Damon Andrew

The present: where the past and future meet to produce eternity. #consciousness #spiritualawakening #Psychedelics

Our identities are stories. They go something like this “My name is Wolfgang, I’m a guy, I was born in 1985, I wanted to be a journalist but my parents made me become a doctor and that’s why I’m miserable.” Our identities are simply a bundle of ideas. Some of those ideas may be objective facts, but they only live in our heads as ideas. Ideas are like clouds, they come and go and they’re barely even there. But our attachment to certain ideas makes them seem more like diamonds. The stories we tell ourselves about who we are shape our experiences. If your story is lame, your life is lame. But your story is a bundle of ideas and ideas are like clouds. My latest eBook, In the Sight of Others, explores this idea. It takes place in another dimension which straddles the physical and spiritual realms. This world is populated by a humanoid race of beings called ‘opids’ whose self-conceptions manifest visually, immediately, in all kinds of trippy ways. You can read this story baked out of your tree if you want, I don’t mind. It’s about a young opid named Adon, who is trapped in an identity which is lame, and how he struggles to break free. It’s available for free on amazon until September 28th. If you read it and like it I would love it if you left a review. Thank you. Link in bio.

“Oh, this is the part where I start worrying about aging.” I don’t remember exactly what prompted this bizarre sentence to spill out into my mind. Probably because I immediately lost interest in whatever mundane mid-life experience had just occurred and instead became fixated on the implication of these words. I’ve always loved the idea of reincarnation, but to reflexively produce this sentence in my mind and to feel the immediate detachment it gave me from the anxiety I was about to feel was…pretty neat. I started thinking about life before life and this turned into my latest eBook: Mission. It’s available on Amazon for free for the next 5 days. Click the link in my bio and scroll down to find it. If you don’t have a Kindle eReader, you can download the Kindle app to any device and read it through that. If you read it and you like it I would sincerely appreciate it if you left a written review on Amazon.

Have you ever heard of the Christian Gnostics? They were a Christian sect that existed in the second and third centuries AD. They believed that our reality was created by a mad god who broke away from the true God and took a bunch of His souls (us) with him and trapped them (us) in this cosmic zoo called Earth. The Gnostics also believed that our world was made chaotic by a group of beings called Archons. They believed that Archons feed off our negative emotions and work to create as much suffering as possible. Pretty wacky, right? Imagine if everyone believed it. What would it be like if every person on the planet understood that demonic beings are feeding off our rage, jealousy, sadness, cynicism, nihilism, indifference, etc., and that by indulging in these states of mind we are actually giving these demons the energy they need to create more of it? What would the world be like if every time anyone felt something negative, that person would take a moment to recognize that they were feeding the Archons? I wonder how that might change their relationship to negative emotions. And I wonder how that might change the world. I hope my point is obvious. Please do not feed the Archons.

A few weeks ago I got a text message while at work. The text message told me that someone I care about, who I will refer to as The Patient, had been admitted to the hospital. Sitting in my car in the parking lot outside the emergency room, I had to pull myself together. Years ago The Patient had been there for me when I was in the hospital. Having someone around during a health crisis who cares about you but never seems afraid is invaluable. I wanted to return the favour. So I dried my eyes, bit down, and got out of my car. As I walked towards the building I had a moment of clarity. I realized that my fragile mental state was the result of living in a story. The story I was living in was this: The Patient is sick, and I don’t know if they’re going to get better. But here’s the thing: The story wasn’t real. The only thing that was real was that I was walking into a building. The thoughts of the dark future that might lie ahead were a creation of my imagination. And I could choose to create them or not create them. So I decided not to create them. Which was a matter of ruthlessly forcing my attention into the present moment to the exclusion of all thought. In this state of mind, almost everything that normally bothered me seemed trivial and I was grateful to learn that it could all be discarded with no downside. The only thing that seemed to survive my virtually thoughtless state was my desire to be there for The Patient. Inflation, political division, war, crumbling institutions, objects in space hurtling towards the earth, money, my job, aging, I stepped outside of all these stories with no penalty. All that happened was I felt better. Telling ourselves these stories of what might be accomplishes nothing. Discarding the stories and focusing on what is and engaging it without resistance is, I think, the deepest freedom we can ever know.

Time rides you some like some sinister dwarf. The illusion of the future squeezes you out of the present and makes this moment excruciating. Stop. Set the dwarf down. Now look at him. He isn’t there. Because he isn’t real. Never was. You’re aware only of this moment. And when you’re mind is possessed by thoughts of before or later, it’s just that, possessed. Gently take your attention back. You’re safe inside the present. It’s safe to let go of concern. It’s safe to let go of doubt. This experience originates within and flows outwards engulfing you. Only your doubt prevents you from flowing with it.

