You don't have to be you anymore - KINSHIP - 10.25.2025

The following is a recording of our bi-monthly live streams that take place on Discord which we call Kinship because it's a time for us to come together and in real time have very meaningful, expanding and edifying discussions about some of the most important questions that come to mind. If you would like to join one of those Kinship meetings, you will find the link below this episode. You can choose to ask whatever question is on your mind or you can just choose to listen in. I hope you enjoy the following discussions. As we always start a little reminder that we call these meetings Kinship because whenever we truly have something in common with someone our truest, most deepest mutualities our mutualities on ideas and Kinship is not a genetic relation or a biographical relation. True Kinship is based on mutuality of ideas. What does it matter if someone is our father, our mother, our brother, our sister, our longest friend? If we don't have ideas with them in common and when I say ideas I mean such things as kindness, honesty, justice, courage, you know, all that is fair and good and true and beautiful. When we have these things in common that's when we are truly kin and to have these things in common we do not need a biological relationship. We don't even need to know the person personally. Isn't that amazing? When all the books I have behind me, most of them anyway, I consider friends. Not the books themselves, of course, but the people who wrote them, some of which have been dead, gone for thousands of years. Yet they are still my friend, they are still my kin. We are akin to each other because we believe in the same ideas. Otherwise what's the connection? I never met them, I never will meet them. They were not biologically related to me, they didn't even live in the same country. We live in a country that didn't even exist back then, a lot of us, most of us maybe. So what is it? Clearly, it can only be ideas. And it's the same with people right here in this discord. Why is anyone here right now? No one's being paid to be here. No one's being forced to be here. No one's going to get anything out of anyone. It's just because we believe in the same ideas and therefore we feel that mutuality and that mutuality's kinship and that kinship is true love. And that's the only reason we're here. Primetime too, by the way, you're all here on your Saturdays. And so again, there's no other reason to be here other than that ideas we hold in common and all cherish. And that already is the most amazing thing we could ever experience in our entire lives. So I would say what a way to spend one's Saturday, what a way to spend one's week, what a way to spend one's life. And I don't know about you, although I think I do know about you, that you too don't want to spend it any other way your life. And that's the work of life. And today, once again, just by being together, by talking about the ideas that we always talk about, rather than being out there mindless, gambling or fighting with someone or worrying about something or expecting something from someone else, we're just here. And no expectations, no obligations, just kinship, true kinship, true love. And I'll tell you what a morning I had, it's I was out very early in the morning. And just driving down the street around my neighborhood, getting a drink, a little hot beverage in the morning. And we saw a car that was driving with its hood up on its windshield. And it was severely damaged. It was like, okay, that's weird. You know, there's me and my wife driving in the car. And we saw that and we're like, okay, that's concerning. And just as we were thinking about calling it in, you know, to the police, just because it's concerning whatever is going on, we drove a little further and we saw another car that was in the middle of the road, airbags gone off. And we were like, okay, so what this is now, it's a hidden run. Right? That car with the hood up, that was severely damaged. I was still driving away. Clearly just hit that car and it's a hidden run. And so I immediately turned around and started following that car that was running away. Within the speed limit, I have to say I would not exceed the speed limit to do that, only to go get its license plate to go give to the other driver, right? And so I was a bit of detective work to see what street that that person went down and I did find it. And I got close enough to it to be able to read its license plate. And then we went back and gave the guy who was hit the license plate. And so that was my morning today. And imagine, imagine what how this person must be and to hit a human being with your car, you know, to hit another car. And then to the side to run away, as your own car's hood is to completely blocking your view, it's collapsing onto your windshield. And you're just, you drive like that. Totally out of control, totally unaware. It doesn't matter. I can't see anything. I just need to get away. So I don't have to deal with the consequences. Imagine living like that. Just try to imagine yourself ever doing something like that. Isn't that so far away? I live in the same country with this person that that did that hit and run. I live in the same city. I live on perhaps on the same street, who knows? And that's how far one can feel to another while in the same exact culture. Isn't that so amazing? This is not a different content, a different country, a different way of doing things. This is same culture, the same language that we live in. And look at the differences. It always amazes me. How physically close we can be to someone, but really spiritually so far, intellectually, so far, that it might as well be another planet that we're on. That's just always amazes me. I have to say. And that shows you what true kinship really is. What if what if that person was my brother? Would that have changed anything? I would still feel that same distance. And that's what I'm talking about. And one last thing before we start talking to you, I want to clarify something I said in the newest video this week. And a few people just a few. And I really hoped it would have been more pointed out a contradiction, at least it seems to be one. And in many ways it is in the video where I said, we cannot love anyone until we love everyone. And then I go on to say that if we don't have ideas in common, beliefs in common, this true kinship that I was talking about in the beginning, if we don't have that in common with a human being, we cannot love them. Busted. Totally busted. So in my mind, that makes sense. Right. And I want to talk about why I think that still makes sense. But it's that there's definitely a mistake I made a mistake, right? Either I used a wrong language or I myself need to still be working something out. And it might be a combination of the two. So in my head, just to if you allow me to elaborate and we can maybe work through this together. In my head, it makes sense because what I should have said instead of we cannot love anyone that we don't have ideas in common with what I should have said is that we cannot be kin with those people. In other words, that we can't have a true friendship, a true relationship with them that's based on obviously common beliefs. But we still must love them. We still must love them. And the difference is that what we think is love, what is commonly referred to as love is not the kind of love that I'm talking about in the in the first place. When I say we need to love everyone and until we can love everyone, we cannot love anyone. When I use the word love in that very sentence, it's not a romantic kind of love. It's not a specialized kind of love. It's not the kind of love where you even know the person's name. And many people rightfully will say, how can I love people that are that make mistakes that are bad people? Or how can I love everyone in the sense that I don't even know everyone in the world? How can I feel love for them? But that's exactly the difference. Love is not a feeling. When I say until we can love everyone, we cannot love anyone. Love is not a feeling in that sense. As my favorite, one of my favorite philosophers Simone Ways says, love is not an emotion. It's a direction. In other words, everything that is opposed, opposite to hatred, is in the direction of love. So if you want to love everyone, all you have to do is travel in the direction of love. All you have to do is to be able to wish them well. All you have to do is to not hate them, to not resent them, to not direct anger towards them, or any kind of ill feeling, any kind of ill wishes. That's what it is to love everyone. If you can wish anyone and everyone well, if you can just say, you're misguided, I don't agree with you. I think it's a mistake. I think you're doing wrong things. You know, I think your actions have really bad consequences. You can say all of that and still say but I wish you well. I wish you well. That's all it is. This is what loving everyone is. It's just going in the direction of love. It's not an emotion. It's not like, oh, I love you. You're so amazing. You're so beautiful. That's not what I'm talking about. That's the kind of fanatic, thrill-seeking kind of love that we're often fed in the movies, romantic movies. Oh, this person completes me. This person is my better half. This person makes me feel special. This person makes me feel important. That's the kind of love. That is fake love. That's the kind of love that puts expectations on others. And as you know, love, true love expects nothing. And true love makes no obligations and makes no requirements. And true love does not judge. But that's exactly what happens in the so-called special