religion

For We Are One On The Journey

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When it comes to religious and spiritual interactions, we’ve all experienced both deep connection and deep conflict. I’d like to talk about the connection, specifically how is it that we can connect with people on seemingly different spiritual paths? I’m sure we’ve all experienced something like that, where there’s a theological disconnect, but a deeper connection anyway.

In 2026, I find this question even more relevant. I find myself in agreement with the Pope despite being neither a Christian and having some problems with the Catholic Church. I find myself in sync with Christians sincerely protesting monstrous behavior. I am, as noted, a theist in my own way, but also have many friends who are atheists and we think a lot alike.

I mean I’m a Taoist and syncretic neo-pagan, so my beliefs are inclusive, but still, it’s interesting to see people I feel accord with in a time where religious conflict is oft present. It’s also nice to feel that accord.

So I find myself asking why we have this sense of sibling-hood. I mean I’m glad for it but why does it exist?

I think it’s a question of the sincerity of the journey.

Whatever your spiritual starting point, some people are on the quest. They want to figure out what’s going on. They want to be better people. They want to tune in to the Big Picture. There is something bigger than them, and they are going to do their best to find it.

This also means they start by taking their spiritual path seriously – and that’s actually a good starting point. You have to start somewhere and give it a try, you have to hold to your principles to find out what they mean and ask really hard questions. We’re often asking the same questions on the journey, and facing stark reality.

There’s a camaraderie in this, of all we people on the journey. We don’t start from the same place, we aren’t necessarily in the same place, but we’re all trying to figure “it” out. We can all relate to the journey. We can appreciate that someone cares.

But also everyone on that journey also have places of similarities. We ask the same or similar questions. We’ve faced the same or similar spiritual crises. We’ve probably had similar experiences in spiritual readings and research, even if we’re not necessarily in agreement.

Almost certainly out of these we’re going to find similar values. We’ve asked the questions, done the research, and in many cases come to the same conclusions. I don’t believe there’s some secret perennial philosophy created by an ancient civilization waiting to be rediscovered – but I believe there are similar conclusions we always keep coming to. Also maybe we should listen to those conclusions, because we keep forgetting them.

We’re all on a journey, all trying to figure it out, and our conclusions are often hard-won and surprisingly similar.


There’s a camaraderie in all of this. A similarity because we’re all on a journey.

I keep thinking of the TV series Babylon 5, a show I was a deep fan of back when it first ran. The Episode “Grail” in Season 1 sees a religious seeker come to this space station in the far future, seeking the Holy Grail. An alien ambassador notes her respect for a person on a mission that others may see as mad – a sincere seeker hoping for healing and regeneration for people. I appreciate that message, and I think it illustrated what I found.

Who is my sibling? Someone else on a journey like me.

–Xenofact

Notes On The Ecosystem

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I’ve referred to cultivating an “Ecosystem” of thought and relations as part of spiritual practices. The idea is that your practices embrace the “big picture” of your life, tying parts of it together. I figured I’d exposit my current methods here to see if they help folks out.

Part 1: Regular Readings

First, each day I read two passages out of a copy of the Tao Te Ching and may move on to other works. This regularly means I contemplate useful teachings regularly, in small amounts, constantly reinforcing my philosophy and keeping me thinking. Taking regular time to really ask “what does this mean and what did I learn” is quite helpful in keeping to “The Big Picture.”

Secondly, I read about one Hexagram from the I Ching, a sprawling body of divination, advice, and philosophy on the 64 different “Changes” of the world. I have several analyses of the I Ching and regularly cycle through them to be exposed to different ideas. Each day then I contemplate a “Change” in the world and what people have written about it. This grounds me in larger thought related to Taoist ideas and again keeps me thinking.

Plus, there are some amazing analyses of the I Ching. One, the Tao of Organization, is basically the I Ching of organizations and managements, and as a Project Manager, that gets me thinking.

None of these take a huge amount of time. There’s something about having a “pause to think about how it comes together” that’s not overlarge I find helpful.

My Advice: Read a little bit of an important philosophical/spiritual work a day as the break and contemplation is helpful but not overwhelming. Also read something that gives you that “Big Picture” sense – it may be mystical/philosophical like the I Ching, or perhaps a work on history or culture that has convenient “bite sized” chunks.

Part 2: “The Harmony”

A more recent thing I’ve taken to doing is reflecting each day on how the different aspects of my life connect. I write this down in my meditation notebook once a day, and I review different “levels” of my life. I reflect on how I’ve done, what I learned, and maybe what I can do better. Here’s the way I do it.

