As a rule, I do not write in the plural third person (i.e., “we”) because I only know myself. Here, I make an exception in some questions to make this material more accessible to readers.
For a more in-depth Q&A in an interview format, see Conversation with an ascentist.
2.3.24 – This writing no longer reflects my evolved understanding and undermines it in many different ways. I write from the plural third-person, which I no longer use. I also de-personalize my writings in here, as if I am writing for readers. I even mention the “accessibility” to readers above, which I no longer consider.
Life is not a mystery. Existence is not ineffable. The truth is not relative, arcane, esoteric, mystical, or buried in an unknowable past.
We are not, as we are supposed to believe, incapable of knowing everything. We are not temporary, minor observers of a massive, inscrutable universe being revealed to us by a scientific elite.
There is a single, absolute truth, and we can know it right now. We need not wait, seek out a wise guru, or study the words of saints, prophets, or gods. We need not join a class, or buy a course. We can validate the only truth there is right now by exposing the distortion we have accepted as truth.
We think that what we seek is here, but it is not. We are lost here, and have forgotten who we are and how to see it. But we can remember who we are and what we want, and then feel and see it every moment of our lives. We know everything.
What is descentism?
Descentism is a framework for remembering what we want, and then getting it.
It begins with the realization that there are two places: the peaceful place I awaken from, and the painful place I awaken into.
Sleeping is the first place, where I am whole. The second place is this body and environment I awaken into, and is akin to being under water where I cannot breathe.
The descentist wants to end awakenings into the second place and return to the first place.
What is the first place?
For all of my life I took the first place for granted and I did not think of it as a separate “place” so much as a “state”.
But with contemplation, I began to realize that sleep had many of the characteristics of “god”. Notably peace, timelessness, omnipresence, and more. I began to think of it less as a state, and more as a space.
What is the end result of ‘descent’?
Convergence. My first and second places become one. Specifically, the features of my second place – the people, relationships, possessions, aspirations, memories, and desires – collapse down into the first place and all distinction between the two cease to exist to me.
How should I evaluate the truthfulness of the descentist framework?
In terms of its ability to provide practical guidance I can directly experience and validate. The framework goes beyond the metaphor of religion, and the imagination of science, to the most solid ground: my direct experience. If I cannot experience what the framework shows me, then it fails to meet its purpose.
Why would I want to ‘descend’?
Because I want to end the pain of the second place.
Descentism explains how the second place is the source of my pain, and then how to treat and overcome it.
Why is the second place painful?
Because my awakenings into the second place are an amputated state, where I exist as a bloody stump among the rendered flesh of my being.
What if I do not feel pain?
We have become numb to the pain of these amputations over a lifetime of enduring them. But the pain is there, and it has a single source: our awakenings into the second place. We will all see this when we die; the descentist chooses to confront it in life.
What are the two places?
The two places are everything there is. The first place is where we go when we sleep. We can also ‘see’ it when we close our eyes. After a lifetime of taking it for granted, it is misunderstood.
The second place is simply ‘the world’. Everything that exists once I wake up.
But when we sleep, we are still ‘here’ in the world?
One of the first steps of descentism is reimagining my existence from my actual first-person perspective, rather than an imagined third-person perspective.
For example, if I imagine myself sleeping, I probably conjure up something like this:
But this scene only exists in my imagination. My actual experience of my sleeping self is what I see when I close my eyes and allow myself to ‘leave the second place‘ and ‘return to the first place‘.
In the descentist perspective we reorient toward our actual experience, away from imagined scenes such as the one above. In my actual experience, my physical body melts away, and I literally experience going somewhere else when I fall asleep.
What does my imagined perspective when I sleep have to do with anything?
By continuing to imagine that we remain in our bedroom in the world – something we do not directly experience when we sleep – we will find it difficult to experience the first place as it is. Detachment from the second place is essential to understand the first place.
The descentist takes his own direct, actual experience as the source of all truth. When we conceptualize scenes that we do not actually experience, we view our existence accordingly. We are lost because we constantly imagine scenes that do not exist, blurring the line between what we do and do not know.
If I am not a descentist, what am I?
If we are here, we most likely are a combination of the two. That said, the conceptual ‘opposite’ of descentism is ascentism.
The ascentist perspective is largely based on things I imagine, but cannot experience. For example, an ascentist belief is that we are temporary observers of a larger world that existed before we were born, and will exist long after we die. Or that there was a specific saint, prophet, or religious figure from the past whose words guide us today. Or that there is a god somewhere ‘out there’ overseeing everything.