relationships that are often of a romantic nature, of course, because that's the highest form of love, right, in people's minds. And of course, it isn't because that kind of love is actually hatred. Because as soon as you say this person is special, this person completes me. This person is above everyone else. You literally set them apart. And as soon as you set someone or something apart, you judge. You judge. That's what it is. Because you say you are better than all other people. You are special. You are mine. And it is hate. That separates. Not love. Love does not separate. Love does not discriminate. Love does not judge. So when I say love everyone, and until you can love everyone, you cannot love anyone, that's the love I'm talking about. And then I was talking about that other kind of fake love in relation to the topic of loneliness, right? And so I'm using the same word to literally describe opposite things. And that was my mistake. Right? That was not right. Because my entire goal with these videos is to clarify something that people misunderstand that we all misunderstand that we all struggle with. And so it doesn't help when I try to clarify something and then don't use the right language and I don't clarify. I only confuse. And so what I've actually done is I cut that part out. You know, on YouTube you can make very crude cuts. You cannot re-upload a video. It has to be the same video still, but you can take parts out. And I actually took that part out because it's just confusing. It doesn't serve the purpose. It defeats the purpose. And so I have to get rid of it. I've never had to do that before. But it's amazing to me that I went through that whole thing. I spoke it. And then I edited it. And I still didn't catch it. Right? So as you can see, we are all in the middle of the work of life. We all have work to do. And no one's ever done. No one's ever done. And as you can see clearly, I'm still working things out. I'm still obviously making mistakes, clearly. And it's never done. It's never done. And I'm totally okay with that. Right? I want to do better, but I don't I don't feel, I don't feel like regret. Right? Because the impetus is still right. I'm working through things and mistakes are going to happen. And it's just something we have to accept. And that too is part of the work of life. So I accept that it happened. I don't like it, obviously, but I don't get to not like something because it's part of reality. It happened. So I have to love it. Someone also made a comment today. I think it was on a video who said that idea of not being able to love anyone until we love everyone also applies to time. This person said, if we cannot love all moments of life, even the ones that include grief or in moments we are sad or in moments we are disappointed, whatever, if we cannot love those moments in life, we cannot love any moment in life. And I think that's an amazing insight. I think that's so true. We have to apply that to life to time as well. We have to love all moments of life, all aspects of life, all events in life. Otherwise, we cannot love any moment, any aspect, any day in our life. It's so true. And so that's something to think about as well. But enough of my tapping, I just wanted to tell you that because if you were confused, that was not at all on you, that was totally on me and I promised to do better in the future. It's about awareness. I keep talking about awareness and then I was totally unaware about that. So that's how it goes. But thank you everyone for listening. I know maybe most of you actually understood as soon as you know the person in general, as soon as you know my ideas might, the way I think in general, I think you would have been able to figure that out even though I used such poorly chosen words, but I still wanted to clarify because it's on me. It's my responsibility to do that. Self-chosen responsibility, as I always say, all obligations are self-imposed, but I choose that obligation. And so I want to do better. Okay, so our first speaker, joining us for the second time, I believe, is Snow Demon. I've sent the invite. And hello, hi. Hi, good to see you. Good to see you as well. Thank you for having me here. Thank you for doing the kinship meetings, of course. I did have a question, but you were talking about your unawareness has kind of led me to kind of, I guess I kind of want to share my perspective, I guess, on things. Of course. I guess my perspective, I know you say love isn't a feeling, but I suppose if I were to, I see a feeling, any motion as two different things. Okay, and love is, I would say an emotion, I would say a feeling actually, you'll start with a feeling of feeling is truth. It's feeling the truth from my perspective. An emotion is, it's, you know, it is like anger, it is hatred, it is grief, it's sadness. Emotions aren't detruth, but they're sort of, they have an unawareness, it has like a sort of unconsciousness aspect to it. It's not, it is not detruth, it's true that you're feeling it, these emotions, but they are not themselves feelings, but feeling is truth. It feeling is, it is, you say like, you can't feel, you don't really feel love, that it's a direction, I would say it is a direction, but when you sort of arrive, but it's not an arrival, I would say it's more of a recognition, when you remember the truth, that is when you feel it, you feel it as a felt sense of experience. And I guess I'm talking about it like this because I remember feeling that I remember feeling, I recognize it as a truth, not an emotion, but a feeling, truth. A direct perception of reality, actually, I guess you could say as well. I remember feeling that every single person on this planet is just doing their best and that they're doing an amazing job, every single person. No exception, including me, which has been hard to, it's been difficult to admit that with myself to really recognize that myself, but it's been easier to recognize that with all of humanity and I am just, I guess that's just my perspective, is that love actually is a feeling. When it is a feeling that I would say it arises when you bring awareness to these contradictions in yourself. When you grow in capacity to hold contradictions in your awareness, your own awareness, you give rise to a more true perception of reality, you give rise, you give yourself, you increasingly become capable of feeling the truth because you bring more awareness to the contradictions within yourself. And this is really nerve-racking for me because I feel like I'm, I feel like in a way, I am, I guess the word I'm thinking of is challenging, but I don't want to say challenging. And this is outside of my norm. It's very nerve-racking. I think I'm mostly about setting it. I don't know if that makes sense. Of course it makes sense. Of course. And not only does it make sense, but it's, I think, also beautiful. And this is exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about something else, which is that meaning can only be had through a personal connection to it. Right? You cannot buy meaning. Someone can not hand you meaning. No one can give it to you. What you need to do, as I always say, commit yourself to your own personal exploration of timeless and universal ideas. And truth certainly is the ultimate timeless and universal idea. And this is how you're finding your connection to it by thinking about things as you said by applying your awareness to all the contradictions to all the things that are hidden in darkness. Right? Awareness is sort of the intellectual equivalent of light. And unawareness, recklessness, just confusion and thoughtlessness is the intellectual equivalent of darkness of shadow. And so when you shine that light onto that shadow, you're only increasing the light and increasing the ability to shine a light. And when you say love is sort of also not only a direction, but also a feeling, I know what you mean, even though you're using different words. And that's another thing we all need to learn. I think that you pointed out very well here is that this is why I am against jargon. This is why I don't use jargon. Right? Because it's supposedly it's something that everyone knows what it means, but everyone still has their own ideas about it. And they interpret it slightly differently. So instead of you just saying, no, I disagree, it's a feeling. You actually explained what that means to you. You said there's a difference. I see a difference between emotion and feeling. An emotion is something really shallow and hollow in many ways, but a feeling is just sort of the it's not logical sense, it's intuitive sense. When something when true truth makes sense, then you get this intuitive sense. I think that's what you're saying there in many ways too. And I completely agree with that. See, I call it intuitive sense. You call it a feeling. And when I think about it, when something makes intuitive sense to me, I do feel it also. Whereas when something only makes logical sense, right? Like some fact, then I don't really get a feeling with it. I don't get a feeling of connectedness, of oneness with it, of it being truth. Because I always also say, when we see truth, we know truth. And when we see truth, we want truth. And I suppose that could very well be defined as a feeling. I think you're absolutely right. Not that what I think matters about you being right or wrong, but it makes sense to me. Again, it makes intuitive sense to me what you just said. So I think that's a beautiful way of looking at it and it's telling us, reminding us all that when you see truth, you know truth and that we are made for truth. That what you're talking about, that feeling only arises when we meet truth, when it will become across