# Why Omens? --- Started: February 4th 2023, 5.10 am Finished: February 4th 2023, 6.14am --- I'm sitting here trying to piece together the biggest parts of my [[published/Building My Life Philosophy|life philosophy]]. - Ride the rollercoaster - [[Omens]] - Action over thought - Build, build, build - Chaos - Journey before destination - Fail first, fail fast, and recover with antifragility - Abundance over scarcity - Discomfort - Blair Warren's 27 words and I'm realizing that omens are a fundamental part of how I want to interact with and approach the world. I'm just coming home from Egypt and Morocco, and my time in Morocco had a huge impact on me. I can't get over how much I didn't like parts of it, which means I have something to learn. Because my expectations were not anywhere close to reality, and that means I need to shift my worldview, even if it's in some nuanced way. I'm so disappointed that my omen to engage with the world backfired. Instead of finding my lifeforce in the soul of another human being - which is what I thought I was finding - I was lied to and manipulated to get money out of me. When I see omens, I see a reflection of myself. Some small piece of the world is echoing something back to me that I already care deeply about, and the world is giving me an opportunity to engage with that part of myself. This is what an omen is, and it's why I care so much about them. When I find something in the world that pulls me into it's journey - like a thread of light enticing me down a new path -, I want to engage with it. I want to follow that spark into the unknown and discover what it is offering. Because I believe it is offering me a new way to explore myself and my ideas by engaging with new people and a new part of this world. And in Morocco, when I followed that thread of light, I had an amazing time. All the way up until it came crashing down. I feel like I failed. I feel like I was taken advantage of. Lied to. Manipulated. And I don't want to see myself as someone who can be manipulated; I want to be stronger than that. But at the end of the day, those feelings don't fit with the rest of my life philosophy. Fail first, fail fast. The best way to learn is to make mistakes. Being strong is about recovering quickly, not about not failing. So this is where the turmoil is coming from: on one hand I want to follow my omens and have them work out, but on the other hand I know that I need to fail to grow. So I had a misunderstanding of omens. Following omens doesn't result in good things happening. They aren't a manifestation of the world's karma, as I have been seeing them. They are a chance to learn, an opportunity to engage with the world and to engage with myself, with a chance to have my worldview shifted. They are an opportunity to learn, and I have to be true to myself, true to what I want in my life, rather than allowing myself to be led by the omen. That last part - being led by my omens - is another part of my turmoil about the rug omen in Morocco. I saw an omen, after just having written about them the night before with the desire to find more of them, and I followed that omen. In a way, I was desperate to find a new experience in Morocco that gelled with my worldview and what I wanted to get out of my travels. I was expecting connection, community, growth, and I hadn't been experiencing as much of that as I had hoped. So I was looking for it, and for me I typically find those things from following my omens. And then I found one! I followed it, and in the end felt betrayed because I had been lied to, and instead of coming out of the situation with a friend, I was left with a pit of frustration. And I was desperate to find the connection I had been lacking, so when I met Muhammad I was thrilled. He was exactly the person who I wanted to meet. Kind, thoughtful, interested, smart, ambitious, worldly in a way that other Moroccans weren't, trusting of people and of the world. He ticked off my boxes. And then to have that flipped on me - and so masterfully - brought me to my knees. It wasn't about the money, it was about the betrayal of my worldview. Here I was, looking for omens to lead me to connection and vibrancy. I found it, and I got lost in it. I lost myself to the flow of thread, got absorbed into it, and got led to the destination without my full consciousness. I was too wrapped up in the beauty of the encounter to see the thread of white light turn dark. I missed the signs - ignored the signs - and found myself in a darker spot than I had anticipated, but I was still blind to it. And this is why I've struggled so much putting this together, and moving past it. I wanted - craved - to be led forward on my personal legend by my omens, and when I found one I let myself get lost in it. Instead of staying aware of the situation, and aware of my own desires, I put them aside in light of the situation - in light of the desires of others. I let the desires of others trump my own, and that is the true betrayal. It wasn't a betrayal of Muhammad to me - he did lie to me, but it wasn't betrayal. The true betrayal was the one to myself. I put my own cognition aside and failed to read the situation, failed to take the attention to listen to myself even though I saw and felt the hint of doubt. I pushed it aside. Allowed myself to be led, instead of leading myself. And that's the true betrayal that hurts so bad. That's the identity that I am working so hard to rewrite. It's the last step before I'll be truly successful, because once I lead myself instead of allow others to lead me, I can only go in the direction of happiness and success. So why omens? Why are omens so important to my life philosophy? To my worldview? Because they are the source for learning, the source for inspiration, the source of growth. And I prize growth over everything. Growth is the journey, it's where the fun is at, it's the source of the rollercoaster. The omens are the foundation that pulls everything together. An abundant worldview means I'll see and follow my omens. Following my omens leads me on a new journey, necessitates action over thought, forces me to embrace the chaos and ride the rollercoaster, and results in euphoric success or the terror of failure - which fuels growth. Even if I fail, the growth comes from the recovery and from the antifragility. So what's my lesson? How did my worldview change? I know now, after writing this. Omens are not good. Following them will not lead to connection, abundance, and happiness. Omens are teachings, and some lessons hurt. They are necessary to grow. They advocate for new experiences, and for everything I strive for in the world. And when I find an omen I _need_ to follow it, but I cannot get lost in the thread, lost on the journey. I need to remain true to myself - just as the boy in the Alchemist needed to remain true to himself when he got robbed in Tangier - in order to ... protect myself? not fail? Maybe that's just wrong. I don't think it's okay to allow myself to be led - there is too much victimhood and, more importantly, loss of self when I do that. I can't allow myself to be led, but even if I don't the experience may hurt. The end of the omen - the end of the omen's journey - is not decided when I start on it. And the lesson will be different depending on my choices, but I believe with all my being that a lesson will exist, that growth or connection will be found, at the end, no matter my choices. That's what an omen is. It's a guarantee of connection or growth. And I certainly found that with Muhammad and the Berber. The lesson cost me $40, and I got a fun motorcycle ride out of it. This was a lesson worth learning, and $40 is a cheap price. Omens aren't good. They can be, but I need to be true to myself along the entire journey of the omen, and I cannot get lost in the thread of light, in the hope that is pulling me along. There's a discontinuity here with suspension-of-disbelief. When I start down the path of an omen, I have faith. Faith that the world has found a piece of vibrancy that it wants to share with us. I suspend disbelief, relying on faith and transitioning into a faithful mode of operation. My faith takes over my decision making, but that faith is misplaced. I do need to have faith in the omen - that it will lead to growth or connection - but I need also need to have that faith reinforce the faith I have in myself. To trust myself more than anything. I believe I'm a good person - a very good person - who helps others and promotes the positive karma in the world. That lifeforce needs to be the strongest driving force in the journey of the omen - not the journey's lifeforce. I can explore, but I cannot be led. I can discover what the omen is, what lies at the end, and I can find meaning in the growth and connection that awaits. So there isn't a discontinuity with the suspension-of-disbelief. The nuance is that following an omen isn't a suspension of disbelief, it is a journey of discovery. It's [[published/Empty Your Cup|starting with an empty glass, not a full one]], and refilling it with what I discover along the way, while remaining true to my core ideals. Suspension-of-disbelief isn't a belief system, it's an action. It's the action of emptying the full cup. So in that way, there is no discontinuity between following an omen and suspending disbelief. It's simply the first step in the journey of the omen - to empty the cup and allow it to be refilled along the way.