I started college three times. Never finished once.

I still remember the allure of going to uni when I was in high school. I used to treat high school like a joke. Cutting class to chase girls, play soccer and Magic: The Gathering, smoke blunts, listen to rap music, not a care in the world.

I figured university would be different. My parents are academics and pretty serious people. My head was filled with visions of grandeur. I thought uni would give my life meaning, purpose, gravity. I pictured grand buildings covered in ivy, filled with sharp minds and sharper outfits. I imagined staying up all night, trading world-changing ideas like playing cards. Knowledge so thick in the air you could taste it, computers humming. Standing on the shoulders of giants, ready to reshape the future.

What a fool I was.

University was more of the same old shit - cutting class, chasing highs, playing games. Booze, music too, sure. But no magic. No higher calling.

Each day felt like a lost opportunity, and this took a toll on me. It left me feeling cheated. I quit, took a job at a fruit stand and saved some money. Then I ran off to London to chase my dreams of becoming a rock star.

I had a lot of fun but I came back empty handed. Defeated, I went back to college. I enrolled in film school, but I had to specialize immediately, and I chose wrong. But I didn't quit. Then I took on english literature, only to find myself in a class with 100 other people. Professors pushing book summaries to pass exams. So I walked, again.

What a big, cosmic joke.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized the whole damn thing was absurd. No risk, no reward, no incentive, no reason to play along.

So I took matters into my own hands. I taught myself engineering, kept chasing my music dreams on the side. But I had become disenchanted.

It took me a decade of wandering, but I finally found a light at the end of the tunnel, in the spiritual path. A path I'm still walking today, one step at a time.

I've always had a fundamental problem with conformity. People are not cattle, and shouldn't be herded like they are.

They expect us to fall in line. Forced to choose a path, specialize straight out of high school. No questions asked.

Did you know that in the old times, students would do something called a "The Grand Tour"? They'd go investigate ancient civilizations or renaissance art, or go into deep unexplored forests for a year. This was a real thing.

But there's no time for that now. Shut up and fall in line, immediately.

We're told that a good person needs to have an education, and it seems you're less than human if you don't have one. We're also told to engage in politics, to be aware of what's going on in Congress.

Let's be clear. IF that's your calling, great. But what if you're a simple guy? What if what you want is to live in a cabin, find yourself a beautiful girl and drink beer and make children? Why are you treated like a low-life, why are you inferior, if this is what you want? Why do you have to put yourself through the grinder?

This is not right.

This grand democratic experiment, where we all get to be equal, comes with some requirements. It demands we spend our "formative years" (a real term, btw), glued to a desk in some school. In the US, if your attention levels are not normal, they'll slap an ADHD label on you and shove Aderall (metamphetamines) down your throat.

Why do we think that if you don't spend your time memorizing book summaries, you're somehow inferior? Isn't this some sort of twisted, perverse reverse-classism? A perverse system that looks down on people who won't conform.

The ancient caste system

I recently came across quite the YouTube rabbit hole. I was looking into the ancient Indian caste system within the old Aryan tradition. Don't ask why. But let me tell you: every time I dive into some ancient topic with an open mind and time on my side, I'm humbled and my prejudice is shut down.

I had my thoughts on education and role-casting in modern society, but after seeing this something clicked.

The caste system did become corrupt, like everything does. Die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain, as they say. And that's where its dark reputation comes from. But behold, it's not a bigoted, stupid system in origin.

They get a few things right:

For starters, within this system, people fell into certain roles or varnas:

• Scholars / Priests / artists (Brahmins)

• Warriors / Statesmen (Kshatriyas)

• Farmers / Merchants / Craftsmen (Vaishyas)

• Laborers / Service providers (Shudras)

These are HOLY roles, and should be respected. It wasn't about birth as barrier, as it became later, when the system calcified into a rigid hierarchy. This is about your BIRTHRIGHT as an individual to follow your own calling.

This is about dharma, your way of your being.

And to paraphrase a teacher: to be clear, if your dharma is to be a stripper, that's what you're called to be. No amount of college is going to change that.

THE BEAUTY OF DIFFERENTIATION is lost in modernity. Why?

We live in the end times. The Kali Yuga. As described in ancient Indian tradition, this is a time of profound disillusion and disorder. A materialistic time, an ahrimanic time if you're into that. A time of great upheaval and spiritual darkness.

The borders dissolve, and the empire's end hangs in the air. Those who pay attention can feel it coming. And as we accelerate towards the edge, one of the clear casualties is the differentiated nature of the individual.

While we still inhabit a world of diversity, there are certain forces more aligned with a "unifying principle". They are determined to homogenize humanity. They seek to erode the differences that define us. To blur the lines, be it of sexual preference, gender identity, economic status, national identity... These things must go away, to usher in a new future.

If we want to escape this vortex, pulling us into a black hole of mediocrity and sameness, we need to stop playing along.

Thankfully there is a way.

The internet is our weapon. Beyond all efforts to crush dissent, it is still a wild, untamed frontier.

In ancient Indian tradition, the Brahmins were the sacred creators of Culture. Today, artists are hostage to the merchant class. Art is created for economic reasons, and it shows.

But there is an emerging counter-culture. Raw, untamed.

It is your duty to find and follow your true nature, no matter how unconventional. There is nothing wrong with being a holy fucking weirdo. Just as soldiers with PTSD find healing through engaging in violence, you must not fear going within. You need to understand that there's nothing wrong with this impulse and that in fact, supressing it is the real problem. Your shadow MUST be integrated.

This is a call to arms. You do whatever the fuck you need to do to align with your divine nature.

Imagine a samurai. Meditating before dawn after a cold plunge in the waterfall, sitting for hours observing a bird before writing a haiku. Why? Because they fucking wanted to, and it was in their nature to do so.

In this modern age, you have the power to sustain yourself with a remote software-engineer job while starting your mornings at the gym, boxing. Then working in a beautiful park, and later composing a haiku or dancing. Who is stopping you?

You can break free. You MUST break free, and it's not hard once you get started.

Now go do it, heathen.

Things from this week:

I created a little guide to study sacred texts with AI. Simple, killer system. Check it out here

YouTube rabbithole

Ride the Tiger Yoga School: Punk Yoga. Unfathomably based Tantra. Thank me later.

Account to follow

Megs. Digital artist, Catholic transhumanist. She posts about AI and spirituality with some crazy, crazy visuals. She also has a community called The Synod, with the insane byline “Bridging technology and spirituality, integrating belief in God into the future, and protecting shared values.”

And more…

App of the week: One Sec

Every time I open X now, I force myself to take a 3 second mindful breath. Extremely strong trade-off.