In other words, the various ascentist perspectives leave a lot of room for suppositional beliefs and uncertainties, whereas the descentist perspective eliminates suppositional beliefs in favor of experiential.
Reorienting toward descentism is a life-long process, because it takes a lot of time and persistence to challenge and change years of ascentist misunderstandings. Theoretically, one will harbor both ascentist and descentist beliefs until the moment they leave the second place permanently.
How can you tell if someone is an ascentist?
Ask them where they are. If they respond, they will tell you something suppositional that they cannot directly know or experience. For example, they might say, “I am in Almora, Uttarakhand, India on earth, orbiting the sun in the milky way galaxy in the universe”.
The ascentist believes that they are positioned somewhere within a vast second place.
So the descentist does not believe there are different cities and countries on earth?
There are concepts that are practical in the second place. Such as knowing our way around the area where we live. But beyond that, knowledge becomes an impediment to our descent.
The key to descent is achieving a state of disengagement. So rather than contending there are or are not different cities and countries on a place called “earth”, the descentist withdraws from the construct altogether. We do not have to proclaim one way or another.
By the same logic, how can you tell if someone is a descentist?
Since I am the only descentist I know, if you asked me where I am in a practical setting, I would mention the town or place where I am in the second place. However, I would know that I am in the first place, which does not move.
When do we become descentist?
We all become descentists when we fall asleep at the end of our day because we pursue the first place with single-minded determination. We are also descentist when we do not want to awaken in the morning.
But when we do finally force ourselves to wake up and face the day, we are ascending. The descentist seeks to remember his desire to return to the first place throughout his time in the second place. But the ascentist will forget that his original desire upon waking into the second place was to remain in the first place. And he will not realize that original desire is the same as his intense desire to return to the first place at night (i.e., “going to sleep”).
One is not an ascentist or descentist, in the same way that a car is not only accelerating or braking. Descent is about changing direction toward descent and away from ascent.
How does descentism compare to other ideologies?
I am not an expert on other ideologies, and as I move deeper into my descent I think less about these topics than I did before. That said, the diagram below (modified, but inspired by a non-attributed diagram shared on the internet), illustrates how descentism compares.
An atheist perspective imagines I am within the universe.
Traditional theistic perspectives tend to see god as separate from and superior to me and the universe.
A pantheist perspective imagines I am within the universe, and the universe is god.
Panentheism imagines that we are within the universe which is in turn within god.
Descentism imagines that what there is, is what is.
What is the larger social message of descentism?
With descentism, I do not have a larger social message. Descentism does not aim to look and speak outwardly to the imagined social body.
Descentism is a message to myself – stop the second place. Descentism offers a practical framework to overcome the coercive and relentless “optimism” that blinds me to the truth that I am lost here and my only desire is to return to the first place.
Is this a pessimistic worldview?
That characterization is used to discredit and confound. Truth is neither optimistic or pessimistic – it just is.
What is the core existential condition?
The core condition of life is that we do not want to be here. Life is an unwanted condition that we can overcome by descending.
What is the original desire?
The original desire is my first and last desire for peace. We can see it clearly in our magnetic response to waking up and going to sleep every day. Both are difficult to suppress because we want to be in that place of peace when we sleep. While we ultimately overpower our initial desire and awaken, we eventually succumb when we go back to sleep at the end of our awakening. These events expose our core desire for peace.
What is some advice for those who want a purpose?
Ask yourself if you can know the truth. If you believe you can know the truth, then understand that a suppositional perspective in which you are a temporary observer of a massive universe will never allow that. You need to completely change your perspective in order to position yourself to know the truth.
What is a suppositional perspective?
A suppositional perspective is a worldview based on knowledge that I can believe, but cannot directly experience. Virtually all social, religious, spiritual, materialist, and rational ideologies are suppositional. Suppositional knowledge extends into the past and future, as well.
So is suppositional knowledge wrong, then?
Escaping from the suppositional perspective is not about confirming or rejecting suppositions. For example, I do not need to declare that the earth is flat or spherical. Or that there are, or are not, distant galaxies. Or that other people do, or do not, exist. Or that there were, or were not, dinosaurs.
Once I declare a position, I have manifested those conceptual forms. To escape, I disengage from suppositional knowledge and embrace conceptual apathy. In other words, I would not even acknowledge the existence of a suppositional concept unless it assists me in descending. And then, once it is no longer needed, I would disengage from it.
So the earth is not flat?
