Future
June 3rd, 2026
It's been a while since I really just sat down, and talked to me. Myself. I. The whole illusion of it. Just before going off and talking to some AI chatbot, or some google search where I'm looking at forums where people are frequenting and having the same ideas as me.
I realize, the really hardest part about life, is making the time to ask yourself, free of any influence, what you want.
And really, doing that for your sake. Not for your parents, not for your childhood trauma, not for any of the things you've experienced, really, what do you want in this moment? What do you want to do?
And that question, it makes me feel a lot of emotions that I want to run away from. It's the truth. I want to run away so far, I want to feed the text and the emotions and the logic into some boiling AI so that the AI can make a decision for me. So that it can ask me and solve all my questions and emotions for me, rather than having to sit here and broil with the feeling.
But the fact is, only I can answer that question. And it's about being comfortable with the feelings that I really do feel when it comes to the question.
I get this big ball of anxiety, of this fear, that, I'm not going to be able to spend my time well. Memories of my grandparents surface, of life's mortality, of how, yeah, we're going to die one day and die quickly. And I want to be able to spend my time very well and very quickly.
It's what do I want to do? That's like asking what do I want to do before I die, or how do I want to spend my time, or moreover what's the purpose and meaning of my life?
I feel scared, I feel afraid, I feel fearsome. I feel like there's not enough time, and I feel like it's all crashing down on me so quickly.
Or rather, it is that I have these feelings. And most of all I want to run away from these feelings I hold because of how heavy they feel.
But that's the caveat right? If I run away, I'll truly never know what I'm feeling. I'll never know what I really want out of life. It's that those heavy feelings are where the signal is. Yeah, I feel afraid. I feel like I am not doing enough. And I have that feeling and I hold it, and it's not me necessarily, but it's the things I feel, like weather on a dreary day.
I so badly want to post this text in an AI and get some feedback, but I realize, that's really not what I need at all. These journals are for introspection, not judgement from a 3rd party. It's a space for me to put down what I really think. I already have enough judgement from the outside world, what I really need is space for me to ink down my feelings.
I... I feel like it's all too much. When I put that pressure on myself. I can't fathom enjoying life when I keep asking myself these questions: what do I want to do, and how do I make sure I don't regret how I use my time? I just get wrapped up in a ball of anxiety and don't necessarily know what I want to do, because of one choice or another it's that I could fail. And, I am afraid of failing.
Gita
The Gita says that we are entitled to the work but not the fruits of our labor. Wu wei in a sense. Perhaps I need to think, I am very attached to the idea of living a life I won't regret, and I am so deathly afraid of death. But isn't that the point of all this spiritual conjecture? To realize that, well, you don't really have control over your fate as much as you'd like? That there's an element of Lady Luck or Fortuna?
What I'm saying is that, I am so attached to this outcome of "living a life without regrets" while staring dead-on with the fact that it's going to be nearly impossible or if not straight out impossible to live a life as such. It's that inevitability of fate. And yet, I still must do it anyway.
That's why I feel so much honor towards Liu Bei, one who marches towards an ill fate knowing their actions might not yield any such fruit or reward, yet they feel they must do it anyway. I feel like that's the sort of attitude I ought to take with life. To work very hard without any expectation of actually getting the fruit.
I think I reminded myself of wise words, something along the lines of, "There's a difference between wanting and needing something. Needing something means that you'll run over everything to get it, whereas wanting something gives choice and options." But it's not so clean as that, because for some things I truly do want it. It's about holding that contention, the inevitability of the world and wanting the world.
Journey
How do you move towards a direction whilst knowing that you might never reach said destination? I suppose that's what life is about. It's about moving towards places you'll probably never reach, and yet doing it anyway.
Why? Because, because if you look at the journey, why, that's the whole point of it. That's the whole magic of it. That's the whole being of it. It's about the journey and how you achieved your goals.
Sure, I want to learn Mandarin. Sure, I want to become a rich billionaire. Sure, I want to save the world of all its ails and sufferings. I do. Yet, the cycle of Life and Death, and even if I do achieve those goals the goalposts will move and there will be inevitably more to solve and more to fix and more problems that'll come about.
The cycle of Order and Chaos will continue and continue, yet, through all that, I do truly want to continue moving towards that point of which is impossible to reach.
It's hard to enumerate or elaborate on what I really mean. But it's like finding the lost city of Atlantis, your gold. It's about the journey, and learning to enjoy and partake in the journey probably will be the wisest choice of all.
To choose a journey, but to choose love and compassion in the present moment, why, isn't that what everything everywhere is about?
No more AI therapist
I think AI is a bit tricky. It's instant feedback and gratification. It's good if you want to get that, but I realize, it removes a lot of friction. Friction is really what makes the journey enjoyable anyway. Not knowing.
What happened to the wonder of the world? Well, it's still here. It's just that, it's in the bleeding friction between the pages.
Instead of relying on AI, how about some practices to not know. Isn't that wonderful?
Frictionmaxxing is the phrase now, but it's more than just friction. It's moreso the joy of not getting things right the first time around. Or perhaps the struggle. that sounds very Nazi-ish, and I'm careful about that phrasing (similar to Mein Kampf,) but there's a lot of wisdom to be found in the struggle.
What makes life enjoyable?
Wittgenstein
Oh, this fellow just adds to my anxieties. The language game concept makes me muddled and more confused, as it's very important to control the framing in any negotiation, it's also important to control the framing in negotiation with the self of self-truth.
For if any framing produces a truth in its own right, why, it's incredibly important to take care in whichever framing you pick—but which framing do you pick? It just becomes another language game within another, with no language game proving its superiority over another. The values and domain of what is right and wrong and what is above all God is just as Wittgenstein puts it, "I find all problems to be inherently religious," or something along the lines of that.
So really, it just comes down to Faith, and from Faith to your feeling. Whichever language game you pick, it's not necessarily wrong, it's just religious whichever one you end of valuing. Money can be a religion. God can be a religion. Status can be a religion. Sex can be a religion. Language can be a religion.
There's no wrong answer here, honestly. Wrong in the sense of a Faith and religious sense, not within the language game. Wrong in the mystical sense, in the "that which cannot be spoken must be passed over in silence" kind of sense. The truth that lies beyond the words, the finger pointing at the moon and the moon and the finger intertwined in itself. There's no wrong answer here, and there's no universal answer.
I think really that's what troubles my heart, I feel that anxiety build up, oh, what if I religiously pick the wrong truth! What if I pick the wrong virtues! What if I feel in my heart a certain way and I turn out to be wrong, like so many characters in the fables and stories that we consume!
But fretting and not picking is a decision in itself, and it just hurts my heart to just witness how my life is wasting away and away at the seams.
I think when it comes to religion, you have to just feel it in your heart.
My dear reader, what I am really fretting over is: how do I want to frame my life? And what's the right way to frame my life? Is it a struggle for power? For money? For time? Is it a struggle to bring together relationships, or is it a journey to discover what my life is to be about? There are so many answers that are equally valid, and I am sure you can easily give your answer here, but my dear reader, I am struggling to find my answer, and I find that anxiety and fear and dread and unknowing uncertainty build up in my soul and I cannot help but get overwhelmed by those feelings I hold so dear.
I hold these feelings. It is a feeling of uncertainty and unease and tension in the stomach that I feel.
O thou, thou where art thou Godst! Where are you? And what do you cheery kind demand of me, oh wretched soul!