truth. And that's how we can know that there's an apparatus inside of us. There's a potential, an ability to recognize and to adopt truth. It's that feeling. It's shows you that it's truth. And so when people fail to see meaning in life, when people fail to see meaning in this universe, I always point to exactly that what you're talking about. Where does that come from? Why is that there in the first place? And we don't need to know why. But the fact that it's there at all is one of the most amazing facts in this universe, at least from a human standpoint. That's within us. It's proven to us every time, as you say, when we experience that feeling that it exists and that it's triggered by truth and not by hate, not by deception, not by cruelty, but by truth. And I would add goodness and beauty. Whenever we experience goodness in this world, we get that feeling. In my opinion, I don't know if you agree. And whenever we experience beauty, also we get that feeling. We know it immediately. No one has to explain it to us. It's there. And so I think that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. The problem, thank you for sharing your perspective as well. It's definitely enlightening and that I think I myself get a little stuck in the words, I guess. It's been an enlightening thing to hear you talk about this. I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate your words. But I have to say, I don't think you were stumbling on any words at all. I think you said that beautifully. It's almost like it was written. And I do encourage you, by the way, to write about that. Because as you know, I think as we all know, the most beautiful writing is simply the writing that makes the most intuitive sense that we get that feeling from that you just described. And fancy words and just really bloated language only gets in the way of that. That's not what makes good writing. But when you're in connection with truth like this, and when you say something true like that, like you just did, if you just write that down, that would instantly make it great writing. And I think you should pursue that just for yourself. No one else needs to see it. Not that I'm telling you not to share it with anyone. But you should never not do it because you think, well, who's going to read it? It's just for myself. That's perfect. That's exactly where you, that's the work of life. I always say we must read, read, read, read, but also write. And writing will fill in all the gaps in our thinking. And it will give us new insights. And once again, to turn all the way to the beginning because everything connects, it will give us that personal connection with these ideas. And I think you've experienced that I can tell. Thank you so much for encouraging that. I've been told that from a bunch of people recently, I was in an outpatient past like six weeks and been told I should definitely write, especially because I gave a speech. And everyone thought it was beautiful. It was, it was simply worded as well. I like simple words for my, for my simple mind. But I don't know if we have time, but I did also want to ask a question. Of course, go ahead initially had a question. Yeah, initially had a question. But then I want to talk about that stuff. And I guess my question is about disassociation. I've been going through so many changes recently that I feel disassociated from myself, from truth. I feel like I'm not being authentic. It's like I'm in a, it's like I'm in a play right now, like I'm acting in a play, instead of being authentically myself. And I feel just kind of a bit spin feeling disassociated. It's kind of too fold in the way that you know, it's both I feel like I'm in a play. I feel like I'm acting in a way, but I also feel disassociated from myself. Like I'm like a sort of witness to my own experience, but not actually a participant. Like I can't, in a way I feel like I can't meet people. I feel like I can't really meet you right now because I'm in the state of disassociation, I guess. I don't know. And then, and just just about authenticity, I don't know if I don't know if you've ever experienced anything like this, or you have any feedback or maybe, maybe, right? So when you say you've been feeling disassociated, disconnected from yourself, I just immediately get the urge to ask you, who is feeling disassociated from whom? Oh, no. The legendary question. Yeah. The, it's like the awareness in me is separate from the one who chooses actions, who chooses to move my mouth to be here. Even though it's me, it's like there's an awareness and there are choices that you make with your awareness. And like it's like there's a split between my awareness and my choices, even though, even though it's just like me, it's like I'm aware of everything, aware of the choices I'm making. But I don't know. It feels more like a play rather than me being authentic. I don't know, but who like, yeah, I don't know if I'm dancing around your question or not. No, whatever you say moves you forward in this as long as you think about it. I mean, you, you can also tell me if that sounds right, you know, but from, you know, just talking to a lot of people and also, of course, experiencing these things in myself, I might want to suggest to you that, that awareness that you are aware of, that is you. And then somehow this split apart you that is making some decisions with your, which your awareness, the true you, is clearly not agreeing with, otherwise you wouldn't feel this associated from it, right? I would say there is a you and there's a not you. There's a self and there's a false self and that not you, that false self is commonly referred to as ego. And around here we like to say that ego is the same thing as identity because there is the true being which is no matter what, which has its own being, which has its own existence, regardless of anything else. I could put, if I could, put your awareness into someone else's body. You'd still be you, you'd just have a different body, right? Or I could put you in a different time, I could put you in the 1800s, your awareness, I mean, and you would still feel like you, you'd just say, okay, this is just a different time, but I am still me. So clearly it's neither your body nor the time you live in, nor your name, nor your nationality, nor your entire past and the expectations of others, your goals, your dreams, your wishes, your regrets, none of those things are you because we could interchange them with other goals, other wishes, other regrets, a different biography, a different history, different parents, and you would still be you. So anything about you could change, but you're still there. And to see that the thing that is making decisions that you clearly don't agree with, that you don't feel comfortable with, clearly that's not you. And I think what you're going through, it sounds like to me, is that you're not disassociated from yourself for the first time in your life, you're seeing the true you. Because this thing that has been making these decisions, it's always been making these kinds of decisions. But you've never felt disassociated from it before, because you are not aware of who you truly are, of what you truly are, which is awareness. You've finally made that separation between awareness and everything else, between the you and the not you, the self and the false self. And now you're seeing at all that there was a false self. It's not that the false self has appeared now, it was always there. But you hadn't seen it before, because for the false self to exist, it needs to exist in unawareness, it needs to exist in darkness. As soon as someone shines a light on it, and that someone can only be you, it cannot stand up to the light, because light is awareness and awareness is reason. And as soon as your reason applies itself to something false, to something nonsensical, it cannot withstand that. And you, the true awareness, the light will disperse to shadow. That's just how it is. It's in your nature to not contain anything, that does not make sense to you. And so clearly you're at a point where these decisions, these things that have been going on, don't make sense to you anymore. And so, in my opinion, there's nothing other to think about it than congratulations. You know, for the first time in your life, you are not calling both the real you, as well as the false you, you. You're making that separation. You are becoming disillusioned, which everyone would think is a bad thing. You're becoming disassociated, which everyone would think is a bad thing. But it's actually the most right thing. You are right now destroying yourself. You are, as the Buddhists say, annihilating yourself, because that self is not really you. That's their point, right? How can you destroy yourself and still live on? But that is what's happening. These things are falling away from you, yet nothing of you is disappearing, because it was never you. Does that make sense to you? It makes a whole lot of sense and it explains why I had a dream last night of that evolved me repeatedly falling to the ground and dying. And then I was at the top of this place and I was alive and I was like, what the hell? My whole sense of identity broke in the dream, because I died all those times and thought I was still there. And yeah, I gotten, I became aware of this false self that I've had since I was a child that kept me locked down from doing anything in my entire for my entire freaking life. And yeah, it's like I'm myself for the first time. Yeah, amazing, right? Amazing and distressing at the same time. But you know who is distressed, right? It's not the awareness, it's not the real you who's distressed as the ego because it's dying. It needs to move