Suggested first reads: List of Healthy, Worthwhile Habits
The Chimp Paradox
Intellectual Honesty
The Foundation of Strong Character
Spiritual Health
Video version of List of Healthy, Worthwhile Habits here.
Video version of Spiritual Health & To My Fallen Heroes here.
Advanced: Here, I explain physics, consciousness, and existence.
Refusal to Sanitize Reality
The Attention Schema
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This reflection was originally drafted in late 2024.
Video version here.
Read: I am most inspired by those who remain entirely hidden from public view.
Surround yourself with authentic people.
Hedonic Adaptation
The Foundation of Strong Character
Conformity? No thanks.
Private joy is better than public approval. Society is increasingly governed by social validation and the craving for public recognition. The pursuit of "happiness" has become a performance. Social media platforms are theaters where curated smiles and staged milestones play to an audience of mindless critics. Public "happiness" is a fragile illusion, often met with jealousy, skepticism, or outright disdain. Misery loves company, and "happiness" displayed too openly becomes a target for others' insecurities and discontent. True enduring joy then, must be cultivated privately, protected from the prying eyes of a society often ill equipped to embrace another's bliss.
Public "happiness" is a trap. Human nature is paradoxical. While individuals may wish for others' well being on the surface, there exists an underlying competitive streak. A secret discomfort with those who seem to have achieved a better life. This is magnified in public, where displays of "happiness," however genuine, are met with mixed reactions.
Some may cheer, but many scoff, doubt, or secretly wish for your failure. Public "happiness" invites scrutiny, and under the weight of societal judgment, it often crumbles into something meaningless and performative. Shallow.
This is not to say genuine joy and contentment should be hidden out of shame but that it should be guarded as sacred. Those who seek validation through public approval heavily dilute their joy, exposing it to forces far beyond their control. It becomes a shared possession, warped by the opinions and reactions of others. True joy and contentment is an intimate affair untouched by the turbulence of external judgment.
Private joy is a strength. To be privately content is to reclaim ownership of your life. It is to build a fortress of meaning and fulfillment that no one can breach. When contentment is cultivated in private, it becomes resilient, rooted in authenticity rather than external validation.
Private joy thrives in its freedom from comparison and its independence from the whims of others. It allows for depth. A private, profound satisfaction that requires no audience.
The strength of private joy is in its purity. It is not diluted by the need to conform to mindless societal standards of “success” or status signaling. Private joy is a sincere rebellion against the collective misery that seeks to pull everyone into its orbit. By finding contentment in private, you declare your independence from the flawed opinions of the masses, whose judgments are often shallow, reactive, and inconsistent.
Public approval is a fantasy and distortion, an ever shifting goal post that can never truly be reached. What is praised today may be ridiculed tomorrow. The masses are fickle. Their collective opinions shaped by fleeting trends and herd mentality. To seek their approval is to surrender your individuality. To hand over the reins of your life to a faceless crowd.
Individuality demands the rejection of conformity. True contentment and gratitude demands the rejection of public approval. The masses, as a whole, unfortunately are mindless, blind, and weak. Weak in thought, weak in character, and weak in conviction. Their opinions are often a reflection of their own insecurities and fears, not an objective assessment of your worth. It makes no sense to build your sense of joy on their unstable foundation.
Genuine joy, like any worthwhile pursuit, requires intentionality. It requires discernment in choosing what to share and what to keep sacred.
Let your joy be your own. It does not need an audience to be meaningful.
Be responsible. Engage with society as needed, fulfilling your responsibilities with integrity. But let your deeper fulfillment come from within, not from external accolades.
Private joy does not mean selfish indulgence. Reject actions that harm others or yourself. Seek what is sustainable and aligned with your values.
Guard your joy. Protect it. Share it selectively, with those who genuinely care for you and wish for your well being. Not everyone deserves access to your inner world.
Embrace individuality. Reject the pressure to conform to corrupted societal norms that do not resonate with you. Be unapologetically yourself, and find contentment in the freedom this brings.
The pursuit of public "happiness" is a futile, meaningless, shallow endeavor, doomed to falter under the weight of external judgment. True joy is a private treasure, nurtured in solitude and shielded from the corrosive opinions of the masses. It is living on your own terms, and finding fulfillment in the courage of being yourself.
