Spirituality Archives

The 3 Shades of Eternity

September 21, 2025November 22, 2025 Nik

The German word “Steppenwolf” describes a kind of wolfhound, half wild animal, half domesticated pet. In Hermann Hesse’s 1927 novel of the same name, protagonist Harry Haller claims to be a specimen of this very variety, forever torn between an idealistic life outside society’s expectations and the comfort of hiding his values in plain sight.

If he could find the courage, Harry would write his soul out, live like a monk, or die on some principled hill, perhaps even literally. But he can’t, and so he resigns himself to only letting his lofty ideals shine through on occasion. While drinking with people at the pub, for example. Or when discussing politics over dinner. Or as he goes through any of the many humdrum, mundane repetitions of life most of us are bound to as well.

Of all the books I’ve read in the last 12 months, this nearly 100-year-old one has left the biggest mark on my soul. One lesson in particular stuck with me, and it starts taking shape when Harry notices an embellished painting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe during a visit to an old friend’s house. Harry adores Goethe, a great of German literature, but he despises the stylized, framed icon sitting on a small round table like a piece of decoration. So much so, in fact, that by the time the after-dessert-drinks roll around, he starts arguing with his hosts about it until his only escape seems to be running out the door — which he promptly does.

Later, Goethe visits Harry in a dream only to tease him about his snobby attitude earlier that night. Goethe playfully evades Harry’s questions about morality, dances, and even pranks him by holding a live scorpion in front of his face. Eventually, he claims that “eternity is but a moment, just long enough for a joke” and fades into darkness with “a still and soundless laughter that shook him to the depths with an abysmal old-man’s humor.”

I didn’t understand these words at first, and, like most of the action in the book, none of it seemed to make sense in the moment. But I did notice later on that both eternity and eerie laughter became recurring themes.

Infinity and Eternity

March 2, 2025March 2, 2025 Nik

Infinity asked his sister Eternity: “Do you ever get bored?” “All the time,” Eternity said. “How about you?”

“Never,” Infinity replied. “How could I? There’s so much to do! So much to see, feel, and experience! I want to climb Mount Everest. I want to be a drummer. I want to live in a monastery. Don’t you want to try them all?“

“I did,” Eternity said, “and I can tell you that, after a while, they’re all the same. There is nothing new under the sun.”

“What? How can you say that?!” Infinity looked incredulous. “Flying a plane, surfing a wave, kissing the love of your life, how could these possibly be the same?”

“Oneness lies not in what you do, little brother. It lies in who you are underneath, and whether you can bring them to any occasion. When you live every day from the shining light that is your true self, how you spend your time no longer matters.”

Infinity had never heard his sister talk like this before. “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. What are you even saying? Who is this ‘them’ you are talking about? And what does it mean to ‘live from the shining light?’ Why have you not told me about any of this until now?”

“You know, Infinity, I’ve waited a long time,” Eternity said. “In fact, I’ve spent endless lifetimes waiting. I just figured today is as good a day as any to see if you are ready.”

28 Lessons From 5 Years of Meditating Every Day

December 23, 2024December 24, 2024 Nik

I started meditating on August 29, 2019. I haven’t missed a day since. That’s over five years — almost 2,000 days — of sitting with my eyes closed for at least five minutes, usually 15, without fail.

I originally started meditating for two reasons. First, I felt called out when I heard Naval Ravikant say in an interview that meditation is “one of those things that everybody says they do, but nobody actually does.” I was already a mindful, self-aware person — but noticing is not the same as processing. Instead of just realizing that I was, say, biting my nails, I wanted to feel calm and present enough to actively stop, too.

Second, in that same interview, Naval actually provided a doable way to meditate. “It is literally the art of doing nothing,” he said. “All you need to do for meditation is to sit down, close your eyes, comfortable position, whatever happens happens. If you think, you think. If you don’t think, you don’t think. Don’t put effort into it, don’t put effort against it.” Freed from all the gurus, gadgets, and distractions of what has since become a $5 billion industry, I could finally start meditating right then and there, without complications or expectations. So I did.

After my first, intense week of meditating for an hour each day, I wrote down some initial lessons. Then, as my habit became smaller but stayed consistent, I reflected some more on day 800. Since then, I’ve shared the occasional, individual insight on my daily blog.

For my five-year anniversary, I figured why not round up all lessons, organize them, and present them in a way that makes sense? So that’s exactly what I’ve done. This way, you can get a comprehensive overview in one post but also dive deeper into any particular idea that interests you.

Here are 28 lessons from five years of meditating every day.

My 12 Favorite Nonfiction Books Most People Have Never Heard Of

June 30, 2023November 22, 2025 Nik

Imagine a city with one million inhabitants. It has everything you would expect from a city of that size: some skyscrapers, a decent transport system, and all the usual public and social infrastructure.

