Introduction and Reading Suggestion - Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon

[AsclepiosMx]

Hello all, I'm Mike, Michael, or AsclepiosMx. I'm here to socialize with others oriented towards self actualization, and since Leo is a beacon for enlightened thought, I have high hopes for this community. A little background, I work as a hospice nurse after trying on many roles in life. I was born into a narcissistic and authoritarian family, and early in life I developed an intuition about people and life that has kept me from falling into the same traps as my family and childhood community (at least not for long). Still, I joined the Marines right after 9/11 in a headstrong and childish attempt at serving my community and country, so I spent 4 years deconstructing those illusions through direct experience. I left the military when my contract was up and ended up working as a health aide providing care to the elderly. That's where I found a higher calling. Working night shift and listening to Alan Watt's lectures inspired me to return to school to become an RN. After a long and varied career in direct combat with suffering, I had a deeper realization that grief and learning are the same thing separated only by resistance.

Quote

“Sitting there on the heather, on our planetary grain, I shrank from the abysses that opened up on every side, and in the future. The silent darkness, the featureless unknown, were more dread than all the terrors that imagination had mustered. Peering, the mind could see nothing sure, nothing in all human experience to be grasped as certain, except uncertainty itself; nothing but obscurity gendered by a thick haze of theories. Man's science was a mere mist of numbers; his philosophy but a fog of words. His very perception of this rocky grain and all its wonders was but a shifting and a lying apparition. Even oneself, that seeming-central fact, was a mere phantom, so deceptive, that the most honest of men must question his own honesty, so insubstantial that he must even doubt his very existence.”
― Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker

My examinations on my own suffering commenced in earnest, and in the process I gained sovereignty over my inner state. I realized that all of my beliefs were fictions, and that Truth itself is silent. It can only be felt, seen, perceived clearly with a still mind, because thoughts and beliefs distort the image and lead egoic delusions, falling back into the dream. Coinciding with these realizations came the offer to become a hospice nurse, which has me walking behind the scenes ministering to the grieving by providing context to their suffering and the knowledge they need in order to cope with the tough lessons they are experiencing.

Quote

“The true goal of human activity was the creation of a world-wide community of awakened and intelligently creative persons, related by mutual insight and respect, and by the common task of fulfilling the potentiality of the human spirit on earth.”
― Olaf Stapledon, Star Maker

Which brings me here. I love philosophical discussion and derive the utmost pleasure from the epiphany of realization. I can't wait to interact with you all!

[BipolarGrowth]

Cool stuff. Good to have you here.