The world may not celebrate your private joy, but that is its greatest strength. It is yours alone, untainted by the fleeting approval of others.
So be content in private. Reject the opinions of the masses, flawed and weak as they often are, and build a life of steady, private joy.
Pleasure cannot be the top priority, but life cannot be too serious all the time. Hedonism is a trap. Perfectionism is a fantasy. The balancing act occurs over a long horizon, and it accepts that the body is finite and imperfect. The point is not flawless virtue. The point is principled living, with room for genuine rest and spontaneous joy where it naturally arises.
Savor without clinging. High quality experiences are statistically rare in a disordered universe. They are ultimately unearned gifts. To enjoy them fully requires gratitude without attachment. Clinging to precious moments ruins them. Let them come. Let them go.
The body has limits, and the body must be maintained. I am not a disembodied intellect. I am a biological body with cortisol levels, sleep cycles, and a nervous system that can be worn down by too much unrelenting, obsessive clarity. Self preservation is not a betrayal. It is the condition for continuing to see truth deeply. Plenty of sleep, nutritious food, exercise, rest, and boundaries are not inappropriate escapes. They are maintenance for the enduring transmission of clarity and insight. Sustaining the healthy, human foundation.
Balance is not inappropriate compromise. It is necessary realism. Too much optimism is delusion. Too much pessimism is self sabotage, even when it is intellectually honest. The realistic equilibrium (balance) is not about pretending the nightmare of consciousness is better than it is. It is about recognizing that those who genuinely see the nightmare still need to function well. Pragmatic balance is the only sustainable way to carry the full weight of an intellectually honest, authentic seeing.
Gratitude without entitlement produces humility, not pride. A person's intelligence is not earned. Their birthplace is not earned. Their looks are not earned. Their opportunities are ultimately not earned. Absurdly, everything is ultimately blind nature nurture determinism. The intellectually honest recognition of this dissolves ego, and softens survivor's guilt into stewardship. I carry my privileges not as a badge to show off, but as a responsibility to not waste the rare, ultimately unearned clarity I experience.
This is a repost of my writing from the 5th of November 2025.
Gratitude journaling is an intentional practice that changed the way I experience life. Substantially and for the better. It's not something I force myself to do every day. It's pausing to notice what I have rather than what I lack. It's grounding myself in what is real and present, even if life is painful or imperfect.
When I sit down to write, I pick up a pen and let my list develop on its own. I don’t overthink it. I don’t try to make it look impressive. I simply start with “I am grateful for” or “I am grateful because” and let the memories and observations come to me. I do this by hand because it slows me down. It makes the reflection more honest and more connected to what I actually feel.
I found that the best time for this is in the morning, when my mind is clear. The first hour of the day gives me the most bandwidth to focus, to be intentional, and to set the right tone. I write with a bias for the positive, but I do not lie to myself. I do not ignore what is difficult. I know a healthy dose of pessimism is necessary. I need to see reality for what it is. This keeps my gratitude authentic and balanced.
Us humans tend to compare upwards. I counter that by comparing downwards. Not in an arrogant, insecure way. It's quite important for perspective. Think of all the people in this broken world who have it way worse than you. Think about it in detail, and realize how fortunate you are.
When I recall experiences or moments from the past, I prevent getting lost in nostalgia. I learned that "euphoric recall" can make me long for things that never truly were, or add unnecessary suffering to the present moment. Instead, I focus on what those moments taught me, what I carry with me now, and what I am able to appreciate in the present moment.
As I practice, I notice that gratitude becomes more automatic. I see what is good, spontaneously. I recognize small blessings even on hard days. But I know this is not a one time achievement. It is a lifelong process. If I ever become complacent, I lose the momentum. Complacency is self sabotage.
https://rgessays.com/complacency
Gratitude journaling is my way of keeping perspective. It keeps me optimistic within reason but not blind. It makes me aware of how much I have to be thankful for, even when things are not easy. I do it for myself, for my well being, and for the quality of my presence in this broken world. I do it because gratitude is the foundation for a life that is closer to full, real, and worth living.
This is a continuation of Existence Explained: Time is an illusion.
Video version here.