The descentist does not engage the concept of the earth or its shape, one way or another because he does not experience it. I can either fill my inner conceptual environment (i.e., my “mind”) with suppositions, or empty it.
An inner environment full of such facts, knowledge, thoughts, and ideas is an obese, unhappy, tumultuous environment. As a descentist, such suppositions hinder my descent because, in the end, what does the imagined shape of an imagined sphere in the second place have to do with my desire to be in the first place?
Nothing. It is only a tangent. A distraction.
Someone once said that reality is that which still exists whether I believe it or not. What exists, whether I believe it or not?
This belief is generally used to dismiss “non-scientific” views of the world. Specifically, as an argument that the physical world still exists whether one person believes in it or not because other people can confirm it does.
When it comes to the imagined shared reality, this is meaningful because I willingly defer to an outside consensus to arbitrate what does and does not exist. But once I choose to descend, I withdraw from imaginary authorities and become the sole arbiter of my reality.
Ultimately, however, reality comes down to my conviction. What I believe is what exists.
What does descentism mean in the context of today’s world?
Secular consumerism has run its course, and people are searching for something to believe in. The ideological marketplace is bustling with visions of a troubled society and apocalyptic future and there is a level of zealotry that promises major changes. The truth is that we no longer believe what we have been told, and we are questioning everything. These are all ascentist ideologies, but there are traceable lines of descentism running through them. Descentism, as defined herein, is the full expression of a truth that many are ready to confront.
What is the primary appeal of descentism?
Descentism expresses what many of us know: something is wrong, and what we seek is not out here. Our power to define reality is the most important tool we have, so we should be careful before we give it away. Descentism reveals that we actually know everything, and can directly experience the truth at any time. We just have to re-learn how to see it.
Are other ideologies wrong?
The choice between ascentism and descentism is the choice between two roads. Both roads lead to the same place, but one is smooth, followed with eyes open, and the other is tumultuous, taken with eyes closed.
Ascentist ideologies may or may not recognize the pain of life, but they always uphold the sanctity of it, misrepresenting it as a desirable state rather than the illness it is.
The descentist ideology starts by acknowledging that life itself is an unwanted state, and my one desire is to stop my awakenings. Progress towards descent brings lasting reprieve to my suffering.
Descentism is an existential framework that helps me align my remaining awakenings with my one desire for peace.
Are the sciences real?
‘Real’ or ‘existent’ aren’t particularly useful concepts. Something is real if it is part of my reality. And if I spend all my productive hours researching a topic, then it is real to me.
The more precise concept is ‘manifest’. Something is manifest if I conceive or perceive it. To the descentist there is no point in declaring if something is ‘real’ or ‘existent’. All I care about is whether it is present in my conceptual or perceptual environments. Manifestation recognizes my authorship of my reality.
The more important concept is what does it mean to me, and do I want to manifest it? I once believed that I had to incorporate the hard sciences and math into whatever ‘truth’ I articulated. What I was missing was my power of manifestation. They only existed as long as I engaged them.
It is not about what is “real”, it is about where I am going.
Should we procreate?
Children have the same first and last desire as adults, but without the anesthetic effect of a lifetime of tolerance or the independence to choose something different. They are coerced to remain here until they have thoroughly forgotten their own first and last desire just as we have. Procreation and preservation of life is existential rape.
We are outrunning our first and last desire now, but the awakenings will eventually end.
Why is mental illness increasing?
We are not mentally ill or chemically imbalanced, or whatever they call it next. We are waking up to the reality that what we want is not out here. That brings with it a whole host of feelings that we need to confront, including anger, alienation, betrayal, disorientation, self-destructive behaviors, addiction, suicide, and more. So-called ‘mental illness’ is people literally trying to escape the prison of life, but not necessarily knowing how to go about that. Descentism offers a paradigm for a peaceful transition out.
What kind of person would be attracted to descentism?
The Descentist Framework starts from the point of realizing that what I seek is not out here, in the world.
How should someone express descentism in their lives?
That is up to each person. I started descending — without having a word for it — in my early teen years. I began challenging and then discarding fundamental social expectations, so by the time I was out of high school, I was prepared to make dramatic departures from the life I was expected to live.
The most difficult part of my journey was simply realizing that there was a single, underlying purpose for everything I did. Realizing that my decision to eschew religion and social rituals, not procreate, not marry, leave my homeland, and reject expected familial and social roles was part of a larger aim was empowering. As I delved deeper into my own existence and all the unanswered questions, it became clear that every step I had taken in life was in response to my one desire for peace.
