It’s so easy to forget the standard way of living is through narrative and we often feel like those narratives are 100% “reality” when they are mind-made stories that could be changed within seconds, but the momentum it takes because of years of conditioning keep us holding on, not fully believing in the possibilities of letting go.

I am advocating for self-brainwashing because even though the change is sometimes painfully gradual, it’s worth it to keep aiming to change the narrative given to you to your preferred narrative whether its through self-brainwashing or meditation.

I consider myself an extremist in a lot of ways. I like to take things far, push limits, exceed possibilities, I am truly reaching for the stars. This is a side of me that I’ve had to compromise at times in my life because when people hear you say “I want to be the best”, for some reason, a number of them will perceive it to be a threat. Whenever I have an interest in something, I want to find the person who is doing it the best and that is who I will study from, but when I say “The best”, it can get misconstrued as being “Greater than all else”, but I see it differently. “The best” is personal to me. What I consider to be “The best” could be someone else’s “Worst”, I look at “The best” as not allowing any untapped personal potential go to waste. Personally finding other people you resonate with that is operating at their highest level is a person that could be learned from. So, I advocate for “The Best” to not minimize the self for others comfort and forever exploring the possibilities of being human.

I write a lot of these diary entries with the risk of sounding pretentious. I am the first to criticize anything typically deemed highly intellectual, as I often find such discourse alienating and inaccessible. These intellectual circles are filled with references from long ago, understood only by a select few who have studied the same texts. Because of this shared knowledge, these ideas are considered of “high taste.”

Yet, I am a victim of this mindset myself. Even though I criticize it, I love to study and understand the roots of things. My real frustration lies in the deliberate inaccessibility of this knowledge.

The notion that someone’s dialect or grammar dictates their place in the social hierarchy has never made sense to me. Great ideas can come from anywhere, but it often feels like we must adopt a mask of intellectualism for corporate acceptance, where many resources are concentrated.

I am advocating for the twerking philosopher because I believe it represents the future and reflects an evolving culture.

From a very young age, I’ve always had a feeling that I had to do something, it took a while to discover the thing, but the feeling never wavered; it was only a matter of where I would utilize the energy. And through that journey for discovery, there are and were a lot of periods of deep confusion and uncertainty and those were the moments that I had to detach from that feeling and not allow it to be my primary motivator and understand that the purpose of life is to simply live and everything else is decoration.

We often like to judge ourselves based on our productivity and successes, and it’s tough not to when this is what the collective celebrates, but I think it’s okay to give ourselves the same type of love whether we are doing mindless activities or something worthwhile, to simply be should always be enough.

If you ever want to master anything, you have to go through the awkward phase. Even with something as simple as growing your hair, there’s an awkward phase before it fully evolves and blossoms into what you envisioned. The awkward phase has never phased me as much as it could have in regards to outside peer pressure, but everything I do, I have an intense love and passion for so I’m willing to fully immerse myself in the awkward phase.

When I decided to shift my focus from fashion photography to become an artist, the awkward phase was long and extremely painful. It hasn’t ended yet, but it is evolving. The most painful parts is the re-introduction of yourself and the vulnerability of starting something new and publicly failing repeatedly, but if you know what you’re doing is worth it and you truly believe in it, you understand that it’s a process.

People often believe you can only excel in one thing, and if you’re established in one area, most people will try to convince you to “Stop doing that; this one thing is your calling.” which really translates to “I’m only comfortable with the perception I created of you.” So, I am advocating for the awkward phase because its a very quiet and often long phase that others won’t understand from the outside. But once it’s over, you can only be grateful for the technical and intuitive wisdom you gained.

Everyone has experienced the phenomenon of deep resistance to get up from bed, only to find that once up, it was easier than anticipated, but despite this realization, the resistance continues to fool us. I was resisting writing this diary entry and I was ready to share some lyrics I’ve been writing because I was not in the mood to write something new, but I decided not to be a slave to the resistance and write.

As I’m writing this, this sentence currently, I’m feeling the resistance leaving my body, I am currently excited to write this diary entry and the words are freely coming out. Almost 10 minutes ago, I was dreading this exact moment, and it’s not like I wanted to do anything better, I just didn’t want to have to go through the initial mind maze.

So for this entry, I am advocating for challenging feelings and not taking them at face value. Separating sensation and thought has become a valuable meditative practice for me and it’s moment like this where I’m thankful for it’s benefits.

I like to consider the mind to be a sensitive place that deserves the utmost care. Emotions can get really heavy, and because they feel so overwhelming, it’s easy to forget that they are thoughts and imaginations translated into uncomfortable energy in the body. This discomfort often compels us to overthink, triggering a vicious cycle.

While I don’t like to censor myself from information, I do prioritize what occupies my mind. One way I do this is through affirmations. Sometimes, I repeat them in a very obvious, repetitive manner, while other times, it’s a simple mantra. The mind is inherently repetitive, so even if consciously doing repetitive affirmations feels crazy, our default state of mind has already surpassed “crazy.”

I am advocating for affirmations because they paint beautiful imagery in the mind and allows us to create desired narratives.