out and it's realizing that. So you're still to some degree associating, identifying with the false self and the false self is what's suffering right now, which is a good thing. So you're taking on some of that suffering, confusing it to be you, but it's not really you. And the only thing that you I think should be doing right now is to keep keep feeling that way until you don't anymore, right? Because clearly something is happening, something that needs to die is dying. That's what they call it by the way they call it ego death. You're literally dying right now, but you will find out it's not really you. Once that you is dead, you will see I'm still here. So clearly that was not me. And see, this is even in the language and in Christianity. This is what it is to be born again. This is what it's talking about. We must die of ourselves. And once you die, you are reborn. If you truly died, you could not be reborn, right? You would just be dead. But clearly it was not you that died, but you thought it was you all this time, your entire life you thought that which was not you, the false self, the not you was you. And so now you're experiencing that death. And I believe if you went to a lot of therapists, they would tell you you're having an existential crisis. And I was not actually told that at the outpatient at all, okay. But it sounds like that, right? Whenever, whenever someone is going through a change of identity and they're saying, I'm sort of realizing things and I feel disassociated and everything's changing in my life. And there are huge changes happening. That sort of sounds like an existential crisis or a midlife crisis, all these kind of things that we assign to people. And it sort of fits that definition, I suppose. But whenever I hear about, again, what many might refer to an existential crisis, I say, good, good, because you don't want to stay like you were. You don't want to think like all those things that you thought were you or still you, because they're not, right? So there's nothing to be distressed about, although let it happen. If you need to be distressed, if that's what you feel like, you know what truth is, you were just talking about that feeling, right? You're feeling it, you're seeing it. All you have to do is continue. Because the one and only and the most desperate weapon this false self has is fear. And it's going to make you feel like if all these identities die, it feels like you're going to die. You're going to just disappear, just stop existing all of a sudden when the last one is gone. That's what it tries to make you believe, so that you keep hanging on to them, because you think you won't have existence without them. And that's the only way you can still get you to cling to them, but if you stick to truth, if you stick to that feeling, you will know that it's not true. Actually, don't feel like I'm disappearing. It's more like I feel like I'm dissolving, which not into nothingness, just transforming like a, but a little caterpillar in its little cocoon, you know, and it's like a, it's scary to transform into something because I feel like I, it's like I know what I'm transforming into, but I don't know everything that I'm going to do. I don't know, and I'm scared. I'm more so scared that I'll just fall in the back in the old habits I guess, but I don't know. It's not been very helpful to me. I think I'll let somebody else take a turn. Okay. Well, I appreciate you sharing these things and reject fear itself. Don't try to argue with your ego, the false self. Don't try to make sense of it. Don't try to beat it with logic because it does not understand logic. Simply reject fear itself. Don't argue with the ego to make sense of the fear, to make the fear disappear on reasonable terms because it will never work. Just reject fear itself. See it. Don't ignore it. Right. It's there, but it doesn't need to be dealt with. Just let it simmer out and die. Okay. Yeah. I will head in that direction. All right. And I will also show my cat right here. She's well, look at that. Yeah. Thank you. I'm not going to wake her up though yet. I'll let the next person go. Thank you. We appreciate you. And it's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a pleasure for me too. Thank you again for sharing that. I'll move you back to the audience. And we thank you for that great discussion, great ideas. And I will invite the next speaker, Eric. Hello. Hello. Hi. Hey, how's it going? Good. How are you? I'm doing good. I just had a question about one of your videos that I watched the other. Today it was titled. Yeah. Competition is for losers. I didn't watch the full video. I watched, well, I watched the YouTube short. So I'm assuming it's a clip cut out from a full video. But I just wanted to share my opinion on that. They just had a question about it. Yeah. Go ahead. In the video, you said that competition is for losers and from what I got is that it's basically not good for you. I want to pick your brain about that. And I just wanted to say on a larger scale, I think I view competition as a good thing. So I don't know if you're referring to competition as competition with the self or in general. But on a large scale, I view it, like, for example, nations compete with one another to innovate and to progress the world. I see that as a good thing on a smaller scale, if that's what you're referring to. I think it depends. I don't see, for example, playing a game of chess is something bad, or I mean, you could say sports as if it's with friends or at a local game or something. If it's for leisure, unless it's for a career, then I could see that being tricky because your life would have to revolve around competing with other people. But simply put, I think it depends on if it's ego based and what you're hoping to get out of it. And what you yeah, where you're hoping to get out of it and how you would take the outcomes, whether it's winter, whether you're the winner or the loser, I feel like you'd have to view it as indifferent either way for it to be healthy. And yeah, I just wanted to know what you meant in that video. Yeah, well, a lot of that video was inspired, sort of, by René Gerard's work, who you know, it's hard to describe him in short terms, but he was a thinker who really unveiled the mechanism of hating and of enemy ship. And he showed how enemies, competitors, the more that they engage in their competition, the more they become like each other. It's the funniest thing, even though they see themselves as opponents, meaning they're so different from each other, otherwise, why are they fighting? What are they competing over? But as we step into competition, and when I say competition, I don't mean a friendly match of chess, that's just someone that you're doing something with. You can play chess by yourself, but if you play it with someone else, you're doing it more with them than against them. Because we say, let's play chess together. We don't say let's battle each other in the game of chess or let's fight, you know. And so whenever you're competing for something with someone else, whenever you're fighting something, whenever there is one and more than one are interested in it, the deeper you get into it, it might start out as a friendly competition with rules and ethical and moral. But as it progresses, you are pushed to do tit for tat. At some point, there comes a point where you're so equally matched, that the slightest advantage can put you over the edge, can make you the winner. And it seems so close. So most people don't have the sort of intellectual or moral strength to not cross certain boundaries, such as deceit, such as cheating, right? Such as not really building themselves up, but tearing someone else down. Because there are more ways than one to win at anything. You can either make yourself better or you can make the opponent worse. And so people get into lying and cheating and deceiving and whatever they can do. For example, if two people are up for the same promotion, there are many, many people, unfortunately, probably the majority of people will see no problem in giving themselves an advantage by lying. And then when the opponent sees that the other person is lied, they think it's only fair that they lie to because the rules of the game have been broken. And why should I disadvantage myself? Why should I not do this lie? Because the other ones did it. All I'm doing is restoring balance. It's only fair. That's what people say, right? There's so many things in language for this. I'm just leveling the playing field, right? It's a skew right now. There's so many ways of saying this. And now someone who never wanted to lie, never wanted to cheat, never wanted to deceive, all of a sudden becomes a liar, a cheater, and deceiver. And where it ends up is not only in the ruin of both of the opponents, but also how similar these opponents have become. You know, we wanted that job. We think we deserved it more because not only are we better at what we do, but we're good, honest people. We deserve that job more. But by entering into competition and losing ourselves in that competition, most importantly, we have become our own enemy. Because we thought we deserved that job more because we're more decent than the other person, more competent, more trustworthy, more clear-minded, and had more integrity. All of that's gone now. And in fact, it's gone because we've become similar to our opponent. You become what you hate. You become your own enemy. And this is why we need to stop having enemies. We need to tie our self-worth and also what is right and true, not to the outcome, but to the means. Right? If the other person is willing to lie and cheat and deceive, I need to have my own