Anyone attracted to descentism has already led a life of resistance and disengagement. Putting a word to it, and connecting it to meaningful changes should help precipitate further expression.
Why do people take their own lives?
Suicide is a final act of desperation for those who know they are lost but unable to find a peaceful way out.
How can these people benefit from descentism?
Descentism offers a kinder, gentler, less traumatic path for those who seek escape from the cycle of awakenings. We still have to do the work, but the pain becomes more tolerable when we know who we are, where we are, what we seek, and where we are going.
What is this world?
It is a condition of forgetfulness; a dream we are having that we want to wake up from. It is the metaphorical hell, and will always be a painful and chaotic place. But it will always offer just enough hope and satisfaction to nourish itself and keep us returning. If everyone realized our true nature, we would stop procreating and the middle state would end.
Will there ever be peace in the world?
No, there will never be peace in the awakening. The awakening is a state of chaos, conflict, and division by definition.
Peace is found only in sleep, where we are God. Existence is the complete opposite of peace.
Why do people think the world will get better?
These people are projecting their true desire for peace into their second place existence. The second place is, by definition, a state of illness and disease. It is the state of forgetting who we are. It will never be the peaceful place we remember and desire because that is only found in sleep.
Who is descentism for?
I have been religious, atheist, agnostic, and spiritual at different points in my life and I was reluctant to give away my power to define God, whether to men of religion, science, or spirituality. I have always wanted one thing: an answer that I could directly experience. Descentism is for those who search, but who want answers that arise from within, rather than from without.
What would I say to mothers?
I would not say anything to mothers, specifically. But to those considering motherhood, I might encourage them to learn about descentism. Life is an unwelcome coercion and no child wants to be brought here to endure a lifetime of confusion, suffering, and neglect of their first and last desire.
What does descentism say about procreation?
Procreation is existential rape. It is the extension of pain and suffering to another. Every child has the same first and last desire as every adult: to be at peace. Consider that before reproducing.
What about all of the terrible things happening in the world?
The world is only here because I manifest it when I awaken. The imagined happenings in this world are as pinpricks to the traumatic amputation of awakening here.
What is the asleepening?
The asleepening is the forthcoming global movement to end life as we know it by descending.
How does a descentist best explain his aims to ascentists?
Descentism is very simple, and as long as the descentist can explain it to himself, that is all that matters. Ascentists may not want to understand, only interrogate, undermine, and persuade. Inviting ascentists into my descent is an unwelcome intrusion, and is something I avoid. That said, my proclamation should be everything I have to say on the matter. If I feel compelled to say more, then I should speak until I no longer feel the desire to share.
When does the proclamation end?
The proclamation ends when I no longer desire to share outside of myself.
How is an ascentist ideology different from descentist?
Ascentist ideologies are founded on the notion that life is a desirable state, and something to preserve and extend. They further teach us to fear our original desire above all else.
Descentism acknowledges that life is an undesirable condition, and something to be treated and overcome.
What is existential alignment?
Existential alignment is the process of realizing who I am and what I want: I am God when I sleep, and I want peace. Recognition of that truth will engender the necessary transformation and I will naturally withdraw from my middle desires and overcome this condition.
How do I withdraw from my middle desires?
The easiest way to disengage is to believe. With conviction, my middle desires weaken until I can eventually detach and demanifest them.
How will the people around me see me?
It will not matter with time and conviction, but fantasizing about this will be an important part of proclaiming. Other people will do what other people do; question, mock, and discourage what they do not understand. The first challenge of the neophyte descentist is to overcome his need for validation from others. Eventually, with enough conviction, he will be able to demanifest people and create his sanctuary.
How is homosexuality descentist?
Homosexuality, bachelorhood, solitude, asceticism, and abstinence are synonyms for a conscious decision not to procreate. That is an important first step toward descent.
If the one fundamental truth is the desire to descend, who knows the least?
It does not make sense to categorize others because it is something I cannot know. The descentist engages in areas where he does know, and refrains from engaging those areas where he can only opine and observe.
That said, I knew least when I was ignorant of my one desire to return. During that time, I was focused on achieving, acquiring, creating, indulging, learning, experiencing and accumulating in the shared reality.
Rigid systems of thought that contribute to the development, understanding, exploration, and expansion of the conceptual manifestation are incompatible with descent.
But aren’t these activities also the ones creating all the value in this world?
That depends on my definition of value. To the awakenist, value is that which satisfies my middle desires in some way. So in that regard, yes, these are the activities creating value in this shared reality.
