments, please don't hesitate to reach out. I would be delighted to hear from you.

The Goose Writer's github repository: https://github.com/loonglade/the-goose-writer

Logs of what I'm currently learning/working on: https://www.loonglade.com/logs

Other projects: https://www.loonglade.com/ideas

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I prefer to live away from those energetically charged places. I rather choose to live amongst the trees and lakes where time paces differently. The oak is unbothered by your ambitions, it still grows slowly, always. I want to grow slowly too. There's nothing we must do, nowhere we must be and nobody we must become.

The people of the village wave and smile at you when you pass them. The acknowledgement of another being is something subtle and inconsequential to the city dweller, but it is quite real here. The space that is between one interaction and another is what makes those interactions interesting. In cities, there are no spaces between one individual interaction and another. We are constantly bombarded by other people's presence and thus no acknowledgement take place.

In the winter, we house sit our friends house in Canada and they live in a cul-de-sac — the last house on the right. It doesn't get any more peaceful of a spot than that. On the second floor of the house, there's a massive window that overlooks the lake and mountains. After several years of coming back here, this view is still a sight to behold, every time.

Autumn:

Winter:

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That was my number one priority in moving here; tranquillity. It does, however, come at a price - but what doesn't? Rural thais don't speak much english at all. I had a delivery earlier and the delivery man needed something from me. He didn't speak a word of english and I, apart from a few words, don't know many in Thai. So for a few moments, we both stood there, perplexed. I went to get my phone and opened up Google Translate and had him talk in his language and it magically converted it into my language. Translation software have been around for quite a while, but we have these moments in life where we realise how amazing the things we can create as human beings are. I don't speak his language, he doesn't speak mine; but with this little gadget we store in our pockets, he can blabber a series of sounds that are alien to me and a piece of metal and plastic will output a series of blabber that my brain understands. Mind boggling.

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There’s no doubt that more information gives us more things. We, as a species, become more knowledgeable about the world as we soak in more information. But does that truly mean that we know better? Does it really improve our lives? In this way, are we better off knowing more than knowing less? Most people, I assume, would probably say that are better off knowing more. But, why? What is the reason that could proclaim us, as a species, to be a better or improved form, by knowing more things?

It is safe to assume that if one highly regards knowledge as a prime quality of human life, then one is obviously better off knowing more. On the other hand, if one sees that knowledge, in the sense of accumulating it, is in a way a never-ending chase, then one naturally sees that it will also never lead to a happier and more peaceful life.

If peace is the opposite of war then, analogously, it might be valid to say that chasing knowledge is the war-like side, in its relentless chase, of peacefully refusing to pursue an accumulation of knowledge. The sun does not need to know what is happening on earth to shine its rays upon it.

I don’t think that being knowledgeable is wrong. However, perhaps dedicating one’s life in its pursuit, by all means possible, might produce a costly outcome at the end of one’s life.

There is something serene about being completely unattached to this side that seems so prominent and common in society. Although this is not something that can be forced, it can be understood with time. No knowledge of any kind required. Only a desire to be free from its pull… from any pull. A pull moves you. Whatever can move you can control you. To be free from knowledge is to be independent from this tugging.

I have found that there is nothing quite like bathing in the simplest of things to remind myself of the quintessence of existence: the forest, birds, silence — No knowledge required, only attention.

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They all took up to the challenge and the results were quite impressive. What I got was a sunset, a rabbit and the horizon from a mountaintop.

My point was not merely to receive beautiful pictures, although that’s a fantastic byproduct. It was rather to bring family members to a still and a state of observation. So few are the moments we allocate to this state of being, albeit it being our natural state. Our minds, the individual minds of our human world, are in dire need of quietness, because quietness is the necessary precursor to this state of observation.

“We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity; more than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.” -Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator

There are too many thoughts and too little feelings. Much of the matters of the world, its ideas and beliefs, take form by way of the intellectual mind. We’ve somehow managed to bring the intellect above the natural state of being of man. We can spend years blaming whoever we want, but nothing comes out from pointing outside oneself. Taking responsibility by saying “Yes, the state we are in is our own making”. The only way forward is by recognizing our own fault.

“Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it”

If one recognizes the suffering of the world, it is one’s responsibility to alleviate, at least to a small degree, the pain of others. Small gestures like challenging my family to take a picture of something beautiful might seem insignificant, but it plants a seed in their mind. Anything that originates from the heart, anything that is born of love, will help. It is often the seemingly small acts of love that have the most profound impacts.

Share your love with other living beings because love is a bottomless well - You can’t run out of it.

