The Muse Visits You in the Shower

In this episode, I discuss a quote from the book Antic Hay, by Aldous Huxley, which gave me the inspiration for the name of this podcast: The Crystal Quiet. I have managed to turn this Crystal Quiet into a haven and a home for myself. I also talk about Aristotle's Poetics, as well as the passive and active parts of the mind, and what happens when they coalesce. I mention some strategies I have found to be helpful when it comes to quieting the mind and bringing it to stillness. I bring up Erich Fromm and Herman Hesse in order to discuss fear vs. love, and as a way to study the dualities of life and transcendence. Mainly, I focus on what happens when you pay attention to what you are doing, what it's like to be truly present, and how it feels to do something just for the sake of doing it, without any other intention. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Crystal Quiet Podcast. I am your host, Adriana Montenegro, and this will be the inaugural episode of the Crystal Quiet Podcast. A podcast about presence, the nature of silence, essence, and what it means to live as an end in itself instead of a means to an end. I've always been interested in presence as a subject, as a theme. I think the goal, we all strive to be as present as we can be in everything we do. We want a an honest and authentic reaction from people on stage or even when you're doing anything, playing music. You want a real reaction, something that uh you want to give something to the audience that they can connect to in a true manner. You want that connection to be genuine, and therefore I think uh as artists, we we do our best to try and um give people something raw, something honest, something that uh they can relate to, something that they uh can feel an affinity with that does help to create a bond, an emotional connection that can then lead to perhaps growth or some kind of uh lesson to be learned. Or even I know um in the times of the Greeks and Aristotle in his poetics, he mentions that theater was used as a way of purging, as a purge. It provided society an opportunity to get together and experience something so profound that it made them question their life. They connected so deeply emotionally to everything that was going on in the story that they were able to experience catharsis together. And that's a very beautiful experience. It can be painful, but I think those are the moments that uh truly help us grow in life, and so that leads me back to presence. I have been fascinated every time, you know, at the university, because I went to um St. Edwards University here in Austin, Texas, and I'd be walking outside the university, and somebody would be drawing and so focused on their work that they wouldn't look up at the people that were passing by. And I found that so intriguing, you know, when you're in immersed in those moments, and how you can perhaps create more of that in your life. The past 10 years, I'd say I've been trying and working in my personal life to try and bring some of that presence into my own life. I've been trying to be fully present as much as I can be in what I do, in everything I do. But it's not easy, and I'm very guilty of, you know, one example I think about a lot is sometimes my mother calls me or um a friend calls, and I have them on speaker, and yet I'm still trying to do all these other things in the background while I'm talking to them, and I do feel guilty about that, and I've always wondered why do I feel this way? What is it about what is it that is making me feel guilt and feel bad that I'm half-assing this conversation with my mother or a friend or a cousin just because I think that I have I don't want to waste this time that that I'm spending talking to my mother, that I could otherwise be, I don't know, catching up on some of the work on my computer that I can do or looking up something that I need to be doing later. But then I I catch myself and I stop and I realize wait, I'm not living in the moment right now. I'm I'm not fully there. I'm not fully present with this person who's on the phone, and even if they're not in person with me, the fact that they are calling me, they're taking the moment to call me, and that I can't give them my entire, my full presence, it it eats away at me. I'm not gonna lie, it's painful to realize when. I'm telling them that I'm listening, and I am. Part of me is listening, and I used to think it was a great ability. I used to tell my dad, you know, when I was little, yes, but my brain can do multiple things at the same time. You don't understand. That's like that's a special skill. Not everyone can do this. Or at least that's what I thought. And then I didn't understand that what I'm doing when that happens is that I am cutting my attention, I'm dividing the attention, and I think divided attention, it's pretty much no attention, you don't fully gain that knowledge. So even if you were um watching something or listening to something but also doing something else, I noticed that way. If I'm you know, if I put on a YouTube video or if I put on a podcast, depending on the subject matter, because if it's just, you know, two people talking about, I don't know, like two comedians and they're just laughing about some topic and it's not that important, maybe it's not a big deal that I miss certain details, but if I'm listening to something that I'm perhaps maybe some kind of researched topic or lecture, or even just something more a little more deep that needs your full attention. If I'm not my mind can wander if I'm doing something else, and those tiny instances where my mind goes off into something completely different. I lose track of the narrative, of the story that uh whatever it is I'm listening to, whether that's uh a historical podcast or something about psychology or philosophy, if I'm not paying full attention, I will lose track and I will feel lost in terms of what they're talking about. I won't get the full picture and I have to go back and rewind it. And and I mean that can even happen to me when I'm just in conversation with somebody. If I'm not even at work, if I'm just standing there talking to somebody, but then I am trying to remember something else that I need to do later that day. It's divided attention. I'm not giving my full attention to this person or an activity that I'm doing. And some part of me feels that uh that there's something wrong with this. There's this feeling that I guess I will describe it like uh not like a lie, but as if I'm something that isn't aligned or not straight, if that makes sense. It doesn't feel whole. There's something about my behavior and that moment or something in me feels fragmented or divided in the self that I don't quite understand, and over the years I've just realized how important it is for me that I I want to become better at paying attention and I want to be able to give my full attention as much as I can when I'm doing anything, uh whether that's washing dishes, whether I'm playing guitar or even um reading a book, because my mind can wander. And and I try to bring it back as often as I can. I guess it's like meditation, a lot of that's I guess the best example. A lot of people who suggest that meditation actually improves your brain function, is it makes sense to me because it your thoughts somehow become aligned with your breath, and there's just something so relaxing and peaceful about just being fully there, being fully present in the moment, in the breath itself. I think there's something special there, and that it's important in some way, and I'm I'm trying to figure that out, and that's why I started this podcast. I I want to explore presence, I want to explore the nature of silence and find out why it is that for me silence became the path that has slowly brought me towards um being able to be more present. I I used to, well, I've had lots of anxiety throughout my life. Of course, I have um some trauma and some psychological issues, and so many instances where I could have benefited from meditation, benefited from other practices, yoga that I wasn't doing at the time, and and I just felt like I couldn't control my thoughts. I just felt my thoughts were racing. I didn't know what to do about it. I I wanted to heal, I wanted to get better, I wanted to do the best I could, and yet I was being controlled by my emotions and by my thoughts. I think the tendency is to go see a psychiatrist, and which I I've done, and you know, perhaps go to therapy, talk to other people, maybe um find, I mean, exercising, lots of uh physical activities I know help reduce anxiety and they help center you and balance you out. And I do agree, I I think it does help to do all of this. And for me, it took me a while to figure it out, and I would write down all my thoughts because I've always been a writer, and I would sit there and try to journal. Of course, there were times when my thoughts were so unorganized, so bad that it got to the point where it wouldn't make sense the things I would write. String words together that sounded similar, so uh, but in terms of narratively or it wouldn't, it was uncon disconnected in some strange way. I started to sit in front of a mirror because I've done acting exercises and I've I used to act more often. And uh one of these exercises, I remember somebody telling me that I I could sit in front of a mirror and just be present with myself and just look at myself, be truly try to be and react off of myself. And I realized how difficult that was for me at the beginning. I would start crying because I couldn't look at myself in the eyes, and that's when I realized, oh no, this is much deeper than I think this is, uh, my issues, my problems. The fact that I can't even look at myself in a mirror. Uh, my cousin used to laugh at me because uh she's she always said that as a joke I would look into the mirror and go, ah, you know, and now I look back and yeah, that's so funny. But at the same time, it's like that's unhealthy, an unhealthy relationship I had towards myself. It was hard to sit in front of the mirror for longer than a few minutes, even more than two or three minutes. It just unbearable at the beginning, but then I slowly started to to try to do it every day, and I would sit in front of the mirror, and I would stay a little bit longer each day, kind of like what um it says in the the book The Little Prince by Saint Experie, um the chapter about the fox and how he how the little or how the fox tells the little prince, you know, if you come every day at the same time to sit on this uh bench or on this but you sit further away, I mean you sit as far as you can from me, because we don't know each other. And then little by little each day you you scoot a little closer and eventually you'll be able to tame me. That's the English translation of that verb. But in French it means, you know, it's so much deeper. The word tame. I think I have it here. Give me just a sec. Yeah, the part of the the fox. In French a privois. He says uh qu'est-ce que signifie a privo and it translates to not train but something in that regard where it's not necessarily taming, but I it sounds weird in English because I mean to tame somebody as if they were an animal, but no, I think it means that you are slowly showing, showing somebody how to get used to you, I think. Some words just aren't perfectly translatable, um, but I think it's a beautiful idea that the fox tells the little prince, if you, you know, if each day you come at the same time, that'll teach my heart to be ready for you, to wait for you at that same hour of each day, and and I will come and meet you. And if you appear, you know, that'll make my heart sing, or it'll make me happy, my heart full. And it's such a beautiful image and uh concept and way of putting it. And I think that this the way this dynamic is described can also apply to the to yourself, and how if you take that of how you get to become friends with somebody, and this exact image of the fox and the little prince sitting on this bench, but each day they just scoot closer to each other little by little because they're getting to know each other, they're getting used to each other's presence, and the fact that that every day it's at the same time, and it's you're training your heart to to get excited and to uh wait for this or to expect it, maybe, or maybe maybe that's not the right word, but to to have hope and to have something to to look forward to. And so if you take this and you apply it to the exercise I mentioned about the mirror, I think that's how I felt when I was sitting in front of the mirror. I was slowly and over time and little by little teaching myself how to accept myself. The reason I sigh is because it's not easy and it makes me want to cry honestly as I'm talking about this, because I realized I didn't like myself much back then, and how hard it was to just look at myself and to see myself reflected to myself because I didn't know who that person was, and I didn't understand anything of what I felt. That's why there were no words for it at the time, and it was just tears as I'm crying right now. I would just sit in front of the mirror and I had nothing, I couldn't express the feelings that I felt. I think I cried from joy, I could say. I think I was afraid of myself for multiple reasons. I think that I've been afraid of myself, my own strength for the longest time, and I didn't understand why. And it it was that exercise that helped me develop confidence. I was also modeling for life drawing classes, nude. The shocking part or the scary part, it wasn't that I was afraid of being naked or what people would think of my body. I think it was what I was I had not accepted my body. I had not accepted who I was, and therefore I thought other people wouldn't accept it either. And so I did it as an experiment, and I ended up realizing that I really loved it. I really liked doing it. But what I realized as I did it was that I was more comfortable with being physically nude and physically vulnerable than emotionally nude and emotionally vulnerable. So I was more okay with modeling naked and than I was to bear my soul, if that makes sense. And to because I didn't know who I was. I had no idea what I wanted or what I didn't want. And the more I modeled and the more I sat there in silence, because when you model, you um you stay in poses uh for very long periods of time, or sometimes for shorter periods of time, but it's always in silence. And I think doing it for so many hours, it is it's a type of meditation. And you're in in the you're inhabiting that silence, and you're just there in the presence of these people who aren't drawing you, but at the same time, it's uh I think as with any actor or with any musician, you know, the exchange of energy that happens on stage or in any room, at a at a party, at a business meeting, at even at a restaurant, at a movie theater, um, at a coffee shop, at a bookstore, I think anywhere there are people, um, you're going to have an exchange of energy between all the people and between the things themselves, the environment, the place itself. There's an interplay of energy always happening. And that's why I think sometimes when you go into a room or somebody comes into a room suddenly everybody feels it, or um certain people. I know I feel it, and I've felt it before when I've gone into a room, or even when others have come into a room, you can automatically experience a a shift, or energy has changed, or any. Energy has moved around, or something has happened, and everyone carries their own energy as well. I do think so. But there is this exchange of energy that is going on. Because sometimes I modeled, you know, doing poses standing or on the floor. It really helped connect me to myself. That was another one just like the mirror exercise that really helped to integrate me. The different parts of me, the mind and the body, just like yoga. I think yoga is a great way to to integrate the two and to connect your physical body with your mind with your thoughts. I learned a lot from my three or four years modeling. Um, the combination of having to physically hold poses that were difficult. Because you're not only testing the boundaries of the body when you're modeling, because your body eventually starts to hurt, to be in pain, or to even go numb if you're sitting on or in a position or holding your arm up for a long period of time, your body eventually you experience numbness in a in your arm or your leg. And what I noticed was that it takes mental strength as well to push those boundaries, even of the physical boundaries. And the brain tells the body stick through this. This pain that you're you think you're feeling, that you you think is unbearable, is actually not unbearable because you're still holding on, you are still in this position. You're not dead, you're still, you're okay, you're feeling. Yes, you feel the tingling sensations when your arm goes numb or your leg goes numb. But I one thing I realized was that as more time passes, another 20-30 minutes pass, if you're holding an arm up in a position and it's already gone numb, after 20 or 30 minutes, it goes back, the feeling comes back into it. Even if you haven't moved it, same with your leg. It's it's a strange phenomenon. I don't know, I'd have to look more into it and maybe do some more research as to why what happens in that process of when a limb goes numb and why it can come back to, or why you can get feeling back into it even if you haven't moved it. Uh it's an interesting thing to investigate. But during those moments, it it showed me that I had this inner strength that wasn't just physical or it wasn't just mental. It was a combination of both, and there was something else there, something more there. Uh, it was a spiritual strength that I don't know how else to word it, but there was some other strength, inner strength inside me that I was barely getting acquainted with. I was getting to know the more I spent time in my presence, in my own presence and listening to myself, even when I wasn't saying or didn't think I was saying anything, I was communicating with myself through the silence, through my own silence, through the stillness that I was experiencing in those moments. And each time that I've sat down to meditate, or each time that I sit down to do the mirror exercise, or even to write, because that's another form of meditation, that's something else I realized, is that it's just being alone with my thoughts, even if I'm going for a long walk, because that's another thing I really like to do that also helps me connect to my inner self and it makes me feel whole and integrated, is that my thoughts in conjunction with the movement of the body when I'm walking, they get aligned, they slowly start to come together in a way that produces creativity or something new that I've never connections. The synapses are being fired, the neurons are firing. There's just new pathways in the brain being made when you challenge yourself when you're you're allowing the passive part of the brain and the active part of the brain, the two parts of the brain to function simultaneously and as a whole, because the the body is doing something it always it already knows how to do. So it's um when even this happens when you're showering. And a lot of creatives and artists have said this that some of their more creative moments are in the shower because you're or when they're driving. Sometimes you get inspiration and they call it this, or the muse visits you in the shower because you're doing an activity that you already know how to do, so your brain doesn't have to think too much on what comes next. You're you've done it so many times in your life, even driving, like there's instincts that have already gone into play. So this is the passive mind, the passive brain, part of the brain. While