I love the world, and I love myself. I want to understand the world, as well as myself. I want to help and improve the world, and want the same for myself. I find that these two desires are part of one whole. Only through individual growth can someone truly help and improve the community and world around them. To do so, one must meditate. Both in the eastern sense (learning to calm the mind and be attentive and mindful to the present moment), and in the western sense (to sit and ponder upon life through an analytical approach). Both methods are two sides of the same coin, and are both important in the pursuit of understanding.
I am starting this blog because it is my intention to do both in my own life. For both personal reasons, and the desire to help the world and people within it. I wish for a platform at which I can share my thoughts, and hopefully create dialogue amongst others so that we may all grow together.
When it comes to intellectual schools of thought, I have never been content in only learning about one. In my high school years, I became very passionate about economics. The Great Recession of 2008 occurred, and I wanted to understand why. Mainstream economics couldn’t explain the phenomena in a way that I could accept, so I began researching alternative schools such as the Austrian school of economics. Though I have no formal education in the subject, I spent years drowning in books, literature, and treatises that granted me a wealth of understanding. It helped me understand that economics isn’t some distasteful natural science that focuses on greed, the evil of Wall-Street, or how the world of finance is some zero-sum game where some benefit while others suffer. It helped me understand that the study of economics is simply a study of humanity. In particular, a study of how human beings allocate the resources we are provided upon this earth, in an attempt to do so in the most efficient manner. Amazingly, we do so without the conscious intention. I view it as a beautiful study of the natural flow of human action, that eventually benefits us all. I feel it grants wisdom in not only how economies should function, but personal finance, political philosophy, and even ethics on how human beings should treat each other. I find that a proper understanding of economics grants a small piece of the larger puzzle of the importance and beauty of peace.
Through my higher education, I studied the natural sciences. In particular, I studied human anatomy, physiology and medicine. Where in high school I learned about human society, and through that learned more about myself. Here in college, I learned about my body, and through it a deeper understanding of human society. Learning about how the human body works, grants an incredible amount of humility. Not only because we know so little about how our bodies work, but also because the processes we do understand is so complex that it grants a student a feeling of awe knowing that our body is the result of molecules traveling across cell membranes all for the intention of creating balance on either side. Such a simple natural force, not too different from hot air moving towards an area of cold air for balance that ultimately causes wind, our molecules are subject to a natural force that generates a complex system that is our body.
I entered higher education with the intention of becoming a medical doctor. However, I became increasingly disinterested in this profession because of how streamlined it has become, and the corruption from what we call “Big Farma”. However, my passion for how to heal people through science never faltered. After graduation, and having lived much of my adult life analytically studying both the natural sciences and social sciences, I became increasingly interested in alternative ways to gain wisdom. I began to explore eastern philosophies such as Daoism, and practices such as meditation and yoga. These schools of thought focused less on logic, but the important of attention on the present moment. It seems that through this practice, one can understand much. Soon, I stumbled upon the current body of scientific literature regarding the mental and physical health benefits of mindfulness meditation. I became fascinated on how such a simple (yet complex) practice was seemingly capable of providing both physical and intellectual benefits. Though the research is young, and most studies are observational, there is a development of scientific explanation to how meditation physiologically changes our body for the better. Both the philosophy and science of this art is something I am learning about, and wish to explore as time goes on.
I am merely a student to all of the subjects above. Nonetheless, I believe they are all important in understanding myself, my society, and my world. This blog will document my exploration of these ideas and more. The reason I will cover so many topics is that I have found they all have one unifying theme. The more one explores each separate school of thought, and attempts to connect them, the more I find they all share a common thread. That common thread is perhaps most adequately described by the term “Peace”. This, is what I hope to both explain and explore as the blog develops.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. One Love.
