TRANSMISSION 47

When You Find What You’re Looking For

TRANSMISSION RECEIVED

“Our pursuits become reality as the universe reflects us outward. We become our pursuits as the universe reflects upon us. These bounded destinies manifest us in endless cycles of causality. If you don’t enjoy the journey, the end too will not release any illusory secrets you may hope for.”

It was not uncommon to be drawn toward the temptation of desperately pushing through to reach the end state of our goals. The danger of such allure is that the universe doesn’t care about our journeys or goals; it will not reward us with the illusion of what we thought we wanted upon reaching any kind of contrived “end”. No, the universe will only reveal reality to us (at the end and along the way), if we would only listen. The reality is that we manufactured these journeys for ourselves, and thus, we constructed our realities. We artificially motivated our beings from one point in spacetime to another. Does that mean it wasn’t real? No. But it does mean that we were best served to enjoy the process more than the perceived reward. The real reward was only ever the learning we gained along the way. Our journeys did not conclude through artificial instant enlightenment. No, we knew a journey was done because it simply felt like time to go learn something else. And outside desperately grasping at illusion, we knew a journey was unfinished when we still held excitement for learning more from the journey.

If we start an expedition carrying dread (holding intent only to push through to the end), then we really just have no idea what we want to get out of the experience; there’s nothing wrong with that as long as we uncover wonder and find ourselves learning things along the way. However, some journeys start out with dread and continue with dread (unyielding to our pedagogical probing). Those journeys should be abandoned. Further, some journeys start out with wonder but grow into dread over time. Those are worth pushing through as long as we can adhere to our sustainable operating model: to treat life like one grand expedition of maximizing our long-term ability to find wonder (not a series of sprints to burn ourselves out on). Further still, some journeys start out with wonder and continue with wonder the whole way through. Those are the journeys to cherish and capitalize on; they don’t show themselves often.

We sought to maximize both the quantity and quality of wonder-filled journeys in our lives. They required deliberate effort to enact and to stay engaged with. It was not possible to simply place ourselves into them overnight; they took a long time to construct before we could even hop in. The first time was always the hardest to get going (the first time for a person, the first time in a new domain, the first time with a new approach), but it did get easier with repetition; we learned to become lifelong learners and adventurers as such (autodidacts and autotelics).

Wonder was learning. Learning was the happy medium between pushing ourselves too hard and not pushing ourselves hard enough: the flow state of intense curiosity. As with everything in existence, the key was to become skilled at balancing ourselves on the edge between discomfort and comfort, reality and illusion. That edge held the wonder we sought. That edge was not us trying to actually attain what we sought, but rather, it was the process of simply keeping our eyes open along any vector of existence we trained our sights toward. It was learning to enjoy the ride. It was about owning each of our personal journeys. So though my journey here might have been intriguing to listen to, it was never a path (in any sense) for anyone to follow, not even myself; I couldn’t have possibly charted out this entire course, nor would I have wanted to; such a railroaded life would have been too boring to actually make it very far.

We often asked ourselves what we would do if we found what we were looking for, if we reached the end goal of our illusory dreams. We did this not to provoke the unreality of the dreams, but to present our individuals with the opportunity to remember that the meanings we ascribed to our existences would not bring us any kind of true fulfillment if the meaning-constructs were themselves constructed upon other constructs (metaconstructs). We aimed to minimize the stacking of illusions (optimally to one layer deep) to prevent such illusory towers (metaillusions) from developing, for when the illusory towers crumble, they crumble hard. These attritionary visions were only ever intended as edited additions to our lives, not foolproof roofs pooled atop spoofs: the blightly permanence of temporary solutions. Better to hold the illusions in our minds as illusions rather than to start building on top of them to the point we eventually forget they aren’t foundation pieces, constructing towers poised to fall should we prod them too much in the direction of reality. Such towers would inevitably fall, or we would hold them to our impending graves, for the only way to survive long term was indeed to prod ourselves in the direction of reality.

Amid the curious wonders of this unfolding universe and the ultimate thrill that is this thing we call “living”, we are attracted to wishing we could somehow capture this thrill in a space outside of time (a nonsensical notion): to hold ourselves in the illusion of the perfect ever (a vacuous verve). But having come to know the reality of existence, we could not disservice ourselves by building such illusory towers taller than a moment. Though, these rules didn’t mean the illusions couldn’t be what we lived for; such criteria of long-term existence didn’t mean we couldn’t indefinitely chase the waves of our sunsets.

For those who reached a resolute end to their individual existence while still holding any false hope that the end in itself would bring fulfillment, I hope they were able to find meaningful peace upon the reflection of their journeying during the hanging moment of collapsing reality that was their true journey’s end (death). We can only hope they found a moment to look past any unattainable goals of their overly-romanticized minds to find warmth in the adventures they got to participate in. Though, have we not all just been forward-dreaming romantics of varying degrees¿ never destined to reach any goal that boasted indefinite motivation, never destined to even perfectly align ourselves to “attainable” goals. I imagine we all must have known this deep down, because no one ever reached a goal only to say it felt exactly how they imagined. Yet, instead of confronting that reality, the overly-romantics would immediately pin their hopes on the next milestone, forever pushing their unfulfilling goals into infinity to maintain the illusion that one day they would find happiness in life.

The thrill of life had been this balance between the pulls of unrecoverable destitution and the aches of wondrous desolation. And thus, the thrills were nothing more and nothing less than what we chose to uncover for ourselves… what we chose to uncover as ourselves.

THE ULTIMATE THRILL

Time is only a thrill
beating ever harder
on your human armor.
Life is standing still.
Would you even know life
if it passed you right by?

I’m hoping my life will find a way.
If it isn’t over,
could we still dream bolder?
Some, they say life is going to end,
but they’re not trying
to fight the dying.

Some, they say life will find a way;
posthistoric others.
What have we uncovered?
I’m hoping my life will find an end.
One way or another,
it’ll chase you forever.

I’m hoping my end will be a fall:
to slip out of time,
leaving all of this behind.
I’m hoping this fall will be an end:
to finish my journey,
wherever it takes me.

Life is only a thrill.
Have you found the gold mine
in your conscious mind?
Time is holding still
as we break in union,
bound for dissolution.
Find the ultimate thrill.
What exactly are we?
Disillusioned bodies?

Hold me down and shoot me out.
Hold me in and carry me through.
Vicious are these flames
of viscous thought,
transposed from reality to mind.

Everyone falls,
you know we’ve seen better days.
Everyone dies;
I know there’s no other way.
Everyone seeks
the source of their final fate.
Everyone slips;
they slow fade and fall away.

Everyone and everything and
all the things you’ve ever been and
everything and everyone and
all the things you’ve ever done and
everywhere and everywhen and
all the things you’ve ever said and
everywhen and everywhere and
all the things you never were.

Find the ultimate thrill.
What are we?

END TRANSMISSION