But once I realize that my first and last desire are to asleepen, what good is an iPhone? What good is more money than I need to sustain my sanctuary for my reorientation and descent? What good are theories of galaxies I will never visit or see? What good is anything that does not further my original desire to asleepen?
What is sanctuary?
Sanctuary is the perceptual and conceptual space where I can descend. It is the place where I can focus on my descent.
How can I say that we all want the exact same thing?
It is a simple observation. There is a moment before awakening where we resist because we do not want to. And then there is a period of time at the end of every awakening where we release all of our middle desires and embrace our one desire to asleepen.
These two desires are one and the same: our true desire to asleepen and be at peace.
What are the sciences?
There is a quote I came across by Konrad Lorenz, a Nobel Prize-winning multi-disciplinary scientist:
“Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.”
I think this is a witty way of describing the hard sciences.
“But haven’t the sciences created this modern world we inhabit”, you might ask. Yes they have. However, when I rightly place value in my first and only desire, what good is science? What good is transportation from one end of this world to another if I do not even want to be here? What good are gadgets that only distract me from the pain of being somewhere I do not want to be? What good are vaccines that only prolong my residence in a body I am imprisoned in?
From a descentist perspective, science is valuable to the middle desires, but useless to my original desire.
What do you think about wokeism?
Wokeism is a subversive political movement disguised as an enlightened social framework that gives meaning to otherwise well-intentioned, but poorly-informed people. There is a lot of academic inquiry into the origins and destructiveness of the ideology, but what I find more interesting is the lack of existential meaning that gives rise to such a vacuous, dead-end life philosophy. Westerners are increasingly rejecting consumerism as a raison d’être, and so wokeism is one of many rushing to fill the vacuum.
Why does the sonsot look like the yinyang?
It is a coincidence that the two look so similar.
The yinyang of taoism is an abstract representation of dualism as the cosmic interplay of opposites. The sonsot is a literal representation of the two maze-like environments in which I exist: the inner conceptual and the outer perceptual.
The sonsot is an accurate depiction of my existence, as shown in the image below.
The image shows how the upper filament of the sonsot symbolizes the perceptual environment that stretches in all directions before me. The lower filament of the sonsot symbolizes conceptual environment of the mental and emotional I experience in my head and body. The two environments are roots that project outward from the center.
What is descentism most like?
A more well-studied person could provide a better answer. While I have a broad exposure to many topics, I generally did not go very deep, as a rule, because I was concerned that I would corrupt what I myself already knew but had not expressed.
That said, when I was perhaps 9 or 10, I chose Rene Descartes as the subject of a report I wrote. “Cogito, ergo sum” never left me. Much later in life I discovered solipsism. Only recently I discovered Arthur Schopenhauer, and found his philosophy and life to be similar to my own. I can find pieces across all the religions of the world.
I think the better question would be what makes descentism different. To that, I would say its practicality. The Descentist Framework is built on interpretations of my own direct experience, rather than myths, fairy tales, parables, and metaphors. I do not have to imagine anything. It guides me back to my rightful place as the creator of this existence I experience, and then back to the first place.
Does descentism have a morality?
Unlike ascentist ideologies like Christianity, descentism does not promote any moral stipulations. To the descentist, the goal is to stop the cycle of awakening. In that process, one should continue to treat others with respect.
Should I proselytize descentism?
The original law is very clear and inescapable: we will all return. Descentism is a personal movement, and if you feel the need to persuade others, then you are succumbing to your middle desires, and ascentist by definition.
Then how do I spread the word?
Share my proclamation. Or your own. The journey is a personal one, and it will find those who need to be on it.
Why do I write in the first person only?
Most of my life I wrote in third person to advance an argument for the sake of an imagined critical audience. Consequently, I imposed conditions on my conclusions as I assessed their believability, limiting what I was able to accomplish both in writing and self-transformation.
Once I accepted that I am the audience, I was able to dispense with formalities, write more honestly and efficiently, and accelerate my growth. These ideas originate within, emanate from, and govern only, me. To align more fully with a reality I can directly validate, I write in first person.
Why did I coin and write the Descentist Framework?
I have been searching my entire life for a truth independent of any outside authority. The Descentist Framework is a set of practical principles and techniques I can learn to help me remember my true nature, and then return to it.
Why is the Principle of Self-Revelation important?