When you’re 40, you'll look back wistfully at 30. When you’re 50, you’ll look back wistfully at 40. When you’re 60, you’ll look back wistfully at 50. When you’re 100, you’ll look back wistfully at 80 when you could still walk and didn’t need a diaper. We miss our youth but in missing our previous youth our current youth passes us by. You’re always younger than you’re gonna be. And there is always only this moment right now. Everything else is a projection in your head.

Something confirms my bias, I feel good. Something denies my bias, I feel anger and anxiety. When I'm so rooted in the present that I can't be possessed by my reactions, I'm free.

I believe that the death Virginia Giuffre is another screw popping out of the machine.

Please do not feed the archons

Have you ever asked yourself a question and then answered it? Something like “Why do I always get stressed out about leaving town?” And then another voice inside answers “Because you imagine everything going wrong.” And then you realize that "everything going wrong" never happens. And now you don’t get so stressed about leaving town. Isn’t it interesting that as well as being the question asker, we can also be the question answerer? I write stories to activate the question answerer. This is blatantly on display in my latest story, ‘Prisoner’. Set in a dystopian, cyberpunk, parallel reality, ‘Prisoner’ is primarily a conversation between a prison guard and a cult leader sentenced to death. But whose really the prisoner? You can download it to your kindle eReader for free until Friday. If you don’t have a kindle eReader, you can download the kindle app to any device. If you read it, and you like it, would you be so kind as to write me a short, written review on Amazon? It would really help to boost its visibility and it would help others to decide if it’s something they might like too. Thank you 🙂 #cyberpunk #spirituality #fiction

Let’s pretend for a minute that reality is a simulation, but that rather than being generated by an external computer, it emanates from within you. Meaning everything you experience is a reflection from deep within. How would this change your relationship to everything? What do you do with war, poverty, politics, love, fun, aging, traffic, beauty pageants, the hawk tuah girl, when all those things become a series of funhouse mirrors? My latest short story, ‘Unconditional Surrender’, explores this idea. If you’d like to read it, it’s available for free on Amazon until the 16th (Wednesday). If you don’t have an eReader, you can download the Kindle app on any device. a.co/d/ezMOO6K

#WritingCommunity #writerslift Every day is a new beginning with new opportunities to find that perfect #reader: add your link & RP to share with the #readingcommunity! #ShamelessSelfpromo #books #writerscommunity #readerscommunity #readers #readingforpleasure #MustRead #book

@writingjax 3. It's the most striking. The title hits your right away. And it's the prettiest.

Finalizing my book cover and down to these last three. Which one appeals to you the most? #ereader #serializednovel #dystopianAIFiction #speculativefiction #texasauthor #indieauthor

Philip K Dick, a science fiction writer whose work has been adapted to a bunch of movies you’ve seen or at least heard of (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report) was speaking at a science fiction convention in France in 1977 where he expressed his belief that reality was a simulation generated by a computer. He based this belief on a number of mystical experiences he claimed to have had. Everyone thought he was nuts, including his wife. In 2003, Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom published a paper in which he proposed that we’re living in a computer simulation. His argument is based on probability. No one thinks he’s nuts and his theory is seriously debated. It’s called Simulation Theory. Let’s pretend for a minute that reality is a simulation, but that rather than being generated by an external computer, it emanates from within you. Meaning everything you experience is a reflection from deep within. How would this change your relationship to everything? What do you do with war, poverty, politics, love, fun, aging, traffic, beauty pageants, the hawk tuah girl, when all those things become a series of funhouse mirrors? My latest short story, ‘Unconditional Surrender’, explores this idea. If you’d like to read it, it’s available for free on Amazon until the 16th (Wednesday). If you don’t have an eReader, you can download the Kindle app on any device. If you read it, and you like it, I would sincerely appreciate a short written review on Amazon. But if you don’t like it, zip it! Thank you

"Canada will never be the 51st state. But we recognize how privileged we are to have the relationship that we do with America. I look forward to sitting down with President Trump and creating a new, mutually beneficial trade agreement." - What I think wise Canadian leadership would sound like

Reality is a projection from within. Bending the projection to your will is a matter of total acceptance of the present. Once you've made this peace you can point your attention at the feelings you want to experience and the corresponding narrative which will play out in your human drama.

My short story 'Road' is free on Amazon right now for Kindle e-readers. It's a surreal allegory about the difficulty of maintaining peace of mind in a world of distractions. I wrote this story to help myself find clarity when I become possessed by thoughts and reactions. I hope it brings you a sense of peace. If you do read it, and you like it, please do me a solid and leave a review. Thank you. a.co/d/bOlveb8

Just shut up and feel it.

What if I told you that existence is a process of evolution towards unity with God, and that we have two choices: get there slowly, or get there faster? Getting there slowly means resisting life's turbulence. Getting there faster is surrendering to life's turbulence and trusting the inevitability of unification with God.

Every moment is a choice as to what you will place your attention on. Choosing wisely is the key to a good life.