moral compass. I need to have a line in the sand where I say, I don't care. This job is not more important than that. This job is not more important than the very reason why I think I deserve it over the other person. Because if I let go of that, what does it matter if I get the job? It's like it says in the Bible, what prophet is a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul. And so, if you notice, competition is the arena in which all of this mess occurs. People buy themselves when you don't compete, when you don't have an enemy, when you don't see an opponent, when you don't see something to fight or something to fight for, you don't cross those boundaries. You stay clear. You say, I know what's true and I know what's right and I know what's important to me. All of these things go out the window. They get muddled. They get challenged beyond awareness. We become reckless. We become angry. And all our mistakes, all our sins, if you want to call it that way, come out in competition. And when I say competition, the way that I define it right by seeing an opponent, by hating, by thinking you deserve something more than someone else and willing to go all the way, these are all features. These are all characteristics of competition. And so many lives are lost also in a physical sense. Moral things are one thing and I do think they're more important but also in the sense of lives. So many lives are destroyed. There's hardly a war which is not or at least does not start out as a competition between two leaders. You know, I know you talk about competition in, for example, science which drives innovation. But everything that you can do with competition, you can do without competition. Why did it take having an opponent, having an enemy, having something to fight for and fight against for you to innovate? I just don't believe in that idea. And I think once maybe you should, I highly recommend that you read Renas Gerard's work. It's in the reading recommendations on the website, if you want to know the particular book that I'm referring to. Once you see the apparatus, the mechanism of competition, of animation, of hate, you see that although it can have unrelated good outcomes, such as innovation, like you said, it is not necessary to innovation. And all these are the good things that can come out of it and usually don't, by the way. Even in sports, we don't like the kind of competition where the people kick each other and fight each other. We like the competition where they shake hands before and after. Right? And that's not really competition. That's not them seeing each other as an enemy. That's just playing with someone. And so like we always say how you can do everything that you can do with anger, because people like to keep around anger. They like to feed anger in themselves because they think it's necessary because they think even though itself is a bad thing, it brings many good outcomes such as giving you the motivation to do what's right, you know, to fight for what's right and to restore balance and to fight injustice and to bring justice. And simply to have the energy that is required to do what needs to be done, right, with justice dictates. Now, everything that you can do with anger, you can do without anger. Everything that you can accomplish with competition, you can accomplish without competition. So why not do that? All right, so that's the idea behind that. And that's like I said, a lot of it is Renas Gerard's work. And that was the idea behind the video. Okay, that makes more sense. Could you repeat the name of that book? I'm just going to write it in chat so I can remember. It's called Renas Gerard. I see Satan fall like lightning. But yeah, it's on the website in my reading recommendations always there. Oh, okay. All right. I had one more question. It was irrelevant to that. So as you know, the writings of Marcus Aurelius were his journal personal journal entries. Yeah. And when you think of journaling, you think of writing down how you feel, including the good and the bad. And I think that's usually the norm. It can be helpful to track your thoughts and your feelings, especially if it's being used for therapy. But when you see how Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself, he never wrote in that sort of manner. He never really expressed himself in that way. At least not to my knowledge. I'm on chapter five or notebook five. So I haven't read the whole thing. And the whole meditation's book is pretty much just still like affirmations throughout. And it's just from him to him. So he's just writing to himself. Why do you think he did that? And what would be the benefits in writing in that kind of way to yourself, rather than writing down how you feel? Yeah, I think it's a great question. And I think it's very, very important actually because there's journaling and then there's journaling. Like you just pointed out. And I want to say we don't judge anything. If someone wants to write my diary, today this happened, you know, that's fine. Although I do say that's not going to get you anywhere. And I'll explain why. But as a start, it's fantastic. If you're someone who does not write and when I say you, I mean everyone, if you're someone who does not write currently, if you're totally disconnected from your thoughts in that way, anything that will get you to write is perfect. And then you can go from there. And I started out that way, of course. But at some point, I realized, and all of us have already realized this. As soon as I say it, you're going to see, oh, yeah, I totally saw this. I knew this. I just never spoke it. The most, the writing, when we read it, someone else's writing, "Senica, Marcus Aurelius," whatever. The most personal writing is the most impersonal writing. In other words, when we see someone write in a way that is completely void of their own biography, of whatever's going on in their times in fashion or in politics or in things, we actually feel like it's much more personal somehow. It's much more deeper. We connect with it. But try to read your own journal writings, if you write in the way today, this happened to me, or this is going on in the world right now. Try reading it just eight months later, a year later, two years later. You'll be bored yourself, because you were just talking about something that was happening in the world again in politics or in your life. That doesn't even exist anymore. It's totally irrelevant. It's past. It was just a fad. It was a fashion. It was something that seemed like something else, but turned out to be something else. It's so boring. It's so irrelevant, and it actually feels profane. It feels so impersonal, even though it's so personal. You're writing all your little opinions and thoughts and things that happened and what you think about things down, but it feels so irrelevant to me now just a year later. How can a man's writings who contain almost nothing about his biography or his daily little events, two thousand years later, almost feel so personal and so deep, and not only personal, but it's almost like, wow, these are the same things I feel, even though we don't share a single similarity in terms of biography, a totally different human being, right? So the best writing, the deepest writing, the most impactful writing, and the most personal feeling writing is the one that is least personal. Yet again, in other words, whenever you want to write about something, pick an idea that is larger than yourself, that is larger than your life, even larger than your country, larger than your times, and write about it in a way that does not mention a single thing about you or about anyone else in particular. And whatever you will still have left to write about will be of universal and timeless importance. Because what else is left? Everything that is below that standard, that universal and timeless standard, you've thrown out, you have disallowed yourself to write about. So naturally, you're only going to express things that are universal and timeless. And that's why we connect with Marcus Aurelius so much, because he wrote about universal and timeless things and not about his little thoughts and opinions in my diary. Today this happened. I got really annoyed when the soldier told me this, you'd say, "Okay, I mean, get over it." And he himself would have said that. So clearly Marcus Aurelius knew this, and he fully harness the power of it by writing about these timeless and universal things to remind himself of them whenever he fell below that timeless and universal standard, as we all do sometimes, due to anxiety, due to fear, due to simple distractions, due to loss, grieving, whatever sets it off, due to anger, competition, like we just just talked about, competition is one of the fastest ways to lose your awareness, to lose oversight. Over the timeless and universal truths. And why would you want to think about anything else? Why would you want to deal with anything else when you have the timeless and universal standard on your side? And the greatest writers noticed Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, also people like Renas Gerard even, that I just mentioned, Simone Wei. I mean, everyone, they have all this in common. And this is one of my top principles to live by when I read something, and I try to understand something, is to find the commonality, the mutuality, to everything else that is true, good, and beautiful. And notice all good writing has this in common, that it is impersonal, that it speaks of timeless and universal truths, and about nothing smaller than that. As soon as it does, we feel disconnected. You know, sometimes even though they're great writers, sometimes someone would say I read a