Regardless of who we are or where we come from, we’re all chasing our own definition of peace.

I put together an audio piece for this blog “what happens if you let the waves take you away”

But what is peace?

After skimming through “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle, It’s clear to me that having a base-level understanding of the ego is the single most peace-inducing experience anyone can undertake. From understanding the self, and why we go through negative thought loops, to harnessing presence through stillness and curiosity, the thoughts shared by Eckhart in this book are invaluable.

I’m kinda supposed to start with why I’m writing this so I could hook you into reading it. So here it goes…

The purpose of this is to reflect on my current understanding of the ego through a tale of pain and acceptance. Hopefully, it will lure you to read “A New Earth”. The only way I can describe this awesome book with a feeling is by comparing it to a perpetual stream of ramen (think perfectly warm, chunky, tonkatsu) for the soul. Although some people apparently don’t like ramen? If that applies to you, maybe this isn’t for you.

TLDR; If there is such an answer to “what is peace”? it’s that it is a state, it is not an outcome. You can only be in peace. You cannot achieve peace.

As one who was and is at the mercy of my own ego, I can say with confidence that I was never interested in spirituality, mindfulness, or exploring the meaning of any divine being. I grew up with a catholic family that frankly overcame its interest in religion.

It was only through feelings of what seemed like anxiety, grief, lack of focus, brain fog, jealousy, and others that bubbled up naturally over the course of growing up that………. a curiosity in looking within came about.

2022 was an eye-opening year.

My father had recently passed after 10 years of suffering for my family. I was kind of a nomad after Covid made me rethink my personal and professional plans. I was, as many people were, constantly re-evaluating what I’d call the Naval trilemma: Where you live, who you’re with, and what you do make up the three most important decisions in your life.

Since that is fundamentally tough for someone undecisive and hypercritical, I’ve ended up self-inducing a decent amount of stress and anxiety into myself over the years. Some people would call it, life.

During the first few months of 2022, after realizing that I couldn’t sleep well most nights, that I kept fixating on status games, and that the things I gravitated towards weren’t always aligned with what I wanted to stand for, I started searching for peace.

With what seemed like a permanent pressure or worry-like feeling concentrated around my chest, I decided I would dip my feet in the pond of self-awareness.

And I was in awe of how deep it was.

Finding the blind spot

I have always been curious about the systems that run our world.

Physical systems like the water cycle or assembly lines have helped human civilizations evolve into what we know and love today. Despite all the pessimism we face in our everyday lives, It’s clear that human civilization has progressed tremendously - in general, we’re blessed to live longer, wealthier, and physically healthier, thanks to….. idea sex (read The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley). Ideas combining and creating more ideas has led to fertilizer, computers, and yes…. ramen.

However, there are trade-offs in every system. Does physical health come at the detriment of mental health? Or…is this all connected?

Systems apply to the more endogenous aspects of life…….. when we see an apple and know it’s a red fruit. Why is that? Because we created a mental model for it.

We can think of mental models as a way for our minds to define how something works in the physical world. Mental models work great for helping us understand things we can see. But about what we can’t see?

Do systems and models extend into what we feel? I’ve felt like our contemporary understanding of the human mind lacks emphasis on exploring feelings. I clearly have more questions than answers here.

So what if one of the core principles of our mind, the system that runs our reality, is not to help us “see” more and more things? But also to help us be aware of what we can’t see.….

Aware of a blind spot.

Maybe our mind is imperfect by design so we can eventually become aware of what we can’t physically think about.

Paradoxical Limitations

We can only define what we see in the world through the limitations of our language, speech, and pathology. Since our thoughts have always been based on mental models, when we try to define heartbreak, loss, and anxiety, or when we talk/think about what it means to be euphoric, we are fundamentally constraining the meaning behind these feelings.

But we humans have limitations. We cannot fly, we cannot survive underwater for extended periods of time, let alone survive outside of this micro-fraction of the Universe we call Earth.

But then why should our self-imposed mental models, speech, and language define what we experience? We have made a lot of progress as humans… but I think we are still too young to answer this. Maybe behind every constraint we impose, there’s actually an entire universe worth of “truth”.

