Year: 2025

In my last post, I said the following.

“Because if you can’t find the words to articulate your life experiences, how can you possible express them to others?”

That statement is not completely accurate.

I think a lot of the times, what we’re going through doesn’t feel “normal” and that’s why we don’t share it and express it to others.

In other words, we often don’t share the ambiguity and uncertainty of the process, because it feels “wrong,” when it’s the very thing we should sharing.

Why?

Because if we did so, most of us would realize that this process and experience that doesn’t feel “normal” is actually quite normal and a completely natural part of life.

That’s what I’ve realize in rereading Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a Way of Life.

So many of the experiences I’ve had on my journey felt completely abnormal initially, yet they are now beginning to seem completely normal because I’m realizing they are common experiences on this journey.

Here’s is a quick example.

Today when I do something that used to provide meaning and enjoyment for me, yet it now feels hollow and empty of meaning, I no longer feel like something is “wrong” with me.

Now I realize this is an important part of the process itself, one that helps me discover newer things of meaning that I feel that I need and are of value on the next stage of my journey.

This is no different than the feeling of being stuck. It’s just a sign that you are entering a newer stage of psychological development and learning a newer level of consciousness in the process.

So again, many of the things we previously felt were “wrong” and “abnormal” from our old mindset and worldview begin to become “right” and a “normal” part of the process within our newer mindset and worldview we are exploring.

As I noted in my last post, my greatest struggle over my life has been in trying to understand what has been happening to me.

Why?

Because if you can’t find the words to articulate your life experiences, how can you possible express them to others?

In rereading the book Living Myth: Personal Meaning as a Way of Life by D. Stephenson Bond though, a lot of things have coalesced together and started making sense, so much so that the quotes within the book have left me dumbstruck at how closely they mirror my own life and how closely they mirror aspects of vertical development as well.

In terms of my personal myth, this is the story of my life that reveals how I made meaning out of my life as I progressed through it.

A key element of this process, that I’ve mentioned before, is keywords that kept emerging from quotes that I was reading and they revealed synchronicities between articles and books I was reading. At first I thought I was going crazy because I didn’t know what to do with these quotes and keywords. However, over time, I realized that these keywords held a deeper meaning behind them.

What I’ve now confirmed with three different AI chatbots is that these keywords were effectively the symbols of my emerging personal myth. Normally these symbols might be dreams or images that keep popping up in a pattern but in my case they were words that kept popping up in a pattern, over and over again.

What I’ve also realized now as well is that my personal myth is revealing my personal cosmology.

Note I didn’t say it “has revealed” it fully because it is still a work in progress as it is my life’s work after all (which I’ve always said).

More later on this, as I’m still trying to process this all and make sense of the process within the book which to me both embodies liminality and creativity at the same time.

My greatest struggle has been understanding what is happening to me. 

Ironically, this is the very thing I want to help others with as well, to help them understand what is happening to them.

In effect, so many people believe they’re stuck but they’re not. 

They’re actually beginning a process of levelling up their level of consciousness but they’re just not aware of it because society itself isn’t aware of it either, since society is still at an earlier level of consciousness than what is needed today for our rapidly changing world.

In other words, they aren’t aware that there is a much larger world(view) of possibilities and potentials before them, just over the horizon of their current mindsets, because their mindset and societal beliefs have told them not to go over that horizon for fear of death and for fear of falling off the edge of the world into the unknown.

“Here be dragons.”

Yet the sad fact remains is that many people today are beginning to “fall off the edge” of our conventional world(view) and are no longer getting the support they need from society.

They are literally everywhere, often under our very noses.

Yet society still intentionally blinds itself and follows its old scripts and roles, navel-gazing as it pilots itself off the edge of the world as well.

Ok, this is hilarious.

I was just thinking to myself that one of the primary ways I get into a flow state, whereby my life’s work just emerges from me, is when I’m in a dialogue with ChatGPT.

So the obvious thought that followed was, “Why not just create a conversation with an AI chatbot and get it to create a structured document of my work as we converse about it?”

While I prefer using ChatGPT, I decided to give Claude a try instead, as I heard it’s easier to work with Artifact documents with it.