you're thinking of something else, like what am I gonna do later today? You start organizing your schedule, or even I don't know, maybe you're thinking of something that happened the day before, or if something didn't go right at work, or even some emotional issue that you're having with a partner or a family member, and and you're trying to figure out what to do, your thinking brain is the active brain. So combined with the passiveness of the activity that you're doing, whether you're drawing, walking, driving, or showering, washing dishes, your brain, something is happening where that combination of the two, the active mind and the passive mind, are permitting something totally new to happen, and that's where we get inspiration, and that's where we get our some of our best ideas. Journaling really, really helped me a lot. Uh, I don't even know how many, I think I have over 40, 50 journals that I in my uh entire life that I've written, and I still have them in boxes, and and just putting my thoughts on paper. Because they do say that it's a a great way of understanding because we feel a lot of things, right? We we experience a lot of things, and sometimes we don't understand what we're um experiencing, or we don't know what we're feeling. And one of the best ways to try to make sense of it is if you sit down with these thoughts and you somehow bring them in, manifest them or bring them into a visual manner, which is by writing them down. If you write them down, it the act of writing them and visually seeing them, it does something to your brain that allows you to be able to make sense of it, to, to understand it in in a better way, and to figure out solutions of what could be done about whatever issue it is. I don't know, these are these are just some of the strategies that have helped me grow and transform over time. A lot of this is you know, has changed my view of presence and what it means to be present, because um I've asked myself like what does it mean to fully be present? And what does it mean to, you know, because we're alive, right? You know, and we we have the ability, you know, in our conscious mind has the ability to look back towards the past and forward towards the future. And and I think because we have these two uh minds, I guess, is that one is the observant or the observer, and one is the observed. And I've um I can mention some books I've read that do discuss this. If you want further information, I can also list it in the notes. But that has fascinated me so much. The fact that we do have the observer observing the observed, which you know the fact that our brain is our mind is conscious of itself. We are the only species that we know of right now that can actually do that, and therefore, I think that the types of connections that we can make when we are fully present are much stronger than if we have the divided attention. And it's crazy because I I used to have social media for a long time, and then I decided to delete it. It was just driving me insane, and I I couldn't understand at first. I was like, why? Because I I tried to play the game, I tried to fit into what I thought the game was, or I I don't know. I'm not saying life is a game, but there are moments when it feels like a game, and I I was trying to figure out my identity, like who am I? And I know you have a profile photo on social media, and you have you have to pick one that you like that you feel represents you, represents you. But what you know, what does that even mean? Like represents I thought about this a long time because and I've tried to explore it because I've you know I've had this idea of who I was growing up, you know, and most of my life, I you know, very early on I started to get interested in, you know, I would perform as a little kid, and I was always in theater and doing putting on these funny skits and directing little plays for all my friends and my family. And it was all just for fun, and and then I, you know, got more serious about it, and I loved I got really into the acting and directing and and I still love it, I'm not gonna say I don't, but I um I've always been drawn to so even film I've done film work and and I thought that that's I did think that maybe that was what defined me. I'm an artist or I'm I don't know, I'm a filmmaker, or I like I'm a film person. I because I do know, you know, like when I talk to people, it's always, oh I love that film, and oh, then this director, and people always I do get asked this a lot, you know, like oh how do you know so much about film? And and I just tell them I just get interested in something and I just study it. I maybe there's something about my brain that just drives me all the way through. Like when I get interested in um any person in history, I'll research them in such a manner that I will go deep dive. Deep dive. Like I'll read everything, every letter they've ever exchanged with anyone in their entire lives that they've written and that they've received. I did that with Joseph Cornell when I was doing a project on him in uh for my university class. I did that with other Eve Klein, you know, some other artists that I really get, I just feel a connection with. I just I think I like information, I like knowing more, I like discovering truths. I think that's what it comes down to. I like human nature. I love human nature and I love human behavior, and I I like to observe it and to study it. For a while there I was confused, and I thought, well, maybe I'll switch majors and I'll switch careers and maybe I'll study neuroscience or psychology because I have so many interests. And I just love doing research and I love figuring out the nature and the development of things. I've even studied some books. Um, my a lot of my family members, my mother and my aunt, my aunt owns the Montessori school, and my mother has been a Montessori teacher for the longest time, and I've read some of the Maria Montessori books. And she was the I think one of the first female doctors in Italy. And then she also became an educator, and all the work she did with children, and all the work, uh, all the studies and observations she made and developed the the education program of Montessori and that method, thanks to all her knowledge of of psychology and everything she had studied in her medical studies as well. She observed the children a lot, and I do think that led her to discover things about human nature that perhaps we didn't uh, you know, know before. So I I think I also love the way the brain develops, the way the mind develops. I do find fascinating and and I always want to know more. But going back to the identity thing, I didn't I thought I defined myself through film and art. And during that time, when I deleted my social media like years ago, I think before the pandemic or before COVID-19, I got to the point where I was posting things and I didn't understand why I was posting them. And when I go back and try to analyze this, it boggles my mind because I don't even to this day, I don't know if I was doing that because I because the platforms themselves are geared towards putting people into categories and dividing, and you know, you you don't get all aspects of a person, you just get what that person wants to show you. And it's so hard because when I think about it, I'm like when I give out my Instagram or my Facebook to people, or when I did back in the day, they're gonna look at it and think that that's who I am, that that's all of me. And people do make judgments like that based on your LinkedIn and your, you know, whatever. They they look at an image and they think they know you. Or they read some blurb about you and they think, oh, this is who this person is, this is all they are, or oh, they work in film, so therefore they they're a filmmaker, or they they do art, so that's who they are. Or I don't know, you know, I've also worked um in education a lot, so I've also been asked if that's you know, oh, so you're in education, in education. It's like, well, not really, you know, like I am interested in human nature, like in general. I'm interested in psychology. Why do I have to limit myself to one thing? Why do I have to fit into the boxes that I am being forced into because social media is asking me to pick one image as my profile? And it was driving me crazy because I thought, in terms of identity, like who am I? Like what? Why why do I need to define myself? And why am I trying to post these things? And I see people's reactions to it and the likes and the comments, and you think not only is it strange that we get the dopamine hit when we see that oh, people like it, or or they don't like it because I thought about this, you know, like I'm posting this, yes. It's okay to post it because let's just say I come across a quote that I really like, and these are snippets, you know, you see them online. So I'd or I'd be reading something, I'd take a picture of it, crop it so that only the quote comes out, or just a little part of the book, and I'd post it because that's what I was feeling that day, or I just related very strongly to it, and and I posted, and then I think, you know, in my head there's all these thoughts going on, you know. Oh, people are gonna think that I I think I'm an intellectual, or oh, people are going to assume that I that these are my views, or that these are my opinion, and that what I'm posting, that I'm just posting to show off, perhaps. And then I asked myself, why am I why am I posting? Do I why do we even need to post? Before Instagram or Facebook existed, we would just do things for the sake of doing it. Yes, I know that when YouTube became a platform, they started posting some some things they they can teach or something they they learned, and and it's such a great tool, and it's such a useful thing. YouTube became a wonderful, very beneficial to society to an extent, you know, because you can just look anything up now and you'll find a video on