An Exploration, Not an Answer

For most of my life, I have been trying to understand what it means to be human.

Why can I feel peaceful and complete one moment, then anxious, defensive, lonely, ambitious or afraid the next?

Why do relationships bring out both the best and worst in us?

Why can success feel so important while we pursue it and strangely insufficient once we obtain it?

Beneath those questions lies a larger one:

Who—or what—is actually having this experience?

I was raised with religious answers to many of these questions. As I grew older, some of those answers remained meaningful to me, while others became questions again.

Psychology offered one perspective. Science offered another. Philosophy, Buddhism, Taoism, consciousness research, relationships, business, parenthood, loss, aging, love, failure, success and ordinary life have each added something to the conversation.

Eventually, I stopped feeling that I needed to choose one explanation and defend it.

I became more interested in exploring.

That is what these writings are.

They are not an attempt to establish a new religion or convince anyone that I have discovered the nature of reality.

In fact, one of the changes occurring in me as I write them is an increasing comfort with three simple words:

I don’t know.

There is freedom in those words.

The ego seems to want certainty. It wants conclusions, definitions and answers. Yet some of the most interesting questions I have encountered become smaller when I force an answer onto them.

Mystery leaves room for exploration.

A Working Model

Throughout these writings, I use two words repeatedly: ego and soul. I explain more precisely what I mean by those terms in Ego & Soul: What I Mean by Them.

Throughout these writings, I use two words repeatedly: ego and soul.

By ego, I generally mean the part of me that navigates individual human life. It plans, protects, compares, remembers, anticipates, organizes, accomplishes, worries, solves problems and constructs the story of the person I call Scott.

By soul, I mean the quieter observing perspective that sometimes becomes available when I am less defensive and more aware.

From that perspective, I tend to become more curious, patient and compassionate—and less preoccupied with proving my worth or controlling what happens next.

Are ego and soul actually separate parts of me?

Is soul something metaphysical, or is it simply a name I have given to a particular quality of consciousness?

I don’t know.

It could reflect higher consciousness, metacognition, intuition, spiritual awareness or another way the human brain organizes experience.

The explanation interests me, but increasingly, I find that it is not the most useful question.

The more useful question is:

What happens when I live from it?

Does it create more intelligence or confusion?

More love or fear?

More connection or separation?

More peace or turmoil?

Those are questions I can investigate within the laboratory of my own life.

For a while, I assumed spiritual growth meant overcoming the ego.

I no longer think that.

I need the ego to make decisions, maintain relationships, solve problems, conduct business and function in the physical world.

In the model I am exploring, what I call soul provides perspective, imagination, compassion and direction. Ego translates those qualities into plans, decisions and actions.

Neither needs to defeat the other.

They may function best as partners.

This is where the working idea Happy Ego, Happy Soul emerged.

The ego does not necessarily lose when it stops insisting on being in charge. In my experience, it sometimes receives more of what it has always wanted—peace, satisfaction, confidence, meaning and connection—when those things become byproducts rather than objectives.

I explore this model more fully in the introduction that follows.

You do not have to accept it as fact.

It is a lens through which I examine my experience, not a conclusion readers are required to share.

How to Read These Writings

You do not need to read these chapters in order.

Some are philosophical explorations. Others emerged from relationships, dreams, grief, business problems, family experiences, sitting quietly at a cabin, watching my grandchildren play, waking in the middle of the night or simply noticing what my own mind was doing.

Follow whatever interests you.

You will encounter contradictions.

That is partly because I am not writing backward from a predetermined conclusion. These writings record an evolving investigation. Something I believe strongly in one chapter may become more nuanced several chapters later.

I consider that a feature rather than a defect.

These writings ring true from the level of understanding, perspective and inspiration currently available to me. That doesn’t mean I expect them to represent my final understanding.

Truth may not change, but my ability to perceive it almost certainly will. Experiences I haven’t yet had may reveal limitations in ideas that seem clear to me today.

That distinction between what happened, what I believe happened, and the meaning I give it is something I explore more deeply in Facts and the Stories We Tell

Perhaps, if I ever graduate from Cosmic High School, I will discover newer—and possibly more complete—ways of understanding truth, consciousness and reality.

Until then, these writings represent the most honest view I can offer from where I currently stand.

You are not being asked to agree with me.

Take an idea into your own experience.

Turn it around.

Challenge it.

Compare it with psychology, religion, science, philosophy and, most importantly, your own life.

If it helps you see something differently, keep it.

If it doesn’t, leave it behind.

The purpose isn’t to arrive at my conclusions. It is to become more conscious of your own.

A Word About Artificial Intelligence

There is one unusual aspect of these writings that deserves transparency:

Artificial intelligence has been involved in their creation.

The experiences, dreams, relationships, losses, questions and moments of insight come from my life. Many of the ideas begin as long, imperfect voice dictations filled with observations, metaphors and half-formed thoughts.

AI helps me question, organize, develop and refine that material. It sometimes contributes language or connections that I accept, revise or reject.

I review the finished writing and remain responsible for every idea I publish.

For a fuller explanation of how this collaboration works, read The Chisel and the Sculptor.

One Reader Is Enough

Of course, my ego has ambitions for these writings.

It can imagine books, readers, conversations and perhaps ideas traveling much farther than I ever expected.

I am willing to let it dream.

But another part of me has become comfortable with a very different possibility:

If nobody reads these pages except me, they have already served a purpose.

Writing them has caused me to look more carefully at my own life.

It has helped me recognize patterns I couldn’t see while I was living inside them. It has made me more curious about consciousness, relationships, fear, love, God, identity and the extraordinary strangeness of simply being alive.

If another person happens to find something useful here, wonderful.

That brings me to the question I would most like to ask you.

A Question for You

The most important question may not be whether you agree with these writings.

It may be what they awaken within you.

Do they intrigue you?

Do they engage your own questions?

Do they resonate—or create a strange feeling of déjà vu, as though you are recognizing something you may have quietly sensed before?

Do they encourage you to examine your assumptions, widen your perspective or experience life with greater awareness?

Most importantly:

Do they inspire you to see yourself, other people and the experience of being alive from a more conscious and loving perspective?

If they do, perhaps two waves have briefly recognized something familiar in the water beneath them.

And that is enough.