Finding No One

Before Words

Preface from the book

These pages are field notes and fragments from a most unexpected and inconvenient journey into consciousness. In 2008, following the birth of my son and the death of his twin brother, I began having subtle mystical experiences. I was a high-performing entrepreneur with a Master’s degree and didn’t consider myself crazy. As I looked deeper, I began to realize my experiences were clues that physical existence is embedded in a vast, conscious reality.

I am a very private person. I don’t consider myself special or important. I never thought it worthwhile to tell my story. In fact, for many years, I wrote fiction exactly because life seemed tragically dull. I felt like no one special. Until, that is, I suddenly discovered I was living inside a real-life narrative that was stranger than any fiction I could ever dream up. I began to explore myself, trying to find that no one, realizing I had no clue who or what I was.

I am acutely aware of the deceitful nature of language that tries to lend substance and order to anything random, confusing, or meaningless. Please know that for most of my forty-nine years, I experienced life exactly as that: Random, confusing, and meaningless. But now, as I write these pages, I see that life only seemed incoherent because I was given just one piece of the puzzle at a time. At some point, a bigger picture will emerge if you care to look for it. Only then will you see that there are no coincidences and each fragment belongs to the whole. This is the nature of what is. Every stone tells a story of the mountain.

We’re all threading the tapestry of consciousness in this savage dream of ours. Only by piercing through the veil of space and time can we know the foundation and purpose of existence. On my journey, I had to consider all parts of my story, including pain, shame, and what I thought lost in the past. I became obsessed with working through childhood and generational trauma, and found they were guides and teachers with gifts of knowledge. I fought my shadow until I saw he was my reluctant friend. I danced with fire, I became it, and burned away all I was not. I saw how everything must have its opposite; otherwise, we would not be able to experience the fullness of life. Loss is here to teach us about value, but beyond duality lies, ultimately, oneness. To become all, you must lose all.

This is a story about muddling through life, with all its grit and gore, and finally discovering the grace, joy, and love that all experience is enfolded within. What most people today consider reality is akin to a practical illusion, designed to help them wake up from all illusions. There’s a reason you are here, and it’s not about you. You, too, are no one, but also One, a unique and irreplaceable part of universal consciousness. Live your story to the end; see what wonders lie beyond.

I share with you my journey, just as it happened. I only changed the names of those on a different path than mine. If you read, please read to the end. Use what resonates, leave the rest. I am no longer the person portrayed here. I never was, although for many years I identified with him completely. Ultimately, it’s just a story, as real as they come. Now I give it up.