how to do it or how to learn how to do that on YouTube. I've looked up car stuff because I don't like oh, oil change or oil something, or you know, how to replace a belt or how to you know anything. It'll tell you, which is great. But at the same time, you know, over the last 10 or 15 years, the the things that people are posting has changed dramatically as well, you know. I mean, yes, it was so great that people were getting very creative with videos and they were able to connect with the whole world all of a sudden it was global. You could get global attention from posting anything you've learned or anything new you were doing, anything cool. But now, I mean, I think it's just gotten to that point where there is a line, or I just personally felt there was a point where I just it felt inauthentic to me to post because then I thought, am I posting? Like, why can't I just do something just for the sake of doing it? Why do I need to show it to people? What why do they care what I'm reading? Or why do they why should they care? Or what what would it matter what I'm eating, what it is I you know, where I went to for vacation or where to, you know, or that I'm learning this. New language, or that I'm any any activity that we post, or it just made me question to myself, not to anyone else. This is just a personal exploration again. I was curious why I felt that way, why I because I've always wanted to to be as authentic as I could. That is something that has always driven all my actions in in the past, you know. I've searched for ways that I could be more raw, be more authentic. I'm sure I've told many of my friends, you know, they know that I for me it was always about authenticity. Even when I was at St. Edwards and we were all studying theater, a lot of my friends went on to uh Hollywood or you know Chicago, uh New York, and some have gotten famous or have done really well and succeeded in other realms or sports or um magazines, and which is great for them. I don't know, I just went in a different direction. I just always have been searching for an answer to my question of you know, how can I be the most authentic version of myself that I can be? What does that mean? And to what extent? Because every time that I've gotten closer or that some new realization dawns on me, or I get an epiphany of some sort about, you know, being about presence or about um connecting to myself, I just get more questions and I just want to find out what more can I do to be more authentic. And there is always more that I can do, and personally I've gone through a journey that has brought me through a transformation, through so much growth. Because I was in the dark for a long time. I've dealt with addiction, I've been in I am in AA. I I'm an alcoholic and I've experienced the lowest sort of uh shame and darkness and pain. And I do want to talk about that and shame, and because I think it is connected to presence, and I think it is connected to what we were saying, because in the mirror that's what I would feel when I would look in the mirror, when I would look into my own eyes, when I look into the eyes of others, because I do think everyone and the world is a mirror to you, everything is a reflection of yourself. That is perception, that is what perception is, and perception alters reality, and so your own perception reflects what you feel about yourself, and it will be reflected in the eyes of others, so the better relationship you can develop with yourself, with your inner self, the better. I think the the more confident you become, and not just that, but the the way you view yourself also changes. And and it will get deeper and more profound and stronger, that connection that you have with yourself. Going back to presence and uh why I called this, I do want to talk about this. Um, the reason why I called this podcast The Crystal Quiet, is because I came across this quote years ago by Aldous Huxley, and I love this quote. I I didn't know where it was from, and then I found out it was from this book, Antique, and I finally bought it, and it's an old, old paperback book written in 1923, or at least that's uh yes, that's when the copyright was, and I knew nothing about it. The first quote in the book, and by the way, I I don't want this podcast to be just a book review. I'm not trying to review books here. Trust me, that's not what I'm trying to do here. I don't, yeah, if you want to do that, just go read it yourself or go read SparkNotes or other summaries. I'm sure there's plenty out there, but that's not what I'm trying to do here. But I do want to explore, because I have read other books by Aldus Huxley, and I really love the way he writes, and I do I do enjoy his work, but of course I also have my you know, I think he brings up a lot of interesting questions about human nature and society in general. The book itself, it's I don't know, some people have called it a satire, that it could have just been a satire of uh British um society in the 1920s because he he talks about a lot of different uh characters that are uh in fashionable London society at the time, you know. There's uh the main character, Gumbrel, he's a man who was working at a job he didn't like, but he clearly is middle class, bourgeois, and makes enough money to where he all his friends, uh there's that circle of aristocrats that spend their time, you know, having intellectual conversations at restaurants or um or just talking about different antics and like even you know, just you know, they do have some friends that are artists, and of course those characters are portrayed in a different light. Um these characters are usually poor. Um there's a character, I think, who you can assume they never mention whether he does it or not, and I don't want to ruin the story if you ever want to read it. Um but you can assume he's very depressed and is considering committing suicide because he has not succeeded as an artist, and though he does have different shows that have some success, in his own eyes, what success means, he hasn't had his big break, you know, and I I know that's a funny, strange phrase that we use a lot of the time when you think you're gonna make it in Hollywood or make it in some sort of way in the world, which who knows what that means. But um, there's other characters that are just rich aristocrats who are um just wander around um London shopping or uh eating, drinking, and just carousing pretty much riding in carriages, and they want to seem important. And it's it's interesting how they how he portrays, you know, Mrs. Viviash and like this lady who was once in love but has become very cynical about what love is, so she never enters into any other relationship after that. Everything has so much distance, she puts so much distance between herself and all these other characters. It's always more condescendingly that she relates to other people. It's I mean, Huxley does a great job of showing us, you know, different characters. Um you know, there is this one scientist or biologist who's always you know studying, you know, he thinks he's just in his laboratory doing experiments and running tests and studying different genes and the sweat glands, and but of course, he also dives in to show us the relations each person has in terms of like their partners, their uh wives, or their husbands, and of course, we'd have many characters who cheat on their husbands or on their wives, and they have affairs with others, or they fall in love with somebody who unrequited love, and and they call this you know, oh that's just you know in the back of the book. Of course, it mentions that conventional pursuits and aspirations, conventional behavior, conventional morality are gleefully shredded in this wildly irreverent satire. And yes, so he so I think he demonstrates all these, which is just an accurate picture of even modern-day society as well. Like, yes, people go about their lives. There some of them are just trying to survive, like the painter and some other characters who are poor and who are portrayed of as you know being a little bit more honest and straightforward, um, but simplistic, of course, always. And then you have characters that are more complex, but have these like wild passions, and they um they're trying to make sense of, you know what they truly desire. You know, is it more money? Is it another affair? Deep down in in the center of the book, you know, at the bottom, you know, you can tell that Huxley is also showing some characters that are not happy. They seem deeply unfulfilled. And it's interesting how in the middle of the book, you know, he does have some characters that are more that are uh there's actually the quote that I'm going to read you, which is where I got the phrase, the crystal quiet, because I loved it so much. So yes, I took it from this book. I will just read the quote and then I can explain the context regarding the the chapter, where it came from, and how it ties into the rest of the book. There are quiet places also in the mind, he said meditatively, but we build bandstands and factories on them, deliberately, to put a stop to the quietness. We don't like the quietness. All the thoughts, all the preoccupations in my head round and round continually. He made a circular motion with his hand, and the jazz bands, the music hall songs, the boys shouting the news. What's it for? What is it all for? To put an end to the quiet, to break it up and disperse it, to pretend at any cost that it isn't there. Ah, but it is there. It is there in spite of everything, at the back of everything, lying awake at night, sometimes not restlessly but serenely, waiting for sleep, the quiet reestablishes itself, piece by piece, all the broken bits, all the fragments of it we've been so busily dispersing all day long. It reestablishes itself, an inward quiet, like this outward quiet of grass and trees. It fills one, it grows a crystal quiet, a growing, expanding