What does it mean to live an authentic life? To find belonging and meaning we must tear down the lies to reveal who we are beneath, we must undergo a paradigm shift. You know that love you wish you felt from your parents, how safe you should have felt with them? That is how we love you. Unconditionally. You have experienced emotional abandonment your entire existence. The rest of the world will continue to let you down because you allow it to do so. We want all good things for you.
What about everyone else, you say? Bad things happen to good people every day, you say. We must learn to shed the falsehoods, to find the lies we’ve constructed to keep us from true happiness. Why don’t they deserve happiness? Well, Megan, I’ll tell you. Because they refuse to put in the work required to live a true, pure, joyful life. You are different. You have come to tear back the curtain to discover that it is you in control behind it, to overcome your cognitive dissonance of who you believe yourself to be and who you are.
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Sparklers cracking in the night. Daddy holding me. You’re pretty. Pretty ugly.
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How do you reclaim your voice? You know what I find interesting? Role playing. Rather than the vulgar phrase, “Fake it till you make it” uttered today by laypersons and professionals alike, I prefer the concept of “acting as if.” Scientific inquiry has demonstrated time and again—via reproducible results— that anyone can become happy by biting a pencil for one hour per day to hold a smile in place.
You cannot imagine the potential energy stored within your being. We can help you help yourself to release it, transform it into kinetic energy. To action. You will take control of your life, be able to bend it toward your will, toward love and success. We offer a support system, tools, kinship so you may find inner peace and, eventually, for us all, world peace. Everything you have always hoped for.
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Too many kittens under the porch. I see myself—Megan emerges and reemerges with fluff and bleeding arms until the potato sack writhes. Trailing after Daddy through the poppies and the alfalfa field to the canal.
•••
Let me tell you a story. There once was a king who invited the most special courtiers into his inner circle. He offered them riches beyond belief. In return for his benevolence, he requested they freely offer parts of themselves. The tip of their tongue, an earlobe. He consumed these offerings as a tangible symbol of them stripping away the false beliefs that clung to them like parasites. Falsehoods that weighed the people down and blinded them, preventing them from seeing their truths. The fascinating thing was that the more of themselves they gave him, the freer they became. They shed those leaden falsehoods that were inseparable from their identities. They relinquished more and more of what they thought to be themselves to the king until they were literally blind and limbless. Only then could they truly see the world as it is and understand that they control everything in their lives through choices they themselves make. By shedding the effects of their wrong choices, they learned to make the correct ones. By turning the doorknobs that had once held them prisoner, they found they were unlocked and no longer kept them from a reality that they could now create anew. And they weren’t alone. They had become part of a community. They found joy and self-acceptance and peace once they’d stripped it all away.
They joined the banquet feasts of the inner circle. They ate of themselves, of their peers, as a metaphor for how they consumed guidance from the king. They offered themselves as vessels for his love. The women gifted new life to the kingdom. But that’s just a fable.
•••
Turning into oncoming traffic. Grandma, it was so funny. Mommy pinches my upper arm and twists. Quiet.
•••
We follow the scientific method here. We observe. We hypothesize. We investigate through self-examination. We look back, readjust to our newfound selves, and begin again. We do this over and over until we reach the crystalline knowledge that we create our own realities, that we are responsible for the bad things that happen to us and the ways we respond to them internally and externally. No one else can offer you this data driven deliberateness that we directly apply to help you reach your core. I can guide you like an arrow to the bullseye, but you must release the bowstring. I feel darts offer a better analogy than archery. Are you familiar with the rules of darts? Let me explain. Many like yourself believe the bullseye is the ultimate target but there are others that bring you more points. Sometimes what we think is our center is actually hidden in plain sight. And what we think is our goal is not the obvious choice. Do you understand?
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A dark night. She asks if we should leave. I see myself again—a little girl says the words her mother wants to hear to make it okay to stay now that everything has changed.
•••
Now, why do we blind ourselves to the truth? Gandhi once said that the truth will set you free. That is our goal here. My wish for you. To know the truth and to be disentangled from the veils that shroud this world you have created to protect you from your own truth. You must not allow fear to control you. You must embrace your failings, acknowledge that you built them, and only you can tear them down. But you need guidance. You crave it, don’t you? Understand that I can only nudge you in the right direction. I cannot see for you. Revelations must come from within. Acceptance that your problems, although you project them outward, emanate from you. They are privileged functions, if you will. We all face hardships. But some of us know that it is how we react to them that determines our happiness.