There is, however, a catch: Everyone in this city can only read the same 10 books. It’s a simple literary restriction, but what consequences might it have? If all of those books are mainly concerned with inequality and societal problems, chances are, the city’s citizens will spend most of their time bickering and fighting. But what if those books are instead filled with stories about community and kindness? Probably, people will be inclined to help one another, and everyone will get along on most days.

Regardless of their effect and how strong you believe this effect might be, however, with only 10 books, the people in that city will inevitably stop learning. Thinking, creativity, innovation — eventually, these pillars of progress will come to a screeching halt. Why? Because the pool of ideas is too limited! Try as hard as they may, the best those citizens can do is to rehash the same ideas from the same 10 books, over and over again. Sooner or later, to create more and better output, they’ll need more and better input. The same is true for you as an individual.

Haruki Murakami famously wrote that “if you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

Popular books are usually popular because they’re agreeable. They’ll get you social credit and remind you of what’s common sense, but they’ll rarely truly stretch your brain. There’s nothing wrong with reading these books, but they shouldn’t be the only ones you consume. If you and your friends all read the same few bestsellers each year, and you all agree on their premises, none of you will learn anything new! Where’s the discussion? The thinking? The sparring of ideas? If you all read different books, however, everyone has something to teach to everyone else.

Over the last ten years, I’ve read hundreds of nonfiction books. Without fail, the lesser known ones have been the most satisfying in terms of new ideas, memorable lessons, and, yes, I’ll admit it, making me look smart in front of my friends. So for more than one reason, I agree with Murakami: Don’t run the risk of becoming like the people in that city — set in your ways, a rusty thinker. Read the obscure, the questionable, the forgotten. Read what no one else is reading.

Here are 12 titles I believe will fit that mark. Even if you’re an avid nonfiction reader, I’m confident you won’t have heard of most of them. But if you give them a try, maybe they’ll enter the ranks of your all-time favorites. They sure have done so for me.

The Universe in Your Hand

October 20, 2020July 31, 2024 Nik

If I shuffle a deck of 52 cards and hold it out for you to pick one, I can do so with an astonishing guarantee: No other deck in history has ever existed in this exact configuration — and no other deck ever will.

That doesn’t seem right, does it? Playing cards have been around since the 9th century, the standard deck since 1516. A lot of shuffling has happened since then. Cowboys played cards. World War II soldiers played cards. Today, millions of people play poker, black jack, and bridge. How do configurations not repeat?

Well, as I learned from Tim Urban, the number of unique arrangements can be calculated with a simple formula: 52 factorial, or 52! in math terms.

A factorial is simply a multiplication of decreasing factors. 3! is 6. You take 3 * 2 * 1. 5! is 120. You take 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1. Therefore, 52! is just 52 * 51 * 50…and so on. Here is the number this results in:

80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000

Yeah. There’s no decimal point in there. Let’s see if we can wrap our brains around this number.

The 10 Paradoxical Commandments

April 27, 2020June 27, 2024 Nik

“Even when the world is difficult, even when things seem really crazy, we can still find personal meaning and deep happiness — and we do that by facing the worst in the world with the best in ourselves. That’s the idea.”

Today, Kent Keith talks about his “Paradoxical Commandments” with the ease of a Michelin chef whipping up some eggs Benedict, but when he wrote them down in 1968, he wasn’t sure if the words would form the right message.

The world was different back then, but neither less crazy nor less difficult. “It was the 60s. That was a provocative time. A lot of conflict and confrontation but also idealism and hope.” Keith was only 19, a sophomore at Harvard, but he had already witnessed his fair share of said provocative time.

He’d seen Kennedy get elected, celebrated for the moon program, and then shot. He’d observed the Civil Rights Act, the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, and the bloody protests at Columbia. In essence, he saw a young generation unable to cause change without violence, unable to find meaning in anything that wasn’t a big symbolic act, “like seizing a building or something,” and it troubled him.

Keith decided to write something that would address these issues and, in the process, he discovered that the answer to better leadership was also the answer to lasting, personal happiness. “If you go out and do what you think is right and good and true, then you’re going to get a lot of meaning and satisfaction. You’ve got that no matter what.”

Today, more than 50 years after Keith published his little set of rules as part of a book on student leadership, he calls them “guidelines for finding personal meaning in the face of adversity.” Millions around the world have read, shared, and put Keith’s commandments on their refrigerator doors. Some say they’re a “no excuses policy.” Others, “a personal declaration of independence from all that stuff we can’t control.” Keith explains:

As individuals, we can’t control the world economy, world population growth, natural disasters, fires and floods, when a terrorist might attack, when a war might break out, which companies are going to succeed, which jobs will be created, which jobs will be eliminated.

