Category: Philosophy

The Importance of Knowing Thyself

Post author By AZStranger
Post date February 20, 2024

One truth I have come to realize is the prerequisite for personal fulfillment is to know thyself. As I have immersed in my personal exploration, I find the journey can be expressed as follows:

Who Am I? —> What Am I? —–> Why Am I?

Who Am I?

Who I am is how I and the world see me.

I am a human, biologically male, and descendant of Panamanian & African American lineage.

I was born 58 years ago in the Bronx, NY, which makes me an American.

I am college educated, a military veteran, who built a 25-year career in business banking but now works in Climate Risk Management and Sustainability.

I voted democratic for twenty years, republican for 5 years, and independent ever since.

I could go on but by now I hope you see the pattern.

Who I am shows only the uniforms I wear.

Who I am is merely the upper layers of my being. To understand more, I must explore how I exist.

To exist, I need oxygen to breathe, water to drink, nutrient food to eat, clothes & shelter to protect my body from extreme weather, and so much more. Yet, I do not produce what I need to exist. Therefore, I exist as part of a greater reality.

How did I come to exist? How do I function as part of this greater reality?

I came to exist because my parents chose to have sex, producing a fertile egg that set off an energetic chain reaction of cell reproduction, which empowers me my whole life until the energy leaves my body at death.

The thread that connects how I came to exist with how I live my life is Energy.

What Am I?

I am Energy having a human experience.

As a human, I am learning what it feels like to be mortal.

This is important because Energy is immortal, therefore has no understanding of mortality.

What does Energy do? How does Energy function?

Energy flows until it collides with matter.

When Energy collides with matter, the matter changes to something else. This change is called Creation.

The power revealed by my human experience is we are capable of directing energy.

I exercise my power through the choices I make.

Accordingly, the reality of my human experience is defined by the myriad of choices made by all the participants in my life’s journey.

Why Am I?

As an energetic being having a human experience, I am empowered to direct energy to co-create the reality in which I live.

Therefore, the ultimate Why I Am is to decide what reality do I want to co-create.

Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

Earth Critters

Post author By AZStranger
Post date November 2, 2023

One truth I have realized is Mother is a word for all that give us life. Beyond my birth mother, I live because…

I have sunshine.

Thank you Mother Sun…

I have water.

Thank you Mother Ocean, River, Lake, Stream…

I have nutrient food.

Thank you Mother Earth, Animals, Plants, Farmers, Harvest Workers, Food Distribution Workers, Grocers…

I have shelter.

Thank you Mother Trees, Mother Earth, Homebuilder, Construction Workers, Innovators, Electricians, Utility Workers…

I have biodiversity.

Thank you Mother Gut Critters that support my digestion, Mother Bees that facilitate pollination, Mother Nature that supports my ecology…

I have so many Mothers to be thankful for.

Now imagine what Mother Sun sees when she looks at the Earth?

A beautiful blue marble housing trillions of Earth critters.

We are all children of the Universe.

Each sovereign because we are empowered to make choices and unified by our shared symbiotic existence.

Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

When I Meet a Stranger…

Post author By AZStranger
Post date April 28, 2023

…what I see is a person who:

may be the next best friend I ever had,

may be the lover I need in my life right now,

may teach me the next important lesson I needed to know,

may offer the simple gesture that makes my day,

may be one of many people who produce the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the car I drive, and support the life I live.

What do I see when I meet a stranger?

I see a part of me I did not yet know.

Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

Breadcrumbs

Post author By AZStranger
Post date September 26, 2021

Truth is the pattern of how things work.

What is true has always been true.

There is truth and everything else that is not true. The difference is only truth is eternal.

Truth is realized through our understanding, but our understanding is not limited to truth. As such, truth can only be found inside you.

Consider your opinion, which changes as you learn new information. The quality of your opinion is a function of its proximity to truth. Once you learn truth your opinion evolves into knowledge.

Knowledge is power because it serves as a breadcrumb to remind you who you are.

Wisdom occurs once you remember.

Personal Growth Philosophy

You Are a Part of Me I Do Not Yet Know…

Post author By AZStranger
Post date August 23, 2021

Sounds Utopian…I know, but truth often is.

Everyone who contributes to my wellbeing IS a part of me because I would not be me without them.

Let’s take a personal inventory.

Who produced the food we ate today?
Who produced the clothes we wore today?
Who built the house or apartment we live in today?
Who made the bed we sleep on each night?
Who paved the roads we drive on each day on the way to work?
Who built the car we drive each day?
How many people had to do what they do well for us to have a good day?

I hope you get my point.

If you do all that on your own, take a bow.

If not, acknowledge that all those people who support us daily are very much a part of us that we do not yet know.

Next time you meet a “stranger”…remember.

Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

Anatomy of Purpose

Post author By AZStranger
Post date August 11, 2021

Existence is comprised of energy manipulating matter.

Balance is the necessary condition for flow to occur.

Flow is the essential function of energy.

Love is the unimpeded flow of energy.

Wellness is the balance of food, water, rest, and exercise.

Sustainability is the balance of giving and receiving.

Alignment is the balance of experience with wisdom.

Fulfillment is the alignment of sustainable love with wellness.

Purpose is the fulfillment of our existence.

Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

A Virtuous Cycle…

Post author By AZStranger
Post date July 9, 2021

Red blood cells deliver oxygen to all parts of our body allowing us to function, which provides the environment red blood cells need to survive.

When we exhale, we release carbon dioxide into the air. Trees absorb the carbon and use it for photo-synthesis, which produces food as it cleans the air we breathe.

For over 10,000 years, global average temperature stabilized to within 1 degree Celsius. Stable temperature produced predictable weather that allowed humanity to evolve beyond hunter-gatherer, nomadic communities to develop farming, produce surplus food & products for trade, and create modern civilization. This period that cultivated extraordinary human development is called the Holocene.

In our modern society, each of us contribute our most marketable skill in exchange for money, which we use to purchase all the goods and services we need to sustain ourselves.

This is the pattern of existence in Nature…

A virtuous cycle of interdependence and mutual fulfillment.

Yet since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (1850), human productivity has raised global average temperatures beyond 1 degree Celsius. As human activities pushed our ecology out of the Holocene, the impact on biodiversity has been catastrophic with species extinctions exceeding a thousand times the normal rate.

Today, we are within one average lifespan of depleting our soil of essential nutrients, savannization of tropical forests, ocean acidification, and melting of the polar icecaps.

The virtuous cycle has been broken.

We now face a choice: innovate a modern economic system that supports ecological sustainability, or participate in the sixth mass extinction event.

Personal Growth Philosophy

When Less is Truly More…

Post author By AZStranger
Post date April 18, 2021

Wisdom teaches us the only thing we actually know is the truth we are finally ready to realize.

Everything else is opinion tainted by a lifetime of subjective experiences.

As such, the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know.

Yet through this epiphany we discover authentic humility, which slows judgment long enough to create space for more truth to be understood.

Philosophy

Us

Post author By AZStranger
Post date July 31, 2020

There is no more euphoric feeling we experience in this life than when we are One.

Physically our oneness culminates as an orgasm.

Emotionally our oneness manifests as love.

Spiritually our oneness is realized as fulfillment.

And when all aspects of our reality align, the illusion of our independent, separate existence disappears.

We wake up from the dream that encouraged us to forget.

We transcend the limitations of this thing called life.

Our energy flows unimpeded by time or space.

We are one with each other.

We are one with Source.

We are empowered to create.

Finally…we remember who we are.