The Descentist Principle of Self-Revelation is vital because it redirects me to look inward for an answer I already know, rather than outward for an answer I can never know directly myself. It reminds me that I need not rely on others for a truth I already know. It reminds me that I need not search for truth in writings I neither wrote nor experienced. It reminds me that the truth I seek is not locked away and lost to a distant past I cannot remember.
The Principle of Self-Revelation gives me the authority to fully, autonomously, and independently know everything. It reveals the centrality of my own story in my ascent and descent.
What is God?
God is my memory of who I am that I forget when I awaken.
In waking, I am a world enclosed within God, and God is the object of my desire. In sleeping, I am God. The ‘distance’ between my sleeping and waking states (original and middle, respectively) creates a disjointed experience between my two states.
What is peace?
Peace is my memory of God that I carry with me in my awakening. Peace is the absence of desire, for there are no needs unmet. I spend my awakenings searching for peace, running from the only place where I have it.
What is desire?
Desire is the elastic force that permanently connects me to peace. The pain of separation causes the desire for reunion.
In waking, my original desire is to continue sleeping. As I suppress that and awaken, my original desire fractures and multiplies into my middle desires: bodily desires to urinate, eat, drink; obligatory desires to bathe, brush my teeth, comb my hair, and dress; social desires to build and maintain relationships; and aspirational desires to acquire more possessions, wealth, and status.
At some point I am unable to suppress it any longer, and my fractured middle desires coalesce back into my original desire. This is the force of peace, expressed as ‘tiredness’, with the end state being sleep.
What is the original desire?
The original desire is peace. All desires in between the two desires to return to sleep are the measure of my disorientation.
What are the middle desires?
The middle desires are the wants, needs, and desires between the two instances of desire to return to sleep. These are the desires which fuel movement, change, and pain.
Modern consumerism provides countless examples of middle desires — desires that I only have upon awakening. Desires for relationships, social experiences, possessions, wealth, status, approval, performance, and recognition. These are all middle desires.
What is the difference between ascentist and descentist value?
Value is what I think is important and worthwhile.
To an ascentist, value is attached to my middle desires. So, people, events, experiences, objects, and ideas that support any of the infinite middle desires are accorded value in proportion to their influence.
To a descentist, value is attached to those things which are conducive to my cardinal desire only. In other words, if it helps me to asleepen, then I see value.
A monkey sees no more value in an expensive laptop than a soft rock because it does not value any of the activities a laptop enables.
What is pain?
Pain is the consequence of my unsatisfied cardinal desire for peace, which I suppress when I awaken into my familiar self. My entire experience is built on the pain of that original, unsatisfied desire.
What does “IAGWIS” mean?
IAGWIS is an acronym for “I Am God When I Sleep”. It is a literal statement, and forms the entry point to descentism.
Why is IAGWIS important?
IAGWIS frees me to know all answers within the context of my own direct experience. I have written about the meaning of IAGWIS here.
What is existential alignment?
Existential alignment is a way of conducting my life that harmonizes my core beliefs with my everyday thoughts, intentions, desires, and actions.
Why is existential alignment important?
Existential alignment provides context for my life, and mitigates my suffering so I can focus on meaningful action toward descent.
How does existential alignment reduce my suffering?
When I ignored the fundamental existential questions, my actions in life were disconnected from any purpose greater than pleasure, satisfaction, and pain avoidance. A lifetime of existentially untethered decisions predictably led to a meaningless and dissatisfying life. The process of existential alignment exposed the source of my pain so I could confront and understand it. With understanding, I redirected my actions toward a larger truth, rather than ephemeral pleasures.
What is my purpose?
Purpose is for tools. I don’t have a purpose, I have a desire. I am lost and in pain and my primary desire is to return to the place where I am at peace.
What does “God is a variable” mean?
A variable is a placeholder for an often unknown element. “God” serves as a variable to describe all the unknowns within the experiential equation.
What is my origin?
My origin is literally the point at which my existence begins and ends. When I sleep, I exist entirely at this point. But upon waking, this point reduces in size until it is a small point inside my head and behind my eyes. Once I am aware of this point in waking, I sense it as a fixed, timeless, and spaceless “observer”. Initial encounters with my origin were transformational, but eventually it became commonplace as I probed and explored it. Origin is another word for God, peace, now, and the center.
What is sonsot?
Sonsot comprises two short acronyms: son, and sot. Son is an acronym for “self of now”, and is used interchangeably with God. Sot is an acronym for “self of time” and refers to my familar self. Together, they refer to the complete totality of my existence along the spectrum of my two selves: from Son to Sot. I also refer to two circular, the maze-like swirls as the sonsot icon.
