My instructor asked me if I preferred Spanish or English, and I said Spanish is fine unless if I need something repeated. We stretched and then I started to learn how to do the pop up.

The thing I wasn’t prepared for was my instructor helping me, while I was on the board, to get past waves crashing towards us. I also didn’t know he would prefer me to stay on the board while doing that, since I’m used to just getting through the waves myself.

The funny thing is when he was bewildered with me when I missed a wave. He told me later that he said ‘are you ready for this wave?’ and I said ‘si?’ and he said yes. Funnily enough, I remember asking him a question along the lines of ‘the following one?’

He switched to English a bit, and the funny part is he literally said to me ‘this next wave is yours.’ I did literally nothing. After that miss, I told him it’s not necessarily the Spanish and laughed about it.

He used Spanish for the rest of the lesson with me. I’ve noticed that my Spanish has some holes while being here in Costa Rica. When I visited Argentina last year, that was different since it was about half a year after I started learning. Now it’s 2 years later so I am using it even more. The thing that sets me apart I would say from 90% of other language learners is that I will use it even if it makes things harder for me or makes me feel awkward.

I’ve spoken Spanish in return to Spanish people that switched to English to the point that they realized what they were doing, stopped, and then apologized. I’ve asked people who started speaking to me in English if they speak Spanish, and switched to Spanish even if that meant that my ability to speak became lower than my ability to understand them. Just today, a woman walking her dog said hi to me and I said hello back. When I first met her the other day in the same area, I spoke to her in Spanish — asking if I could leave my glasses with her for a moment while I swam, and asking about her dog. She was white, but I never considered to speak English to her.

The only people I let off the hook in not speaking Spanish, when I’m in Spanish speaking countries, are people whose native language is not Spanish. In the end of the day, I would rather be the guy speaking Spanglish for the words I do not know and hoping they understand (to reduce the issues around conversational ergonomics when additional word-searching is needed) — rather than the guy that easily defaults over to English.

On the other hand, the thing I’m learning is that I do need to learn some grammar. I’ve gotten pretty far with hundreds of hours of tutoring, and the overlap between Spanish and Romanian. But if I want to overcome some challenges, I need to restart vocab training, and some grammar exercises. For example, things that have tripped me up have been pronouncing caigo as cayo (ca-sho in my accent) for seemingly no reason, confusing enfrente with enfrenar, or saying ‘see you soon’ last week which I learned is more of a farewell than a see you soon as it would be in Romanian/English.

It’s little things like that which trip me up with Spanish. And as for surfing, there’s things that trip me there too.

My instructor also had told me in Spanish to paddle slowly, but I paddled like a mad man (in my words that’s how I would describe his gestures when he played it back to me). The same thing there, when he said it in English I understood he wanted me to paddle slowly. A few more attempts later, when he yelled ‘paddle paddle!’ I understood that as ‘you need to paddle fast!’

So clearly, there’s a difference in the nuance of how my brain interprets things. He told me if he wants me to paddle fast, he’ll say paddle fast or paddle hard. To that end, I figured when I hear paddle I should paddle what I consider to be slowly, when I hear paddle fast I should paddle normally, and when I hear shark as I joked to him I should paddle as I usually paddle.

That feedback is pretty helpful. The other thing that was pretty helpful was early on when he told me not to do big paddles, to basically scoop the water back, otherwise I can hurt my rotator cuff and be out of commission for months.

Before we started stretching, as we were making our way to the beach, I asked if he had braces since his teeth looked pretty damn perfect. He said they aren’t perfect and far from it. Turns out years back another surfer hit him and fled the seen. He woke up on the beach, covered in blood. Bystanders had taken a video and what had happened was the other guy got on the same wave he started (he was closed to where it was breaking), and when it was clear he would hit my instructor he jumped off with his board lurching forwards rather than sitting on it or braking.

My instructor echoed what I wrote yesterday on my blog, in that surfing carries real consequences. You can bet your ass I was grateful I finally ponied up for a lesson. I’ve got another one scheduled for Wednesday with another instructor. I was set on taking lessons from both of these 2 instructors from the start, since I figured it would give me a well rounded lesson (and afford me the opportunity to forget everything from the first lesson or close to it and not feel bad).

I am kidding about forgetting. My instructor did a great job and I caught some great waves. Even at the beginning of the lesson, where he was unhappy about everything I was doing (since I had no turning control), I was happy because I was already setting personal records for distance of a wave that I’ve ridden.

Funny enough, what made it possible for me to overcome all the little things tripping me up in achieving a surf that would make my instructor happy was a little distraction…

We’d already covered that I need to slow down (whether it was my paddling or popping up). At one point we even went back to shore to make sure I understood on the sand how I should make my pop up not suck so bad.

The other thing I understood was that I need to be more methodical. Looking behind for example could mess up my steps or bring me off center. I needed to go through each step of knowing where the wave was, paddling at a proper rate, and then when my instructor counted down when to pop up (3, 2, 1 — which is probably one of the most helpful things for a beginner that is trying to coordinate a dozen other things) — being ready to pop up by pushing my body up on my hands, putting my left foot horizontal to the board in the specific location it should be near the tail, and putting my right foot after that in another specific location.

So yeah, that made it work was a little distraction. He was telling me he’s making a surfing app, after I tried to respond by saying ‘yes the idea is,’ because I thought he was asking a question after I told him that I am in IT. As you can see, there’s either something terribly wrong with my ears, my Spanish comprehension, or my ability to mix them together while flying over crashing waves that my instructor is pushing me through like an Argentinian water man. Funny enough, they call people from Buenos Aires portenos, which means from a port city. I mentioned this in my blog yesterday, but it made me smile thinking about how accurate it is for this man.

