2023-06-05 Journal Entry

🍃 Season: 🌷 Spring 🔆 Weekday: Monday 🗓 Date: June 5, 2023 📅 Week: Jun 5 – Jun 11, 2023

One of the descriptions I got for journaling was that it was a time for “hanging out with your eudaimon.” That is to say, it’s a time to ask the best version of yourself questions, to look for advice, to give it the space to present itself, and to channel it in whatever you’re working on. I’ll do that a bit more later, but today I’m going to do some exercises presented as part of Module O from the Heroic training. Those exercises are examples of hanging out with my eudaimon, but they’re a bit more structured.

Quick Trip to Heaven

Exercise: Imagine entering a time machine and traveling forward to meet the most radiantly alive version of yourself you can possible imagine. (1) What does it feel like to be in their presence? (2) Imagine you had only one minute with them: what wisdom do they share with you? (3) Imagine they could only tell you one thing. What would that be?

Being in my eudaimon’s presence feels nourishing, it feels like it makes me a better person by simply being around it. It’s not quite the same as inspiration, which feels like something outside of myself. It’s a bit closer to empowerment, where something feels as if it were obviously true. Self-worth feels obvious, potential feels obvious, greatness feels obvious, virtue and love and aliveness and deep okay-ness and the energy to strive for what something huge all feel obvious. It feels as if, well, of course we’re supposed to be going all out and owning life and doing something big. Of course I’m not supposed to be spending all my time wasting away at a job I don’t care about, because I can see that something huge lies on the other side.

They share a lot of wisdom but primarily it’s encouragement, it’s encouragement to give away everything I’ve got. Their wisdom is that the whole point of life is not to wait until the right thing comes along to devote yourself to — the point of life is devotion to life itself, to live that life as thoroughly and as deeply as possible. How does one devote oneself to life, I may ask, and the answer is that life is inherently about creating and experiencing, and that they’re two sides of the same coin. To create well, one must experience well, and experiencing well is about attending to each and every moment as it is created, and by creating each moment you are participating in it well. The meaning of life is to create each and every moment. Everything is an act of creation, by you and for you. You are creating each and every moment for creation itself, who is watching it all unfold. Creation never stops, so one must devote themself to creation over and over again.

If they could tell me one thing, it would be this: the road is the destination. Creation, the act of creation, is the highest thing there is. You can’t create anything greater than creation itself, so don’t worry about the thing you’ve created — nuzzle into each and every moment of creating!