Kirsle.net logo Kirsle.net

Tagged as: Philosophy

Visual perception and peeking thru the veil
April 2, 2021 (updated April 3, 2021) by Noah

Among my many diverse interests, one thing that fascinates me is to contemplate the nature of the universe and what Reality is made of, or at least, what my perception of Reality is made of and how the inner mind works.

To that end, topics such as quantum physics, simulation theory, and esoteric writings from the world's oldest religions like Hinduism and Gnosticism are interesting to me, and I like to talk crazy about that sort of thing from time to time.

In this post, though, I'm going to write strictly about visual perceptions that I've experienced at different times in my life. Many are related to psychotropic compounds, including cannabis, but now I'm able to experience some crazy things just by meditating while sober too.

Stories on the full blog post:

Read more...

Tags: 5 comments | Permalink
Spiritual awakening in practical terms
February 19, 2021 (updated August 20, 2021) by Noah

or: 6 tangible ways that my personality suddenly shifted in 2018.

When people hear the words "spiritual awakening" they think of woo-woo magical things like Buddhism and enlightenment. But really a spiritual awakening can be explained in practical, ordinary terms as a moment in your life where you suddenly get a new outlook on the world.

In a spiritual awakening, you may suddenly realize that life is inherently meaningless, but that this is somehow a very freeing insight because it means you can create your own meaning. You don't have to be who you're expected to be but are free to be who you want, and you don't care what others think because you're also not even thinking about them. Or maybe a near-death experience, or grappling with your own mortality can trigger an awakening. It's really the same stuff: you'll be gone and all of your accomplishments forgotten, so what really matters in the world, what are we doing?

I had my spiritual awakening in early 2018, and in very practical terms, a lot of things changed in my personality quite suddenly:

  • I stopped judging others. We're all just humans and we have our strengths and weaknesses and none of us is objectively better than the rest of us. Live and let live. We're all just silly hairless apes trying to figure it all out.
  • I don't take myself so seriously anymore. This I think comes generally with age, you pick your battles more carefully and don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff.
  • I no longer look anxiously toward the future. It isn't here yet, and when it does get here, I'll be able to handle it. I've handled everything else in life so far.
  • I don't dwell too much and regret my past. I'm always free to change my habits and pick up a new hobby. The past doesn't drive me; it all starts now.
  • I'm very slow to anger. I may not control what happens to me, but I am in control of my emotions, and my emotions can quite figuratively be the difference between heaven or hell on earth when I see it all through the lens I choose.
  • I consciously live my life now. Almost everything in life requires consent, and I stopped saying yes all the time and getting myself into life situations I didn't desire. And yes, that also means I'm free to consciously choose to waste some time with videogames once in a while, because time enjoyed is not time wasted.

But a BIG one is that I feel free to just not take the whole Human Game too seriously. What's the Human Game? It's all of the traditions and social norms we humans have come up with. The life plan of birth, marriage, kids, retirement; gender norms; the "9 to 5" work week; the scourge of social media on society; basically everything we do to distract ourselves from the fact that nobody knows what the fuck is going on or why the universe even exists at all.

It's all optional. You don't need any of it. You play along with the game because you find it fun for now. But it's just a ride. Some choose to go sit on top of a mountain for the rest of their days.

Since 2018 I've been more consciously choosing which parts of the game I play, and not worrying about the rest of it. I've been "de-googling" and don't, or can't, use many popular social networks or messaging apps. Not as many people can message me anymore, but that's just fine for me as an introvert. I can only manage so many relationships anyway, and the people who put in the effort to keep in touch are the ones worth keeping around.

Having 500 friends on Facebook never meant I had 500 friends.

But what is it like?

Now, when somebody goes through a spiritual awakening, a common side effect is that they get some crazy thoughts in their head. They may then go down rabbit holes of woo-woo magical nonsense, which all suddenly takes on a lot more meaning, in search of answers, but I think there are no answers. Just people who've experienced something ineffable that escapes language, and they came up with lots of symbols and stories to try and communicate the feeling. None of it makes any sense until it does.

I can't describe what it feels like, just the practical effects it had on me in real life. And I'm not really out to 'convert' anybody, either, as I know that everybody is already where they need to be right now and everybody wakes up at their own pace. Maybe your spirit wants to experience what it's like to be you for a while before you can wake up and take the wheel. There's no words anybody could write that would 'pop your bubble', and when people try, that's how you get religions and spiritual woo-woo nonsense.

So be nice, have fun, and don't sweat the small stuff.

And it's all small stuff.

Tags: 2 comments | Permalink
Life, the Universe, and Everything
June 8, 2018 by Noah

Earlier this year, I had a sort of existential curiosity and started researching and thinking a lot about the nature of reality, what all this stuff is made of, and so on.

Thinking too much about it started leading me to a mild case of depersonalization/derealization syndrome ("living in the Matrix", or, as some people on the subreddit put it: it's like seeing a spot on the window and suddenly becoming aware of the window, instead of just looking through it). You know, when real life starts to feel a bit "fake" like a dream and it's hard to un-see that once you've seen it.

So I've reeled in my curiosity for a while and gotten back to normal, but before I forget about all the crazy things I learned, I decided to write it all down in my blog. I'll try and fill this post with links to resources I found interesting along the way.

This post discusses topics of spirituality, philosophy, and maybe some metaphysics. For background, I was born and raised Baptist, turned atheist in my teenage years when the religion conflicted with my sexuality, and have come half a circle again and would call myself "spiritual." All man-made ideas of God are probably utterly wrong, but there's gotta be something to it all. This blog post therefore also sums up my personal beliefs, from the core idea that I'm most confident about and getting less and less sure as it goes.

A lot of this stuff may draw parallels from Buddhism or such. I don't know about any of that, but I have noticed a lot of parallels to all the religions. We're all talking about some of the same basic stuff here, in our own ways.

tl;dr.: Consciousness Is Everything

To summarize, short and sweet:

Consciousness Is Everything. All that exists in the universe is consciousness. Matter comes from consciousness, and we are all experiencing reality as though it were a dream. The brain does not create consciousness; consciousness creates the brain.

In the following sections I'll describe the first few resources that got my curiosity going.

Read more...

Tags: 2 comments | Permalink
Simulation Hypothesis
November 8, 2016 by Noah

Besides computers and technology, something else I'm really nerdy about is science (like physics, astronomy and quantum mechanics), and something really fascinating that I admittedly don't understand is quantum physics. But I'm not going to talk too much about that on this post; instead this post will consist of more philosophical and theoretical musings related to it and what it might all mean. Some of it is my own; some is inspired by others.

Read more...

Tags: 0 comments | Permalink