I said finding Satori, not Dori. I know where Dori is at the moment. She is too busy learning to speak whale and riding the currents to Sydney. I just need to keep working towards understanding why I do the things that I do and the nature of my consciousness.

Just keep meditating. Just keep meditating. Just keep meditating. Just keep meditating.

I want to bring you into the mind of a “high functioning (what does that even mean?)” autistic (neurodivergent) individual. Now autism is a spectrum disorder so there is a wide variety of “symptoms” and characteristics, but these are mine. I have a constant internal monologue going on inside my head coming up with every single question and every single potential answer while simultaneously having a thought pattern about every single point of my body language. So yeah when I look tired, it’s because I’ve mentally exhausted myself from tying “hold it all in.” When I indulge in my hyper fixations suddenly the voices quiet down, but a different more calming voice will suddenly emerge.

I like to think that my hyper fixations constitute the majority of my base nature. I also feel that my base characteristics have always been born from a sense of creativity. Growing up, and still to this day, I’ve had a fascination with building Lego and tinkering with whatever projects I could get my hands on. During high school I took likely one of my favorite classes, auto mechanics. I had aspirations of becoming a mechanic/engineer on a race car team as I was most like myself during these class periods. Now due to external “pressures” of continuing my seemingly easy success in academia, I felt that I needed to follow a career path more so “valued” by society. Once again I wouldn’t change a step that I’ve made in my journey this far as it has led me to this exact point in time. In some ways I believe that some of the “suffering” I’ve endured has ultimately led me to a place in which I have started to understand the nature of my being.

Lately when Mary Jane visits on the weekends and non-work nights our conversations switched from the esoteric to more passion focused. During these conversations my inner monologue voices quiet down only to be replaced by a different voice. This voice has more focus on the here and now. This was the voice that told me about my upcoming renaissance (I swear I’m not schizophrenic, I just like to talk to myself). I know that you maybe saying to yourself “dooood it’s the THC dumping that serotonin and dopamine into your brain.” Well I’d agree, but I also experience this same phenomenon when I’ve got a camera in my hands, or when I’m building a Lego set, or when I am tinkering on a remote controlled car kit, or during a yoga class stone cold ass sober.

As I reflect over these past handful of years, I get closer to understanding bite sizes pieces of me. When I first start out writing, originally I intended on this being more so an outlet to express my inner self. The more and more that I wrote, my simple project evolved into something more meaningful. What was once a simple idea for a blog has since morphed into a love letter to my past, present, and future and a hopeful means at making the world a better place one person at a time.

When I look back at my struggles with depression and anxiety, one of the biggest contributing factors was trying to fit in the mold that society laid out for me. And this is true for many people who come to have similar discussions with on their own struggles with mental health. The marriage I had, only lasted as long as it did because both my ex-wife/partner felt that “we needed to be in this relationship.” We as individuals become so consumed with our outward appearance to those who we don’t even know or have no business in judging others. Why must we jam ourselves into a mold to be like an everyone else?

And one other observation I’m become more aware of over these past few months, is time itself. Time is the one resource that we can never have enough of and it always seems to be running out. When I received my diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis, I thought at that point in time I only had a few more years to live. Add this on to the fact that my bone condition can become cancerous (I’ve already have the tumors, but currently they are benign), I truly felt my time was running out. Luckily I now know that the Cystic Fibrosis will not lead me to an early demise, but it has taught me a valuable lesson on the importance of time. I know most of my personal frustrations are due to my own “anxiety” of the feeling that time is slipping through my fingers. This I believe to be the source of my renewed passions. The reason why I’ve come to this conclusion is that I’m tired of wasting time doing things that I don’t want to be doing. Now I still have a lot to figure out how to balance my scales to ensure that I can create the path ahead of me while balancing my current life situations (9-5 job).

I feel like I have finally experienced the death of my ego (at least temporarily). My biggest personal project thus far was trying to remove me from my comfort zone when it comes to social situations. I wanted to do this as a means of recapturing some level of my self-confidence. This personal project also had some other unexpected results. Over the summer of 2024 I’ve been having the same epiphany/aha (kenshō) moment in regard to reigniting the passion within my life. As we’ve discussed in other chapters the idea of accepting the imperfect as perfect has been my main focus for the summer of 2024. Unbeknownst to me this “project” was an exercise in living within the moment and listening to the universe around me. This singular journey was spurred on by me trying to remove my ‘tism mask and show the world whom I truly am.

When I look back over the years I see where I’ve come and I see where I’m going. These are the chapters of my life and it all started out with the idea that I needed to learn to learn to love myself.

With every fiber of my being I believe that my routine meditation practice has helped me in my quest to understand the nature of my being. Yes most of my meditation practice consists of my weekly yoga classes, but lately Mary Jane has been encouraging me to meditate while amongst the clouds.

One night while I was blasting off to the moon, I decided to do some thinking in my favorite place, the shower. As soon as I cleared my mental space, the puzzle pieces slowly started to come together one by one. I used to think the end goal was to live “passively” and to not try to force anything to happen as the universe will provide. Along side being passive in life, that at the end of the day things will be what they will be. That night while in my rocket ship I realized that I had been more active in making my life choices, whether that was asking a cute girl out to dinner, making the change to bring my passions back, or trying to crave out a more creative life for myself. I had realized that I had been disciplining my desires to value my time and disregarded any societal expectations of myself.

