'Intentionality and Manifestation' was sent as part of 📝The Journey To One on February 14, 2019.
Newsletter
Hey Legend,
Today's newsletter is going to break from the storied format of the past. It's likely to learn more towards the style of a 📝Choose Your Own Adventure so skim and click as you feel you're drawn. I'll be curious to hear your perspectives once you emerge from the 📝Rabbit Hole.
Enough housekeeping, away we go...
Bullet Brain
I recently started reading, and employing, 📝The Bullet Journal Method; a system for what the author, Ryan Carroll, calls "intentional living".
BuJo, for short, focuses your time and energy in pursuit of what's meaningful by stripping away what's meaningless. I'm a week in and can already confirm.
It taught me about 📝Intentionality; the overlap between productivity and mindfulness. Unlike other organizational systems, Carroll's method is designed to help navigate the world by looking inward.
In today's endless sea of notifications, the tides are controlled by 📝Authoritarian Technologies; those which have co-opted our need for human connection and desire for convenience. Carroll's insights prompted me to realize that my blockading of these manipulations was the wrong approach.
In order to—as Carroll puts it—stop reacting and start responding, we must instead renegotiate our relationships with these technologies; not hide from them behind walls created by other technologies.
A Bullet Journal is an organizational method that retrains your brain to think in terms of intention. It's what I didn't know I needed right now. If it resonates with you by this description, I'd recommend it.
Capitalist Origins
My technological renegotiations manifested shortly after I'd been prompted to watch 📝The Century of the Self; a documentary series by 📝Adam Curtis about "how those in power have used Freud's theories to control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy."
In the series, Curtis explores the 📝Emergence of capitalist societies and the manipulations of their citizens to become better consumers—from WWII to the early 2000's. To overly simplify, we're in a system that's running a cycle and we can predict the future (at a meta level) by looking to the past.
If you're feeling disheartened by the current state and direction of our political and economic systems, it can be cathartic to look back to see how we got here. Otherwise, watch more 📝Black Mirror.
Manifest Destiny
Last night was my third, and final, class in an introductory course on Vedic meditation. It was taught by 📝Will Williams who defected form the entertainment industry to discover a better way of living. Will has since brought meditation into organizations like Spotify and Google.
I can't begin to describe my experience of the meditation, but what I found interesting was his style of communication. He presented a well-researched case for the nonmaterial—and ultimately spiritual—nature of man. A similar kind of non-materialist neuroscience that I'd been reading in 📝The Spiritual Brain which is a 'Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul' and a recommended read for those so inclined.
After the class, I shared with Will and 📝Gil Dvoretsky—who'd introduced me to his course—how my affirmation of "attracting the 📝Perfect Partners into my life" had recently manifested.
Seeing my astonishment with what feels like a superpower, Will remarked that "once people see they can manifest, they usually do it from a place of ego." He used the example of someone manifesting a Ferrari and how that could be counter to the whims of the Universe. It was helpful, well timed, and grounding.
Still, I'm convinced that manifestation is real. It's powered by our intentions and communicated with our words. All of the above have me excited about some new developments with 📝Spiritual Bro ;)
That's it for now. As always, my inbox—and heart—is open to you.
📝Build cool shit and change the world.
📝Brian Swichkow, 📝Manifestor at 📝Mythos One
Sent with 📝Contextual Augmentation.