What do you know to be true?

What a seemingly innocuous question, right? But really, what do you know to be true? Really true. Not something you believe. Not something you "know in your bones." Actual truth. Irrefutable truth. Truth, that when looked at with doubt and scalpel like precision still remains?

It's this question, this line of inquiry, that I keep coming back to. It seems to be the essential seed of, well, at least my spiritual (existential) search.

It's a dangerous question.

It's dangerous because it's destructive. So much of spiritual inquiry, or heck, just Spirituality, is additive.

Start meditating, do some breath-work, journal, pull cards, gaze at a candle, cultivate compassion and understanding, connect to our innate unity, stretch, join a Hatha Yoga class, go to meetups, find community, repeat mantras, attract abundance, find a teacher, find a guru, study Buddhism or Advaita or something, and on and on it goes...

It's just a new set of activities, beliefs, concepts and frameworks for living life. Which is all fine and good.

But, what do I know to be true?

Is any of that true? Really! Any of it?!

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It's very easy to ignore this question. Even now, I can feel a tug towards the familiar. To just be fine with believing in reincarnation and a bunch of other stuff I don't really know to be true, but feel nice for my current context and worldview.

That would be nice. I could just say.. "maybe!" and move on. Happily live in that grey unknown.

But, then I hear the words in my head... "What do I know to be true?"

This is why it's a dangerous question. It destroys comfort and familiarity and certainty.

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I'm going to break the fourth wall now. I don't know why I'm writing this. Well, I don't know why I'm sharing it. I mean, why did I start TEDNET? Sometimes I write in a way that is trying to be of use to other people—to you! But, by trying to be useful, I think it ceases to be so.

Look, I see all these other newsletters with their massive readership and think "Oh, that could be nice to actually turn writing and thinking into a thing!" But, that would destroy what this actually is.

This is basically a journal. But, a public one—a necessarily public one. By putting these thoughts out into the world, it forced me to be more critical, to be more accurate and discerning and, really, more doubtful.

It also forces me to look at them again. They aren't just logged away in my private journal never to seen by me or anyone else again. Their out in the public. My name is attached to them. This makes me self conscious: "Did I really write that? Do I really think that?"

It's a process of refining my own thoughts and beliefs.

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So, what do I know to be true? Well, nothing universal. Not yet, at least. But, what do I know to be true for me? Or, about me?

Well, as this line of inquiry destroys more ephemeral aspects of my self, my love of nature remains, maybe even strengthens.

I don't really know anything that satisfies my existence—whatever that may be—like witnessing a tiny frog curled in the leaves of a rhubarb plant. Or, a seal swimming against the rush of silty, opaque glacier melt to blindly catch salmon. Or, a slow, heavy momma bear lumbering down some train tracks as it's two cubs playfully and energetically bounce and tumble around, seemingly without a care in the world.

So, maybe that's it. Whatever time I have on this planet, in this existence that is me, is best spent just witnessing nature, this Earth. It really is quite astonishing.

Why should the Earth be so beautiful? Why should the call of Eagles and Gulls and Songbirds still my heart? Why should the smell of flowers and fresh leaves and rotting leaves and wet soil and the ocean delight my nose? Why... why be so magical?

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This existence, as cliché as it sounds, is unfathomable. At least to me. It doesn't matter if you believe God created Earth or The Big Bang and all those millions (trillions?) of years of Evolution, it's still just so... I dunno, what's the word? Stupendous? Absurd? Ridiculous? Silly? Stupid?!

And here we are. Fumbling around. Trying to accumulate things that don't really exist. Inventing new ways to confine ourselves and others. Acting out unconscious trauma and hurt and fear. Doing whatever we can to stave off uncertainty. Hiding from our only inevitable truth: Death.

But I'm here. You're here. No other details matter.

The fact that we exist is already so stupidly beautiful.

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Someday I’ll be a weather-beaten skull
  resting on a grass pillow,
Serenaded by a stray bird or two.
Kings and commoners end up the same,
No more enduring than last night's dream.
—Ryōkan

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Alrighty then, happy Labor Day Weekend!