Shortly after I had reached my cruising altitude, I started to think about the shadow that I see in the mirror. Currently I work for your typical corporate bank, working at a desk with an emphasis on making sales. However this is not the image I see in my mind’s eye when I look in the mirror. I see a more creative future, one in which I indulge in my passions and show the world whom I truly am. Feeling the grains of time slip through my fingers has awoken with in me a sense of determination. I’ve had this shadow following me for years ever since I covered my first major photo event.

Desires are a funny thing when we think about it. It wasn’t until recently that I’ve felt this at ease with how I would characterize my desires. I am not without desires but I feel that I have reached a point where when I desire something it comes a more rooted sense of emotion. I still have a desire for a relationship, but this desire is born from a place craving compassion. I want to share my life with another. I want someone to look into my eyes and see a version of themselves as I would see a version of myself in their eyes. I desire a life in which I can share my story with others and hope that it can help them in a time of need. I desire to one day to share my art with the world and to leave behind a legacy. I desire to have at least one impact on one person and to inspire them to have at least one impact on another. I desire a world in which we build each other up and set aside our differences. At the end of it I’ve been working on desiring things that bring along the idea and the sense of fulfillment rather than “simple pleasures.” The idea that my life will bring fulfillment is an emotion that will start up to the test of time. When we chase “simple pleasures” we are always chasing the next “big high” or rush of getting whatever we had wanted during that time.

So what is the overarching lesson here? It’s all about retrospection, perception, and acceptance. Every step in my life has brought me to this point. Whether these were positive steps or negative steps they still add up to my journey and the building blocks of my life.

I want you to take a moment to reflect on your journey. Think back to what influences your emotional states of being and what is the driving forces in these changes. Are you doing things because thats what you believe you should be doing or are you doing them because it brings joy and fulfillment to your life?

Personally I feel as if we need to remove the words happy and happiness from our vocabularies and replace them with more representative words. Instead of striving for whatever happiness is, we should be striving for states of being such as gratitude, fulfillment, and satisfaction. These three states of being are more inlined to actually provide you with what you are likely thinking what it means to be happy.

I for one believe that in order to fully appreciate the human experience we must endure both pain and suffering. To me these emotional states can be very sobering and can help really make you appreciate the small moments in life. A life without ever experiencing suffering or pain, is sterile and sometimes we need to get down in the mud to see life from another perspective. In my case a lot of my “pain and suffering” (I want to explain why I’m putting this in quotations. We all face different trials and tribulations. Some of these are much more intense than others, but once again our shared pain can form tight bonds via empathy and compassion.) can be attributed to me disregarding the signs life was trying to show me to move on or to let go of whatever was happening. But I have learned from this pain and I’ve come to appreciate my suffering. We are only human and we need to continually remind ourselves of this limitation. We are not robots, nor are we perfect. We mustn’t place ourselves on pedestal or place others on pedestals. When we create these false expectations of others we place our own ideals on to another. When create these expectations on others we are committing them to always having to perform at or above some preconceived level. Instead I want share how I carry my own expectations of myself, just to do my best every day. My best is always going to be different every day, but that is okay.

So what have I learn from looking back at these last ten plus years?

It’s time to get back to basics.

The most relaxing times for me have always when I’ve been outdoors and enjoying the beauty that Mother Earth provides us everyday. Our world is dying all around us, and yet there seems to be no effort to save it any time soon. You know that idiom, stop and smell the roses? Well, we need to being doing more of that before they are all gone. We need to appreciate the world around us and soak in the beauty that is in nature. Global climate change is a very real situation that is leading to the death of our home. Just like me and my depression, we’ve been ignoring to obvious red flags for too long. We need to better learn to recognize and understand red flags before its too late. Being able to slow down and breathe in the calming air that nature brings along will bring you back into the moment.

Over these past few years I had unknowingly been returning to the basics. In the springtime of 2021, I treated myself to a new 1/8th scale nitro R/C racing buggy. I got the chassis, engine, and radio set up that I had always dreamt about one day building and then racing. This was my high school auto shop moment coming rushing back. Tie this in with model building and painting, I realized I am myself most when doing these activities. Also the best connections that I have made have been with those that share a common interest.

That is it. The basics tie everything together and sometimes we just need to be reminded that is all we really need in life.

You may be saying to yourself “well duh dude” but sometimes the most basic ideas flee our minds because we are so caught up in thinking about anything and everything else. I got back into being who Tony is and will be. I am no longer tied to the normal constructs that define conventional thought but rather focusing on my individuality. Much like a hamburger it doesn’t get much better than the basics. The classic combo: meat, cheese, and a bun.

I do recognize that for some it will be easier to get back to basics. I for one do not have kids nor am I in a committed relationship at the time of writing this chapter, so in some ways it is “easier” for me to make major changes in my life/lifestyle. But on the flip side most of my changes revolve around removing distractions from in front of me, such as turning off the TV and listening to music instead, or indulging in a hobby or an outdoor activity during that time as well. Where there is a will there will always be a way to make something work. You just have to come up with the solution yourself as no one will have the complete answer for you.

Listen to the waves they will tell you everything you need to hear. Listen to how they change in frequency. Some are gentle and some are more powerful than others. Life is a series of waves constantly coming your way. But sometimes those waves can be hiding a deadly rip current that can instantly pull you under if you over react.

So what does this all mean? It means live proud and live loud. Fuck the white noise. Time is the single most valuable possession that you have… Listen to that sound within your soul. It all finally has all fallen into back into place and now I clearly see the path laid out for me. Is this how I got my confidence back, by being my genuine self? We are not our trauma, whether it was self inflicted or inflicted upon you.

Now it’s your turn.