But I digress… the surfing app he’s making hit a wall since he isn’t a tech wizard. His brother, that is, doesn’t want to help him with it. I can relate to that type of relationship and it made me laugh. That laughter and small distraction was enough to get the logical part of my brain to hibernate for a little, while I let the muscle memory and instruction take over.

It was that wave which rode which made my instructor happy, and I could even tell it went pretty well before I looked back.

During our lesson, my instructor spelled out that I am used to a fast life and need to slow down. If that’s not accurate, I don’t know what is. Even on the walk back he encouraged me to walk slower. I thought that was just something one of my best friends says because she’s a slow walker. He encouraged me to slow down. Here I was, walking back with the board, the lesson was over, he was hungry (probably hungrier than I was since he put in more effort during the lesson hauling me all over the ocean), and yet he was still teaching me.

While I was in the water and he said something about getting in tune with the flow of the ocean, while slowing down, I couldn’t help but think of Bad Bunny’s SNL skit. It’s kind of hard not to think of Bad Bunny when I hear ‘el oceano.’

But on the way back, I concurred with my instructor and told him these lessons are applicable to the rest of my life. Like that programming problem I did a few days ago which made me feel like an idiot. Rather than being methodical, and learning, skill by skill, pattern by pattern, and slowing down, I tried to solve a problem at 10 PM when I should have gone to bed — and I didn’t stop until 4 AM when I was extremely frustrated with myself.

So yeah, I had a 2 hour surfing lesson that helped me learn more about my pace and approach than I’ve learned in the past couple of weeks through different interactions in my life. There’s something to be said for that, despite all of the losses I incurred — be it my glasses, or be it words lost in translation. At the end of the day, I did something completely new and learned a lot, and grew in the process.

For that, I’m super grateful.

And afterwards, I went to get a burrito + an espresso milkshake. That milkshake is so good I ended up getting another. I also spoke to the owner of the restaurant again, who turns out to have the same problem of paddling too fast according to his instructor. I was happy to hear he’s inspired to go out surfing with his wife this week and is going to look for a leash for one of his boards that is missing it. I also discussed some business ideas + challenges with him and how he’s solving them.

All in all, it was a great day and I’m looking forward to the last few days here before I fly back to the states.

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Today I woke up a bit late, but had a pretty awesome day. I had a burrito and a coffee/milkshake at a local restaurant, chatted with the owner who is also a tech enthusiast (and fellow domain collector), and came back home around 2 PM.

As I was about to get dressed to walk by the ocean and see how the waves are, I saw a surfer staying in my complex and yelled at him “excuse me” first in Spanish and then in English. This dude was pretty chill. Didn’t look a day over 40 yet said he was in his mid 50s and had retired after teaching high school for a few decades.

The surfer dude informed me there are still some good waves, although small, and after we finished the awkward small talk I had initiated from my window and continued when he came back down the stairs, I went out inspired for a day of surf.

What really kicked it off was a local surfer / board rental worker who sent me some videos on Whatsapp about surfing. After finishing my Spanish lesson at 11 AM (which I totally had forgotten about until 5 minutes after it started), I watched those videos and got inspired.

Anyways, I went to plan my first lesson with him tomorrow and to rent a board. The cool thing is that he is from Argentina. Buenos Aires in fact (most people usually are since it has a massive amount of the population). I speak in a Rioplatense which is used by Porteños and Uruguayans. Between randomly seeing him walking down the beach a few days ago, or his texts today, I figure it’s a sign and I ought to get a lesson so I went to the surf rental place to plan that and get a board for today.

By the time I got to the ocean, it was probably around 2:45 PM. I figured I would surf an hour, take a break, and see where it goes from there. This was my first time going out into the deep end without my glasses (which I lost about 2 weeks ago if you may recall). It was a lot of fun.

At some point it started to rain, as a storm was coming in from inland. It was pretty cool, I love the freedom of surfing. And the crazy thing is it’s a lot like climbing… when you paddle out, your hands are doing the same movement of reaching up and pulling as when climbing (or virtually the same). Then, there’s the pulling yourself up on the board which is something we’re constantly doing in climbing. You could say that surfing is a form of climbing waves by climbing your board and then descending. In climbing we need balance in our feet otherwise we’d fall off (whether we are going up or down) and in surfing we can also fall down while riding a wave if not balanced enough.

So for me, it feels very natural. I’ve never been a strong swimmer nor someone who really enjoyed body boards and things like that. But surfing for me is a different beast altogether. Speaking of, I love how you can surf, knee board, and body board all in one ride down a wave. I’ve never seen that until coming here to Costa Rica.

Today while surfing through the torrential rain, it was pretty wild because there was thunder off in the distance inland, and even north of us where the bay ends. Then there was a lull in the rain. It came back even stronger. What had before been 50% storm clouds covering half of the bay was 80% enveloped in clouds and the rain came back like never before. Even before the rain had started, I was getting what I call ‘drowny energy’ from the ocean.

Although the waves were not as big as when I lost my glasses, my board was bigger than what I’ve been using the past times I surfed - since I figured I need to make it a little easier on myself. A bigger board has a bigger pull. It stretched my inner thigh in a way I’ve never stretched (or strained) in climbing. At some point I switched the chord from my left leg to my right leg. But it made me a little amused to remember that my right ankle is still a bit sensitive after a climbing injury I had a while back. Here I was, straining a thigh, then an already healing ankle, just so stay out in a storm with clouds, enveloping thunder, and pour torrential rain.

The thing is, I am not afraid of drowning. I’m not afraid of being strike by lightning either. I imagine the worst that could come out of it is ending up on the shoreline getting resuscitated in the event of drowning, or maybe in the hospital with some burn or brain damage if you get struck by lightning.

But, in the same way I love to climb and accept the real danger of a serious or fatal accident happening, I accept the same with surfing.

Climbing has helped me have way better reflexes, spacial coordination, and a better understanding of my body. For reflexes, I saw it within months of starting to climb where I was able to save something crazy, like a water glass falling mouth first towards a kitchen floor — by using my foot to cradle it and follow its downward trajectory to flow its velocity and also rotate its mouth away from the impact zone, all while doing the best I could to accomplish this in a way which would not kick it into the counter or possibly even make the situation worse and have the glass shatter around my fast moving foot.

Just a few days ago, I noticed when needing to get to some things around me, it was super easy. I knew exactly how much reach I had in front and behind me. And in swimming, yes, knowing your capabilities in climbing makes it fairly easy, at least for me, to know my limits in terms of swimming capacity.

There are various factors in surfing, like other surfers, currents, and your own board that you have to take into account. Things are more unpredictable, so you have to use more proactive measures to avoid an accident.

As much as I love climbing, I also love surfing. These are two sports that as I’ve said, I could die doing and I would be content. The only things that are scary about it is living to tell the tale, or, other people having to put themselves at risk to rescue you. I’ve seen helicopter rescue videos of climbers, and as skilled as those teams are, they have to take the risk that they won’t come back home in the process of saving you. That’s not a position I would want anyone to be in, on behalf of myself.

With all of that being said, I love climbing and surfing. To call them sports seems like calling running a sport for myself (during the time I ran a few half marathons and a full marathon), or to call yoga a sport. It’s a super cool way to get in the flow.

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I’ve been dragging my feet on next steps for a while and I think it’s starting to click. Even though I’ve felt guilty with not figuring it out sooner after quitting my job, or not just jumping into my new life, I’m pretty happy with the turn out.

While reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and doom scrolling on Instagram (albeit with some positive content), I had some ideas crystallize for me.

Even though I’ve been low key these past couple of weeks, the reality is that I’ve been miserable for decades. I thought maybe 2 decades, and then in reality, probably since I was a kid. And then the next thing that crossed my mind is this time that I’ve carved out for myself to ‘see how it goes’ without a 9-5… it’s around 2-3 years.

If I think critically about my feelings of being miserable, in the educational system, work, and what not, I can round that off to about 24 years. The thing that crossed my mind is what if I stop being miserable for an eighth of the time I’ve been miserable?

The reason this thought emerged is because I’ve been questioning the meaning of life, but also mulling over how much we live according to patterns and coding given to us by society. What would it look like if we stopped following that code?

As a mere example, I didn’t use Instagram for over half a decade - despite any possible ‘social downside’ it may have brought. In June I started using it again, and without any obligations (no work, no school, no family obligations, zilch), I just used Instagram more and more. That programming is not coincidental. Someone created that entire experience to be captivating, engaging, addictive, and keeping you running on a treadmill that takes slightly more than it gives. Even knowing this, I willingly got on the treadmill.

When you think about how fascinating that is - that someone was able to create a little version of reality for billions of people around the world, through the vision and the execution, you started to appreciate what it means to program yourself.

On this note, if you haven’t heard of High Agency, I highly recommend this article from highagency.com. I read it months ago and I think it’s time for me to read it again, and eventually build a habit out of it.

Back on the topic of this article though… Imagine if for just 1/8th of the time I’ve been miserable, doing what others expected me to do, or what I thought would be best according to the programming, or what felt most comfortable, I did the exact opposite.

Now here is the interesting thing… if I was a teenager or a young adult I would have probably told you I would love to be able to work for myself, impact others positively, achieve ambitious goals in sports, invest wisely, and so forth. The possibility of getting to the point where I could travel the world without someone breathing over my neck would excite me. It gave me something to work towards.

Now that I’m here, I suppose as I’ve been reading about the ego, I have nothing to grip onto. The old ego of desiring freedom is gone, as I have freedom. Yet the misery remains.

That doesn’t make sense. If the misery has been programmed in as a default then that’s a problem. I don’t care if it comes back after 3 years, but for all intents and purposes I intended to eradicate misery for an 1/8th of the time I have generally lived with life’s general stress over literally anything: not eating healthy enough, not advancing in my career, not finding a like minded girlfriend, not reading more, not writing more, not creating art, not traveling and being present, not doing yoga, not journaling, not learning more languages, not connecting with other people that have similar goals and values, and so forth.

On another note, yesterday, on 7/19/2026 I bet on Argentina winning the world cup. First I bet $24, with a max payout of $52, then I bet another $6, then I bet another $4. Even though the chances kept going down, a player was taken out of the game on the Argentinian game, and things were looking dire. I originally bet because I wanted the game to feel more real (I love Argentina but haven’t watched more than a few hours of football in the past decade). Then I bet a little more, and then a little more. I could have sold to get half my principle back, but chose to stay in the game…

I haven’t bet since probably a decade ago, and I don’t intend to bet anymore. However, this was a stark reminder of how when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. How much is my time and effort worth? $50 an hour? $100 an hour? $1000? The monetary amount can be worth anything depending on the final outcome, which would be my own contentedness and satisfaction. It can even be priceless.

So to waste away on Instagram with some dopamine hits? Even if it’s comedic videos of climbers or some uplifting sports history… the investment doesn’t seem worth the outcome. And the more you get back, a little hit of dopamine, seeing that yes your bet is now worth $2 more than the $34 you invested and yes you can sell, but why sell since you’re now more convinced than ever that it is worth it… well that’s how the sunk cost fallacy works.

Sunk costs are exactly what I’ve paid in doing what was expected of me. Some of it was inevitable. Being an immigrant means that you have to eat shit sometimes and grin through it (or something like that if I remember what my dad said at some point).

