In a world driven by control, distraction, and digital noise, what does it mean to truly live authentically? The Instrument explores the quiet power of surrender, the illusion of control, and the deeper wisdom that emerges when we let life live through us. This reflection invites you to examine the stories you tell yourself — and the freedom that awaits when you stop lying to your own soul.
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“To love living in an authentic way is to let life live through you. We don’t control anything within or without. All we can do is learn to better comprehend, accept, and surrender to its perfect and imperfect symmetry.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
There’s nothing to remember, and there’s nothing to forget. By allowing life to live through us, we stop lying to ourselves. Jacob Liberman might call it “effortless living.” The more we think, plan, and attempt to orchestrate, the more we deceive ourselves into believing we have control over life — or its seemingly strange and unpredictable outcomes.
When you lie, you must remember the details: to whom you lied, the degree of the lie, and why you lied. If you encounter that person again, you must either maintain the lie or come clean. But when you lie to yourself, that maneuvering doesn’t work. You cannot lie to yourself — not truly — because some aspect of your consciousness is always aware, always watching, ever-present. No matter how often or how well you practice it, you know when you’re lying. So the only way the lie can continue serving you — good or bad — is by repetition. Upon waking and before sleep, repeat the lie. Repeat the story, the narrative, to calcify and solidify the belief, keeping your mind as busy as possible to defer the inconvenient, the uncomfortable — and the inescapable.
If one is willing, they may clearly observe how this masking process eventually manifests as disease or illness — emotional, psychological, biological, or spiritual. A lie demands constant maintenance: repetition, reaffirmation, endless effort. It is synthetic, artificial, and guarantees harm. This is not how we develop discernment, resilience, or philosophical literacy. Nor does it nourish our vital need for agency, autonomy, or stability. It’s a house built upon sand, weakening our character, dissolving our confidence, and subverting our courage.
When you live fully in the present — open, clear, free — in a meditative, honest, and authentic state with life, you don’t need to lie. You don’t even need to think, for thinking is not knowing. You don’t need to lie or offer up pretense to others — and most importantly, you no longer have to lie to yourself. You no longer need to fabricate reasons to justify the lie or explain to yourself why, in that moment, it felt necessary.
“To love living in an authentic way is to let life live through you..”
In the modern era, this is a conundrum. Materialism has supplanted our better knowing, and much of our sensemaking has been outsourced to technology. We forget that we are the ultimate technology, and anything created in its stead becomes a crutch — a dependence — while also serving as a convenient scapegoat. Our tasks, schedules, priorities, values, and knowledge are now mediated by machines and the network effect. Instead of living authentically, we live through devices, video calls, blue-light LEDs, screens, avatars, and pseudonyms. Social media is a hopeless, algorithmic substitute, guiding our attention further from source, truth, and reality with every scroll and swipe.
“We don’t control anything within or without.”
This idea terrifies many. How about you?
We’ve been conditioned to believe in overcoming — to control circumstances, interests, investments, and outcomes. We’re taught it requires grit, hard work, constant reshaping of self — pushing ourselves to force reality into alignment with our will. And when confusion, agitation, and frustration inevitably arise, we escape. We distract ourselves — often through the same means: overwork, blind faith, micromanaging our children’s lives. We project our unmet needs outward — onto communities, politics, institutions — and isolate ourselves in a misguided pursuit of safety and control. Yet we fail to connect this overstimulation and oversensitivity with the desperate planning and controlling that caused it.
“All we can do is learn to better comprehend, accept, and surrender to its perfect and imperfect symmetry.”
Change is the fundamental truth of this earthbound life. Our reality exists to serve change, flow, and the dynamism of perfect-imperfect symmetry. The moment you turn your gaze away, what was is no more. And since now is the only verifiable moment, time as a construct becomes irrelevant.
How do we comprehend, accept, and surrender to this perfection when we’ve been taught all our lives to think and do otherwise? As with all things of this nature, the path lies in remembrance, in returning, in unburdening — in enlightenment. It may sound cliché, but truth is true for everything, and everyone, always. We may not immediately discern the symmetry. Yet it remains our lifelong challenge — should we choose to accept it — to reclaim that ontological capacity. To contend with the ever-changing, fluid nature of a life that contains, but never constrains.
Materialistic complexity and epistemic conformity are learned — coached, offered, contracted, and even forced. Natural law is not. To comprehend, accept, and surrender is to embrace the lightness of uncertainty, the perfection amid chaos. This is not passivity or submission; it is an active, fluid co-creation — in every breath, every heartbeat. It is uncommon sense, a presence beyond words, beyond science or religion.
We don’t need to think about the workings of our body — chemical, electrical, functional. It just works. The body heals and adapts. Inputs inform outputs. Our training is aligned with our intended expression. The outer world is an extension of the same playground. Life just works, effortlessly. We choose whether to enervate or energize the process — primarily through our focus and attention. Our trust — in ourselves, our intentions, and our actions — is shaped by nuance, morphic resonance, and the interplay of the singular and the collective.
Let life live through you.
You are the instrument — tuned to a unique range of frequencies you were born into. You are the voice, the singer, and the medium for the message.
Solvitur ambulando