What we can control is our inner lives, our spiritual lives. You and I get to decide who we’re gonna be and how we’re gonna live. The good news is that’s where people have been finding a lot of meaning for thousands of years. Even better news: Finding personal meaning is actually a key to being deeply happy.

Here are Dr. Kent Keith’s Paradoxical Commandments.

The Question

April 18, 2020June 27, 2024 Nik

What’s the most meaningful thing I can write today? You know how many times I’ve asked myself that question? So much that, sometimes, I ask myself why I even ask myself. It’s a slippery slope, this game of “What’s the point?” Too easy to arrive at “There probably isn’t one” in three iterations.

I took a walk through the village. Werner drove past me, right up the hill. Same old jeep, same old Werner. Werner looked 70 when he drove his grandson around 15 years ago, and for all I know, he’s still 70 today. He’ll probably drive him around long after I’m gone. Werner. Every time I catch up with him as he parks in front of his house, he greets me, and I greet back. Without fail, he asks: “Where are you going?” “Home,” I say, “up the hill.” And every time, Werner gives the same reply: “Ahh, now I remember.” Werner.

I wonder if anyone will say that about me. “Ahh, now I remember.” I don’t really care anymore, but, sometimes, the thought still lingers. I used to care so much. Now, all I want is to be useful. To share something that helps today, not 50 years later. Most of the time, I fail in doing that also. How could I succeed if the pressure was even higher?

Maybe, I just don’t bleed enough. Isn’t that what writers are supposed to do? “Sit at a typewriter and bleed,” Hemingway said. He sure bled a lot. James Altucher spilled his guts onto his blog, apparently. Is that what I’m missing? Guts? And why does spilling them cause bleeding? I thought it took guts to tell good stories.

The 3 Keys to Being Mentally Strong

April 3, 2020June 27, 2024 Nik

On May 22nd, 2002, David Blaine stepped off a crane and onto a tiny, 22-inch wide platform. 100 feet above the cold, hard concrete of New York City, he now stood on a pillar with no protection in case he’d fall.

For 35 hours, he remained there. No food, no water, and — for the sake of his life — no sleep. By the time the stunt ended, 50,000 spectators had gathered to watch him jump into a big pile of cardboard boxes. Vertigo, as Blaine dubbed the spectacle, may be my favorite stunt of his, but it’s only one in a long list of death-defying feats on his track record.

In 1999, he spent seven days buried alive in a plastic box. The next year, he was encased in ice for two and half days. He also caught a bullet with his mouth, held his breath for 17 minutes, and hung over the Thames for 44 days, consuming nothing but water.

David Blaine has been on one simple mission all his life: Bring magic to the people. In his quest to do so, he has ventured to many an edge and beyond, defying, even cheating death more than once. Luckily, most of us will never have to take such risks to achieve our dreams. But his sheer will is inspiring.

David Blaine’s best magic trick can’t be seen on video. It’s not his swimming with sharks or withstanding lightning but his superhuman mental strength. That’s the kind of trick worth copying — because it’s not an illusion at all.

Life is a never-ending journey towards fulfilling your true potential. Mental strength will help you close the gap. I studied countless articles, videos, and interviews with David Blaine to understand how he developed this trait. When I pulled all the patterns together, I was left with three components.

Here are the three keys to becoming mentally strong.

40 Things I Love About Myself

February 7, 2019June 20, 2024 Nik

You know that annoying dude who takes part in every challenge but always bends the rules to the point where you’re not even sure if he’s playing the same game? That’s me. So when I see everyone sharing 40 things they love, I can’t help but think: “How can I make that more interesting?”

Gratitude is wonderful and there’s nothing wrong with listing stuff you’re lucky to have in your life. But I think coming up with 40 things you genuinely love about yourself is an even more valuable exercise. Because when do we ever take stock of all the great things that flow from the inside out?

It feels more empowering. Kinder. I’m reminding myself of what I have that no one can ever take away from me. They might not all be things I’m responsible for, but they’re mine forever and that’s worth a lot.

I highly recommend you try and come up with a list of your own. It’s hard. But worth every second. That said, here’s mine. I hope it’ll inspire you and make you see things in yourself you didn’t know were there.

Waiting for Miracles Is No Good Way To Live

June 7, 2017May 22, 2024 Nik

One stormy evening, as the rain pours from the sky, a man notices a river of water flowing down the street from his kitchen window.

He rushes into his basement, only to realize it’s already filled with two feet of water.

“Oh no god, why me?” he mumbles to himself. “Ah, it’ll be alright. I’ve always been a faithful believer. He’ll save me.”