Don't fall for this trap

Hi friend, and happy Sunday!

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I haven’t written for months. My Bwiti Iboga initiation in Gabon, Africa taught me to learn silence and observe more.

I archived all my hundreds of substack posts and podcasts except a handful. I also archived thousands of Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn updates.

I felt embarrassed by all that content, as if I were wearing old, dirty clothes. There is more to archive or delete…

I took it as a meditation to archive that photo of me with Richard Branson, that other photo of me with the Pope when Leila Janah took me to the Vatican, and so on.

How could I even post such things? What was I thinking?

The long integration of the initiation showed me how much of my past behavior was fueled by my need for love and recognition, and it was time to grow up.

I have spent a big part of my life seeking success in the eyes of others, really trying to be liked, famous, accepted, successful, wealthy, you name it.

Two weeks after turning 52, I am slowly learning not to need that outside love, to find it within, and to have the courage to be disliked.

I have stopped writing because I wanted to stop using it to seek love and attention, the same as social media. I wanted to feel the lack of likes, comments, reposts, and whatever other reward the online world had for me.

I’m back writing. Is this being back in the trap or being a hypocrite? I am only writing because I like it. It forces me to think about what feels important.

Sharing with others forces me to remember and understand myself better.

I decided to share one quick thought or learning in my smaller newsletter, my journal. Only subscribe to that one if you don’t mind receiving a short email every day when I’m in the writing mood.

In the last days, I wrote:
Don’t force anything that summarizes my current state of being
The necessity to stop fueling conflict inspired by the controversy of the opening of the French Olympic ceremony

As a daily practice, I try to listen to a great spiritual teacher or philosopher talk for a few minutes. I will share it here today instead of in my journal.

Here is today’s reminder by Alan Watts.

Don’t fall into that trap.

You’re supposed to work to earn enough money to have enough leisure time for playing and having fun. This is the most ridiculous division of things.

Everything can (and should) be turned into pleasure, a dance, art, and love—even washing dishes or cleaning up trash. You only have to wash one dirty dish at a time. Because if it is what you are doing, there is only the now. Ignore everything else; there is no past and no future, so wash that dish and don’t wonder if you got it clean like your mother would get upset at you if you did not; turn the cleaning movement into a dance. 

The secret of life

Don't make any distinction between work and play, and don't imagine for one minute that you have to be serious. Be completely engaged in what you are doing here and now.

Instead of calling it work, realize that everything is play. 

In Hindu philosophy, the whole creation is PLAY, and the world is an ILLUSION (in Latin the root of the word illusion is “ludere”, to play)

All that is going on should not be taken seriously

You are asking yourself - are you doing anything useful? Useful for what?

If you take that permanent seriousness attitude, survival is a drag. The world has become what it has become because of this attitude, and this is why we invented the atomic bomb, and conflict is everywhere.

We should not take anything seriously. I’m not serious. I wrote these words from Alan Watts, and he said he wasn’t serious about telling them either. 

I am sincere, paraphrasing Alan Watts saying he’s only sincere, not serious.

The angels fly because they take themselves lightly.

Adapted and inspired by this talk from Alan Watts: