"We live in a world without a mission.

The meaning of our humanity has been forgotten, and so we have abandoned the quest for self-realization. We have forgotten our why: We have abandoned the quest for the true self; we have abandoned the quest for the true path. Instead, we have taken to chasing ghosts, wasting ourselves in pursuit of phantoms that offer no satisfaction. And so we have grown accustomed to thinking of our potential only in the abstract, as some vague notion of "success." But we never stop to ask ourselves what that really means, what it really means to each of us as individuals to live and to live well.

And so in the midst of all this, we find ourselves distracted, fragmented; we find ourselves torn in a thousand directions, with no north star to guide us out of the darkness. Then, when we go looking for daylight, we're offered some cheap cliché in the place of truth and wisdom: "You can have it all!" But then if we can have it all, why is everybody out of their mind?

Something is clearly wrong...

We've all been lied to. Living well isn't about "success" at all; living well is about finding a mission, a meaning great enough to make it all worthwhile. Because we can't always get what we want: Life ends in pain, and war, and death- for all of us. We can ignore the truth, but we cannot escape it. And yet, in spite of all this, we can find it within ourselves to live heroically.

This is what self-realization is all about: Discovering that what is within is greater than what is in the world, and learning how to master that power in service to something greater and more meaningful that mere material gain. We must learn to live beyond ourselves. Without this realization, there is no freedom, just a long line of hollow self-deception; without this realization, we are each of us doomed to self-destruction. And any theory that says otherwise is false to the very foundation."
~ Joshua van Asakinda
[From Ozymandias, art by Jae Lee, copyright DC Comics.]
Joshua van Asakinda
+1-330-314-4170
​Joshua.van.Asakinda@gmail.com