crystal. It grows, it becomes more perfect. It is beautiful and terrifying. Yes, terrifying as well as beautiful, for one is alone in the crystal, and there's no support from the outside. There's nothing external and important, nothing external and trivial to pull oneself up by or to stand on, superiorly, contemptuously, so that one can look down. There's nothing to laugh at or feel enthusiastic about, but the quiet grows and grows beautifully and unbearably. And at last you are conscious of something approaching. It is almost a faint sound of footsteps. Something inexpressibly lovely and wonderful advances through the crystal, nearer, near, and oh inexpressibly terrifying. For if it were to touch you, if it were to seize you and engulf you, you'd die. All the regular, habitual daily part of you would die. There would be an end of bandstands and whizzing factories, and one would have to begin living arduously in the quiet, arduously in some strange, unheard of manner. Nearer, nearer come the steps, but one can't face the advancing thing. One daren't. It's too terrifying, it's too painful to die. Quickly, before it's too late, start the factory wheels, bang the drum, blow up the saxophone. Think of the women you'd like to sleep with, the schemes for making money, the gossip about your friends, the last outrage of the politicians, anything for a diversion. Break the silence, smash the crystal to pieces. There. It lies in bits. It is easily broken, hard to build up, and easy to break. And the steps. Ah, those have taken themselves off. Double quick. Double quick. They were gone at the first flying of the crystal. And by this time, the lovely and terrifying thing is three infinities away at least. And you lie tranquilly on your bed thinking of what you'd do if you had ten thousand pounds and all the fornications that you'll never commit. I love this quote. I don't know why it just called out to me so many different times that I came across it and read it. I felt there was something special about it. I related to I understood it in some deep part of my body or my mind. And even though I couldn't make sense of why, and I couldn't put it into words, and I but I held on to it for many years. This image of a crystal quiet, of this quiet that's so fragile and it's encompassed, it's encased in this crystal. The way I view it is it's like a secret little compartment inside of me that I just discovered. Or maybe that I mean I'm pretty sure it was there all along, all this time. Like he says in the quote, that when you're lying asleep in your bed, suddenly the quiet reestablishes itself. It becomes present, it becomes you can sense it. And I've sensed it throughout my life, and it was this tiny little voice without language, if that makes sense. To me, it was like a blue flame, just a pulsating light, some vibration that was calling out to me in some way. I define it as God only because I have no other word for it. I don't because I didn't understand this voice that was calling out to me from the depths, because that is how I see it. I was in the dark and then, you know, blindly grasping my way, trying to find myself trying to figure out who I am, trying to make sense of things of the world. And you know, Carl Jung talks about the shadow self and how you have to pretty much traverse through hell, through the you know, your own demons, through the darkest parts of yourself, go through it in order to come out the other side and integrate it into yourself because it is a part of you. And I I do believe that and but this is my way of expressing it, I guess. Is as a crystal quiet. It's frightening and beautiful at the same time, it's a paradox and and it was so captivating to me, but also something I was trying to avoid for a very long time. I ignored that pulsation, that voice calling out to me this silence, because the I think silence the silence can get so loud sometimes and communicate so much without words, and that is what happened to me is that I was trying to shield my eyes from it, I was trying to ignore it and pretend it did not exist. But that was a part of me that I was not integrating, it was a part of me that I felt I didn't want to get to know, kind of like going back to the little prince, you know, as if I was rejecting as if I was the fox and I was rejecting the little prince, or vice versa. Rejecting a part of myself, rejecting who I am, my essence. Because that's maybe because maybe that's a better way of explaining it. This silence, this it's where I get to I can inhabit it at any moment. You know, I think that's what's beautiful about this image that um Huxley created with this phrase, this crystal quiet. For me it's it's like Like a cave I can go into and I can decorate it the way that I want to. Make it my own, make it a place where I feel safe, where I feel comfortable, where I feel whole. And it's a place where I can feel nurtured by myself, where I can nurture myself, where I can go to be with my own thoughts, where I can be alone, where I can, you know, as they say that fill I can fill my cup there. It's a place I can go to when my battery is drained, I can go recharge, nourish myself. And it's it's a sanctuary, it's a haven for me, this little cave, this crystal. I think of it as like a little pot or this cave, a secluded little cocoon where you can, like a little sleeping bag and you can close it up and zip it up, and oh, you feel you're there with yourself. And it's safe. It's like the womb in some way. And I think when I went through my transformation, it it felt like a rebirth. It felt like I was being born again. I I had no idea who I was, I had no idea. My s I guess my ego had died, as some psychologists have called it. Um, ego death, you know, or not to use Freud's term because so much time has passed, but even the self, it's like a death of the self. And I think we go through so many of these deaths of different versions of ourselves as we transform, as we keep growing and learning, as we get older and gain more wisdom, because I think there is a difference between wisdom and knowledge, and I think knowledge you just gain it by hearing information, by reading, by looking at things, experiences, but wisdom, in particular, I think you have to go through lots of pain, lots of failure, lots of mistakes, lots of suffering, and you gain wisdom from repeating those mistakes. Because I think those are patterns, thought patterns that one can change. Uh you can change your your thought patterns, create new pathways, new habits. I was not a positive person, so everything, all the different thoughts I would have were very negative. And I I couldn't advance. I felt so stagnant. I felt like I was stuck in a liminal stage, liminal space where I didn't want to die, but I didn't want to live either. I went through a really rough moment. And I can talk more about this later as well, but in another episode, go more in depth into my sobriety story. But um but I went through a really dark moment where nothing made sense, and I I didn't want to give up, but I also I had to let go. Like I had to what is the word? Surrender. Had to surrender to something that I no longer had control of, something I didn't understand. And just, you know, let that self die. Because there was no other way forward, and there was no way backward. So there was only stagnation and everything in nature that does not grow. Everything in nature that stagnates, I mean that rots. Decays and gets destroyed. So you either grow or you become destroyed. Yeah, that's why I love this description of the crystal quiet. Also the symbolism of it, the fact that it's that it breaks, that it can shatter at any moment, that it because if you notice, every time you try to sit still and in silence, there is resistance. I think Stephen Pressfield in The War of Art, I think he talks about this where he says, just put your ass in the chair and do the work. And don't worry about all you have to do is get yourself there to do the work. Because he talks about how tough resistance is there. Is there is a part of us that doesn't want to grow, that doesn't want to, and you can fall into laziness, you can fall into there is that tendency to just I mean I'm s I'm guilty of it, you know, where you have the option of doing something creative or something more difficult. And when things seem difficult, it's so easy to just say, I'll just do that another day, and you postpone it, or you uh I'll just try that again some other time, you know, instead of pushing through. Going back to the the modeling, the life trying classes that I used to do, where if you just sit through the pain that's necessary in that moment and you push through, you will experience the benefits of what it is like to get past what seems impossible. Because in those moments, like physically and mentally, I don't know why it felt like that, but it's like the brain is telling the body, oh no, you're you're gonna die if you don't move your hand. Even though you've been in this position already for you know 30 minutes, five more minutes of this is gonna be impossible. It's impossible, it's unbearable. But it actually is not. We're just not used to it. It's just something we don't. A lot of us in today's society, we don't know how to stay still. We don't know. I struggle with this still to this day, you know. I I have a hard time being in awkward silences. So there's moments where things get awkward, and I I don't I don't know what to you know you're like, should I say something? And things get weird because should I say something right now? To break the silence, to make this silence not be as awkward as it is right now, or should I just let it live, let it wrap itself around us this awkwardness, this silence that almost seems unbearable. And let's see where it takes us, you know. I did this experiment with this, with a friend of mine, um Colt Colt Keeny, and when we we were going to act in this short film together, and they