Over the years, I can easily recall asking myself repeatedly… “why am I feeling this?”

In making sense of the signals that my body and mind shared with me, I eventually found out that the answers to my questions weren’t actually visible.

Maybe I needed to peel the layers to find out this “truth”… maybe I needed to look within…. and I wasn’t expecting who I found inside.

Ego

Can you feel that something inside of you that would rather be right than in peace?

My first reaction to the word ego typically involves relating to someone who is egoistic. To me, it meant someone who didn’t want to share or who wanted things all to themselves.

I never considered myself egoistic, so going beyond the surface to understand the ego further was never an option. Little did I know that it’s the ego itself that does not want to be seen. And it is constantly evolving to identify with me in different ways, or as Eckhart calls them, forms.

Love, attention, dedication, commitment, honor, status. These are the things we often seek. The funny thing is many of us do accomplish them and then fail to acknowledge, we always want more. But eventually, these became the things that I thought the world needed to give me.

These are things I thought would relieve my anxiety and allow me to work/sleep/feel/be better.

But after months of introspection…..the truth is, whatever I thought the world was withholding from me. I was withholding from the world.

I was withholding attention from the world. I was withholding honor from the world. And so much more.

It’s impossible to define in writing what the ego is. We can only point to it. All I know is that I am still in the hand of the ego.

When I think of the “things” that cause me to react in ways that make me unhappy, I realize that it’s not the lack of attention in certain moments. It’s how inferior they make me feel. The way we point to the ego is whenever we feel inferior or superior to someone, that is the ego reacting… and reactivity is the fuel of the ego (I’ll admit not-reacting to something is frankly one of the hardest but most peaceful things you can practice).

Regardless of the outcome it seeks, the ego’s motivation is always the same.

The need to stand out.

Clever or Intelligent?

If you think back a few years, are there moments in which your personality was unrecognizable to you?

This may sound weird. But I believe that throughout our lifetime, our minds are constantly oscillating on a spectrum of bipolar disorder… we’re constantly deviating through various personalities or identities we associate with. And that’s okay. Perhaps I’m wrong. but the mind is severely misunderstood.

So what is it exactly that the ego reacts to? It’s an identity. Eckhart defines this identity as the pain body, which is emotional pain from the past that seeks to renew itself.

You must find it.

Finding the pain body is like entering a jungle… you face all these wild animals, afraid of them… but little do you know they’re just as afraid of you. You’ll realize this as the patterns you react to most strongly in others, tend to be the same things that form part of you (or your pain body really).

And just like your level of fear in a jungle would vary depending on the time of day/setting — the ego will identify itself with different forms regardless of where you are or the time of day. The ego does not want to end its problems - it will tell you the same stories again and again.

That’s called being a victim.

When I noticed this and fought it, it always caused more intense and negative thought loops. You can find yours by tying the first thing you think about when you wake up and the last thing you think about before you go to bed, together.

This explains why the ego cannot be beaten if you attack it.

Even if you defeat a temporary mental opponent, the ego will reappear in a new form (perhaps more intensely), until you finally look within and find an important part of you that needs to be found. The part that takes pleasure in negative feelings and believes they have a purpose. Whether it was jealousy or anger - the intention behind my overthinking always had a hidden pleasure. For my ego to react to my past trauma or surroundings to satisfy its needs.

It’s when we begin to challenge these needs, and sometimes you will only see and understand them with guidance, that you’ll notice that the ego is like a child you are constantly raising.

It is clever. But it is not intelligent. Cleverness pursues its own aims while intelligence always seeks the whole truth. It’s so easy to forget this, especially when my own self still tries to hide this from me… so to identify the ego, I try to ask myself … “am I being clever… or am I being intelligent?”

Acknowledging the ego is like laying out the rules for what perhaps could be the most important game in life. And now that you know you’re no match for the ego (you’re not even a playing character), it’s time to reveal its true enemy.

The Present Moment

“Be here now, Focus on the present moment”.

