These essays of course all start out on the page. The early days of reading them out were not as audio only but were actually us monologuing into camera. This was good because it’s nice to put a face to the voice but that technique was eventually jettisoned for numerous reasons.
Firstly, doing them on camera is much more difficult. We have a little teleprompter for talking into camera documentary work, but you still inevitably fumble a word here and there and that requires editing. Which is way easier to do with voice only. Otherwise, in order to cut with video and be professional, you have to change camera position to make an edit work smoothly. So you don’t have what’s called a jump cut where one can clearly see a jump over a single talking head on camera shot which would have an abrupt jump cut should you do even a single edit on the footage. Thus you really need to shoot any talking head video piece from two camera angles or else get insert shots, or cutaway shots to be able to have enough to edit with.
Secondly, because it's good to not be subservient to anyone else’s platform such as YouTube where your whole life is your YouTube channel inside their castle walls. As anyone who’s reading or listening to this is in the know regarding, should you say anything too politically polarizing, fundamentally hateful, or unfortunately, truthfully paradigm crushing, you might risk censorship within the newspeak rules allowed within their castle.
Thirdly, because audio files are more easily transferable and shareable over the long haul. How many old Alan Watts lectures have you heard and how many have you watched? One advantage of those “on camera days” though is we were a face on camera which said “hello self” at the beginning of these essays because much like standing in front of a mirror, We were standing in front of a camera, talking into a lens, which if a few others watch that's great. As of 2020 our audio outputs average around 1000 to 5000 listens, but mainly, there are me talking to myself. In a sort of audio journal since. And we would still find the time to do these spoken word essays if the watcher-ship was just me myself and I.
This doesn’t mean talking to myself in the sense of the homeless crazy vagrant with diarrhea filled pants rambling incoherently. Oftentimes such behavior can be seen in the person with little to no inner monologue at best or schizophrenia psychosis at worst. So this is being mentioned not from a “one is sick” perspective but from a “one is helping themselves” perspective. This is a mental health issue not only from a socio economic or psychological perspective, but from a spiritual one.
Everything you say to someone else, you are really saying to yourself.
As well as everything you think about someone else, you are actually really thinking about an aspect of yourself. The universe will show you things based on your life experience and it will put you in situations, events, and circumstances to show you those things based on your own behavior.
So if you are saying or thinking or doing ill will, disdain, or hate to others, you don’t like yourself. If you are projecting gratitude, appreciation, respect, and love to others, you appreciate, respect, and love yourself. And even if everything said here is BS, isn’t this a beautiful exercise in being kind to one another? For treating those you know and those you have not formally met with mutual admiration and mutual respect.
There is a difference between identifying problems and constructive criticism, golly gee we certainly do a ton of criticizing of cultural and societal structural problems, but at a higher level, whatever you see wrong out there is what is wrong within yourself. Whatever cause you hold most sacred, has to do with your elevator down into the cavern of yourself and your past ripples in the pond of your back life story. This can fractal out into a much larger discussion about the structure of reality, the spatial model of the cosmos, the growth of the soul, as well as synchronicity, but ultimately this simple but easy life lesson is one of the most important life lessons to be conscious of and act on in your day to day life and the way you interact with others.
It’s really not hard to see that if you're a sour old curmudgeon who hates everyone and everything, you likely sit at home alone picking your nose and don't have many friends. Or if you're the life of the party in all social situations, yet are vain, shallow, narcissistic, and superficial, you may have many perceived fake friends that are on your same wavelength, party people, but who carry similar negative character traits. What you put out you attract and the frequency you vibrate at is the same frequency you get back. So if you are excellent, humbled, enjoyable to be around, light-hearted, and a good listener, you will be drawn toward others who are the same and will be slowly but surely building a network of other sophisticated and slightly more enlightened women and men who you can contact or rely upon for connection.
These are difficult and rather deep concepts to really practically digest in modernity, but nothing I’m saying here, or in any other narration, script, or essay I write is really new but more or less re-hashed from the ancient material of cycles past which also knew these things. Which are not as many things but could more accurately be said as truths.
Hermeticism, also called Hermetism, is a spiritually philosophical, occulted, and esoteric tradition based primarily upon writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. That will also be unpacked many more times in future words spoken here, but one of the main principles said in three seminal Hermetic works, The Corpus Hermeticum, The Kybalion, and the Emerald Tablet, all very very very very very worth your time is the phrase:
“As above, so below, as within, so without.”
The cliff notes version of this is saying that the higher and the lower, as well as the exterior and the interior, are correlated. So much so that one could say they are projections, or derivatives, or almost mirrors of one another. More conversation will continue to be had in due course in regards to the higher and lower, and what that actually really means, but we will focus on the as within so without section of this axiom of wisdom for the time being.
We’ve spoken of "mirror mirror" before, which is essentially saying that until you wake up, or start doing the work, or begin living truthfully, or start walking the yellow brick road of a spiritual path, or become somewhat actualized, or cease to be a robot, or starting moving towards excellence, the reflection of your inner and outer world is back to front and upside down. Which is revealed in the realization that nearly everything handed to us from modern economic normality which was built on the backs of slaves is 180% backward and esoteric teachings will mirror that back to front. That’s read inner spiritual growth is so damn hard. You have to be a salmon swimming the opposite way from the stream.
Working with others, watching their outer life improve, one can see as it reflects the shift in their inner reality. “As within, so without.” It really does work! Everything is connected to everything else, and undertaking personal change, doing the inner work to become more conscious leads to greater happiness, fulfillment and a clearer sense of life purpose and direction.
Personal experience of the magic of the Law of Correspondence may be necessary before most people will believe it. So if you’re out of your comfort zone, arguing with someone, let’s say your partner. Just tearing into them saying venom filled spiteful things. You have work to do. Always better for the mature mind to realize that if outer life isn’t working well, look within and work on the inner reality, so as to change the outer. And you will cease to put yourself, by your own admission, into relationships, contracts, and situations that are not correlating with your inner invisible, but very real, and paramountly important, inner landscape - yourself.