told us to, you know, to meet because we were gonna have to act as a couple together, and we didn't know each other at all, so we went to a bar, and and at one point, I think we're just sitting across each other. We had already been talking for a while, but then goes into the bathroom, comes out, he sits back down, and we just stay in silence for like I don't know, I think 20, 30 minutes, maybe more, I don't remember. Or maybe that's just what it felt like. But we were in silence for the longest time that I had ever been silent with anyone before. And it was strange, it was I felt, of course, there was an aspect that felt very uncomfortable, but for some reason there was also something I just felt natural about, just being in complete silence with him. We didn't say anything, we're just looking at each other and for the longest time, and it was just an interesting experience. I've told people about this, and I've tried to do that experiment again with some other friends, and sometimes it's always interesting, you know, it's always an interesting experience, and the reactions, the thoughts that come up, and like and sometimes people take it the wrong way, you know. I don't know what goes in the you know through their head, but but I think you really get to know somebody in that silence. It's a powerful moment. It's a there's an exchange, there's communication happening even when there are no words. And that is so interesting, so powerful. That one would be able to communicate without saying anything. And going back to the crystal quiet, I mean, I forgot where I read this quote, but uh I came across it at one point and I loved it. I think it says something like, Words are limited, images are limited, but silence is pregnant. And that's another one that blew my mind, you know. I don't even remember who quoted that or who wrote it. So if anyone knows, let me know. It blew my mind because I thought it's so true, you know, like when you're acting on stage or when you're in a gathering and and you're in complete silence, anything can happen. As a performer, if you've ever been on stage and and you just let whispers kind of go down, you wait and you wait. And at some point you s you just wait till everyone gets quiet. Because that means you're holding their attention in the palm of your hand. And I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of responsibility in that. I'm not saying you should use that to an advantage or to take advantage at all, but it's a shared experience. That means that in that moment they don't know what you're gonna do, you don't even know what you're gonna do. Not completely, because you don't know the exchange, especially in a live performance, you know. Because it's very different in film, you know, theater and performances, they're just so different. Anything can happen in those moments because you don't know that interchange of energy and how it's gonna go with each different person. No one has ever lived that moment ever before, and no one will ever live it ever again. So that exchange that is happening in that moment, it's so precious and it's so powerful, especially when it's shared in such a big group. That's why they also say that at movie theaters, there's also a special feeling because it's a shared emotion, you know, even though the screen is not live and you know the performances aren't happening live, but the people, all the people that are sitting there going through this cathartic moment together, experiencing an emotion or thoughts at the same time, is very powerful and it it connects you in a way that it's a it's definitely an experience and it never repeats itself. And so I I think it's um so important to pay attention that if I think if we spent more time doing things in this full manner, in this total manner. I know um Krishna Murthy also talks a lot about this, being able to pay attention in a total manner, to give your entire self to that moment, to what you're doing, whether that's reading, writing, right now I'm talking to you all, and even though it's recording, I lived this moment with my reflection in the camera. And if you're listening, you will experience this moment, and therefore we have a shared moment. It's different than live performance, but it's still a shared moment. And every everything we do, whether it's preparing a meal, whether it's dancing, whether it's uh singing in the shower or driving to work, or even a phone call with any friend. I think it would benefit everyone to just or anyone like myself in particular, you know. I try this, you know, I I do try, that's why I made the podcast and the description I put. I also want this to be an exploration of what it means to live as an end in itself, not as an as a means to an end, because I think the the way that connects to presence and attention is that if you're paying full attention to something, if I am fully here in my mind and my mind is not going off elsewhere thinking, oh god, what am I gonna do for dinner later, or what am I going to do about this issue that came up, or oh, I got this message, I got this email. If I'm right here, if I'm fully present, you can feel it. And if you're in front of other people, if you're at work, if you're doing any sort of activity, when you do something in a whole manner, in a total manner, I think it has more energy, more power, more presence, more fullness and more energy than if you do anything in a half-assed way, in a half-assed manner, because it's divided. Your attention has been cut, divided. And if we were to live that way as much as we can, because it's not easy, we forget all the time, and there's moments we just it's impossible to be fully present at every moment. We do have the the mind that observes and then the observed mind, the the conscious mind and the mind that is conscious of itself. And so there are going to be moments when we are thinking of the future because we do need to make future plans and we do need to incorporate that into our daily lives and think about the past because that helps us and allows us to reflect over things we've done. Because that's how we learn from everything. But the power that comes from being in the present allows us to do things, I think, in an integrated way that serves as an end in itself, with intention, because you're doing something with intention, and I don't mean, you know, in your head you're telling yourself, I'm doing this in order to get to that or to do to get this from somebody. That's what it means. So when you're doing something, I mean, Immanuel Kant was the first one who came up with the with that term, you know, means to an end and an end in itself. I think it was his uh his categorical imperative that he came up with. People can feel used when, and you can sense that. You know, I know from personal experience when you're doing something to get something in return for something else, or you befriend somebody because they are well connected with somebody, or you want to get ahead in your career, or you want to do whatever it may be, you know, there's so many different ways of doing things as a means to an end as opposed to an end in itself. What it means when it's talking about doing things as an end in itself is if I'm reading and just reading for the sake of reading, I don't have to post it on Instagram, I don't have to show it to anybody. If I'm singing, I can sing in the shower and enjoy it, and I'm just singing for myself and nobody, I don't need to post it. If I make food, I don't need to share that with the world. It is a hard way to live. It is not easy to be conscious of that continually throughout the day or throughout your life. I I really strive, I really tried my best to do things in this way, and then yet I catch myself talking on the phone and just putting them on speaker while I'm texting somebody else or even on the computer trying to look up something that I just didn't have time to because they called, and no matter what, I'm not doing something for the sake of doing it. And I'm trying to get better. I'm trying to be honest with myself and admit when I just don't really want to talk to this person, or I just really need time to myself. I say yes to all these projects that maybe I should say no to so that I can have time for my own projects, or I do care about this person and I want to hang out and spend time with my friends, but at the same time, I I need time to recover, or even just rest and relax. And my inner self also needs to go on a date with me, and so that voice, I'm I'm trying to get better at listening to that voice as that relationship has developed and it's gotten stronger as I've you know, uh the longer I've been sober, and you know, once I decided to face that dark side of me and finally integrate it and accept it as part of myself, I think that voice started getting louder, and it that inner voice and that honesty with myself just it's getting a little better each day. I mean it's not easy. There's times when I still try to justify my own actions to myself, which is crazy and ridiculous, you know. Like I also want to do an episode about blushing because Charles Darwin wrote a piece in his book, in one of his books, about his research on blushing, on you know, that he conducted and some studies he did. And I think it's so interesting, uh, and it ties back. Into what I was saying about shame earlier. That it's funny how you know you can do something during the day, and at the moment you're like, oh, you know, who cares? Oh well, you know, it's I just yeah, a mistake, I'm human, whatever, it's a mistake, and and you brush it away, but then it comes back to haunt you for some, you know, and and it makes me wonder like why, why is it if it's such a tiny thing or such a tiny detail, why does it come back around and bite me in the ass? And it's like a snake, you know, it just comes and like a scorpion, it just stings me, you know, reminds me of what I did, and it can seem