I have not written for a number of years on this site. This is due in part to pending further intel as I search to understand as much as I can about myself, the world we live in, and how we interact with each other as individuals and as groups with other groups and as a species with other species and matter as matter.

I want now to state my position briefly, so I can then go about writing about the things that interest me from a carefully considered and better-formed perspective and reality. It is then also my hope to engage in challenging such a position by putting my 2p out there and seeing if anyone can elucidate a better frame of reference for living. Whilst we are all individuals, I hope that you may profit from my findings and even incorporate a few of my ideas into your own philosophy.

How one “makes up one’s mind” about things is deeply personal and therefore sacrosanct. I wish to defend an individual’s right to do so and their freedom to engage with others over their ideas, even if they would ultimately lead to ruin and destruction. We have fundamental laws which were instated to defend such freedoms, though these laws do not govern the places we spend most of our time – work.

Each place of work has varying rules and boundaries; the cab of a Ford transit van on its way to a job is less likely to be dominated by the “woke” than in more corporate and creative environments. However, that is not to say it is freer than a corporate environment for all people. Nevertheless, I personally would feel more self-expressed inside that van than in a corporate office.

What I wish to address ongoingly is how we create freedom. Freedom to be who we really are and to live deeply meaningful and rich lives defined by our own measures of success and attainment. When we are constantly met with limits on what we feel we can do and say or should do and should say. Images and representations of how we should be, how we should look, how much money we should have, and what we should do with our time as a person. It can get rather disheartening and our view of the possibilities available to us for action to improve our quality of existence can become bleak and narrow.

Most of us are not 6ft, muscular, chiseled, and symmetrical. It is easy to become deluded that we are ‘less than’ because our physical bodies and mental faculties don’t match up to the ideals of the various 0.00001 % outliers whose visages and slogans accompany the products, ideas, and ideals we are relentlessly marketed.

From the moment we come into this world until we die we are told what to believe and how we should or should not think and how we should and shouldn’t behave. In fact the religion I was born into, Christianity, threatens you with an eternity in the fires of hell should you stray too far from “the path”. I will try to avoid telling anyone what to believe throughout my work, either as a coach or friend, though I would like to make a framework for a meaningful existence available to you, should you choose to adopt it.

I believe that we are deeply spiritual beings. That we have a consciousness that doesn’t abide by time. Nor what we can see, smell, taste, touch or hear. I have often heard what I am speaking about as the “Higher-Self” and in my experience that fits quite well. Though I would go further to say that that is You. Truly, who we are is awareness, consciousness, a soul, and we are incredibly powerful. Just look at what we are capable of when we harness this energy and transform our environment.

If you agree that we have an ancient part of us that remains constant, like the deep waters of the ocean, despite a potentially stormy surface then I will move on to my next point.

Our physical bodies which evolved from Protoctista are not very good at being a clear channel for creative energy and action in alignment with our true selves. This is because we are so blocked by everything we are told that we are. What we can and cannot do. How well we did on a given day in answering questions about a given topic (exams). Our families of origin and what they believed and perhaps even forced upon us. Trauma.

This leads us to create a sense of self in which we engage with the world around us. It is built by the mechanisms which have ensured our survival – predominantly fear-based ones too. Though because of them, our ancestors were not eaten. Today we are unlikely to be eaten by a predator, though we have to carry around an often overactive part of ourselves that is only interested in the safety of ourselves and our interests and not the integrity of our spirit/true-self/higher-self/soul. When I talk about a leap of faith, it really does take one to actually let go of all that and identify with one’s spirit and/or God. If you’re able to do that then we may see adults playing again like children. I hasten to now add that I am certainly not free of my own identity all the time and I haven’t always maintained spiritual well-being. Sadly that is the case for almost all of us and the jury is out on whether Jesus was what he was recorded as being. I have no idea personally, though I think if a person were to be the “Son of God” then they would be totally aligned with their spirit and a master of shaping their environment according to the will of the spirit. (They’d be fully self-expressed and self-disciplined as fuck).

These are still prized characteristics today.

If you are still reading then I may well lose you here.

I believe in a God.

An all-powerful source which pervades all living and non-living things.

My life works when I take a leap of faith and acknowledge there to be a God. I see opportunities inside of what I would have perceived as a setback and more importantly, there is meaning to justify the suffering.

Should we all believe in God?

Well. It would certainly make life a hell of a lot easier, wouldn’t it? If we all were “singing from the same hymn sheet”. And perhaps to a degree we are. We almost entirely seem to be cognisant of fairness, and equality and that it is good to prevent the unnecessary suffering of all living things.

