Energy

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

-Aristotle

There are things that don’t make sense within the Western frameworks we use to navigate life. 

Beyond CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and stoicism, I’ve found meditation and Buddhist concepts helpful. These frameworks lend power to control our actions. They let us understand the inner workings of our minds and the universe.

What I’m going to propose here will sound a bit crazy, so let me preface it.

Against magical thinking

Most magical thinking is highly flawed and can lead to negative consequences. Astrology is a narcissistic, deterministic pseudo-religion that makes people think they know someone by factors not under their control. Astrology practitioners are worse than the most hardcore racists in how they judge others by their immutable traits (i.e., the date and time of their birth).

I’m not into woo-thinking. I fear our culture often celebrates pseudoscience, ignorance, and what feels good over what is true. Rationality is important for us to understand our world and contribute to human flourishing.

The scientific method when followed is amazing and leads to truth. However, there are exceptions.

Magic

Light is a particle and a wave. It doesn’t make sense. Human consciousness doesn’t make sense. The universe existing doesn’t make sense.

I’m not saying throw it all away and damn the corpus of human knowledge. But some things can’t be so easily explained and rationalized. There is magic beyond our current comprehension.

I used to think energy was an abstraction of body language, facial expressions, tone, and cadence… or energy could just exist.

I’ve experienced this in deeply meditative states. For those who have done psychedelics– psilocybin makes one sensitive to emotional energy, while LSD can make one sensitive to general energy. 

Socially

However faint, there’s always background noise. There are “room tones” when filming, i.e., the silence in the location when no dialogue is spoken or other noises are made. Sound has to record the room tone to use it for ADR. Without the room tone, any dialogue added in post-production would be jolting. We can hear room tones, but we aren’t fully conscious of them as they’re subtle. 

We can sense a room from the noise, smell, touch, and aesthetics. Rooms can make us anything from energized to calm to anxious. Rooms have energy, and so do people.

When you’re vibing with someone, your brainwaves sync. Our brains literally go on the same wavelength. In the same way competitive eaters can become conscious of their digestive system and learn to control it, we can make our unconscious, conscious. We can train ourselves to sense the brainwaves of another person. 

And if the mind and body are one, then we can sense the energy of another person. We can sense the energy of our physical space and the energy of the people within it.

Coincidences

Believing nothing is a coincidence means you think the world revolves around you. I believe in coincidences. I believe in happenstance. The world doesn’t revolve around me or anyone else. If there is a God, I hope it has better things to do than to give signs. But some things happen that aren’t simply a coincidence.

One way energy manifests is in coincidences, especially in highly emotional circumstances. I’ve heard countless stories from friends and family about coincidences seemingly too extreme to be happenstance. I’ve had it happen myself. It doesn’t compute how multiple things happened one after the other. I’ve only heard convincing stories of this happening when it’s around something real and very emotional. This makes it nearly impossible to test or replicate.

I don’t know how to interpret these non-coincidences other than they exist as an energetic release valve, or it’s other people’s unconscious attraction to extreme energy. Some will say the universe is trying to tell you something, but it could just be the entropy of the universe. 

Deriving meaning from energetic non-coincidences could be like trying to derive meaning from boiling a teapot. The teapot is whistling because the water is boiling, not because you should call your parents more… but you should call your parents more.

We don’t need the universe to tell us what we want. We already know that deep down.

Chi

There’s the Eastern concept of chi– it goes by many names in other cultures: chakra, aura, light, wairua, spirit. It’s your inner energy. 

Energy isn’t good or bad. You can manipulate and make others feel your energy. Resonating calm, love, warmth. Alternatively, Rasputin was infamous for using his dark hypnotic energy to seize power and seduce Russia’s royalty and children.

Energy can be open or closed. Certain types of energy don’t go well together. How we process others’ energy depends on our state.

Our energy can be highly sensitive.

Awareness

It was a huge leap when I went from sympathizing with others to empathizing. 

When I sympathize with others, I mirror their internal state. Sympathizing with a sad friend makes me sad. I understand them and we are sad together. When I empathize, I fully understand and relate to their state without changing my internal state. Empathizing with a sad friend makes me relate to their sadness, while my internal state stays constant. Energy is the same.

It’s great to be aware of your energy and the energy you surround yourself with. At the same time, be resilient. You should be able to tolerate energy that isn’t perfect. More than tolerate, you can shape and bend energy. Be active. The world is malleable. Sculpt it to your will.