We arrive at every moment already complete, though the world would have us believe otherwise. This reflection is an invitation to release the illusions of control, to see beyond the masks, and to remember the essence that has always been within.
. . .
Congratulations. You made it. Everything you said you would achieve — every experience, every outcome, every eventuality, every potentiality — has come to fruition exactly as you imagined it before you ever entered this game. Is that destiny or fate? Was it pre-scripted, predetermined, already set in stone before you drew your first breath? That depends entirely on the level and quality of perception you’re reaching toward, drawing from, and considering — on what entering this realm held for you, and what it would offer to you throughout this short journey.
While we move through this simulacrum, we may believe ourselves to be of it. Yet it is here that everything is an offer, and all is illusion.
So what is this tension in your chest, that knot in your stomach, this pounding in your skull, the ringing in your ears all about? What is all this discomfort if this is exactly what you wanted to experience and experiment with in this one brief lifetime?
You want to keep blaming those who raised you, taught you, showed you what was supposed to be the way. But they too acted exactly and perfectly in the ways they were meant to — to lead you to this very time and place. Keep blaming if you like, but you should be congratulating and thanking them just as much as you thank and congratulate yourself. You are exactly what you are, who you are, where you are, why you are, and how you intended to be.
You’ve tried many other paths — affirming and manifesting, reorienting and planning, hacking and redesigning, refining and redefining. And yet somehow you always came back to yourself. Time and again, you returned to the authentic path. Sure, you took some of the ingredients along and folded them into your recipe. But that too was as planned, as you wanted it.
Could it be that the pain and discomfort you feel are both a sign that you’re on the right path and at the same time their opposite? Could it be that regardless of choices, achievements, and failures, you are exactly where you intended to be? How could it be otherwise? Whose universe is this anyway?
You’ve been seeking the true path, shaping and reshaping yourself to fit into some illusory version of a non-existent entity. And yet, the more you seek and perform the character that is quietly desperate, the more inevitably you return to who you always were and always will be. All seeking leads to remembering. All remembering is enlightenment. Enlightenment is unburdening — releasing the impositions, the layers, the lies, the distortions and deceptions. And yet every one of these was perfect, serving its purpose, allowing you to explore and experience all of who you really are, and what you truly wanted.
You know there are no victims here — only volunteers.
Certainly this is confounding in a world that offers both the most gruesome and disgusting, the darkest and most evil expressions, as well as the most blissful and beautiful, ecstatic and euphoric. Of course you’ve danced on the spectrum in between, witnessing and embodying countless shades of paradox. Strange, bewildering, confusing, even alienating — this is the earthbound human life. No matter how much you try to make sense of it, it leaves you wanting. Once again disconnected from remembering. Once again disconnected from your soul essence — your immortal within.
It isn’t for the mind to reconcile what cannot be reconciled by the mind. The vast extremity of the living paradox is not something we can contain or recapitulate to any satisfaction. We can only come to understand that our story, our path, our life, our very being has played out perfectly as intended, even if appearances suggest otherwise. Even if persistent emotional, psychological, and physical pain would have us believe otherwise.
You may not fully comprehend it yet, but at some point you will. You will remember and return to the truth. It will be beyond words, beyond calculation, beyond algorithms and logic. It is a knowing, not a rationalization. Rationalization belongs to the daily routines and coping mechanisms, the repeated patterns of behavior where we bullshit our way into positions — a job, a career, a relationship — while bullshitting ourselves as long as we maintain the façade.
We wear all manner of masks in this lifetime, layering illusion upon illusion, deceiving ourselves at every turn — and yet failing at every turn. Not failing in the sense of missing the mark, but in the opposite sense: failing forward, back into our true self. Returning to the authentic. Returning to the remembering.
All the patterns of self-sabotage and self-limitation fall under the same illusion. They are threads of the same spell, the same trap of control. Our disappearance into the identity — the earthbound avatar, the character on the screen — creates fertile ground for the impositions to take hold. The mechanistic matrix of the modern world conditions us to hate ourselves for every little thing — to never feel like enough, to never feel like we have enough, to believe we must master ourselves according to artificial constructs and marketable ideals. We are fed an artifice of beauty and attractiveness, even told to swap gender roles or deny our own biological sex, severing us from our organic humanity and pushing us toward a technology-infused, transhumanist nightmare.
We are told we should want more, accumulate more, demand more. That we should always seek what is better, faster, safer, more effective. That we should prioritize wealth and busyness, productivity and performance above all else.
Taking full ownership of this moment, of this life’s momentum, is not about admitting defeat or feigning resignation to the matrix we play within. It’s easy to throw around words like autonomy, authority, agency, sovereignty — all the terms we cling to in order to reclaim control. But it is this very notion of control that is the issue.
How much control can we truly have in a reality that is paradox itself — a realm of extreme polarity, pulled this way and that, magnetized and unbalanced with every thought, every breath, every heartbeat? Life flirts endlessly with balance and unity, with that untouchable space we imagine will finally bring peace. We chase it endlessly, believing it lies somewhere “out there.” But it never has. It has always been here, within, anchored in the present.
If we can touch the gratitude that seems forever elusive — not the gratitude of resignation or platitude, not the hollow pleasantry of capitulation, but genuine gratitude — we may touch that peaceful potential, if only for a breath. Life moves at the speed of thought, and most of our thoughts spiral us into the artificial, away from the authentic. But forgetting was the choice.
As Tom Barnett would remind us:
“Everything is an offer… Remembering is about soul essence… Nothing of the world can reach that place (essence) — but everything in the world can help you remember it (offer).”
And, in this way, remembering can be the choice, too.
Temet nosce