very minor, but I think our brain also likes to play those tricks on ourselves. My mind will convince me that what I did at the moment was fine, was okay. But then there's this other part of me that feels ashamed or guilty of it or guilty. And it eats it starts to eat away at me. And it cut it it is in those moments that it talks about in the book, the the the quote, the crystal quiet. Because it is when you're asleep, when you're trying to fall asleep at night, that those thoughts come back and you have to face them, or you can push them away, but they will keep swirling. All in the back of your head for the longest time. If you don't deal with them, they get bigger and they rot inside you if you let them. That's what I've discovered, is that I need to deal with it as soon as it happens because it has to do with a character trait that maybe I can change or that I can improve. And in growth, I mean growth is always hard but it and painful, but it is worth it always. And I do want to move forward and I do want to improve my behavior, and which is why that's why I like to study human nature and human behavior, because I I do want to see where I can get better, because I think we are all mirrors to each other, and what others reflect to me about myself is something that I need to change, you know. If something rubs me the wrong way, there is a reason that says something about me that I need to go and look into because there must be a reason I am avoiding this. And if I want to grow, I need to deal with this issue. I can't just ignore it. But going back to the book, real quick, I know I took a tangent, I went off on a tangent, but what's strange about this is that this whole quote pops up, these paragraphs pop up in a chapter where the character Gumbrel, who's a businessman and uh entrepreneur, he meets this woman, Emily. And at first he thinks, oh, there's a strangeness about her. He feels that um she has this quality to her that conveys a lot of peace. There's things about her he doesn't understand, and and there's a bit of mystery there, but not in a seductive way or sexual way. He makes it very clear, Huxley makes it very clear that he finds her character fascinating because she's so different. She represents such an authentic, raw spirit or character that Gumbrel is not used to being around. That he he falls in love with her, of course, and is drawn to her, but at the same time, I don't want to spoil it for anyone who does want to read it, but in this chapter, he's you know, he goes on a walk with her and they they go to a concert and they're getting to know each other and they spend time with each other. And he starts to reflect on what the future would be like for them and how he he's trying to figure out, I think this is what I want, I think this is what my soul needs to feel. I want to feel, I want what she has, I want to feel that type of peace that he can feel, he can sense, she experiences it on a daily basis. And yet, because of his character, because of how he's always in search and seeking, you know, going after money and uh notoriety, and like he wants to rub elbows with all the the right people, the intellectuals, the the fashionable circle in London, and that there's a moment where you know they make plans to meet up at the house. She's staying in out in the country, um, outside the city, and he and she and they spend one day where they are, you know, going on a walk, they're out in nature, they're he feels very connected, and that's why he mentions this quote. And they're in the garden, they're they're having a a very beautiful moment, and and he says the quote, and he and he thinks back on all the other women he's had affairs with, women who are married, and he likes to think of himself as like the complete man is the phrase Huxley chose for his character, you know. He describes himself, he he wears his fake mustache that Emily does not like because she can tell it's not authentic, so he takes it off one day when he goes to spend time with her. But but with other women, with other people, he he's so insecure that he has to wear this fake mustache that makes gives him that false sense of confidence that he believes he needs in order to get the attention of women and to feel like a man and the complete man. He thinks it's this image that he has created for himself that's not even real. But with her, he feels she can see through to him. She in a way is so transparent and represents this trait of being transparent and honest that where he he just he fails that he he can't even, he's like, I can't even wear my mustache with her. I the fake one or his beard, I don't know if it's a beard, it's just this whole thing. Because he feels that she will see through to it and know that he's being fake, and I think that's so true, and even from a personal perspective, I know I've I can feel and I can I know people can sense when I'm being inauthentic, and I'm sure other people can sense when I'm being uh fake, and what's beautiful is that you know he starts to make plans with her and you know of them possibly getting married and her being because they even spend a night together and he doesn't, they don't even have sex, they just he does, you know, touch her and he, you know, moves his hand along her body, but they don't have intercourse and and yet there's this very strong connection, and he feels an emotional and spiritual attachment and connection to her, and so they make plans that they're gonna meet up out in the country where she's been staying, outside of London, and he makes that plan and he sets you know, he writes it into his his little notebook, and he even gets the ticket, I believe, or is on his way to getting the ticket, and he's on his way to meeting her when Mrs. Viviash, one this other character who I mentioned before, she tells him, No, no, come get a come get a quick meal with me or a drink with me real fast, and please I need someone to talk to, and she's just in general, those characters tend to be more, you know, gossip and drama, and you know, they have all the like fashionable inner circle gossip, and they always like, Did you hear about what happened to this artist? And did you know what happened to this writer? And and he can tell, and he mentions it in the next chapter. He feels the call to just say no to Mrs. Viviash, who he used to be attracted to, and who he used to have a uh an affair with and a relationship with, but and he wants to say no because he knows that what he has with Emily is deeper and more profound and and authentic, and yet, and that she represents in just in terms of literary symbolism, what she represents is the natural. She lives out in the country, she's always in silence, spending time with the birds, the animals outside, and she just has this peace about her. And these other characters, they represent more, you know, worldly, materialistic, consumerist, you know, qualities that that are distractions for him, you know. And he's pulled so strongly in that direction that in the chapter he doesn't end up going. He decides to go have lunch with Mrs. Viviash. And since they get so you know drunk at the lunch that then they go on a carriage ride and they're they're just driving around everywhere and paying visits to their friends, and it's all just a hoot and like a wild time, and but he regrets it so deeply the next day when he does, he thinks he can just message her, send her a telegram, or um show up one day later, and oh everything's gonna be fine. I can just show up, and he realizes he knows before he even gets there. He takes the train, he arrives, and he knows she's not going to be there, and he realizes it, he regrets it deeply, but at the same time accepts it. He knows. I think there's a part where he mentions that that is who he is, and that that's what he chose, and that and it's crazy to see it, to live those moments and read it, and I think that's very great that Huxley put it in this way where in it's it's subtle the way he builds it up, and yet it's powerful how it's so reflective of our culture and our how difficult it is to reject the materialistic, to reject all the distractions that do distract you from the natural, from nature, from that peace, from that crystal quiet that because that's what she represents. And he felt he was becoming more peaceful at the more time he spent with her, but he can also tell that I mean in I think Huxley also makes it a point to show that the contrast between all the other characters and Emily, you know, that she was this crystal quiet in the entire novel. Because it does represent that part of us that yearns for the truth, that yearns for honesty, for transparency, for wholeness, for this connection to nature, this connection to ourselves, to develop our essence. She represents essence, I think. She repres and that is what I think the crystal quiet is. It's a home, it's a place for our essence to shine, to develop, and to just be, to exist fully, freely, with no bars, no, because I think we can put, make a prison of our essence, and we we I do think we create all these image, we create an image of ourselves, and I do think we create all these egos and masks. That's why so many people have written about the masks people wear and that and these selves that are manufactured to be something, these personas. And it's like an onion they cover up the or like a matrushka doll. I mean the it's crazy how I felt like Matroshka doll. Just so empty inside because I didn't know who I was and I had to remove all these fake selves to get to the real one, to the essence, and I didn't know it was there, and I or maybe I felt it, I'm sure I was aware of it deep down. I just didn't know how to reach it, how to get to it. I didn't know how to allow it to come out, allow it to exist, or to accept it. That not only does the book help to show this, but also I think going back to the points I was making before it's so hard to live in that way, you