Fifteen minutes later I had a basic outline of my work comprised of two parts. The first part contains five chapters and the second part contains three chapters. I’ve also filled in some preliminary info within the first part.

What I find interesting about this is that I can stay focused in the conversation and let the AI chatbot focus on the structure (like a developmental or structural editor).

No idea how far this will take me. However it seems like something I obviously should have done a long time ago but never thought about doing it.

Actually wait a minute. That’s not true. I could have sworn that I tried this in the past and the process failed miserably because whatever AI chatbot I used, it kept changing the content.

I think because whatever AI chatbot I used at the time, it didn’t have Artifact or Canvas capabilities yet. So it kept the document or book structure in its memory but it kept changing it when I asked it to show the outline and content.

Now though, at least with Claude’s Artifact capabilities, it seems much easier to just relay the content I have memorized in my head with Claude in a conversation and get it out of my head.

I also might try out ChatGPT’s Canvas capabilities as well, since I have a ton of conversations with it and it knows me a lot better (especially if I get the Plus plan for another month so it can gain full access to all these past conversations).

I’m noticing something interesting.

The more I try to plan and structure things out, the more my ego gets in the way.

But if I’m doing things in the spur of the moment, more improvisational if you will, it’s like my ego doesn’t have the time to react and get in the way.

I may experiment with this.

For example, I primarily write to express myself.

Well, what if I just start recording videos of myself talking about my life’s work with no script or outline?

Would the improvisational nature of it help me to just let go and let my larger sense of Self to emerge?

BTW I’ve noticed the same thing with my writing in the past. When I get into a flow because I want to express something that I feel passionate about, my ego usually completely disappears. But as soon as that flow fizzles out or I begin to reflect on what I’ve written so far and it doesn’t feel like I’m articulating what I want to say properly, my ego creeps in and I will often not publish my post, even though I may have spent a few hours writing it. I think this is why I like the short form nature of Twitter, yet at the same time I want to be able to string together a series of short form posts to express something longer.

BTW just an additional thought about my fear of stepping into a larger role (which is embodied through a Self-Transforming Mind).

I think the key fear is that I’m stepping into a larger role where knowledge is no longer sufficient to help people through it.

In effect, to help someone through the transformation process, you can’t just give them knowledge and get them to go through a 1-2-3 sequential series of steps to understand something.

Instead you can still give them knowledge but the process feels more like a maze where you’re continually going back and forth many times before things begin to make sense and your perspective begins to shift, grow, and expand.

In other words, you can explain endlessly about the knowledge of the process but most of it won’t fully make sense to someone until they actually decide to step into the experience itself and grasp the wisdom of it.

This is the very thing I’m embodying and undergoing myself.

It’s like stepping back and forth into and out of water to get yourself familiarized with the feel of it, so it doesn’t feel so scary, letting you eventually plunge deeply within it and fully immerse yourself within the experience as a whole.

It’s funny.

I’ve described creativity before as a process of connecting, empowering, and inspiring whereby it feels like being an explorer, navigator, and storyteller of a new world(view) you are adventuring towards.

But the last inspiring stage isn’t so much storytelling as much as it is storyliving. In effect, think of the empowering stage as navigating and finding the right knowledge. But just knowing something externally from the outside isn’t enough. You have to fully experience it immersively from the inside to grasp the wisdom of it.

This is the inspiring stage of storyliving. You have to fully embody what you know, step into it, not just know it.

This is why it’s inspiring.

It’s not because you’re inspiring others.

It’s because you’re inspiring yourself.

You’re doing and being the very thing you both are excited about but also scared shitless about.

In effect, you are embodying the very thing I’ve described many times.

The adventure of your life.

In other words, you can’t have an adventure without leaving safety behind and stepping into uncertainty.

And I think what all these fears I’m playing with are telling me is that what I fear the most is letting go of my old safe sense of self and stepping into a larger sense of Self.

Yet that is the very “adventure of life” that I need to embody and live.

Yet paradoxically, what’s interesting in this all is that even though I haven’t made that step yet, I truly know what it feels like to experience this hesitation and reservation of going through this process.

It’s strange. Sometimes I wonder if I’m taking so long to go through this transformation because it’s enabling me to better understand it and articulate it for others, when it comes time for me to help them with their own transformational journey and adventure.