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It also seems to me that the closer the other being is to us, the easier we feel it is to care for them. A family member is easier to care for than say a stranger. Trickling down the branches of this idea, we arrive at the tip of the branches - to plants. It is not an easy task to truly care and give love to a plant. It can’t convey to you what it needs through the channels that we are accustomed to as humans, namely: speech and movement. Since it doesn’t move nor speak, we discard them from our everyday consciousness. “It doesn’t move nor speak, thus it must be irrelevant”. We don’t say that nor do we consciously think in this way, but our subconscious believes it.

Human beings will too often destroy what they do not understand. Ignorance is what drives us to do horrifying things. We wage war on other people because we do not understand them. We wage war on them because we want to protect our own views and ideas. Instead of trying to understand them through love, we gun them down in fear. All the wars of the world could’ve been avoided through the loving act of understanding. You see, the act of understanding, as opposed to the result of it, is love. The result may vary, but the commitment towards understanding something or someone can only come from love. If it doesn’t, then it’s not understanding. To understand is to stand under someone, to remove yourself, completely, from the high horse you’re riding.

Special attention and precise observation is required to know what a plant needs. Since it isn’t able to tell you what it needs, it trusts you to know. You are responsible for its growth. It forces you to sit and observe. In time, not only will you be able to understand what it needs, but its majesty will inevitably bring calmness into your life because bringing the body to a still also brings the mind to a still. You’re mimicking the plant you’re observing. Perhaps then you will realize that the plant helps you just as much as you help it. Maybe that’s something to think about.

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Maybe I’m imagining a dystopian future world, or maybe, just maybe, it’s happening right now.

Around 2013, I deleted my Facebook account and soon after that, my instagram account as well. At that time, I didn’t feel this nor understand how this could be. I was simply tired of the mindless scrolling and shallow comments and status that I was reading on my feed. I didn’t miss it at all. In fact, it was quite the relief. I didn’t have to showcase any of me as some kind of storefront banner: “look over here, that’s me!”.

Anyways, back to adventure, what does this have to do with social media? Well, it feels to me like the endless, zombie-like, spellbound entertainment side of social media is not healthy at all. In fact, it is my belief that it reduces our capacity to concentrate. All social media platforms’ revenue model is the same: attention economy. The more you zone out of your life, the better it is for them. Thus, they make sure your personal page is littered with shiny images, cap-locks text and emojis.

Your brain will adapt to whatever you give it, because that’s what nature does: it adapts. If you expose it to a certain environment, it will merge with it. The pattern is always the same, at the beginning it feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar and before you know it, your whole being has become one with that environment. If that environment is social media, then your ideas and thoughts about the world will be heavily influenced by that. This, in of itself isn’t bad. However, when we take in consideration the nastiness of these platforms, it becomes obvious that it is not the healthiest way to experience one’s life.

Adventure, yes, I’m getting there.

The emptiness of this endless feed of explosive content in my face was one of the things that changed me the moment I realized that I don’t want to partake in this kind of behaviour any longer. I wanted to explore what else there is. The whole world is plugged on Facebook, yet I left it. Now what? What does life has to offer that the world doesn’t find attractive enough to get off the couch and do it? Travel. So I went.

One of the greatest thing to come out of my travels was the realization that planning is highly overrated. Life is too grandiose and mysterious for us to pretend like we know what will happen. I still plan, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t really expect it to happen the way I envision it in my mind. It would be arrogant of me to think this way now, and yet I did for most of my life. I believe this is a great source of misery, sickness and suffering. Our discontentment is entirely based in expectation. All of it. When you plan and expect to meet your friend on Saturday and he cancels at the last minute, you become hurt. It will always be this way, over and over so long as we keep expecting that our plans will fruit the way we formulate them in our brain.

When I left for the west coast of Canada, I had plan to get to an eco village on Vancouver island. I had made some arrangement with the owner that I would be there at a certain point in my travels. So when I arrived on Vancouver island, I decided that I would walk the entire island from south to north (Swartz bay to Port Hardy). On the 3rd day, I took a wrong turn and went westward instead of going along the eastern coast and ended up taking refuge in a tiny fish & chip restaurant. I was the sole customer and I was absolutely drenched from the down pour. I ordered food and spread some of my stuff to dry. About 15 minutes later, the owner brought my food and asked me what I was up to, since I looked, I would image, quite unusual. I told her that I was walking the whole island but that this rain was nasty and relentless. She was wondering where I would sleep as the rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. So I told her: Probably in my tent. She shook her head and wondered about a place that I could stay for the night. She called her husband on the phone and asked if he knew of a place for me to stay tonight. He did knew of a place. He drove to the restaurant and gave me a ride to the place. Can you guess what the place was? Yep, that same eco village that I had contacted months prior.