know, to do things just for the sake of doing them, to be transparent, to live as essence. And how to know where that line is, like how I think what I struggled struggle with the most is knowing the difference. What is a mask and what is not, what part of me is the false or still trying to mask itself and what part of me is essence. It's so difficult to try and make sense of it and uncover it. It's like I'm always digging and asking God to help me, you know, reveal things to me, give me wisdom to understand. Or to discern is the right word, to discern. Not necessarily right from wrong, but the falls from the real. And especially now in an age where we read, you know, we have access to everything online. So much information, you don't know what you're listening to, you don't know where the like the source of it, what is real, what is not real. It's hard to trust things that you don't know. Like I, you know, I going back to the whole psychiatric part of my life that I mentioned where I did start taking medication, and and then for a while I was like, wait, what is it that I'm even taking? Like, why do I just blindly trust? That's another thing. Like, why I mean I know it's it's almost a paradox. I know that in you know that faith is important, you know, when we take leaps of faith, whether that's in our career or when it comes to God, or you know, doing something we think is right, you know. I moved to Austin, Texas recently again. I came back to Austin, Texas after 10 years, and it just happened so quickly and so very spur of the moment that I it does make me wonder like I wonder why why I chose to do that, but it might have seemed a bit impulsive maybe to other people, but it seemed right at the time, and I think that's what I mean. Like it's hard. So that is something I always ask God, and I I do question this a lot. Like, how do I know when something is is based on essence and when it's real, when it's when how do I know when I'm doing something as an end in itself as opposed to a means to an end? Like it's so hard to discern. And I do think only God can give us the discernment to see because in the past I I've experienced it where I for so long I tried to understand things that I could not, and I think God wasn't allowing me to see certain things until I was ready to see them. And that makes sense to me now. Whereas in the past it didn't. I I got very frustrated and angry at God. I used to hate, well, I'll go into that later, but there I think that that's where wisdom comes in. Wisdom is different than knowledge, and it it comes in in order to tell you it's a nine feeling, it's it's it's your conscience, I think. And I think your conscience is the one that leads you. It is like that pulsating voice that I was talking about, like this flame that is pulsating, that's guiding you through life, and it and your conscience is directing you so that when you do things and something feels off about it, there is a reason why it feels off. And if you start to listen to that little voice, which is not a voice at all, inside you, it will direct your life and it will show you if you listen to it, if you allow it and accept it, it will point out the ways in which you can grow as a person that you can become better. Because things will start slowly becoming more clear, less foggy and indefinable, I think, because that's how it was for me in the past. I just couldn't tell the difference. I would just do things, I guess, like a child, thinking, well, I feel like doing this, I want to do this, I want this, why can't I do this? And yet now that I'm just I think a little more conscious, I purposefully I can sense when that inner self, my inner self is telling me I don't really want to do this, or I don't this something doesn't feel right, or it's like a compass and it points me in the direction that I I need to heed. And part of it, I know I've been going on a rant, but part of it is that I think a lot of for me it was a lack of confidence, and I had a lot of fear in my life. I think fear it's so hard. I mean, I can get into so many times. Topics. I think we can either live our life by fear or love. There are only those two. And if if if you would allow your life to be directed by fear, there can be no love in it. You're not allowing space for love to enter. And if you live a life as soon as you allow love into the picture, it changes your entire perspective and it dismantles all the fear. Like quickly, instantly, it just takes away all the fear. And suddenly you have all this confidence to do the things that you're meant to do, to do everything you believe in and everything you believe you should do. The path just becomes clear as soon as you make that choice, as soon as you allow love to direct your life and you and over the years, you know, what I used to think of as love has completely changed. My perception of love has evolved and it's gotten deeper and more nuanced and uh complex in the sense and yet simple because you know in AA I was told, well, you know, step two is you either believe in believe in something higher than yourself or you don't. And it's that simple, you know, you just you either do or you don't. And I think that's what love is too. You either love or you don't. You either, and I, you know, and I do want to make an episode about Eric Frum because in his book, The Art of Loving, that he mentions that love is love is not what we think of as like the passion and the romantic aspect. I mean it includes it, but it it's much deeper. Love is not only is it a choice, but love is an attitude. So in choosing to be loving, you if you do everything with the attitude of love, you are it's almost like you're painting or um everything is tinged with love, and therefore the way you do everything will feel like love and will feel loving because you did it with love, and and that'll change your entire life. I will go into that in some other episode. I probably will end the episode here. I know I've gone on many different tangents, but I feel like that's how my brain works, and I like uh discovering things. I feel like whenever I do sit and write, that is what happens in my brain, is I can just go from one idea will lead into an inside of something else that will lead me to a completely different topic that is semi, or it is related in some way, because I'm sure overall, as time passes, it's almost like I move back and I see the bigger picture and I understand the web of it all and the web of things, as Herman Hess wrote in it, was it Siddhartha, yes, where he talks about how you know I don't want to ruin that book either, but at the end of the book, you know, I mean, the character who has searched, I mean, he also goes on a on a journey and is searching for for some type of truth as well. And what he discovers, you know, is this kind of that reality is like a a web and it it transcends. I think Frum also writes about this, Eric Frum also writes about this, and they both it's interesting how you know, the more books you read, eventually there are plenty of similarities between different minds and different thinkers, and they're saying the same idea or conveying the same concept, that if you are able to perceive it in that way, if you can transcend seeing the just the dualities and the opposing forces. Because the perceiving might I think the way Eric Frum, I'm gonna have to find the quote and so I can say it correctly, but I think the way Eric Frum words it is duality is not an aspect of reality itself, but an aspect of the perceiving mind. And therefore it can be transcended, it can be I don't know what else he says in the quote, but that's how he words it. That means duality is one way of looking at it, and then there's the transcendence of that perception. Uh, but I'll get into that later. Thank you for listening, thank you for being a part of my podcast. I'm happy to finally bring all my thoughts and be able to express the the things that I feel and that I love about all these uh writers and things that have all already that I've already been writing about for so many years and that I'm finally able to put into words and just converse with you and open it up. I do want to open this up as a dialogue between you and I, between all of us, and have it be this community where we can all share our thoughts, and I want it to be a dialogue of some sort where we can learn from each other, and therefore, if there's something that doesn't make sense, you can add it or comment on it or share your own thoughts on it, or even questions, and we can further that way we can further explore any any of these topics together, any of these themes, and see where that will lead us. And obviously there is no final limit, there's no final say or truth. I think every one lives their personal truth and lives their own journey towards their the discovery of their truth, and they have their rhythm and process of getting there. There's no right way of getting to the different points of growth. I think everyone does at their own time, and that's why it's so important to also just be able to share with one another and communicate, and I'm sure that I've learned so many things from what other people have said and shared and the things other people have written. If some of these things were had not been written, or I had not come across, even people I know, like things they've they've mentioned to me, or every day we can learn something new, and I do invite you all to just you know keep your eyes open, keep yourself willing to learn, and that way we can continue in this path of growth and transformation. You can go to my website, thecrystalquiet.com, where I have my podcast, as well as I have some other things on there. I will start having much more nonfiction essays and some other writing photos and videos. So you can check out my stuff there. You can also support my channel, you can subscribe. Thank you for being here and listening.

unknown 1:59:02

Goodbye.