You're The Chosen One

Published 16 days ago • 2 min read • Philosophy of Living

LIFE ON URTH - Episode 114

By default, you experience yourself as the center of a roughly dome-shaped bright circumstance. There you are, apparently looking out at the world through your eyes.

Before you, a landscape of objects like trees, laptops and chairs unfolds, effortlessly. You can talk about them with other people because they can see them, too.

This conversation about things has become so detailed that we can predict and manipulate their behavior to a great degree, allowing for all our awesome technology, including whatever device you’re reading this on right now.

In German, all nouns are capitalized in writing. My elementary school teacher explained that whatever we can touch is a noun. I was confused and asked if “Thought” isn’t a noun then.

Obviously, there is a big part of the world you can’t touch (or otherwise ‘objectify’). Some of it is your inner world, your thoughts, feelings, memories, fantasies and desires. Some of it is our more abstract environment: culture, language, religion.

We developed and learned to automatically differentiate between a tree and a thought, between the outside world and the inside world. But upon closer examination (you probably heard about meditation), the apparent difference begins to fade.

The truth revealed is simple, but profound: There is no border between you and the world.

Or in other words: You are the entire world.

Your visual field with all its contents, as well as sounds, smells, thoughts, feelings, and the impulse to grab another snack from the fridge - All of your experience appears in the same space of consciousness, as a modulation of that space.

The contents change. What remains as the deepest ‘you’ is that space.

Even though they are forever changing and seemingly appear all by themselves, the contents still matter. A life where our collective consciousness is engaged with creativity and beauty is preferable over one consisting only of pain and misery.

But the only space you have access to is your own. The best (and only) path to making the world a better place is to make your own world a better place: Meet the contents of consciousness with curiosity, courage, and truth, and your entire world will shift in that direction.

You alone inhabit your experiential world. You alone have the responsibility to transform it into something beautiful.

You are the chosen one, because you are the only one.
Start acting like it.

If you struggled to make meditation work for you, give this song a try. Don’t listen to it while you’re cooking or doing the laundry. Give it the attention a piece of art deserves and see what happens.

✒️ Quote of the Week: “Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” -Wendell Berry

🎧 Song of the Week: Felix Raphael - The Way

Now I’d love to hear from you!

Did something in my writing catch your attention?
Was there an idea you found particularly intriguing?
Or is there a question that’s been on your mind related to these topics?

Just reply to this email or write to me at mail@urth.blog 👈

All the best,

Adrian / Urth

Can’t wait until next week’s edition? Check out my Substack.