“Celestial Harmony” is my name for reviewing my life on the mystical and archetypical level. This has two parts.


First, I reflect on the gods. This means I reflect on the huge principles that matter to me, those living parts of the universe that mean something to mean and that I connect to. This may be thankfulness, acknowledgement of the roles in my life, and so on. This helps me understand how I connect to the larger forces in the world.

Secondly, I reflect on values that are important to me. To make this easier I adopted a system from the Chinese Five Element System, analyzing how I did in the “Five Virtues.” Thus I take a moment to ask how I did to embody Righteousness, Benevolence, Wisdom, Propriety, and Trustworthyness. This is not a system I know a lot about, but it worked with my regular readings, and I decided to “wing it” and see if it helped – and it did.

You could probably do this in religious or secular ways. The key thing is to recognize the “big elements” of your life and specific values and review them.

“Social Harmony” is the next thing I analyze. How did I do connecting with people, supporting friends and family, performing my social roles, did I learn anythin,g and so on? I look at things that are both chances to do better and what I have done well.

I found this most useful as I didn’t realize a lot about how social I was. There are times I felt both social and also wanted some “me” time and now I realize I didn’t realize how much socializing I was doing. Quite useful.

Psychology is the last part. I sit down and ask how my mental state is, any issues I dealt with, learned about, did well, or things I can do better. This is usually pretty practical, but also ties to all of the above reviews.

Plus if there’s any issues I want to work on, I can look at progress.

My Advice: Try these daily reviews. Don’t be hard on yourself, but I find it very useful. Thinking from the cosmic and timeless down to specific neuroses is illuminating.

So, Give it a Try

I hope these practices give you some good ideas. I recommend giving them at least 3 months of practice to see how they work out for you. It gives you time to get it right, find what works for you, and see what lessons pop up. For me, It really helps with the “ecosystem” of my life, connecting my spirituality, philosophy, and psychology together. I hope the advice helps do the same for you.

And give me a write to let me know what you’ve learned.

–Xenofact

Maximum Exposure, Maximum Influencer Brain

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The term “Influencer Brain” is one that I’ve been using a lot lately. It basically refers to the way some people get so used to trying to be Social Media influencers, it warps how they think. They think in hits and likes, stirring up controversy and making memes, maximum exposure, maximum talk. Everything gets warped through the Social Media bubble, to the point where even meaningful things are meaningless.

I’m sure you’ve seen Influencer Brain. It’s probably gotten some of your friends and family. It’s definitely gotten quite a few politicians, media stars, and supposed business geniuses. It’s also really goddamn annoying because it’s hard to have a human conversation with someone who has Influencer Brain.

Now one area I’ve noticed Influencer Brain hitting hard is Very Online Christians and some Christian media stars. There’s the “Jesus Glow-Up” people who, I guess, use good lighting to show how Jesus made them more photogenic? There’s people gladly seeking controversy to raise their profile and probably get a gig on some blog or get donations for, I don’t know, being a jerk. It seems pretty weird considering Jesus even warned people about praying in public.

Is Christianity (in American) more prone to this kind of Influencer Brain? Well, that’s actually not what I want to explore. Because here’s the thing.

Christianity is the dominant religion in America. It is quite politicized thanks to various social-political efforts and traditions. So simply put if you see a lot of annoying Christian Influencers, how much of that is simply by the odds? If you’re going to see annoying people with Influencer Brain, wouldn’t they practice (well, pretend to practice) the dominant religion, especially one that is politicized?

I think we pretty much can guess yeah, it probably is. I have larger theories but let’s be honest, the numbers are a big thing here.

I think of this as a good warning, and a bit of humility. It may be easy for non-Christians like myself to have a good laugh at them. We may also take the fact that we see such widespread behavior very seriously as some of these Influencers do outrageous and dangerous stuff. But under different circumstances we might be at risk.

We might even be at risk in our own spiritual practice. What if your particular brand of paganism gets popular? What if you suddenly have a book on meditation take off? What if you just get pissed at these people, make reaction videos, they become a hit then you face audience capture?

I think it’s important as we understand Influencer culture to tease out the different parts of it, moreso when it comes to spiritual and political practices. There is some damn pathological stuff out there, but it might also be literally due to the odds, and we can read too much into it – and get too arrogant.

Besides, as we tease out these threads, we can further get to the important spiritual issues – without trying to sell a course or get in the news or whatever.

– Xenofact