Back to Basics

I've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes on Methods of Awakening. My freelance work has taken me away from posting as much as I had intended. I know I was away from this whole thing for about eight years, so a few months seems like nothing. That said, I had intended to be producing more content, more regularly after re-doing the older posts as podcasts.

The current situation regarding COVID obviously played a part in things, but the lack of content really just comes down to me. Having been away from writing about meditation for so long, it's taking me a while to find my feet again. My own practice has changed a lot and I haven't been involved in the spiritual community online for a long time. Due to this, I think I lost my direction to some extent.

As someone who'll write ten words instead of two, I often have the tendency to overcomplicate things. This is partly due to the way my mind works and the tendency to think everyone needs the same level of information that I do. Being on the autistic spectrum probably doesn't help either, but there's only so much I can do with that.

It's become clear to me that I need to start simplifying. This is difficult for me because, in trying to write for other people, I often confuse their needs with my own. In other words, I'll be unnecessarily detailed because I think others need the same level of detail I do. In reality, most people don't and that's something I need to put into practice.

One of the problems that I have with simplifying this stuff is that it increases the risk of misunderstanding. While profound wisdom is often found in few words, it's also common for that wisdom to go right over the heads of the majority due to its simplicity. This is something I've always tried to work on: Decoding and demystifying ideas that are often obscured on purpose. For me, this usually takes about ten times as many words as the average person. I end up probably making things more complicated in my efforts to make them simple, so again it's something I really need to work on.

I have no wish to insult anyone's intelligence by stating what, to me, are strikingly obvious statements about reality. I don't want to talk down to anyone, so I write as if I'm talking to someone like me and I try to convey as much practical information as possible. As has become more and more apparent, this isn't really very useful to other people. My writing is too dense, too complicated and ends up veering all over the place at times. I know that I can simplify things and I need to accept that, just because I describe something as if I'm explaining it to a six-year-old, it doesn't mean I'm insulting the reader.

With all of this said, I know what I need to do. It's going to necessitate a total shift in the way I write, and the depth to which I go into these things. I'm going to need to 'commercialize' what I write about and make it easier to read, and easier to understand. In doing this, I'm going to have to 'play the game', so to speak. I'm going to strip it all back to the bare bones and start again, but this time with a more generalized focus.

This is going to be quite a challenge for me, because I'm not exactly an orthodox voice. I talk about the reality and the practical side of spiritual development. I talk about the hard times and the not-so-love-and-peace times that few want to discuss. While I'll be getting a bit more 'safe', so to speak, I won't compromise my integrity. I'm not going to sugar coat it just because it sells.

Life is suffering, but in that realization comes a freedom beyond language.