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Personal Updates
I’m just over 2 weeks into a 6 month experiment living in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica with my family. So far it’s been a mostly good mixed bag. I love living in robust nature. My system feels in-sync with the natural world in ways it doesn’t in Austin. An example of this is that my body naturally wants to go to sleep around 830-9pm and wake up at 4am. It’s 10x easier not to invent work, want to be in front of a computer, and spend time with family and friends here without an undercurrent of wanting to be productive in the background. There’s also a much stronger recognition that I don’t need much. I wear the same clothes, have a shitty car, mostly do the same things everyday and I love it. I’m realizing that where you live has a big impact on how easy it is to stay aligned with what you tell yourself really matters to you. I think we underestimate the impact a bit of distance from consumerist culture can make.
An example downside is we had to go to a hospital within a week of being here. Everyone is fine, but this was all-in a 12 hour endeavor with the travel to get there. It was a good reminder of how convenient the infrastructure in the U.S is.
Creatively, I’ve continued to work on a bunch of projects that have not launched yet. A lot of people ask me whether I’m just chilling down here. Not really. It feels like I’ve been working as hard on my own consciousness work and creative projects as I’ve ever been. Some of the external projects include finishing up my book, getting the new company ready to launch, broader community projects, and continuing to create media that amplifies consciousness like the podcast. The fact that a lot of this stuff hasn’t seen the light of day yet has been a big growth mirror for me. It’s forced me deeper into learning how to love myself without the external feedback of “killing it,” which was my primary source of self worth for decades. I am certain life has positioned me this way in order to evolve and teach me how to love myself as I am (as it always has), and I am grateful for it. It still doesn’t mean it’s not hard.
Reflections and Musings
We mostly run on gross fuel today. I recently watched the movie In The Beginning There Was Light about breatharians as a follow up from my conversation with Jasmuheen. I enjoyed the documentary and generally love learning about people pushing the conventional boundaries of human potential. My favorite book on this topic Is The Future of the Human Body written by Esalen founder Michael Murphy. A theme mentioned in the documentary, that has come up multiple times through separate conversations with teachers and even scientists I have interviewed is that what humans actually need is light - not just sunlight, but the more fundamental cosmic light we are comprised of. We eat food to obtain light because we largely don’t really know how to harness this energy source otherwise at this point in human development. This is broadly consistent with the RenXue teachings about Qi. What they’ve taught me is that what humans really need is Qi (life force). We currently get it from gross ways through eating food and sleep due to ignorance. When you discover other ways to get this core sustaining life-force like Qigong, nature, or normalizing on a higher vibration, the gross ways are less required. This has played out in my experience. I feel like I eat half as much food as I did 5 years ago and I don’t really need a lot of sleep. Overall, I feel great and am excited to keep going.