Another thing my dad said is a road is a road, and the only road to success is perseverance. I guess what I’m trying to say is if I had to eat shit to get here, it would be stupid to give up half way through the race.

As it relates to races, something that crossed my mind while swimming a week or two ago is that being is like swimming. In the sense that the ripples in the water only move outwards from you as you swim. Behind you there’s a lot of waves, ripples, and so forth, but ahead of you it’s completely still. The froth we fight is typically our own and it’s best to forge ahead. I thought, as I swam, life’s like that - the water’s still ahead but it seems way different in the heat of the stroke. Ultimately, there’s a freedom in making the waves.

On a tangential note, I saw a video of a sailor who said something along the lines of other people are echoes of our own self. In the sense that the conversations and connections you make with others are echoes of who you are, that you can think back to and appreciate as you live your life. I suppose the ripples are like that. Some ripples cause froth, some feedback noise, and other ripples cause buoyancy and forward momentum. The inherent skill in swimming is not flailing about in a way that would cause a feedback loop that blows the speaker.

I suppose you can drown in anything. Doubts, information, ignorance, what have you.

I’ve been static for far too long that if I stay put I’m going to sink straight down. At the very least, floating requires some dynamic movement, and achieving your goal head on requires coordination, coaching, and perseverance.

What I want out of these next 3 years is the freedom that I don’t need to work ever again for a company or person, on something that is not aligned with my values, my standard of quality, and that does not excite me. Life is too short for that.

I also want to achieve some ludicrous athletic ability, like climbing a V8 or something along those lines. Whatever calisthenics, yoga, or flexibility outcomes that come with that are great, but if I had to throw something ambitious out there it would be a V8 as I can barely climb 50% of V4s I encounter even if I am in a good shape.

Besides the personal freedom and physical capabilities which keep this machine called the human body, and the human spirit, alive and well, I want to be part of a like minded community. This community of friends and partners (business partners, life partner) will be helping people, animals, and the environment. And if they aren’t big on one or the other, they certainly won’t be a big detractor towards one or the other.

I will advance my capabilities in software engineering, building companies, and making a positive impact. As part of my personal progress, I will become a pioneer in developing a new field - but the result is not going to be as beneficial to me as the becoming. The becoming, for myself, and this field, will never be fully complete.

I might even master the mathematics that have eluded me most of my life. Having never gotten to a Calculus left of understanding of math is a real downer for me. If I would achieve that in a 3 year time span, to be at the point of Multivariable Calculus, it would be unbelievable amongst all the other changes I am tackling. Never the less, I will make progress towards this - even if it’s 50% or 30%. It will be palatable.

I’ve spent most of my life in my head, so I don’t want to over rely on any heady goals. Never the less, I do want to incorporate at least a retreat or two into my life. Quiet, peace, nothingness. More than any external connection I can form, be it in connecting with an audience to succeed in a business endeavor, meeting a life partner, connecting with a new culture, or what have you, the best connection to be made is with my own heart. For that I need some reserved time for me to simply be.

On an unrelated note, back tracking to the Instagram thing, I was consuming a lot of short form content even before the past month and a half. I had dozens of tabs open with YouTube videos I might watch, for months at a time, ranging from business videos to travel videos. Just opening YouTube to find a music track could send me on a 5 minute rabbit hole of YouTube shorts.

Despite all of this, I worked 80 hour weeks last fall for weeks at a time despite learning Spanish for about an hour each day and going to the climbing gym 2-3 times a week. I maximized my efficiency as much as I could, and for a time was performing well (not in a multi-tasking performative sense where nothing actually gets accomplished and you look busier than what you are actually achieving). But that really burned me out. Working so much, without actually moving the needle on personal matters (like actually getting better at climbing, or closing the bridge between having a workable Spanish capability and mastering the language), isn’t conducive to living the life I want to live.

Through the myriad of reels and posts I’ve been scrolling through, I’ve seen something related to the nervous system and how numbing yourself to negative experiences can cause you to become numb to positive experiences as well. This is precisely why I am going to rewrite my history for the next 3 years. No more of the same on repeat.

I am NOT working towards the freedom to have these 3 years. I am NOT in a position to feel guilty for not pursuing a master’s, or for not applying to some job that could pay XY% more than my last job. I’m in it for the WXYZ% growth in the next 3 years. There is no relationship, no job, no obligation holding me from reading a book every week, from practicing math, from building a successful business that actually helps others, and from having all the peace of mind I deserve to have in the process.

I consider that I’ve paid my ticket already. If I sit with my hands in my lap while this opportunity passes me by, I will be depressed, unhappy, unmotivated, and quite frankly it would likely destroy my confidence for the rest of my life.

I’m not trying to be dramatic, but after having toughed so many things out in my life this is the moment to relax. I’ve run a marathon, I’ve meditated in the freezing cold on the side of the street after running just because, I’ve chanted until my consciousness melded with the supreme, I’ve hurt myself parkouring to the point I couldn’t move my leg out of the car without lifting it with my arms, and yet I’ve also forgotten about yoga and chanting and mediating. The same aerial yoga I used to do on a yoga swing, which I developed methods to heal myself with, is something I haven’t done in ages. Nowadays I’m more prone to injure myself by not stretching before climbing (like I never did when running, which led to me not continuing after running a marathon), than I am to invent novel ways to heal myself (which others may or may have not already discovered). I’ve changed my diet again and again, to become healthier and more mindful of what I put in my body. I’ve come to fascinating personal discoveries on the state of the metaphysical reality we live in. At one point, I started speaking Spanish in Mexico without ever having studied the language. I’ve immigrated to a new continent as a child, and in the process learned a bunch of fun accents from all over the world and developed a love for learning new languages. I’ve survived accidents, and swam, ran, walked, and climbed my way to where I am.

