Quote at the end, today…
During our retreat last weekend, a friend dropped a line I won’t easily forget:
”Capitalism is noisy.”
Hah!
(let that one sink in…)
Now, I won’t talk much about capitalism here.
It’s an obvious mixed bag:
Not the best we can do, not the worst.
It’s not quite an adult, but it’s probably a teenager.
So that’s… Something.
But for all the good (opportunity, freedom), the bad (inequality, oppression), and the ugly (environmental damage, discrimination) of capitalism…
…One of the problems it poses to us — the self-mastery crowd — is far simpler:
It’s the goddamn noise.
Ads. Content. Reels. Notifications. Sales.
Urgency.
Flashing screens. Status signals. Information overload.
Gah.
It’s practically in the air we breathe:
Filling our mind and our nervous system with a chronic, buzzing static we can’t sleep off…
…So loud, so overpowering, so overwhelming we barely even notice it anymore.
We’re like a tinnitus sufferer who’s ears have been ringing so long he no longer hears it.
Or a fish that doesn’t know it’s wet.
Also during our retreat last weekend, I entered into a solo retreat.
I’ll be living in isolation for the next two months, eating an extremely restricted diet, avoiding all physical contact, and cutting inputs (social media, television, books, etc) down to a minimum.
Which means I’ll be living mostly in silence.
I’ve completed more than two years of this protocol throughout my plant medicine apprenticeship.
And every time I do, the feeling is the same:
Like a fog clearing to reveal a bright, shining sun.
The noise lifts.
My mind goes quiet.
And finally, for what feels like the first time in months…
I can hear the signal beneath the noise:
The small, still voice within that always knows exactly what to do.
(there are many other reasons for doing this type of retreat, but I won’t go into them now)
That’s a bit freaky, since I live clean already:
I don’t drink or use drugs. I don’t sleep around. I use very little social media, meditate 2 hours a day and do hard exercise 6-7 times per week.
So I shouldn’t need to go to such extreme lengths just to return to the natural human state.
But that’s the modern world:
It’s a spiritual sh*tshow.
High in entertainment value, alarmingly low in just about everything else.
And if you want to go beyond the level of superficial entertainment, to touch the deeper potentials of human life…
(which, I promise you, are far more spectacular than TikTok)
…Taking back control of your mind is step one.
You don’t need to lock yourself in your room and meditate all day, but you do need to unplug from the matrix way more often than you might think.
So that’s what I’ll be doing for the next few months.
Should be fun 🙂
- T
P.S. Big announcement for Path members (and for those interested in joining The Path):
A brand new retreat recording…
Spirituality: The path of human potential
…Just dropped inside the community, and in our private podcast.
This was our most surprising session of the year:
Most of the guys didn’t know what to expect, going in.
But afterward, many called it their favorite session of the week.
One called it:
”The session that changed everything.”
Another said:
”This one had me fxcked up.”
(in a good way)
Another simply said:
”I just got Tao’d.”
If you’re a Path member, log in now to check it out.
If not:
I’m (finally!) re-opening The Path next week, for the first time since November.
Stay tuned…
“This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” – Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Unsubscribe | Update your profile | 5-420 Erb St. W, Suite 433, Waterloo, ON N2L6K6