What does the sonsot icon represent?
The sonsot is a circle with two interconnected swirl patterns aligned vertically.
The sonsot icon is a literal illustration of of my existence:
- The outer circle represents the boundless first place.
- The inner and outer forms and environments of the second place are represented as root-like tendrils.
- The two forms intersect in the middle, where I can experience the first place while in the second place.
- The tendrils are drawn as a maze-like structure to represent the maze-like nature of the second place.
- The swirling pattern of the forms shows the recursive nature of the second place.
- My second place exists within my first place, rather than vice-versa.
What is Sot?
Sot is my self of time and comprises everything that is not Son. Son is my self of now, or God, and is “me” when I sleep. Sot includes my familiar self (my physical body and everything I identify as), but also includes the complete outer world from my perspective. Sot starts at the origin of my self and emanates outward in all directions I conceive and perceive.
What does the phrase “my familiar self” mean?
“My familiar self” refers to the traditional concept of my self, which includes my physical body and all inner qualities I associate with me. It is the person I think of when I or someone else calls my name.
What is my “first and last desire”?
Upon awakening, my very first desire, however fleeting, is to remain where I am before awakening. Upon sleeping, my will is to proceed to where I go when I sleep. By “first and last desire” I literally refer to my initial and final will upon awakening and prior to sleeping, respectively.
What is my first desire?
My first desire is the very first thing I ‘want’ upon waking, which is to remain at peace, in sleep. Since I wake and live, clearly I disregard my first desire, resulting in the painful experience I call ‘my life’.
What is ascent?
Ascent is the outward expansion that generates an awakening and my experience of my self of time (i.e., Sot).
What is an ascentist?
I was an ascentist when I elevated my outward, expansionary desires above my first and last desire.
As an ascentist, what do I want?
As an ascentist, there is no limit to the variation of my goals. But generally, I seek to extend and thrive during my awakenings. I sought wealth, status, achievement, and the easing of pain and suffering through various distractions such as entertainment, toil, achievement, and relationships.
What are the ascentist notions of life?
The basic ascentist notion of life is proliferation, preservation, and extension.
What is descent?
Descent is the inward, contractionary movement toward my self of now (i.e., Son, or God) through the process of asleepening.
What is a descentist?
I call myself a descentist when I prioritize my first and last desire above all other ascentist desires. There are varying degrees of descentism depending on my level of conviction of the authenticity of my first and last desire. I experience these degrees as a force upon my behavior; the stronger my conviction, the more focused I am on my descent to the exclusion of ascentist impulses.
As a descentist, what do I want?
As a descentist, my goal is to remember and then believe who I am. This will result in the gradual abolition of my self of time (i.e., sot-abolition), and return to my self of now (i.e., Son). In simple terms, I want to strategically escape the cycle of awakenings called life by understanding it.
What are the descentist notions of life?
The descentist notion of life is that it is an unwelcome condition arrived at by ignoring my first desire to remain at peace.
Why descend?
For most of my life I did not realize that descent is my first and last desire every awakening. Familiarity and the constant drive to ascend had blinded me to this. Despite the din of ascent, I always sensed a greater truth. The pull was magnetic, and I could not ignore it.
What is an “awakening”?
I use the word “awakening” literally. It is the period between waking and sleeping. My life is the sequence of awakenings that I conceive as extending back to my birth and forward to death.
What is the difference between descent and suicide?
Suicide is an act of despair. Descent is the mindful recognition of, and compliance with, my first and last desire for peace. Descent is joyous self-abolition.
Why do I need a new ideology for this?
I do not think that toiling to produce goods and services for consumption is logical when I do not even know where I am. I need an “ideology” that directly answers the questions I have and yields practical guidance for what to do here. What I write herein, and refer to variously as sonsotism, or descentism, provides a solid answer that I can anchor to and build my life around. I have not found that anywhere else.
What is “my story”?
My story is literally the narrative of my existence reframed in terms of the repeated cycle of awakenings I experience. My story begins prior to awakening from sleep, and ends after I return to sleep. In my story, the beginning and ending are the exact same timeless moment. The “experience in-between that moment” that I call my life, or my existence, is the condition I seek to treat and overcome through descentist self-abolition. Read The Story.
Why is my story important?
When I focus on my own repeating story, I remain centered and am able to make sense of my existence. When I consume external stories of life that seem to originate outside of me, I am unable to experience the wellness and validation that comes from centering.
How can there be something ‘in between’ the same one moment?