If none of that is success, I’ll be damned if it’s not the making of success.

And don’t even get me started on this whole ego & the divine business. I’m tired of flipping between ‘is this expression of self in alignment with my higher self’? I don’t have time for that. That’s the time of over thinking I don’t want to entertain in the next three years.

One of the thing that comes to mind, to better explain what I’m referring to, is that as I dieted to lose weight I started to see what health is really about. Tracking calories might be the first step to understanding that you have a problem. If you’re 164 pounds, want to be better at climbing, and your back hurts from the extra weight, and your goal is to be 135 pounds; then it would probably help to know you’re eating 2500 calories when you should really be eating 2100 and working your way down to 1800 until you hit the phase for maintenance. But then you start to learn in the process about macros - you can’t just eat a bunch of carbs or fat without protein, or a bunch of protein and fat but leave out the carbs. Then you perfect your macros, but you learn about biology and your own body - how some things cause inflammation, how your food should be as close to the source as possible without additives and processing.

As you go down the rabbit hole of bettering yourself, you realize it’s not just about what the calories, macros, and measurements say. It doesn’t matter if your body fat percentage or your muscle mass is in the top fifth percentile of people your age in your country, if you have a lack of energy or have poor sleep. Then you start to work on eating food that nourishes you in the manner you need for energy, for your emotional well being, and you start to look into ways to improve your mental well being. Because a healthy lifestyle is only going to last as long as your ability to be content and to self regulate in the process.

With consciousness, it’s harder to know when you’re over-focused on ‘calories’ and not focusing on the ‘macros.’ But let’s be real. You’re probably not going to figure out whether you re-incarnate, whether you go to heaven, or whether you will be able to achieve a nirvana that goes beyond any of these. I offer this solely as an example. If you think about doing good deeds so your family or church is proud, about doing good deeds so your karma is rewarded, or about possibly letting go of the desire for creating good or bad karma so that you get closer to what is needed for a complete ascension into some nirvana like state… you’re probably doing it wrong. For someone that can overthink a lot like myself, even the subconscious programming of these belief systems is sufficient to interject differences in outcome and actions; and I’m not talking about positive ones. For me it can be easy for existential problems to serve as an anchor back to the most existential questions that can result in existential dread, a dark night of the soul, and so forth.

If I do good and I go to heaven, so be it. If I do good and I get re-incarnated in a better place, great. If I somehow do so well, in my current state that is interwoven with the modern world and far away from a monastery, but somehow still achieve extreme balance and wisdom to the point where I get myself 99% of the way to nirvana, excellent. But I’m not going to bet my work on any of that.

The next 3 years has nothing to do with that. I’m just barely starting to see the benefit of the cost of the effort I’ve made up until this point. Speaking realistically, from my own evolution standpoint, I am in the householder phase. After reading Jain materials on what it’s like at the end of one’s life, I am convinced sincerely that I am not ready for that. What hubris would I need in order to jump ahead to the stage of unwinding my worldly attachments and readying myself for the next phase in the human experience?

Sure, there are plenty of people that become monks. If I’m not mistaken, a president of India was a monk for decades before re-entering regular life and becoming a politician. There’s countless founders that have done the same thing. Others, like Jack Dorsey, make sure to check into silent retreats and are basically toeing the line between the day to day life and the life of someone in tune with not just themselves, but the universe. As it stands, I’m more comfortable with assuming the latter arrangement with my inner-knowing. Not for the benefit of day to day matters, not even for the benefit of being more effective at making a positive impact in the lives of others and the planet, but for the benefit of being.

Today, while reading a book I had a koan like thought emerge: we don’t exist in existence, we exist in non-existence.

It’s that koan that sums up everything I’ve written here more succinctly and better than I could.

I’ve been writing for over an hour at this point and am going to let this sink in for you and for myself:

I’m about 40 days into being free from a 9-5 job. A week or two ago it dawned on me that I have no experiential reality with what this entails.

For the past 8 years I’ve been working enterprise jobs that while beneficial from a career perspective, were not earth-shattering endeavors. The most surprising thing to me looking back on it is that I was constantly seeking more education, more career opportunities, and I somehow maintained the energy for this - despite the tedium of the 9-5.

Now that I am free from the daily grind I have little ambition for my personal projects, for furthering my education, for reading, for writing, or doing anything.

It could be severe burnout, but it could also be indifference.

The thing I’ve been telling myself is that I’ve got this opportunity to do something, so I might as well do it in the hopes that it helps others. There are so many people, and beings, suffering right this minute. If I opt out of the grind through some means like going to a monastery and living the rest of my life there, what will I have really achieved for the benefit of others?

At the same time, I’ve told myself that until I try something like that I won’t really know.

The only thing that motivates me now is to encourage myself to work consistently on the things that I am naturally adept at, as well as the things that I can make the biggest impact on, so that I don’t waste the opportunity. If I am fine wasting it for myself, so be it, but I cannot accept indifference to an opportunity that can help others.

One other thing that’s dawned on me throughout the past couple of months is that people often critique those with money, saying it’s greed or what not. If someone would produce 3-4 million dollars of revenue in their life which goes towards housing, food, and so forth, what’s the problem with producing that up front? If an individual can produce 1-2 million dollars in 3-5 years, and invest that prudently in a manner that nets the same 3-4 million in a lifetime, what is wrong with that?

The worker mentality is severely debilitating. If someone is triggered by the upfront value creation that I shared, then they ought to consider what even a year of freedom from the tedium can produce. Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, produced so much artistic and philosophical value simply by being given a year off work by her friends. You can read more about it here.