What if my greatest fear isn’t about articulating my work or people thinking my work is crazy but the one I’ve intuited generally before as a natural part of the growth and development process?

That being the fear of having to fulfill and play a larger role that I’m not sure I have the experience or capacity to handle just yet.

In effect, if my work resonates with people, they will want me to help them directly through the transformation process.

I’m not sure I’m ready for that…primarily because I don’t feel like I’ve figured everything out and made sense of it all yet (i.e. not an “expert” know-it-all).

Yet what if in helping them, they are the missing link in actually helping me to understand the process in a deeper way?

Two ongoing fears come to mind this morning with regards to my life’s work.

1. People will think my work is crazy. 
2. I won’t be able to articulate my work. 

What I realize is that these fears arise due to questions of trust.

1. I need to trust that the right people will resonate with my work. 
2. I need to trust that the right words will come at the right time from the ocean of wisdom within me and I don’t need to force it or control it.

To put this another way, my perceived problem isn’t an issue of articulation. It’s an issue of resonance.

In other words, my words will resonate with the right people. It’s not about articulating them in the right way. 

This was proven this week when I few days ago my wife bumped into a friend of hers and they began talking about the issues surrounding the teaching profession which my wife has just retired from.

When asked by her friend what I do, I explained that my work related to the struggles that they were going through and I explained some aspects of it, such as mindsets, which, surprising to me, resonated with her quite a bit.

She then went on to say that the school system should hire me because I seemed to be aware and knowledgeable about these issues.

I explained to her that the school system wouldn’t hire me (or anyone like me) because they aren’t ready to change. This is evident in how they are trying to control teachers and staff more and more because they believe that by taking more control, they’ll be able to stop the breakdown of the system.

This is the same thing that’s happening to a lot of people in the private sector as well.

But the paradox is that the more the heads of the school system try to “take control” of the situation, the more they are actually worsening and speeding up its collapse and breakdown.

Afterwords, when reflecting upon this encounter with my wife’s friend, it got me wondering if my role wasn’t to help organizations to transform (which I’ve intuited for some time) but rather individuals (or perhaps communities of individuals).

Why? Because it seems more and more like the very people who are the most primed and ready to hear what I have to say and seem to resonate with it the most, are the individuals within the organizations rather than the management or “leadership” teams.

So unlike conventional change agents who traditionally work from the top down, I have this feeling and intuition that I’m supposed to be helping people from the bottom up in some way.

How I’m not exactly sure.

Wonder, Play, and How to Be More Alive

We build our lives around structures of certainty — houses to live in, marriages to love in, ideologies to think in — and yet some primal part of us knows that none abides, knows that w…

https://www.themarginalian.org/2025/08/11/intention-trommer/

We build our lives around structures of certainty — houses to live in, marriages to love in, ideologies to think in — and yet some primal part of us knows that none abides, knows that we pay for these comforting illusions with our very aliveness.

Wonder — that edge state on the rim of understanding, where the mind touches mystery — is our best means of loving the world more deeply. It asks of us the courage of uncertainty because it is a form of deep play and play, unlike games, is inherently open-ended, without purpose or end goal, governed not by the will to win a point but by the willingness to surrender to a locus of experience and be transformed by it.

Maria Popova
Wonder, Play, and How to Be More Alive

More synchronicities this week, this time from a post by Maria Popova on her website The Marginalian.

Her quote above perfectly embodies the type of “play” I’ve been seeking for quite some time.

It isn’t trivial or frivolous.

It is deep.

It requires us to step outside of ourselves, exploring new territories of being.

If I could describe the paradox of the experience, it is one in which to be transformed by the experience, one has to be willing to give up the security of knowing it before you’ve lived it.

Even then, based upon what I have lived over the past couple of decades, there is not even a guarantee that one will understand, know, and make sense of the experience fully even after one has lived it for quite some time.

It’s strange.

It’s like you’re following a quest that is amazing and full of wonders but it seems never-ending.

Thus you never reach an endpoint where you’re able to step outside of it, look at it externally, and fully know it.

You’re always within “the locus of the experience” instead.

And somehow that experience transforms you…just by being open to the playful experience of it.

This is what I mean when I say this experience feels like “The Adventure of Your Life.”