book from 1920, and someone was talking about the world war, back then it was the world war, right? Not the first world war, the world war. And they say, surely this is the end, this is the most horrible thing that has ever happened, and nothing could ever top this. Say, well, you shouldn't have said that, because it's untrue now. But if you hadn't said it, if you had just said something about human nature, how it drives itself to war, to competition, here we go once again and connects. You would have said something timeless in universal, and it would have included the second world war, and who knows, the third and the fourth, maybe two, right? Because human nature does not change. So if you had said something about human nature, thinking about the world war, but just not talking about the world war, and just finding what is timeless and universal within that, then you would have said something really grand, really amazing. But as it is, you're just talking about one of the already two world wars. And it's not as relevant as it was at the time you wrote it, right? So I hope that answers your question. Why we love Marcus Aurelia so much? I think this is it. Yes, that answers my question. Appreciate your time. Thank you for letting me on. Of course. Thank you very much. Thank you for those questions. I think they're great. And yeah, I recommend you read Renas Gerard, and I'll move you back to the audience. Thank you again for your questions. That was great. And yeah, again, recommending it to everyone. You must journal and in this way, because in this way, you truly can only say great things. Otherwise, you will say nothing, which is totally fine, by the way, sometimes just a sentence or two, even is better than a thousand sentences about what happened to you yesterday or 10 years ago or what you worry might happen tomorrow. So I'll invite our next speaker here, Leslie. And. Oh, good morning. Hi. Thanks for having me on. Of course. Thank you for being here. You bet. Yeah, I'm not real sure how to frame my question, but I guess the issue that came up was over the summer, my kid was playing soccer. And and he was doing really well. And when he came off the field, I told him, you know, hey, good job. And he gave him all the compliments and he kind of, you know, he's nine. He doesn't. He wasn't thinking about what he had just done. He was on to the next thing already, you know, the snacks or whatever was going on. And I said, hey, you should be proud of yourself. And he just kind of shrugged again. And I realized I was getting kind of frustrated that he wasn't showing his, his pride, I guess, at what he had done. And when I, you know, kept thinking about it, I realized, okay, I'm pushing an identity on him. And I'm telling him how he should feel about that identity, which got me thinking about, you know, self-confidence and self-esteem and how those are kind of as far as I know, kind of newer concepts. And so I guess I was just wondering how, how do I support my kids or anyone without like falling back on these more kind of egoic standards? Yeah, I think the, you know, the answer really to every, I'm going to say spiritual problem that again is something that needs to be defined because the word spiritual is out of control. I mean, everyone's using it. It's sort of like the word art. When I say spiritual, I mean, everything that is non-physical, every thought, every belief, the person that we want to be, all that affects that is a spiritual matter. And the solution to any spiritual matter is the same. It is that we need to become aware of awareness. It's that we need to become aware of what we truly are. Which again, is that attention, that attention that observed your son doing anything, but what you deemed as something to be proud of, that attention, that awareness is you and nothing else. But then there is that false you, that not you, that we've been talking about, which generally is generally referred to as the ego, which says you need to make something of yourself. You need to make a name for yourself. You need to become someone, right? Again, language reflects all of these things. As if you had an option not to become someone. You already are someone. You already exist as if you didn't exist before. But to the ego, you don't exist if it doesn't have anything to push against, if it doesn't have anything to be proud of. And that's what we say are identities, right? In that case, it might be the identity of wanting to be a good mother. The ego will not just let you be a mother. If the ego wants you to be a mother, it also is going to want to want to have you be a good mother, right? You can't just be a mother, you need to be a good mother because you need to make something of yourself, right? You need to be special in some way. You need to be better than other mothers. You need to be better than your own mother, right? That's what the ego says. I'm going to do it better. My parents made mistakes. They didn't teach me certain things that they should have and we resent them for that. And then when we have children, we say, we're going to do better. I'm going to show myself. I'm going to prove myself and perhaps my parents too if they're still around that I'm better than them. I'm going to show them how it's done essentially. Here again, we go competition. We just talked about competition. And so for you to be a good mother and I'm not trying to analyze you by the way, this is just what happens to a lot of parents, right? So I'm just talking about, try and talk about a common thing, even if it doesn't particularly apply to you. Although I'm sure you in some way have dealt with the identity of being a mother, of course, because you are one. So in order to be better than others, in order in order to be a good mother, we obviously need to see that our efforts I bring a good result. So when your child is good at soccer, clearly you did something right. You raised them right. They're physically well and able and they're competent and they're smart and they're quick. All of these things now, the ego, the false you, the not you can lay claim to. And say, this is my prize. This is the proof that I'm great, that I'm amazing, that I'm better, that I'm good. And when the ego feels like that, you need other people to see it. Otherwise, it's not real. If your child did that only in the backyard and no one ever saw it, the ego would not be happy with that. The ego wants it to be seen and acknowledged and appreciated. That's what trophies and medals are for, especially for children. And so that happened, but now the ultimate judge of you being a good or bad mother, which is your son. If he doesn't see it, then the ego says, well, didn't I fail then? If he doesn't see how amazing he's doing thanks to his upbringing, of course, especially at that age, that's what a child is mostly, their own upbringing. If he doesn't see it, if he doesn't think of me as a good mother, if he's not proud of himself and thereby validates my pride, how can I be a good mother? I can't really be that. And again, I'm not trying to analyze you. I'm not trying to say, this is what's going on with you. This just makes me think of how the ego works and I'm just applying it to the situation. And all you need to do, again, whether this was really going on with you or not, at the very least, it's a potential danger of being a parent, to get caught up in the identity of being a parent. Because as soon as you identify yourself as a parent, you also want to be a good parent. And like I said, that leads to all kinds of proving things to yourself and to others, which is a messy, dangerous, and really futile game. And there are no winners in that game. It doesn't seem like. So all you need to do is not fall into that trap. And when I say all you need to do, I mean, it is simple. It's not easy, but it is simple. It's to simply be aware of this mechanism, this way of working of the ego, of the not you, of the false self. And you can be the best mother in the world without identifying as being a mother. You can just be. Of course, you have certain physical duties and requirements towards your child as long as they are still at that age, right? Once they become adults, you are relieved of that duty. But until then, of course, you have that physical duty. But it's not a spiritual duty of you to identify with what you're doing in the physical world. Because if you do, every single thing that happens to your child or that your child does will be interpreted in this way. You know, someone, he scores a goal, but the referee doesn't see it as that someone crossed the line or something when they didn't. You will get angry. You will resent that person and the whole system that allows such a thing, such a big mistake. When the true you, the awareness knows that it happened, knows that your child performed that deed, and that's excellent. That means that your child is healthy, your child is smart, your child is quick and it's having fun. But the ego will say, no, I want my appreciation too. I want my pride too. I want the recognition. And so that's the trap. You can, everything that you can do with the ego, you can do without the ego, and in fact, you can do it better. Because afterwards you won't go up to your child and again, not saying that you did this, but many people do force them to adopt this understanding of pride. And to see what they did and what that means and who they ought to be thankful for that for. We load that onto our children. Children don't come that way. As your son clearly isn't, by the way, when I heard that story, I think that's a great gift that you have. That your son is not looking left and right for recognition and affirmation and satisfying his own