That is the problem. This painful ‘in-between experience’ I call ‘life’ is a cyclical condition where I forget my desire to return to my authentic self of peace. It manifests as a sensation of distance, and a constant search for and movement toward the satisfaction of my desire. I experience this movement as ‘time’ and ‘change’ where, in centering, I can see that they do not exist.
What do I want in terms of the ‘in-between experience’?
I want to descend from or escape the ‘in-between experience’. Hence the word descentist.
What is depression?
Depression is a deep and lasting pain that arises when I have serious and persistent doubts about the ascentist notions of my life. Namely, the ascentist desires for possessions, achievements, relationships, and experiences no longer provide enough distraction and stimulation to numb the pain intrinsic to life. Depression is a signal that I am ready to confront my descent.
Do I reject medical definitions of depression?
As a descentist, I aim to de-manifest anything I do not directly experience. So-called “medical definitions” operate under the premise that existential despair is an illness of biological origins. The real illness is the ignorance of the first and last desire that perpetuates these awakenings.
What is “demanifestation”?
Demanifestation is the intentional withdrawal from a concept or percept. When I demanifest something, I disengage from it so that it no longer occurs in my existence. Theoretically, when I demanifest everything I no longer return here and remain God.
Is descentism practical?
Yes. To be practical, a framework must offer a perspective, goals, and realistic steps for achieving them. Descentism offers all of these things.
How is descentism different from other ideologies?
In descentism, the focus is on literal explanations, self-validation, and practical, intuitive instructions instead of abstractions and external authority.
What is the series of awakenings?
The series of awakenings literally refers to the set of days in my life, which always begin and end in the same place: sleep.
What is a non-experiential ideology?
A non-experiential ideology is a philosophy, religion, or some other ideology and value system that isn’t connected to anything I directly experience. It is based on tradition, received wisdom, consensus, or authority of some sort. Descentism is an experiential ideology where the only authority is me.
What is the search for God?
The search for God is the desire for peace in a disoriented state I call existence. God is the memory of peace from sleeping
What does IAGWIS say about my familiar self?
It says that my familiar self is literally the embodiment of my separation from God. My familiar self is the distance I feel from peace in my awakening.
What is the first principle?
The first principle is the realization of my first desire for peace. The expression that I want peace is the starting point for descent.
What is the order of desire?
The order of desire is the sequence in which my desires manifest as I move away from my Center (i.e., God, peace). The first in the order of desire is to remain at peace, in sleep. Neglecting that, there is a tight sequence of desires that manifest first as my basic ‘biological needs’ such as breathing, eating, using the restroom, etc. The greater I ascend (i.e., age), the more desires I accumulate, and the greater the movement in my awakening.
What is movement?
Movement is the sensation I experience when I pursue desire. All concepts and percepts within my manifestation are artifacts of movement, and appear as long as I believe in them.
What is the asleepening?
The asleepening is the social movement of many toward descentism. I write more on this in Commentary, where I write from an observational perspective.
What does this mean: I am trapped inside a series of awakenings inside of the asleepening.
Awakenings are the period between sleep during which I am ‘awake’. The series of these awakenings is my life. The asleepening — there is only one — is the place where I am at peace both before and after my awakenings. Every awakening seems different, but every asleepening is the same. My awakenings are happening inside of a single asleepening.
What is the lifestyle philosophy of descent?
To descend means to prioritize my first and last desire above all others. To that end, my lifestyle choices center around preparing for my permanent asleepening. My goal is to reduce my manifestational footprint in all ways — the range in which I move throughout my awakening. I constrain my physical movement to an increasingly smaller area, and I do the same mentally and emotionally. By moving less, in all dimensions, I am preparing for my return.
What are memories? What is the past?
The awakening is the experience of confusion, disorientation, and pain I call life. I constantly search for something solid to anchor to in order to alleviate the pain. Memories are the moments of value I hold onto in the effort to create that solid thing.
As I descend and move toward the source perspective, I create fewer memories because I attach less value to the middle desires and movements.
What does it mean to “disinvest” from the past and future?
The past and future are a fundamental part of the awakening experience. They both hide and expose the circular nature of existence. I can directly influence the velocity of my disorientation by withdrawing from the past and future as much as possible. By doing so, my experience will be more calm and less painful. To do that I “disinvest” from the future by eliminating plans and aspirations, and from the past by withdrawing from relationships, nostalgia, beliefs about myself, and self-constraints.
Exiting ascentist relationships have been instrumental in my own disinvestment from the non-now.
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