Strangely, sitting to think about this project, my self reflection, and what these represent in life always brings me the answers I seek about my fickle approaches. Yet, oftentimes I avoid the consistent conclusion when pondering the few minutes its digest requires.

Like dust swept under a rug, I’ve always known why l work this project in fits and starts. The reason is the same as my intermittent approach to what used to be a daily writing practice that for the last two years I have turned into writing when I feel it’s necessary:

In all the thinking about insights and working on my hangups and attempting to cultivate self, I realize I’ve learned nothing new. And perhaps if I have uncovered anything useful with these practices, it is that I have spent my life covering up every answer for which I later searched. What a sobering thought — yet I’m beginning to understand that this conclusion itself is the point, and perhaps the reason for my acceptance of a growing apathy.

I’ve always known everything I need. In all my pursuits I’ve learned a lot about myself, but they were always going to be a waste of time. That isn’t to say that from them I know much or anything, really; only that all knowledge is useless if we adequately attend to the present.

Do not believe what you have heard. Do not believe in tradition because it is handed down many generations. Do not believe in anything that has been spoken of many times. Do not believe because the written statements come from some old sage. Do not believe in conjecture. Do not believe in authority, or teachers, or elders. But after careful observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by it.