I’m not talking about producing a million to million dollars through some crappy affiliate marketing course, or through drop shipping junk. I’m talking about hunkering down, working anywhere from 30-60 hours a week on something you truly enjoy or find value in, and not backing down when the naysayers sprinkle their doubts. Harper Lee was informed her book wouldn’t sell more than a few thousand copies, and nowadays it sells close to a million copies every year. She didn’t accomplish her goal in a year, but rather, two and a half years is what it took her to write that book.

Even more interesting is that Harper Lee wasn’t able to replicate the success. The sad context she had from her father’s failed legal case, which inspired her story, was a one off. She tried writing again, but from what I gather, did not achieve anywhere near the original success.

In life, everyone deserves to have their Harper Lee moment. If no one else will gift you that year, I hope you will do everything you can to gift it to yourself.

No, it’s not easy once you do receive the time - but it sure is a worthy endeavor to undertake.

This is what I’m talking about when I say that those without, who have opportunities like this, are in a debilitating mindset. No, I’m not talking about the people that are living pay check to pay check with medical debt, illnesses, or other qualms. I’m talking about the people that are in tens of thousands of dollars of debt, for things they bought to impress their friends, who think that they’re thriving while they’re slowly drowning.

Prior to my unplugging from the 9-5 I was lucky enough to not be in the credit boat. Having had no car since 2019, not being big on ‘fashion,’ and having outdated technology that I bought myself, repaired, or was gifted, I cannot fathom what it’s like to work your way out of a credit nightmare - buying happiness with money you don’t have for a fleeting moment - to achieving a year or two of freedom from the 9-5.

As I wrote about this, and as I pondered Harper Lee, I figured I ought to give myself a year like that. It dawned on me, even before writing this, that my lack of enthusiasm for what comes next might be from the fact that I haven’t yet earned my ‘freedom’ for a lifetime. My freedom from the 9-5.

I figured that maybe I shouldn’t expect any other sentiments, other than the ones I have of being displeased or unimpressed, and I certainly shouldn’t accept those sentiments as mine… until I have given myself the freedom to be a human being and not a cog.

Even having the opportunity to build, or direct, some value in this world in a manner that buys back my own freedom from the 9-5 tedium is a rare one. Many people will likely just be wiped out, in the sense of being demoted a socioeconomic class or two - or until minimum wage, by the advancements in technology.

I am curious to see how it will play out. I suppose for now, it’s the only game worth playing. I’m writing this because I want to make it clear I am starting from a new foundation. I don’t have a business network, I don’t have clients, I don’t have prestigious pedigrees, and I don’t have a massive desire to make money or accumulate wealth.

However, for the benefit of those that don’t have opportunities but have done nothing wrong to be in the predicament that they are in, I want to do the hard work. The hard work that otherwise I would possibly ignore or leave behind in favor of easier ways of living out my years in peace, nature, and solitude.

I’m not sure what that looks like, and I’m sure I’m not the only one going through this. If I can inspire others in the process, that will give me more momentum to keep going when the going gets hard.

Thanks for reading this far. I look forward to what’s to come.

At a high-level, this article covers the general concept of a big bang (the start of the universe), the heat death (when all atoms are equally spaced due to entropy and there is no further expansion of the universe), as well as theories spanning the big crunch (an inward collapse of the universe after its heat death) and other concepts.

The article uses metaphors and images to demonstrate how these theories are compatible with life after death beliefs spanning heaven, hell, rebirths, and nirvana. It was 100% authored by Octavian, with no meaningful aid from Large Language Models (commonly referred to as AI). The only inconsequential use of ‘AI’ was reading
summaries in search engines to brush up on material previously read.

July 5th, 2025 was when I originally drafted this article, after it dawned on me that a universe which supports many contrasting beliefs and theories is possible.

I’m excited to share with you why it's not only possible, but also poetic, freeing, and fascinating.

This 'worldview' of the multiverse reconciles all of the outcomes including:

1. The universe in which your death results in nothingness, and the universe that dies in a heat death - never to big bang again.

2. The universe in which your death results in judgement by your creator, in which you achieve heaven, hell, or go to some form of purgatory.

   1. This includes the universe in which you are reborn ad infinitum. It even includes the universe in which you might achieve nirvana.

As I read through my original draft nearly a year later (during May 2026), I also pondered how argumentative people are towards this topic across many fields. Whether it be religious believers that adamantly believe in heaven or hell, rebirths, or the possibility of nirvana, or whether it's scientists that argue for one view of the universe or another.

This topic has been fraught since the beginning of humanity. If the past is informative of the next 100 years, humanity will most likely not be swayed by experiential reality, divine callings, or science in a manner that is substantial. That is to say, we probably won’t land on a definitive answer which illuminates our interconnected nature and is generally accepted or respected by the majority of people.

With that disclaimer out of the way, that it’s not easy to please everyone and this article cannot solve for that, I will do my best to elucidate the thoughts herein. Hopefully it is a spring board for others to ponder this effectively, poke holes, or advance the subject through their own findings.

To begin, let us imagine a 2 dimensional representation of time with a beginning and an end. On the left it starts, and on the right it ends.

From our perspective within this time segment, it looks as if there is a definitive start to the universe (the big bang) and a definitive end (the heat death of the universe, i.e. the inevitability of entropy).

Infinity would look like a circle with no beginning, nor end. However, contained within that circle you may have segments of time with actual start and ends - which happen to repeat in the same exact manner every single time.

So what have we achieved with this perspective? That both infinity (rebirths, multiverses, etc.) are possible. However, this initial perspective leaves us with a reality that appears (to all within the time segments/universes) exactly the same. A birth, a death, and what appears to be nothing after the death.