These are the types of things I would stumble upon occasionally. It’s those kinds of things you know are important… but what can you do about them? Reading them on a screen while I was mindlessly scrolling wasn’t going to solve any of my problems.

The truth is we’re all walking through life at our own pace. But eventually, we all arrive at one crossing that teaches us one of the greatest lessons in life: Awareness and ego cannot co-exist. The enemy of the ego is the present. Why?

At some point during 2022 I read this: Deep down the ego knows that no states are permanent. The ego always identifies with different forms. As long as we miss the present, the ego will figure out how to turn our past or future into unhappiness.

Not getting what we want is one way. Getting what we want is the other.

This is one of the greatest bits from the book. I think it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever read.

After all this time, I was both underwhelmed and overjoyed to see that I was always going to be unhappy unless I embarked on a journey to embrace the present moment.

Awareness

“if you ever become in awe when looking at space, you have relinquished your desire to label and explain and became aware of infinite depth. When you are aware of space, you’re not really aware of anything except awareness itself.” - Eckhart Tolle.

For the ego to survive, it must make time past and future. It cannot live where we live, the present. Awareness Is what helps us understand how vast and invincible time really is. It’s what helps us stay humble… and recognize our impermanence. Being impermanent is when we let go of our past and future and become aware of the present.

How do you become more aware of the present? I probably have the least to say here as I am still a novice. Perhaps I will always be.

We all arrive at our own answers to this. For me, it’s been meditation. After ~6 months of meditating, I was able to notice the anxiety in my body/heart area was heavily correlated with how frequently I had been meditating.

Freezing time, as we all know, is impossible. So what I’ve tried to do is to pause to notice as much of my senses as possible. To listen as far away as possible. To smell, as if it was the first time I smelled something. To feel the temperature change as air flows past my skin. Feel the muscles in my face converging to feel the taste, move my eyes, and inhale/exhale to oxygenate my body. Headspace is a great teacher. Although I’ve recently switched to Waking Up. I recommend paying for it yearly to feel like you have made the commitment to use it.

In a way, awareness is like a muscle. The more we train, the more we are curious, the more we can find.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. I’m running out of things to write. Frankly, there’s also a selfish reason to write this. So that I don’t forget this state of mind, and so that my future kids read it one day.

We’ve walked through a personal story of anxiety, peeling the layers of the ego, and understanding how awareness is our only ally when faced with the vastness of space and time. In summary, the present moment is the only opportunity to be at peace.

For a reminder that you have a sense of awareness. Take a deep breath just once.

You’ll notice that you cannot consciously breathe and think at the same time.

Surrender

Suffering is inevitable, the important step is we must learn to suffer consciously.

The ultimate paradox is that suffering is caused by identifying yourself with these forms but it is also resolved in the same exact way.

Everyone will encounter internal limitations that will keep them trapped in egoic reactions…….. or eventually rise by surrendering.

That is what those limitations are here to teach in the end. The surrendered state. Something of infinite value will come from our suffering which would not have manifested otherwise.

The opposite of surrender is resistance. It makes the world appear more real and more lasting, including the ego. It makes you take yourself very seriously.

But nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in life.

Nonreaction to the ego in others is how you go beyond the ego in yourself. it is a strength. Another word for nonreaction is forgiveness.

This piece might as well be a huge quote from “A New Earth”.

It’s this idea of surrender that has helped me guide myself to the possibility of peace. And to a deeper understanding of anxiety and depression.

And what I hope helps many others as well.

Concluding

Nothing of what I said above is proprietary. It’s simply a recollection and interpretation of those who have stumbled upon this knowledge and have gifted it to me. I’m particularly thankful for Eckhart Tolle, Michael Alan Singer, my great friend/teacher - Stefan Leon, and many others.

I am deeply grateful for those who I’ve shared my life and friendship with over the years as those moments and experiences have shaped me and helped me identify the ego within me.

Thank you for reading and tuning along, I hope I can get out of my comfort zone to reflect on this stuff more often.

More stories in various forms soon hopefully, but in the meantime feel free to check out my Photos, Music, and Writing. Goodbye for now.

