Jefe

Reach out if you’re feeling called!

Men need spaces to go deep with other men. We have a few spots left for our men's retreat June 4th to 7th in the Catskills. I co-led this with @CryptoMindcare and @oloal in January and it was one of the most powerful containers I've been part of. We're back at Akera, a beautiful 123-acre retreat center in the mountains. The group is a mix of founders, investors, and leaders. The work spans breathwork, meditation, facilitated men's work, and time in nature. Reduced-rate spots available. If you're a man looking for depth, connection, and expansion with other high-agency men, reach out via DM for more details.

@clay @grok can you do any of this?

@cmilesb @s0ulDirect0r 👆 seconding this

@s0ulDirect0r maybe. buy i’ve seen you share so much love and energy with so many people and hungry ghosts normally only take, and grasp and consume and that doesn’t seem to be you.

reading Opening The Heart of Compassion and this is wrecking me right now. it's me, i'm the hungry ghost. "fundamentally impoverished" sheesh

@oloal Love this approach. If you're gonna worry, really fckn go for it.

Most therapeutic advice on overthinking is pretty dogshit, unfortunately, because it doesn't get to the root of the problem or point toward the freedom that contemplative practice offers. However, there is one psychological hack that works, especially if you suffer from recursive anxious thoughts. Because telling someone to stop worrying doesn't help. But telling someone to worry later does. Schedule 10 minutes per day to worry. During that time, really go buck wild. Lean into all your core fears, the things keeping you up at night. Go as hard as possible. You'll notice that when you actually sit down, half of them have lost their momentum. Then for the rest of your day, anytime you notice anxious thoughts, you practice reminding them – which aren't really you – thanks for sharing, but not now, we have this scheduled for later! That becomes the meditation: catching the thought, relaxing, and just delaying the worry. It’s remarkably effective.

@oloal 🎯

Everyone has access to love, and I think deep down you already know this. You love a bunch of things without any effort at all. Including your kid, and the way he yells "Da-da!" when you come home. Your dopey labrador. The best bowl of pho in town. Hermanos Gutiérrez on a long drive. The sunsets in California that, I swear, never get old for an East Coaster. I know, loving pho isn't the same as loving your child. But the basic feeling of love - the warmth, openness, and connection - is there in all of them. That's the thing. Even the worst person you can imagine has access to it, to something they love. It seems to be baked into consciousness itself. The difference is how defended you are to it. You, like most people in my milieu, have probably tasted an unconditional, everything-love before. Usually around hour two of some choice MDMA, when your heart rips completely fucking open, and it’s all so simple. But then, inevitably, the heart closes down. As it always does after peak states. Whether it *has* to is the question that hijacked my adult life. Sustained spiritual practice, if it's working, should naturally allow that love to integrate and expand. First to people in your tribe. Then beyond your ideological home. Eventually, maybe, to everything. I used to think stabilizing love was extremely rare, reserved for saints with a gifted disposition. Turns out they were simply the least resistant to reality. Which, for the record, is learnable. The small love available to you in the little things *is* the love permeating consciousness. And amid all this contraction, all I really want is to live with an undefended heart.

@lauracincera are we looking for traits or what’s it like to be in connection with someone?

A relational inquiry for which I would love to source your collective wisdom - do you look for different traits in friends than in partners? If so, which/why?

Co-leading a men’s retreat this weekend with my brothers @oloal and @CryptoMindcare. My heart is filled with gratitude for them and the 15 brave men we’ll be supporting.

@goodreads When Things Fall Apart - Pema Chödrön

Which book would you give to someone going through a hard time?

stop scrolling take a breath the ai slop can wait while you remember you are sacred

The Great AI Intermediation Over the next few years, AI will know everything about you—your communication style, relationships, aspirations, even your emotional state. It will also increasingly insert itself into every conversation, connection and collective experience you have. What happens when AI increasingly mediates our shared digital spaces, and when more and more of our conversations happen with AI rather than humans. This essay explores the thread of AI becoming the invisible layer, the medium, between all our conversations and connections 🔗 nicolaerusan.com/writing/the-gr…

@tao_lin beautiful! also based on your list, Jeffrey Kripal is someone who might have treasure for you (he co-authored changed in a flash)

@CryptoMindcare ~30-40 minutes/day for around a month so far.

Books I read this year. Asterisk = book I've read before.

@TylerAlterman Roger Walsh calls what you’re discussing “gnostic intermediaries”

In 2026 I want to turn myself into more of a hyperlink for the spirit I represent. Who are some historical figures who did this well? i.e., People whose fame was less about THEM as a person and more about the thing they were devoted to – like a sort of ego-redirect? My list: • The founding fathers (America) • St. Francis (Christianity) • Pericles (Athens) • Rumi (Sufism) • MLK (Civil Right Movement) • Various Buddhist bodhisattvas • Lao Tzu (Daoism) • Confucius (even though Confucianism is named after him, most people don't know much about Confucius) • Marx & Lenin (worth naming as ways for this hyperlink thing to go wrong and kill millions of people) • Simone Weil (edge case – people know *her* rather than the spirit she was pointing to because she never made it legible. However, I believe that she's like a hyperlink once you read her) I wanted to name Jesus and the Buddha, but...these seem like cases where the majority of their following became more about worshiping THEM as individuals rather than their teachings

@DoctorPerin the transpersonal psych literature also covers this

I trained under the normal talking points—fewer sessions, quicker results, be more efficient, skills, etc. Got pretty good too. Had jobs where I did more in 30 minutes than a lifetime of therapy. Then I thought, “but how far can I go?” and only psychoanalysis writes about that

@VidarMSundal @robkhenderson Currently reading, enjoying

@robkhenderson The courage to be disliked. Started reading it with no big expectations and wanted to start again from the beginning as soon as the book was finished. A great read that will make you think.

What’s the best book you read this year?

@jonwu_ is 👇 where the alpha lives?

the densest insights are in books that are out of print anything you can buy on amazon is too legible the alpha you seek can only be found amongst the weird esoteria of forgotten tomes written by and for obsessives

@jonwu_ @maggielove_ are you in a diatomic molecule?

i am married to @maggielove_ i will repeat this statement until it becomes obvious

if you eat a BlackBerry, you'll get a Bluetooth