None of the inhabitants of that time can extend their life beyond the end of the heat death. None of them can impact the other time segments. What happens in one time segment happens in all of the others.

The same week I wrote this draft, with these matters already on my mind, I listened to a debate between Jordan Peterson & atheists. That is if you can call it a debate...

I do not endorse the channel on which I saw it, or Jordan Peterson himself, but I digress. You can watch it for yourself here if you are interested.

For me, it was amusing how Peterson's position of no position gets the same creation some people have when observing that the creator doesn’t advertise its existence to everyone. This might sound out there, but if we imagine it is not Peterson responding, but rather God, and we imagine the debater Danny as a religious doubter, this conversation takes on a different meaning:

In the conversation above, what's interesting is that people often expect God, an omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing being, to magically respond to them in the form that they desire to prove that God exists. People ask God 'are you real? If you are, then you would respond,' and when God is silent on the matter, we conclude that God does not exist.

The amusing part of the debate, if you can even call it that, is that Jordan says you're quite something, and Danny responds 'you're really quite nothing.' It's amusing given that everything everywhere all at once is also nowhere in particular. Without a frame of reference everything collapses into nothing.

Later in the 'debate' another debater named Ian states that:

"… presumably a perfect being would be revealing all of these aspects all the time, especially if God's outside of time. That just seems incoherent to me... at the point in time where God created us he could have created us in a way where we would always be receptive to these principles, where we don't have to go across a learning curve... Also if you believe in an all knowing God free will is impossible."

While that is a mouthful and may appear incoherent itself, it provides a broad perspective of doubters' claims. I might add that these are claims I have used myself in the past when doubting God's existence.

Ian goes on to goes on to state that people like Graham Oppy make arguments about the incompatibility of omniscience and free will, that:

"… if God created this world instead of that world then he makes it causally inevitable every single action that you are going to make. If he made a world where we were electrons and love, then none of this would have happened. But by making us in this world, knowing exactly what is going to happen in the future it makes all of those events inevitable, which means that they're all causally determined, which we means we have no free will if you believe in an all good God or an all knowing God that made everything."

Peterson's response to all of that? He says, "well, have it your way."

The reality is that when we try to use linguistics to limit nondeterministic timeless beings we end up capturing the essence of things as much as fishermen capture the essence of the sea through their cages. That is to say, we are left with arguments that have more holes than Swiss cheese. I will elucidate some of those holes.

Such wordy arguments appear intelligent but in actuality they ignore the paradox of what it means to be omnipotent. An omnipotent being can know what will happen just like I know I will die, without it meaning that I am the arbitrator of my own death. By simply living I know that I will die, because everything that came before me has died and everyone ever known to have lived has died (in the flesh and blood).

In the same vein that it is an obvious thing for me to predict my own death, God can predict everything that will happen without being the reason that it happens.

Furthermore, let us consider that at a fundamental level, knowing, as we experience it, requires memory. One may know something and also forget it. Romans (i.e. humans) for example knew how to make concrete using volcanic ash that self heals, then forgot how to make it for thousands of years.

Was it that humans did not know how to make this concrete during that time? Or is it that the expression of that knowledge, previously held, was intermittently unavailable or possibly even used in secret without our awareness of it? It seems like a silly random aside. However, for a timeless being the act of 'forgetting' that it exists is as possible as the act of breathing in and out. Sometimes we relegate this act to our subconscious, sometimes we briefly forget how to breath (if we suffer some physical or mental trauma), and other times we are fully aware of the breath. Simply forgetting how to breath, or taking control of our breath from time to time does not mean that we ceased to exist or that our breath ceased to exist during the moments that we did not breath.

God can go in and out of knowing because if God couldn't then that would produce a paradox of omnipotency (yes, that’s a word - I checked). Likewise, God can be aware of everything that will happen, even those things that God does not control. Your free will (and everything you will ever choose) is as obvious to God as death is the inevitable obvious end of everyone that is alive.

If we consider the intelligent design in which God shows us the eternal design everywhere, then there is also a nothingness which shows us absolutely nothing. There has to be a nothingness which shows us absolutely nothing for there to be something that shows us anything. This is why the 'you're quite something,' and the 'you're quite nothing,' paired with the 'have it your way,' from the debate takes on a new meaning for me. A position of no position is the very position God could take.

This conversation between seemingly two rocks (Peterson and another debator) seems random, of low value (to the person taking the side that is contrary to that of their own), and is lost in a sea of arguments for the sake of arguments.

For myself, as I personally consider the inner-workings of the universe and how both sides reconcile, an inner peace emerges. Good and the opposite of evil... Is there anything but?

In the same way that the universe repeats itself with no start or end, there is only a gradient between here and now. God gives the option of heaven and hell, but not nothing. Even that may be an indication that not experiencing is not an option freely given. Yet we are aware that the planets themselves are suspended in nothing but a vacuum of space and a lattice of celestial energy (gravity) that we are told cannot be created nor destroyed.

No matter what options are given, there is space and a lack of it across all of space and time. All avenues are compatible with each other. Even the reality where one desires to not go to heaven, nor hell, nor nirvana, nor to be reborn, that reality does exist. It has to exist. Without it, God couldn't exist in the infinite form.

This one might be more difficult to grasp. How else could a God that must know all, including not knowing, be able to float away into the ether other than to permit God to fractal into nothingness whenever desired?

When I attempted to research one concept from the The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe, I came to realize that even its author with all his high IQ may have not been able to overcome the human propensity to make sense of a limitless being whilst using a limited brain. In a recent interview with Michael Knowles, Christopher Langon (the creator of the CTMU), seems to delve into topics such as 'humans' mistakes' in light of the universe God produced, as well as the reality of the devil, and some abstractions for what refusing God (and going to hell) would look like from the perspective of God (knowing you're there but no longer acknowledging you). Unfortunately, these types of discussions, while thought provoking, fall flat on their face because they attempt to box in God. As if God can make mistakes!

