Guardian

Infinite

Confession

Dark Zen took nearly two decades years to write. Well, putting words to paper and editing the damn thing didn't take that long. It took two decades of living. I tried to sit down a decade ago to write this, but it did not "feel" right. After yet another ten years of meetings with remarkable beings, becoming a father twice, gathering information, debating with my inner circle, debunking, and restructuring, I was able to finish this. 

If living was the fuel to write, then one single piece of writing was the match. The tome in question was Bobby Rock's "Zentauria". Unfortunately this particular masterpiece has not been published yet. Mr. Rock was kind enough to sent me a draft of this still to be published book. There has been only pieces of writing having ever impacted me in such way: "The Etruscan" by Mika Waltari was the first and "Zentauria" the second. There would be no Dark Zen without those two. 

Disclaimer

The first pages of Dark Zen:

If you are looking for a book that will supposedly make you instantly wealthy, healthy, and happy, you have come to the wrong place, my fellow traveller. Since there are those whom are pathologically attracted to defining themselves through the aforementioned, here’s some free advice:

If you want to be wealthy, go to work. If you are unhappy with your work, get a better one. If you want to be rich, marry into money, or then, work really, really hard. 

If you want to be healthy, take a good look at your diet. Buy proper produce and make your own meals. Eat with moderation and respect. Exercise at least twice a week. Exercise really fucking hard. 

If you want to be happy, the first thing to do is to get rid of the assholes in your life. Do what you love to do either for living or as a hobby. Be generous, respectful and kind, provided that your immediate surroundings are not plagued with psychopaths, sociopaths and/or addicts. Didn’t I tell you to get rid of them assholes first? But what if you are a psychopath, sociopath or addict? Well, what did I tell you to get rid of?  

See, it’s not that hard. You are most welcome. Should the aforementioned satisfy your mental appetite, thank you and have a nice day. This book is contains my reflections on existence, the lessons learned, insight gained, and more importantly “what it means to exist”. All we have in common is the first person perspective. We all filter sensory input through various filters and metaphysical structures, and while some of them we are born with, others we learn whether we acknowledge it or not. When we begin to acknowledge things, we also start to process them in some way. Herein lies a danger. Human beings tend to identify with these thought processes. We want to “own” these patterns and structures. I mean, c’mon people, a man walked on moon in 1969 and we still cling on to senseless superstition and make-believe. 

I agree with Plato who famously said: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” It is sometimes entertaining and fun to contemplate on speculative and imaginary things. It can be even educational to flex out the muscles of our imagination, but to build an entire existence based on make-believe is outright dangerous. Anything like that should be labeled “for entertainment purposes only”. I enjoy good fiction in various formats just like everyone else, but should I build the foundation of what
I call “life” based on someone else’s imagination? I don’t think so and neither should you. We can swap stories and talk shop. We can bring our own first person perspective to the table, meaning, we talk about stuff that happened to us.  

If we can talk about stuff outside the proverbial box, that is even better. Then we talk about stuff we hopefully understand on some level. These might be ideas or theories, in essence, something existing only in metaphysical format. They do not require us to have first hand experience of the said things, but they require information and comprehension. There might be a new insight gained, or perhaps an alternative point of view, which can lead to new personal discoveries or even to a new idea or theory on a more general level. 

While this is all good and well, however, it requires a specific mindset and skill set to be able to converse in such manner. It requires an understanding reaching beyond the first person perspective and that takes work and will. In the primordial times such mindset and skill set was not relevant to the survival of the species. When the first true city states began emerging in ancient Mesopotamia, perhaps earlier in other places, and farming replaced hunting and gathering, some of the more privileged members of the society began to have more time to contemplate such things. What was the first thing they turned their newly freed attention to? That’s right, they tried to explain the origin of the known world. There is a creation story in virtually every known culture, where the nature, and its forces, are sprung into existence by a deity or few for various speculative reasons, and the human beings are being created for some reason, usually either as slaves or images of the said gods.

There are those who claim that the similarity in creation stories is some kind of proof that the mechanics of these tales are true. I think it has more to do with the forces of nature given paranormal attributes and explanation for lack of a better explanation. For our purposes it really does not matter whether human beings are the result of four billion years of evolutionary success or some sort of images of a bunch of higher beings. 

What puny humans need to do is to start acting like it.