Korean blog retiring. And this blog…

Tags: creativelife, inner

It’s still live, as a website. But I call it “retired,” because going from daily to anything way less than weekly sounds pretty retired to me. It’s retired but not dead–just like human retirees. The plan is to use that blog for archiving gomaksaram & occasional Pure Fiction updates. Maybe some dream notes, as well.

And soon, this blog will retire too. August 8th sounds like a nice date. It’s 8.8. when you write the month first, and also 8.8. when you write the day first. Also, the number 8. INFINITY…! Very nice. No more daily updates. Possibly, occasional posts. But, again, that, going from daily to anything less than weekly, sounds pretty retired to me.

Writing about meditation-related topics has been nice. But pretty much everything that I can say about this topic, I’ve already said. The “how to” is very simple; actually doing it can be difficult, if you’re like me and have been raised on externally-focused education. (Most school systems in most countries adopt this style, to my knowledge. And I can’t imagine how it could be otherwise. Anything mass-produced must focus on the externals; one cannot measure the internals.)

And I’m spending a lot of time on this inner work these days, so, it’s like… there is not much else to talk about, besides this inner work topic about which I feel like I can’t very well talk about anymore.

Sponge will pick up all the nonfiction topics. At first, I thought I wouldn’t wanna share too much about inner work on Sponge, but that has already turned out to be impossible, because the very basic fundamental of existence (which I have only recently fully accepted) is that belief is reality. And so, everything I am flows into Sponge anyway. There is no way to separate inner work from anything I read or watch; if I think I can force a separation, then I am just being delusional.

And there is Pure Fiction. I must go back to it and face what I have to face there.

What does that leave this blog? Not much, at this time. Maybe there will be short bursts of activity on this blog, sort of like a retiree might pick up the occasional project. But right now, I can’t foresee what such bursts might consist of. These days, I pretty literally do not know what will happen the next day. Even within a given day, I don’t know what will happen! I don’t look at the clock, I barely look at the dates. I do have alarms set up. This is so nice. This is the beauty of technology. In my case, it’s very possible to ignore time but also keep appointments with other people, thanks to the scheduled alarms. Oh, and I set timers, sometimes. This is so that I don’t remain in a seated position for 3 hours straight. The timer rings, and I get up and move and do whatever, and then return to my beloved seated position.

Anyway. Yeah. Inner work. Super simple. Just know belief = reality. That is all. And what creates belief?

Feelings. (Or emotions. Or both. The words & definitions may vary, depending on whom you talk to.)

Earlier this year, I have witnessed the appalling consequences of only understanding with the head and not with the whole body. Frankly, it’s no understanding at all; but we who are used to the common style of education delude ourselves that it is understanding. In fact, even those who attempted to escape that common style of education still fall into this trap. They have so much theory. They know sosososo much. They spent decades “understanding” the nature of being…

…with their head.

How do I know that they did this with their head? Because, again, belief = reality. And thus, every statement is basically a statement of self-introduction. And those who supposedly spent decades “understanding” the nature of being tell me that they only understand with their head and not with their whole body, even when they are not telling me. Basically, the nature of their existence (their reality) did not change before and after their supposed understanding.

This is impossible, if the understanding were true.

That means that their understanding is untrue.

Also, if they had really nailed the “understanding”–even just the head part–they would know. But even that, they don’t know!

Ah. It seems that the thing to know in order to have something work is to know when it doesn’t work. But those who claim to have “studied” the nature of existence, awareness, consciousness (whatever word; words don’t matter; use whatever label) seem most eager to disprove their own “belief” by deeming everything but their “belief” as the thing that doesn’t work. In other words, instead of accepting that there is something clearly lacking in their belief, they will conclude that the people or objects or events in their lives are the ones that aren’t working!

This probably sounds cryptic and complicated because I can’t give personal examples, for privacy’s sake. (I myself am too new on this path to give you my own examples.) Well, see? This is why I can’t very well write about this inner work topic anymore. Maybe one day, when I have more experiences of my own, I will be able to talk about it in a way that is more comprehensible to other people.

For now, what I’m trying to say is: one can have an astounding level of intellectual understanding in the head, which does absolutely nothing in one’s reality, because the belief that one adopts is that belief is not reality–which is simply untrue. It’s as untrue as the universe not being.

Yet, I realize that many (especially, again, those who “understand” with their head) will say that it’s a matter of opinion whether belief is or is not reality.

To that, I have nothing to say.

Maybe if they’re new to this topic, then I will have something to say. Because, again, the world is dominated by externally-focused education systems, so it’s not surprising that “belief = reality” is entirely new to many people. In fact, probably, most people.

But if someone “studied” the inner world for decades and still does not understand with one’s body that one’s being–which I am describing as being synonymous with “belief,” in this case–is one’s reality, then I truly do not know what to say to that person anymore. Literally, sorry, but, like… what did you “study” for decades?

Belief cannot be separated from reality. Belief forms the core of one’s being. The being is the reality.

(To explain this at the most mundane level: this is why some people will say that the glass is half full and others will say that it’s half empty and others will say it is just… half. It has nothing to do with positivity or negativity or some such other surface bullshittery. This goes deeper than that, and it cannot be altered with surface-chanting of affirmations and, even surface meditation. No amount of breathing calmly will make you see a half empty glass as being half full. In fact, it will probably do the opposite.)

It’s maddening. You can see that I started this post nonchalantly, and am gradually getting worked up.

I am infinitely grateful to all the people and events who have led me to this point. Finally, I am looking at the internal world. Or at least, attempting to. At least I am not looking at the internal world through the external world (through the head) and thinking that I am looking at the internal world. I’ve seen such shocking cases of these that I think I can distinguish between understanding with the body and understanding with the head.

Even if I cannot distinguish between the two, so long as I remember that belief = reality, the mirror that is this reality will not fool me. That is the astounding and terrifying beauty of this universe. So long as I do not blind myself with objectivity, statistics, theory, etc, the universe cannot fool me. I will keep my eyes wide open and see that I haven’t managed my inner world well enough (which, ironically, means letting it be, which is… so difficult, since I come from that externally-focused “educational” background) instead of, somehow, after decades of “learning,” still going around and looking at the world from the head; still treating people as entities separate from my inner world; still talking about the past and future as if they weren’t the present as well.

Astounding.

Will not go down that path.

Terrifying.

And so, yeah. Probably this blog will also retire. That’s what I meant to say, initially.

Moving guide backup.

And the write.as version of this blog has been deleted about a month ago. The backup of the Moving Guide is here:

Hello, dear fellow human.

This blog has moved to https://blog.ithakaonmymind.com/ . Specifically, the blog has moved to WordPress.

Some practical reasons are:

Scheduled posts aren’t visible in WordPress. I schedule a lot of posts. I need the scheduled posts to stay private until they’re public.
2FA for peace of mind.
Random post feature for much fun. (The button is in the upper right corner of the new place.)
Search feature for the curious soul. (Bottom right corner of the new place)
Easier post management for a daily blog with hundreds of posts piling up very quickly.
Other easy customizations & integrations for a non-techie like me.

In short, while write.as is great for clean efficient blogging, there just are some features of WordPress that are more useful for me.

Emotionally, write.as has become a place of both intense joy and intense sorrow. Combine that with the above-listed practical reasons, and the result is that at this time, I prefer not to visit it daily.

The following posts have moved to the new place and are linked here, in chronological order:

I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for visiting.

-Ithaka.