When humans invent some harmful thing that pollutes water, reduces lifespans, or creates other problems, we think of them as 'mistakes,' yet when God orders the destruction of people for one reason or another we (believers) look it as divine will. The reality is that the reality around us, with all of its 'mistakes' and shortcomings, is exactly what God has willed. Since God has created this universe and its constraints, there are no mistakes. There is only divine will and evolution of individual awareness, but I digress.

What did make it with me all these years, from the original readings into the CTMU nearly a decade ago, is that existence is contained within nonexistence. While the author of this theory may have opinions far outside of universal matters (that delve into geopolitics and other topics), and while I do not endorse Christopher Langan in any manner, I am grateful for the reference point of 'existence existing within nonexistence.' It’s the type of koan that helped articles like this spring to life.

Back to what I consider more approachable, I will expand upon the mind map of the time segments. This time, imagine that the circle is not composed of time segments (of big bang to big crunches that are identical) but rather, of time segments that are different. In such a construction, a variety of universal realities could take place. However, even that would have its limits.

For example, in physics there are theories which postulate that only a certain amount of universes (with certain physics parameters) could ever exist. So in other words, there may be an infinite multiverse but one that is only made up by a finite amount of building blocks of physics.

To put it more plainly, we might imagine a reality in which a single strand of someone’s hair ends up being a different color at a particular point in their life. Everything else turns out relatively the same, and then the universe continues to its heat death, into a big crunch, followed by another big bang; and it happens again and again. Eventually these small changes lead to noticeable variations between universes. However, in this example, after trillions of iterations the changes would still adhere to the same physics as the current world that we understand. It would not contain variations in which a person teleports from one place to another simply by thinking about it, or bends spacetime in order to go back into the past or travel to the future. It also would still adhere to the general 'start' of the big bang and the heat death of that particular universe, without being able to jump across lineages between universes held in the multiverse.

Where Christopher Langan speaks of hell as being the place you go when you reject God, I would argue that hell is being trapped in an unfavorable time segment (with a definitive start and end) which does not have variation. Not only that, but you’d have to end up there to ensure that God is all powerful. You’d end up in such a reality so that it’s clear that God can relegate your consciousness to experiencing an unfavorable reality for all of eternity.

To say that you can end up in hell by rejecting God is actually beyond my comprehension and the scope of this article. What I can discuss, in the example of time segments, is how one might experience only a repetitive existence rather than a varied one.

Remember how we covered that God has to be able to forget, and by forgetting God does not cease to be, in the same way that by ceasing to breath momentarily we do not cease to live? In that same manner, God can become 'asleep' to certain realities. So that if in this infinite circle of universal rebirths, with variations that are still within our understanding of physics, God becomes asleep or unaware of the ones that are not repetitive, then we achieve the construct of reality in which a start to end atheist's view of reality exists exactly as per their perspective in an ocean beyond their view.

And if God decided to produce paradoxes? What if God decided to yield universes in which the laws of physics are broken. What then?

At that point we would have completed the circle. God has to, by definition, be able to produce paradoxes in order to be omnipotent. The very paradoxes that you think of as impossible or silly, the very paradoxes that take endless amounts of words from your dutiful author or those of others with much higher IQ... those paradoxes are exactly what is possible and must be attainable by God for God to be God.

So what’s the 'have it your way' take away?

What are some of the ways you can proceed from here?

1. Believe in a heat death of the universe with no big crunch and no after life.

2. Believe that God produced a finite universe which does have a heat death but no big crunch/recurring big bang. People go to heaven, or hell, or they achieve nirvana after living a certain amount of rebirths across a singular start to end narrative of humanity, possibly re-birthing into all beings that lived or will live, but only within one singular universe.
   

   1. Believe a variation of #2, a worldview where there is a multiverse that contains additional variations which produce no paradoxes.

   2. Believe a variation in which a multiverse does contain paradoxes.

3. Believe in something different.

In the end of the day, what you believe is up to you and what your creator gives you the opportunity to believe. If there is anything I'm certain of it's that at the base layer of reality there is a God which is omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing, and conscious. This creator made the planet, it made you, and it made everything that makes it possible for you to be here now. God even makes it possible for you to eventually not be here now.

What I originally wrote to jot down my observations, which was confusing for mostly anyone else to read, evolved into a slightly better approach which you can be the judge of. I hope that other people may explore the concepts through their own viewpoint.

If you are interested in considering this from a different perspective, you may find it enlightening to read about Anekantavada.

The beauty for me of the perspective shared, and how Anekantavada manfiests, is that I do not have to learn complex math, invent new words, write research papers, or advance philosophy or theology to convince people of what I believe. If someone believes something that is contrary to what I’ve shared it is already integrated in my world view in the complex reality of the universe. It isn't an anomaly, it isn't a mistake, it isn't ignorance, it isn't anything but what it is.

An infinite consciousness, being... existence existing at scale.

Thanks for reading this far! I’d love to hear your comments below.

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Endorsement Disclaimer:

As mentioned throughout the article, I do not endorse Jordan Peterson, Christopher Langan, or Michael Knowles. I do not endorse any other thinker or their works.

I also make no assertion as to which religion (or if any of them) is the ultimate ‘gatekeeper’ to understanding reality and living a good life. I also make no claim as to whether a lack of religion is better than being a believer.

While I do not endorse a specific religion, or its absence, I endorse education, logic, reason, and empathy. I urge people to discover what is true to them.