pride and looking to his mother to see if she satisfied with him or if she expects more. I think that's a great gift. And that does speak to you for you to be a good mother, but you don't want to identify as that. You don't want to identify as that. Because as you can see, you did that. You accomplished your child being someone like that who doesn't look for pride necessarily always. Despite the fact that you yourself were a little looking for that. Have expecting it. Right? So you did that despite your identity, despite your ego, despite the false expectations that people put on motherhood or on parenthood. You did it despite that. So clearly that shows you that you can do it without that. And in fact, the outcome is much better. Because it's the same child. It's the same accomplishment. It's the same feat that he performed. But he didn't even look for pride. He didn't even look for recognition for it. What's a better combination than that? Because he did the act. What if people just don't want to give him the recognition? What if they don't like him for some for some crazy reason? Or what if they didn't see it? They're caught up in something else. Now he's going to be resentful. He's going to be hateful towards them. He's going to get angry. He said, I did it. Yeah, but it doesn't count. No one saw it, mom. What's the point in doing anything if people don't appreciate you? Everyone is walking around saying that. What's the point in doing good if no one appreciates it? The point in doing good is to have done good. Seriously, what's a better reward than to do good? A reward to do good for what? To do good. I mean, what's better than that? And so that's what he seems to be naturally be. That's amazing. So if you want to protect that, you just drop it in yourself. Like I said, every spiritual solution or any spiritual problem has the same solution. It's just to drop every single thing that is not you, every single identity that is not you. If an identity was you, you wouldn't have to identify what that you would already be it. So when you look around and when I say you again, I mean everyone, all of us, when we look around and we look for signs that I might may call myself a good parent, a good worker, a good so-and-so, then I know ego is at play, identity is at play, and the only result from that can be resentment, anger, disillusionment, bitterness, frustration, because people are not giving us what they what we want, and they have the power to not give us what we want because we are wanting something external, something that only others can give us. We already did the good deed that was fully in our control and we did it, but now we're looking for appreciation for it, which by definition, only someone else can give us, we cannot give ourselves appreciation, we cannot give ourselves recognition, others have to do that for us, but it's not the true you, the real you that wants recognition, it's the identity. So if you drop your identity, or rather if you dropped theoretically every single identity, you would have dropped every single source of resentment, and your child will never resent you, because that which pushed you never pushed him. If you get rid of that which pushes you to do these things, it will never push your child in turn, at least not coming from you, and so he will never resent you. It's the truth that most of us resent our parents for something or other, and when we think about it, our resentment comes from some identity, from some ego act that they did. And now it is our ego that hangs on to the mistakes that their ego caused them to do, because if we could just let go, if we could just realize they were doing the best, they could, they were driven by ego, which is unawareness, they were not aware literally, otherwise they would have stopped, they're reasonable people, because humans are reasonable, but they can't be reasonable about something that they're not aware of. So what must I be, then, if I'm truly to be better than my parents? I must be aware. So that would be my take on that, do with it as you will. I hope there was something in there that answered your concern or question. Yeah, absolutely. That was, that was very, very helpful. Yeah, you don't realize really how you're, how you're projecting onto your kids or other people or, or anyone, family, friends, I guess, until, until you see their reaction maybe, because he was really, he was really unaffected by it. He was happy to just have played the game with his friends, and then he moved onto the snacks, and he was happy with that, and he was just being himself. And, yeah, yeah, thank you very much. Of course, thank you for that question. I think it's a good illustration of how the identities work sometimes, and again, we just need to be aware. And I guess the more examples we hear and the more we talk about, of course, easier, it becomes to recognize it in ourselves, and we all have that work to do. Like, I'm sitting here talking, like, I know exactly how identity works. I have my own identities, 100% sure about it. But it's just the work that gives us a chance to find them, and to get rid of them. The more we get rid of the better, we don't need to be perfect, perhaps we can't be perfect in the sense that we can let all of them go, perhaps there will always be something. But obviously, it will be so small that despite our efforts, it can't be detected, so there's at least that to that. But thank you again for your question. I was great, and I'll move you to the audience. Thank you once again. And I will invite our next speaker. Can you hear me? Yes, hi. How are you? Good. How are you? Oh, good. Thanks for having me. Of course. I must say that before I get into my question, the last two times I was here, I was the first person to speak, and I was so invested in phrasing my question shortly without wasting any time that I forgot to say hi to all these beautiful people here. It's so amazing to be here. I mean, we are at the time where it's hard to even have five people in a room and discuss something meaningful, but here we are nearly 50 people vibing to the level of wisdom, and it really amazes me, and I'm really grateful for this community. Thank you for saying that. It's true. It needs to be said sometimes, even though it doesn't need to be said, but it's nice to say. We appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, coming to my question, my question is on the word suffering. We have seen all our friends, like Sanika, Marcus Aurelius, Simo Wei have used this word in their writings, and I wanted to understand in what sense do they use the word? I mean, what do they mean by the word suffering? And the reason I am confused is because I've heard people say things like pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. It's a state of the mind. And even Buddha said that suffering is nothing but ignorance. Another Indian saying at one point say that suffering is nothing but our limitations. Every time we think that we are limited to face something, or we think that we do not have the strength to face a situation, then we suffer. So it makes me think if suffering is even real, or is it only as real as we make it to be? I wanted to know your thoughts on this. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. And of course, I can't really speak on what others mean by it. But you, of course, write, they mean a certain thing, and of course, we could know that. We could have insight in that. I think what it means, at least most of the time, when it's used by most of the people that you mentioned, it says suffering is pain taken further. There are things that happen in life that just need to happen. They are going to happen like death, right? It's the most normal and most natural and most predictable thing. But whenever we take that fact, and we start worrying about it, what does it become? It becomes fear of death. And what does fear of death become? It becomes another form of suffering. Someone who fears death to the extent that it disrupts their lives. It is in all of their thoughts, and it's sort of governs the way they look at the world that's suffering. Because they're going through the world as many people do, by the way, this is not even theoretical, who say, not only my life, but all of this, the world, the universe, are going to end one day, whenever that is, but one day. So what's the point in doing anything? So many people say that, right? Yet, if they did not know about that fact that they're going to die, that the world is going to end someday, of course, what would they do instead? Clearly, they would be doing something else, because they wouldn't even know about the very thing that debilitates them in their life. Yet they also don't know, both if they knew less, as well as if they knew more, they would not be suffering. So if they knew less, they would not be suffering in the way that I just explained. And if they knew more, they would also not be suffering, because they would know that death is the very thing that makes life possible. Every time that something yields, it makes place for another thing. That's how it is everywhere in nature. It's even cyclical, right? Right now it's fall here in Wisconsin and the United States. And we're seeing the leaves fall. Each of those leaves need to come out and fall to the ground for new ones to come out in that exact same spot. And that's how nature works. If humans were immortal, there would be no resources. There would be no room left. And this is also such a hypothetical that I don't even want to get into. Actually, I know I put myself there, but it's so nonsensical to think about how a fundamental thing about how the universe works, what if it didn't work that