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Driving to Grandma’s again. Mom pours Dad another thermos cup full of coke and whiskey. Eyes reflected in the rearview mirror. His smiles slip into exaggerated swerves.
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Depression, anxiety, and fear are constructs of our own minds. Without accepting this truth—that because of insecure attachment we seek external validation—we are destined to fail, to feel hopeless, to live a life without meaning. I can show you how to harness your negative energy that radiates off you and transform it, invert it if you will, so it becomes your greatest strength.
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Hot cocoa and TV in the night. Stay awake and watch your sister. Liquid chocolate and miniature marshmallows swirl into the midnight sky.
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Why do we follow scientific principles here? Because everything truly exists at the quantum level. Are you familiar with string theory? Well, let me attempt to put it in simple terms you might be able to understand. Everything is made up of vibrating strings. This a theoretical concept of course, and it’s difficult to relate it to the physicality of existence. Difficult but not impossible. How do we reconcile this theory with Newton’s and Einstein’s work—the ways in which we once understood the universe? Inspired by physicist Dr. Alan Sokal’s seminal paper, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” our work here has had a breakthrough we have not shared with the world as of yet. We must protect this technology from entering the wrong hands, you see, as it undergoes double blind trials and peer review. I will show you how to take control of those strings and tighten or loosen them one by one until they are all vibrating at the same frequency. Until you are attuned to the vibration of joy.
•••
Another round of AA tales where everyone shows up drunk.
•••
Our research began in the theoretical realm because I, yes even I, was blinded by what is accepted by the scientific community. Mathematical proofs and quantum theory can only get us so far. We must go beyond and journey within. The hero’s journey is self-awareness and acceptance. It is a quest we take inside our minds. There is nothing we cannot change if we persist. It takes discipline, awareness. It requires us to reevaluate our values and our vision of ourselves. Together we will stride onto a new path of discovery. Now, there are some organizations that teach we must accept certain immutable so called facts. Niels Bohr once said that the opposite of a fact is not a lie but another more profound fact.
Are you aware that science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was a biochemist? His landmark paper, “Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline” should have propelled him into the highest echelon of fame for his groundbreaking research. Like all ideas presented before their time, the world failed to recognize the importance of his work until the zeitgeist caught up with his extraordinary mind decades later. Unfortunately, although there is no question he deserved it, the Nobel Prize cannot be awarded posthumously. It is important to underscore the fact that when Asimov spoke of resublimation, he referred to the biological role of the chemical thiotimoline in the important act of rejecting our animal instincts in order to transcend them. When he spoke of endochronicity, Asimov was referring to an internal zeitgeist, if you will, a synchronicity of our endogenous thoughts and those that are ersatz fabrications which by chance coalesce into a coincident truth that leads to eventual self-actualization and enmeshment with the outer world. We are more than our parts, Megan. You will realize your potential when you embrace the emergent phenomena of existing as a fully functioning part of our enormously successful experiment here.
What if I told you that I have taught myself to reach beyond my self-imposed restrictions, my border walls. Until we accept that these things are but constructs of our own minds, we will never grow. We will never overcome our addictions. Yes, your chronic depression and apotemnophilia and Red Pill Blue Pill Indecision disorder are not diagnoses but addictions that you choose to indulge. Until you realize on your own that everything that happens in your life is caused by you, you will fail miserably.
•••
Neighbor boy teases dog with food. I don’t stop him. Dog bites boy. That night a chain and endless shrieks outside my window.
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Our best evidence indicates the universe is 13.77 Giga anna old. Scientists cannot explain what existed before. They’ve conceived a vague concept of an infinitesimally small, undefinable point of infinite mass and density. A tiny seed that contained the building blocks of everything. These seeds that grow new universes, these kernels of truth, are everywhere and everything. They are within us. Place your hand on your heart. Feel the history of all that’s ever existed flowing through its four chambers. Carl Sagan tells us that we are made of the stuff of the universe. Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert would have us believe that there exists him and Lolita and “stardust and rust.” This may true but it is not the whole truth. Does that make it a lie? The elements that make up our physical bodies indeed arose from the death of stars. Remember, always, that you are made of stardust. You carry the universe within. You reverberate with echoes of the big bang. We seekers are the universe observing itself, unearthing its secrets.
