July 20th 2024

Every day when I write in my journal, I read what I wrote exactly one year ago. I love sharing some of these entries (though they're rarely profound).

I added the exact typing of the journal below. But just to add some clarifying thoughts:

I enjoy discussing religion, love, and values with people. I got at least 50 messages on my Prophet blog post last year. I was so touched. What saddens me is that I often find myself having these conversations with people's brains.

Don't get me wrong: I deeply admire educated people and aspire to know as much as they do. I love all your brains. But I will fall in love with you when I see philosophy bare and raw in you. I'm drawn to people whose thoughts haven't just settled in their minds but have penetrated them completely and spilled from brain to body to bone.

Illiterate grandmothers don't quote scripture but radiate faith through every gesture. [or if you will allow me to brag, for Arabs, kindness isn't a concept they discuss but a force that moves through them and against any wave: here and here]

Why does this matter? I'm a hopeless romantic and an idealist. But I'm also very practical.. Our values must be as easy as breathing to prepare us for when breathing becomes anything but easy. Our fancy intellectual self is too polished, too dressed up to hold us through that primitive, hard, final breath. Only what we've absorbed into our bones will carry us through.

Every morning I wake up excited about matcha. That's the first thought I have. But then the second thought immediately after, is that I lost my god. I need to look for god instead of matcha. I literally actually lost my god. Where did I drop my god? Did I accidentally leave him in the subway?

Nick's party was nice. But I'm tired of intellectuals philosophizing god. While I'm here operating in survival mode, tormented, looking for my god. I'm sorry but this is not the same.

God, values, love, morality, kindness, philosophy need to be in your body, in your bones - not just intellectual conversation. It needs to be a deep state we are familiar with. We rely on this state (this daily existence, the immediate self). It's the immediate thinking we will meet death with. So to rely and hope that this intellectual dinner self is somehow the self that will come on your death bed????? Oh this is a big gamble and I have a surprise for you. Death is so primitive. You need to have your bones absorb these (become idealist) because that's what will face your death. Not the fancy you in a silk dress in a NYC dinner party.

I think this is the thing I don't like as much about my social circle. They are fancy. People here don't have a cozy grandma in their bones. Everyone should have that old school cozy rudimantry grandma in their bones. And that life philosophy should be in the cozy grandma. But instead, tech people have philosophy in their head/brain. And not even in the fast thinking part of their brain, but in the slow thinking, which again doesn't come when you are dying.

I shouldn't be too negative. But you are my journal. If I can't be negative here. Then where?

The party was nice. The food was good. I should've eaten more. But I also have so much left over in the fridge from Thursday. I would love a fellow simple person thinking about big/survival topics with me. I'm grateful for reddit.