This is only one of the many example of magical moments that I’ve experienced in my travels. The feeling of magic is the opposite of clinging to outcome. It is a way of carrying oneself that is not forced. It welcomes and does not ignore.

You don’t need to walk Vancouver island to discover magic. It is not a destination, but an attitude.

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When you don’t speak, there is a lot of reflection. I have become a lot more aware of the motives behind what I would normally say but now analyze instead. I have noticed that much of what I wish to express is born out of my ego. It’s fascinating and frankly humbling to observe it all.

Strictly speaking (no pun intended), however, it isn’t obvious to me that complete selflessness is possible. I feel like, at most, our actions can benefits others as much as they benefits us. I don’t believe it is possible to act in a way that doesn’t benefit ourself. If I make and offer a cup of coffee for my loved one’s enjoyment, can it be said that it is a selfless act or am I getting the satisfaction of seeing the resulting smile?

I was 29 years old when I thought about experiencing a year of abstaining from speech. To do it at 33 was not only giving me a few years to “prepare”, but would also commemorate the death of Christ on the cross. I wanted to keep Jesus in my heart in this journey so as to understand his more profoundly.

I didn’t grow up religious at all. My family and I would go to church almost exclusively for funerals or baptisms. I would tag along because when you’re 8 years old that’s what you do. So many things felt extremely strange in my child brain:

• “Jesus died for your sins”

• Prayers

• The constant need to show Jesus covered in blood.

• The lack of vitality in people’s echoing the pastor’s words.

• Lining up to get “the body of Christ” which to me simply meant eating a tasteless, thin and dry wafer.

• Heaven and Hell paired with what you should and shouldn’t do.

I didn’t understand what was the point of any of those particular happenings nor the purpose of the phenomenon as a whole.

Now that my brain has developed and experienced, I feel like I understand the essence of Christianity. Much like most meaningful experiences in life, the intellectual understanding is often complicated but the lessons are simple. I think it is because the mind likes to play hide and seek, it likes drama and playing tricks. Unlike the heart which knows, the veil of the intellect is thick with smoke and mirrors. if you’re able to get beyond, reality becomes very clear; following your heart is always the right way. There is confusion in our mind, not in our heart. The heart only knows truth - nothing else. I choose to believe that there was such a man as Jesus that carried this message.

I do feel like there are discrepancies between the church’s account of the events in the life of Christ and what truly happened. But I guess we’ll never know for sure. However, I don’t feel like the reliance on spreading fear through different ultimatum, for example Heaven and Hell, is how Jesus’ temple should be. By reinforcing the narrative that “Jesus died for your sins”, we basically tell people that they are guilty from the get go. Guilty until proven innocent. The church has carried the weight of Jesus’ death for 2000 years and wants to distribute this weight onto devout Christians backs utilizing fearful words.

Personally, I don’t feel like that is a loving way of approaching it. Perhaps “dishonesty silences Jesus in your heart” would be a better way to put it - that by lying, stealing or killing, you are drowning the heart of man, your own heart. The Universe does not allow us to go back in time to correct mistakes, thus the only way is through acceptance and change. The way to honour Jesus’ life and work is to be a good human being; to love abundantly as he professed.

Prayers are not conversations with some ultimate being out there, but promises made to oneself. Promises to improve and become a better human being. All of this is best internalized in complete silence because silence is the language of the Universe. Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert, alone with no food and no water feeding only on prayers. In profound immersion in prayers, one can feel the entire Universe on the tip of one’s finger.

“When you speak, it is silent and when you are silent, it speaks”

Silence is like rest. It is the absence of action, which is the base layer of the Universe. Let us not underestimate the necessity of pauses between actions. Words could not be heard without the silence between them. The taste of coffee is delightful only when enough time has passed between each cup. Bird songs are beautiful because we don’t hear them all the time.

Life is only magical if we don’t constantly chase it. Rest is a universal necessity.

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Dogs love us however we are. It doesn't matter if you complete your master's degree or you climb the ladder at your job. Whether you are poor, white, black, asian, big house or small house, successful or not, depressed or joyful, they will love you truly. Imagine how different the world would feel if humans loved in this way.

"people treat pets with the love they’d like to give other people if they weren’t afraid of getting hurt" - visakan veerasamy

Fear. It drives us. We are afraid of being hurt because being hurt is paralyzing. It might be so painful that our demise could follow. We don't know. Perhaps that's why we're afraid - because what might occur as the fear becomes reality is unknown. Thus, it seems to me that our fear of the unknown is the driving factor of our behaviours. It is impossible to be loving as a dog when you're consumed with fear. Why do we feel like this in the first place? I think it's because we, as human beings, are able to look ahead and to plan for a future. We are able to see into a now that hasn't yet become. By jumping in and out of the here and now, we lose track of the never-ending series of events that now brings. When we jump out of the now, we jump into the future where things have not yet manifested. We sacrifice the 'now 'for the 'there' not realizing that the future we are thinking about is happening now. Now is all that we will ever experience. When the future becomes, it will still be now.