The UK is a Christian nation and God was put at the center of the decision-making process for the laws which govern its people. The main ones anyway. Do not take this for granted as some cultures drink the blood of children before running naked into battle with their neighbours. While the peoples of the UK have displayed the most distasteful human behaviours at times. As a nation, with a moral centre routed in “God-led” thinking and lawmaking, we have stood up against real evil. Alone for a time. Against great odds. We won.

I look at medals in my family’s home which read “For God and the Empire” and I think of that time when such a medal was earned. Perhaps it was a simpler time where there was a clear “evil” and we were the “good guys”. Well. We weren’t gassing people by the millions or starving them by the tens of millions so I guess perhaps we were?

Today things are perhaps more opaque than ever before. People draw different conclusions from the same data to suit their subconscious bias. And today there is so much data! All at our fingertips. Perhaps that is what I am doing when I say that there is a God. Though I think the proof is in the pudding and the hallmarks of humankind’s actions in service of something greater than themselves are clear to see. They are the Cathedrals, pyramids, temples, mosques, and henges of the world. How did they do that!?

Probably a good amount of belief in something greater than oneself and then the self-discipline and vision to carry it out.

That’s not to say that we are only capable of building great things if they are in the service of something greater than ourselves. No. We are very good at building ingenious new ways of killing each other. Actually, some of the coolest things I can think of today are not there to glorify what we can do if we all come together in service of something greater than ourselves, they’re there to kill other humans whose interests conflict with those of our nation.

Atheists.

There has always been a relatively small percentage of the population throughout Human history that does not acknowledge any supernatural force/god/deity or what have you. Their % representation, by the accounts which I have read, has been relatively consistent throughout. I have no quarrel with atheists and whilst I think you like to view yourselves as intellectually superior, grounded, and scientific (many are). I have found that this does not produce the best fruit personally. Sure one can aspire to be the greatest version of oneself and that can yield real success in this world. And, they have higher IQs on average when compared to non-atheists.

It also takes a “leap of faith” in itself to surmount the nagging – “What if there is a god and I’m going to burn in hell for eternity?” So I take my hat off to atheists as their faith takes some courage! Especially if atheism develops inside of a religious person.

I left my faith of origin and maintained an outlook of optimistic nihilism, with varying degrees of agnosticism to out and out atheism for a number of years. I was proud of my outlook too. Feeling it to be the most rational and commendable stance to have. As someone who did all the sciences at A-level and studied BioChem at university, I had a sense of pride that I did not bow to worries about my mortal soul. Though apparently pride is a sin and I found myself putting more stock in things and prestige than living out a meaningful existence. And why not if life is meaningless anyway? Not in a negative sense. Though I thought that if we could be struck down at any minute, killed by a virus, develop cancer or go to war. It was better to make hay while the sun shined and fuck it if I died young!

Well, I’m still here and I did most of the things I wanted to do.

However, when I found that when the things I cared about died or broke or were stolen or I got ill or life just happened not the way I wanted. The real question came. Why?

Why not just cash out now while I don’t have to wake up to go for a piss twice a night? Why should I go and work in offices for meagre pay to just exist? Why should I lean into the harness of suffering? Why should I do all that difficult stuff which requires effort, thought, and concentration?

“Here for a good time, not a long time” was probably running the show. I did say that my spiritual well-being had not always been in tip-top condition. And I don’t blame myself either! There’s a huge amount of suffering in the world and life is unfair and cruel at times.

Roughly 10% of the people on death row are innocent!

Agnostics.

The “clever” position to have. It avoids confrontation and must be where people who don’t know god and don’t know that god doesn’t exist, exist. Part of me wants to say “get off the fence”. Part of me is incredibly sympathetic. For me, faith is something which I have realised, something I have discovered, so I cannot force the internal journey of discovery and awakening upon someone. I can only offer my words of encouragement towards this discovery and hope that you may cherry-pick from my philosophies and gain some value.

I’m tired now and want to finish this piece so I will leave you with this:

The most praised and exalted people in western civilisation are actors and music stars. A “Rock Star” is even a colloquial term.

These said people, many of them anyway, often battle with addictions, rocky relationships, and other afflictions of the spirit, despite having climbed to the “top” of the societal tree.

They then come to a crisis point where ruin is imminent and seek help from the best help that society has to offer. They part with a small fortune and make their way off to a rehabilitation facility with other wealthy and famous people in it to find that “God” is what they are broadly offering to treat their addictions and afflictions. As part of a 12 Step recovery treatment programme.

I find this rather amusing and also heartwarming to think that some of the worst afflictions can be healed by adopting a spiritual, god-centered for many, solution to their life problems.

With love

H