Science may be able to explain how the universe was birthed and the mechanics of the origin of life, but we as a sapient species, scientifically speaking, cannot yet explain or recreate that breath of life itself. The limitations imposed by traditional thinking are unable to reveal to us how an assemblage of molecules transforms from being abiotic, “unalive,” if you will, to alive. Imagine. I can feed a 3D printer with all the makings of a simple cell, but that is not life. I can show you how you are unalive and breathe life into you. You must accept that your every thought and feeling is decay and death until you are revived.
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There are conditions to my hope. Must be him alone in a one-car collision with a tree, and he instantly dies.
•••
You are sad because you decide to be so.
You are anxious because it is more comfortable than embracing yourself and your life force.
You wallow in what you believe to be trauma when you can make the easy and simple choice to shed it.
You take medication because you are weak. Because you do not believe in your power enough to confront your problems purposefully. The objective truth is that these obstacles are but illusions, chains to make you feel safe. Yes, you are a prisoner of your own thoughts. But together we can find the key you yourself hid. You have already experienced how out there society actively works to blind you from that fact so they can feed upon you, exploit you.
•••
Fist fight and the silver pistol with a pearly handle. A night spent holding my sister underneath her bed.
•••
Why are we unable to distinguish the subjective from objective? We lack context because we create our own realities. Are you familiar with the hygiene hypothesis? Allow me to state it in basic terms. It’s the concept that we evolved to fight against the constant threat of agents of illness. Viral particles, bacteria, intestinal parasites, ad infinitum. In modern life’s obsession with sanitation and sterile environments, our immune system becomes “bored,” if you will, so attacks our bodies. This leads to allergies and autoimmune diseases. Gluten and lactose intolerance. IBS and restless leg syndrome. Environmental illness and carpel tunnel. That’s where traditional thinking ends. But I offer an elegant solution. What if we think beyond decisions that confine our imagining of what is possible and overcome ailments of the body? Because we know the mind body connection to be a scientific reality, I have applied the hygiene hypothesis to our mental operations. A simple extension that is self-evident yet no literature exists on this phenomenon. I have proven through countless clinical trials and will submit for peer review once we have enough data. Our brains evolved to be ever alert to life threatening dangers, and we are products of those adaptations that ensured the survival of our species.
We have nothing to fear anymore. We have eliminated our natural predators. We developed antibiotics and vaccines. We eat balanced diets. We no longer endure periods of famine in which we must live off our fat stores. Without these threats, our minds also become bored and attack themselves in predictable ways. But we fail to realize that we are in control. We allow our thoughts to rule us. We choose what is comfortable. We practice the coward’s way. I know you would prefer to be brave.
•••
Mom and I pulling weeds. She sees the car and runs inside to jump in the shower. Women with umbrellas and magazines. Rain from inside the house mingles with the roar of the frothing river and the blood in my ears.
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I might ask, why do you drink water? And you will give the expected response, which is because you are thirsty. That is a false narrative. Do you know the three three three rule? Let me explain. Its central tenet states that we humans can go three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, and three weeks without food. But how long can we go without testing this “rule” ourselves. The answer is of course a lifetime. How long can we go without human touch? That is dependent upon context. In this case, the observer does not affect the observed system—the so called observer expectancy rule—so we can assume a value of zero for that parameter. The way you, Megan, respond when anyone hugs you or shakes your hand tells me that as a child you did not receive enough physical contact. There was something about you that kept people away. A barrier you constructed over time to protect you when in fact it caused harm.
•••
Nights, a childhood, lightless. Can’t see my hand. I know what it is to be lost alone in space. I feel what it is to be dead. I long to sleep under the stars in the desert where the Milky Way flows along the night sky, and infinite points of light provide a glimpse of eternity. Just once.
•••
What if I were to tell you that I love you, Megan? Has no one, not even your parents, ever said those three important words to you? I can see the answer in your eyes and must state the painful truth. That no one has loved you because you have never loved yourself. If you do not put in the work, you will never succeed. But if you follow my every instruction without question or complaint—if you trust me unconditionally as I trust you—I will lead you to happiness. I have practiced my own teachings to the point that I have no ego, so if you choose not to join our little experiment in joy, I will happily go on with my life, and you will never know who you truly are. A less enlightened person than myself would have been damaged by your trauma dumping, but because I have transcended the ego, my methods can help you like no other.
Give me your hand. Good. Do you want to begin living? Of course you do. Together we will kill the current Megan, and she will be reborn with a new identity and a zest for life. I think you’re ready to dive in. We will begin with the first three in the rule of threes.