way? It's silly. So this is why acceptance is the antidote to suffering. We don't need to know why, and we don't need to know how, and we don't need to all know all the what ifs. It's the what ifs themselves that debilitate us. It's the what ifs themselves that we suffer because of. But if we would accept which every single religion and every single philosophy that anyone has ever found any meaning in does say in one way or another except. It's also a Simone way, right? Simone talks about suffering, but she also says this. She says to not accept an event in the world is to deny reality or is to deny the universe, whatever she says. And it's true. You cannot deny the world. You cannot deny reality because it is. See, I'm not saying it's good, it's bad, it's this or that. It is. It is us who add on to that. It is good, it is bad, it is suffering, it is horrible, it is exciting, it is amazing, it's thrilling, it's dreadful, it's sick, it's a privilege. We go on to add these things and we're free to do so. And that's why people are able to suffer because they are free to do so. And I would rather focus on the free part than on the suffering part. The universe clearly shows me that I am free to suffer. And instead of focusing on the suffer part, I like to focus on the free part, I am free to do that. I am also free to not suffer by focusing on the free part, on the free to suffer. And that's why I think that's the core of your question when Marcus Aurelius and all they talk about suffering and they make it sound like a choice. That's because in many ways it is in that exact way. You can focus on your freedom to suffer or you can focus on freedom itself, which suffering necessarily includes. Right, and this is something to think about, you know. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you mean when you say we are free to suffer or how do we like liberate ourselves from suffering? Yeah, whenever you realize that you have had a mistaken belief, right, it happens to us all the time where something happens and we find out, oh, this thing that I used to believe, that I used to direct all my actions according to, turns out to be false. It turns out to be false information. And I founded everything upon that. And so all of that is crumbling. I need to do things differently. You realize that you never had to do that. You never had to think that way. But you did think that way. Right, so choice in that sense, because we are free to believe in what we want. Of course, that comes with certain limitations. You cannot know everything and you cannot see everything. But you are, once again, free to explore and you can experiment and you can challenge yourself and you can examine your beliefs and your opinions and then re-examine and re-examine and re-examine, not in a toiling kind of way, not in a compulsive kind of way, in a curious kind of way, in a loving kind of way, in a way that's trying to understand yourself better and the universe better, which only brings peace. It does not disrupt peace. It brings peace. So it's the proper kind of good work and the work of life, as we call it. This is your freedom. There's no one keeping you from that. Right? And when you do that, the more you do that, the more you see how truly suffering is a choice, to a large extent. I don't know if I would say that all of suffering is a choice. Because there are certain physical realities, right? We are animals also, we're physical beings. And we cannot always be happy, but perhaps that also doesn't mean that we have to be suffering. So maybe it is a choice, but that's for everyone else to figure out themselves and to think about themselves. But that exact figuring out and that process and that I cannot say it is this, but it could be many things. And then many people say many different things that proves to us the freedom inherent in our existence, the freedom to explore and the freedom to believe this, and then this, and then this, and then back to this again. That's our movement. That's what we do. And if we come across a belief that the world is random and accidental and useless and meaningless, and we choose to stop there, then we choose to suffer. Because we chose to stop there, we did not have to stop there. So indirectly, in that sense, I suppose you could say it is a choice, right? Because you chose to stop there, you did not choose to continue. And if you had continued, you would have seen that there are many other options to consider. And to at least say, not definitively that this world is suffering or that it is not suffering, but even to get to a point where you say, you know what? I don't know. I just don't know. And I will not assume that it is either suffering or not suffering. I will just abstain. That's a way to go. See, that's one of the many options that you can choose from. And so in that sense, and at least in that sense, maybe more sense as well, at least in that sense, I think, that's what they mean. And in that sense, it is choice. It is a choice. Right. And I think there are at least two things that we can definitely do, right? For example, number one, we can stick to or choose, no matter how bad the situations are. And number two, as you said, by examining and re-examining, if we keep experimenting, then surely I believe we will find meaning in our suffering, no matter how much we suffer. So I think there are two things that we can definitely get out of suffering, no matter how bad we think it is for us. And I really like the like the leave example that you gave kind of reminded me of this one thing that I heard once where the leaves of grass, they were unhappy because during the fall, the leaves from the tree detached from the tree and fallen them and were obstructing the sunlight. But they do not realize that in some time that the leaf of the tree will become their nutrition and be a part of them. So I think it's our inability to see forward that makes us label something as bad or suffering. But as you said, we can keep experimenting. Thank you for your answer. No, I think you're absolutely right about that. And I just want to say that. It's very interesting what you just said. Yeah, the leaf falls and it becomes part of the earth, which then nourishes the roots of the tree, which then nourishes the tree and the leaves themselves, the next leaves. And just because we only see a part of that reality does not mean that that's all there is to it. All we see is the leaf falling and we say how sad that leaf is no longer alive, it is dead. And just because we don't see further than that, we think that this is suffering, that this is a bad thing and that the world is a bad place and therefore our very existence is nothing but suffering. But we just don't know. And if we just accept that we don't know, that's all of acceptance because you accept everything that you know, of course, because it makes sense, because it's truth. But to realize that there might be more truth than you can see is also form of acceptance. And by that, when you see it this way, acceptance covers everything, the known truth and the unknown truth. And that's a way just to complete the cycle, even though you don't have the complete view of the cycle. You only have an arc of a circle. But if you continue the arc, it can't complete itself into a circle. And so yeah, I think that's great where you just point it out, that's amazing. And absolutely true. And to see, and that's what I was saying, I guess, in a way, people stop at the falling leaf. They see the leaf fall and then say that's it. Why did that have to fall? Why did that leaf have to fall and die? And this world is meaningless and they sit in a corner and they suffer. But if you keep asking, if you keep exploring, if you keep considering and suspend your judgment, all right, that's another important thing to just suspend your judgment. You can come to a place where it all makes sense to you, even though you don't know the complete process because you as a human being, of course, are limited. And yeah, there's beauty in that. Even if you can't figure it out, if it really just seems like suffering and there seems to be no way out, you can find meaning in that too, of course. As long as you don't stop looking, I don't think you stop seeing and finding meaning. So yeah, very important message, right, acceptance and simply continuing to ask, continuing to continue, I guess, to not stop, to not sit in a corner. This is all there is to it. So yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I think that was very insightful, very important to think about. And yeah, I mean, when we figure out suffering, we figure out so much of life. I mean, literally, that's the only problem we ever have, everything that we categorize and under-suffering. So imagine figuring that out. And I think we did at least a few percent of that right now, right here. And this is what the work of life is, right? Figuring out one percent, half a percent, tenth of a percent at a time. Sooner or later, if we also stop asking how much longer, we will have put things together. To the degree, at least, will we see the arc, and we can tell that it's going to form a circle, although we will never see the first full circle, perhaps. Someone is drawing that circle. Totally justifies the name, lifting the universe. And now because we accept it. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's absolutely true. You have to accept it both physically, because the universe is a physical entity, as well as a spiritual one, right? Because every single thing is contained in the universe, which is the all. So yeah, truly, if we accept the universe, means we accept everything, physical, spiritual, known, and unknown. [BLANK_AUDIO]