Only humans think about the future in this way. Yet, we persist in doing so. This is, in my opinion, perfectly encapsulated in the sermon on the mount.

"I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single day to his life’s span? And why are you worried about clothing? Notice how the lilies of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin thread for cloth, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.

So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Matthew 6:25-36

Human; an intelligent creature capable of incredible creation is often left paralyzed by irrational fears. Such brilliance rendered powerless. What can one do?

In the morning, I like to sprinkle a mixture of seeds on the ramp of my balcony for sometime, in the afternoon, a jay will drop by. Something happens when I watch this bird for a little while. I become calmer. The bird conveys to me its simplistic way of life by simply being. It brings me comfort and allows my existence to rest. Could it be said that there is a one-way communication happening in this moment? Perhaps it becomes two-way when the bird reciprocates the watching between each peck. The jay, like my dog, doesn't have the capability of spoken language. It cannot clearly communicate its wants. All they have is the way they are. We, as byproduct of our particular society, will often showcase our identity to the world. If I want people to see me the way I want, I say "I'm a writer" or "I'm a blogger". I paint my portrait the way I hope people imagine me to be and when others view me in the intended way, it flatters my ego - I become proud. Can the same be said of the jay that lands on my balcony? It cannot, because animals differ from humans in this way. My dog never tried to be anything but himself. Animals are what they do. A dog does what a dog is. I think we can learn a thing or two from them.

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Camping in the heart of the wild, alone and without any human noises is becoming my reprieve of choice when my mind is overwhelmed and chaotic. Alone and silent as a hermit, away from the buzzing of civilization, I can feel my being melting into a calm abiding rest. Breaking away from habits like coffee and screens is, in my opinion, a fundamentally important reset. In time, if left unchecked, habits consume more than they are consumed. It shifts from deliberation to impulsivity. Only when I can meter the intake there is true enjoyment. The rhythm of excessive behaviour is analogous to hungry ghosts in Tibetan Buddhism, it brings the animalistic side of us at the forefront of what we express. However, if we're able to stop the transition in progress, we can rollback its effects too. One way I know how to do that is by the simple act of being in the forest, alone, without spoken language. The sensitivity of my ears to manmade noises is why the forest is my go-to. Nothing in particular has to happen for the point is absolute immersion. Walking, climbing trees, making a fire, dipping bare nakedly in icy waters. There is nobody that watches you, there is no desire nor need for an ego for there is nobody to act for.

It is highly probable, however, especially if that is a new activity for you, that you feel an incredibly strong itch to distract yourself. In the forest, there is nothing to grasp for your mind to escape the here and now. Just focus your mind on something, like the tip of the flames from the fire that you've made, or the peculiar patterns in the unassuming waterfall close-by. It is inevitable that your mind will deviate towards what you're used to; distraction through entertainment. The mind, left by itself without any object of focus, will wander aimlessly into the abyss of perpetual and impulsive thoughts. Yes, those thoughts. The ones that you don't deliberately choose to think of. They just appear and disappear in quick succession, on their own. What are those thoughts anyways? Where do they come from? Why are they of a certain kind and not of other kinds? Are those thoughts You or do You have thoughts? Well, that's something you have to find out for yourself. Why should anyone want to answer those questions? I, personally believe that without knowing the characteristics of thoughts, we become slaves to them. They control our behaviours for we think they are us. It can be argued both ways; yes they are us and no they aren't. It depends on the viewing angle. Throughout our lives, we accumulate file cabinets filled with thoughts. We access those thoughts in discussion, debates and generally as our means of shaping the way we see the world. However, we can also see it from a different perspective, whereas, there is a being and there is thought. The being is, in some way, the base layer onto which thoughts are stacked upon. The being is therefore the foundation. It experiences thoughts by the intermediary of the mind. Therefore, the world can be experienced without thoughts since thoughts aren't the being.

"The sound of the rain needs no translation" -Zen proverb

When I'm walking in the forest by myself, there are many experiences happening simultaneously, many of which do not go by the intermediary of thoughts. Being completely attentive to the song of the birds in the trees above you does not require any thoughts to be enjoyed, nor is the smell of the pine needles bed you walk on, or the wind that gently caresses your face. To be fully in this moment and to rest truly, you have to be out of your mind. The forest does that for me.

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