“Don’t be so consumed by time that you have forgotten eternity”

- Eckhart Tolle

I struggle with the fact that I may not remember the pieces of wisdom I’ve collected over the years.

How many intangible snippets of time have we stumbled on that now meddle around our subconscious, never stored in a place to be indexed, or eventually shared with the world?

In a society with this much information asymmetry and chaos, it’s hard not to feel insecure about the knowledge base we curate for ourselves.

And for others.

I’ve been dealing with this since….

Since forever actually.

So over the past few years, I’ve found myself writing down notes on my phone.

Excerpts from books I picked up.

Writings on the wall.

Quotes.

Chronicles from lively dreams.

Even writings on bathroom stalls (if you look closely enough).

But little did I know, I wasn't writing them for me.

But if not for me... then who?

I kinda forgot to introduce myself.

I’m Juan (the little boy in the picture)

Just another human curious about the world and the systems that run it.

I like twisting knobs to make sounds to keep my cool. I released this song today to go along with this note.

This marks the beginning of a space for me to share thoughts and stories.

Departure from pain

When I was 14, my father was diagnosed with Fronto Temporal Dementia, a disease associated with Alzheimer’s.

It sucks.

Throughout the years, my family started to lose the person who’d given us everything. Atrophy in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain caused him to progressively lose all speech and motor functions.

To this very moment, only a handful of people know about my father’s illness.

What pains me most is to have experienced firsthand what it was like for my mother.

Imagine what it’s like to get your soul mate slowly get ripped off of your life.

One day at a time.

This taught me what love really meant.

By my 18th birthday, my father no longer knew who I was. And shortly thereafter required full-time care.

With somber relief to my family, He passed away last summer. We celebrated his life this past weekend.

My father was a mechanical engineer by trade. Quite an intellectual, an avid reader, and loved to help others. He had dark humor and embedded a lesson in almost every interaction.

To this day, I’m overwhelmed by the number of people he touched.

And the love and ambition he had to live each and every day.

I never got to have an adult conversation with him.

But little did he know, he’d already taught me everything he needed to.

The DNA of progress

I started capturing modular pieces of wisdom in writing (although I’m still not very wise)

In this process,

I reflected on what seemed obvious.

If we break down progress and the evolution of human civilization, it all comes down to information flow.

The lessons of history are carried by those who can distill, reflect, and iterate on this huge river of information, and enable society to overcome challenges and innovate.

This stream has led to principles that impact our day-to-day lives.

Fundamental principles like Moores Law ultimately come from bits and pieces of information, compounded frivolously over the course of history.

We’re able to work remotely, cook almost any dish, & live comfortably today through millennia of iterations of information curation and amplification. We’re f***ing lucky.

But these lessons and teachings don’t carry a value unless we capture them.

Unless they are collected and reflected upon,

And ultimately made visible and useful to others through writing and storytelling.

But even after all that….. why go through all the hassle of writing thoughts and insights.

I’m not a really good writer, I almost rather chill by the couch and scroll aimlessly through instagram….

So what could I do to contribute?

Exploring the teachings of a silent wizard

My dad left enough of a legacy to teach through others.

But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t give up everything for a conversation with him.

For the opportunity to collect his thoughts, mental frameworks, and decision-making models to help me navigate through life. And perhaps leave something memorable behind.

I embarked on a journey to collect them.

As I sought to write what was a collection of my father’s mental prowess,

I found that it doesn’t matter what or how I write.

What matters is that I enable this stream of information to flow to others.

Just like it flowed through him.

What matters is that we start becoming collectors,

And eventually reflect, distill, and articulate our thinking. I became a fan of a very simple principle…

When overthinking, write. When underthinking, read. - don't know who said this

I found myself producing what I was never able to get my hands on myself. A library of ideas, frameworks, and philosophy that resonated most with me.

I found myself creating a collection that I’m leaving behind for a special group of people I haven’t yet had the chance to meet. But I know I can’t wait for them to join this world one day, and eventually crack open a beer, and talk.

& whether it’s for you, your current, or future kids,

I encourage you to do the same.

- J