A Student of Wisdom

Hello friend,

Yes, this is a newsletter, but you are a human being, and so am I. I am not using any AI to write this. I write as I would talk to you if we met in person today.

I cannot forget that behind an email newsletter, there is just you and me.

Some kind of magic happened that you are still receiving and perhaps reading this, and the same kind of magic makes me write to you today, after a year and a half of silence.

I just miss writing.

A friend reminded me recently that it was nice for him when I wrote, so here I am. If it helps anyone, it is worth writing. I love writing, so at least it helps me to reflect on my life. Hopefully, you find something valuable in it, too.

By all means, hit the reply button and give me some news too.

Oh and if you wish to unsubscribe the link is at the bottom, pardon the intrusion if it feels out of place and I will never write to you again. I am not trying to sell anything or convince you of anything. I am just sharing a bit of what I am learning.

In fact, one of the reasons I stopped writing is the realization that I should not give advice to anyone if I cannot live by every word I write. This is a very ambitious goal in my writing, so humility is absolutely key. I am learning that too and will write about it.

I am not perfect either, who is really?

What is “perfect” anyway? I feel that nature is perfect in all its manifestations, a tree seems always absolutely perfect to me, even if it grows sideways.

Maybe everyone is perfect, even those I see as evil, like those behind the current wars. They all have excellent reasons to do what they do. Maybe everything is divine will, and the apparent chaos the world is in is also absolutely perfect. I don’t know.

I won’t be too long today. I just wanted to say hi and say that I am going to write again, possibly every Sunday here, and more frequently in my journal.

In the eyes of many, I have undergone a strong transformation over the last 10 years, and I have accumulated so-called “spiritual experiences” almost full-time.

Vipassana 10-day silent meditations, countless and sometimes absolutely extreme rituals and ceremonies of all kinds with numerous indigenous tribes and powerful plants in the Amazon jungle, Africa, but also in the western world, often with indigenous leaders living in slums or near homeless themselves.

I almost died, maybe at least ten times, I can remember.

I definitely learned a lot. I went beyond myself and beyond any conditioning I had accumulated all my life, somewhat beyond material life, and I discovered people, practices, and ways of living I had no idea existed.

The contrast with my past life as a technology entrepreneur “in the matrix” has been so violent that it has not been very easy to balance. It has honestly been extremely difficult.

Most of the rituals I have participated in, and sometimes learned to offer myself in, have been strong and transformative, but also “secret.”

“What is secret is sacred and what is sacred is secret,” told me once a great teacher.

I got in trouble countless times with both indigenous people and people from the material world, in which I was born.

I also made countless mistakes as an entrepreneur before; mistakes are good for learning, sometimes in the hardest way. The worst mistakes are the best teachers. There are many mistakes I would have preferred avoiding, had I known the consequences or what I was getting into.

Now it is done, and I am still here. Breathing.

I learned silence and respecting secrets, this is why I archived all my previous newsletters, hundreds. This makes writing and talking, even thinking, tricky.

Thoughts are the origin of everything. When I turn a thought into words, I know the consequences now, so I try to be careful.

“How do you spell it?”

This says it all, when I say something, or I write something, it is a “spell”, so I’d better be careful with my intention behind it; it has to always be with a good intention.

In the same way, when I listen to anyone or read anything, I am being influenced and often manipulated. I can now feel much more than before the energy of someone next to me without a word or read on his or her face, and especially his or her eyes, information I wasn’t perceiving before.

It is both a gift and a curse. I will take it as a gift and improve myself enough so that the “curse” becomes a gift too.

A shaman, as people say in the Western world, told me once, “We don’t give this plant to many people because they aren’t ready to see what it lets you see,” and “it is a permanent modification of the Self, not just another experience. It is there for life.” Truth. I wasn’t ready. It is done. Maybe I was, I will never know.

I have worked a lot on my ego; I successfully became nobody in many ways, until I became somebody again. Them nobody again. It is an infinite loop, and I still fall into the trap, as ego is useful if you don’t want to be a monk (which I highly respect).

My email inbox is very light, and so are my WhatsApp messages. I only occasionally check social media, as the manipulation there, especially with the growth of AI, is exponential and affecting me deeply.

Another teacher told me,

“After this, you will be more and more alone and won’t want to talk to anyone.”

This “spell” became definitely true, so after a year and a half of near silence and learning to live more and more alone, sometimes feeling like a hermit, happy mostly in nature with birds, trees, and native indigenous, I felt it was time to heal this too.

So here I am.

The rituals and ceremonies do not matter that much in the end; what matters is how I transform, live my life, and interact with others.

Why else do all this work? Life is the ceremony.

I wonder what I am coming back with? Well, I feel like a student of wisdom.

I am saying "a student" because I keep learning so much from my indigenous friends and everyone, really. Everyone has some wisdom to share, even when it is hard to see. When someone “triggers me,” it is a gift, as it reveals something in me that I need to work on.

I am a student of life and will write as such.

In fact, the more I progress, the more I realize I know nothing. It is with great effort that I decided to write again. Why share anything if I cannot apply all the lessons from what I learned to myself?

Well, as you well know, it is hard. Wisdom is hard. I am not a monk and likely will never be. I am still in many ways imperfect, but I feel more and more aware of what I still need to fix. I am now really interested in human connections again, while continuing my work as a student with nature and indigenous peoples.

We all have an opportunity to reinvent ourselves each day we wake up. We have an opportunity to be a better person and a better soul every single day we get to live this magical life.

I don’t see any other point in life than constantly improving ourselves.

Thanks for reading. I wish you all a great week.

Share any thoughts with me about this or about yourself by replying; I will read them.