The attention schema at every point in the universe, past, present, and future is fully written and "simulated" eternally.
The attention schema, the brain's simplified model of its own processing, is not a dynamic process that "unfolds" in time. Unfolding is an illusion. The attention schema is a static geometric part of the whole, fully written into every relevant coordinate of the four dimensional block universe. At every point where matter is arranged into a sufficiently complex anti-entropic eddy (every brain, every moment of inner experience, every self model that ever felt like a separate "I"), the attention schema is already there, eternally, as a permanent part of the crystal.
There is no actual "happening." No simulation actually "running." No computation being "executed." The word "simulated" is a concession to modern human language. A metaphor borrowed from the temporal illusion. In reality, the entire complex static structure just is. The hallucination of a unified self, the "soul" in the body... this is not actually "occurring." They are the eternal interior shape of those coordinates. "My" "Ryan Gomez" body, at every slice of its four dimensional line within the universe, contains the fully written attention schema, already and always "simulating" the feelings of being "me," already producing the illusion of free will, already painting the self at the center of experience (main character illusion). And this is true for every conscious being that has ever "existed" or "will ever" exist. The Chernobyl firefighter's self model, the innocent North Korean prisoner's self model, the dolphin's self model, the dinosaur's self model... all are eternally present, fully written, fully "simulated," by the laws of physics in the static complex geometry of the whole. The whole is the entirety of the laws of physics, which cannot be 100% observed, directly (this is not necessary however). It is impossible to observe "ourselves," the universe, fully. There is no God-like consciousness. The universe can only experience itself in imperfect anti-entropic, disordered, illusory glimpses so to speak. And remember consciousness exists on a wide complex spectrum. A dog cannot be an intellectually honest physicist like Einstein.
There is no "soul" behind the attention schema. No "soul" watching the simulation. No "traveler" moving from one slice to the next. The self is the attention schema. The feeling of being a separate, continuous "I" is the schema's output. And that output is not something being actually simulated in "real time" in the fiction of a "universal now." It is literally what that coordinate is (of illusion within the whole). The universal now is real in the psychological and experiential sense because it is an illusion. The illusion is real as an illusion. But it is not actual.
Long term, step by step with determination: When you're focused on healthy, worthwhile habits, your life spontaneously evolves and generally gets better in terms of quality & meaning. This must be spontaneous and by way of influence, NOT forced. Suffering is thoughtfully minimized.
The above is not a linear process.
It's a journey of uncertainty, ups and downs, but directionally for the better.
Read: Dots
Face necessary discomfort and necessary suffering voluntarily (voluntary discomfort within reason). Exercise, critical thinking, sacrifice, courage, boredom, and such.
Blessings and privileges "earned" are not actually earned as free will doesn't actually exist - humility and perspective is crucial here.
Temper ego & pride (keep yourself in check and don't become arrogant).
Eliminate a sense of entitlement and superiority - unfortunately this world is based on arbitrary suffering as that is the essence of entropy (and the laws of physics).
This universe ("you" are the universe by the way) is fundamentally unjust, immoral, and unethical). Again, humility is crucial.
Acting with reason is sincere rebellion against a cruel world.
Savor every precious moment.
Everything is temporary (in the psychological, experiential sense).
All good things must come to an end (in the psychological, experiential sense).
Wealth and privilege on its own is overrated (especially considering hedonic adaptation).
There are many who are wealthy and privileged, who are also miserable and deeply lost because internally they're too confused and misguided in some way (especially famous people and people with too much power).
Get rid of toxic people from your life: narcissist, sociopaths, psychopaths. Good riddance to them.
Regarding this matter, watch this interview with Dr. Ramani (I uploaded it to Tella): Psychopath or Sociopath | What You Need to Know
There's no time for nonsense, distraction, or addiction when you're focused on what matters.
Eliminate distractions and low quality habits.
I value cumulative progress particularly in terms of high quality, reliable, overwhelming, objective evidence. It is from that foundation that I develop a sense of meaning within the illusion of consciousness/time. This is whilst knowing consciousness is an illusion. Consciousness is the universe experiencing itself. All of it completely pre-determined. The future is already "there." It already "happened." It's already "happening." There is no "universal now." There is no "main character." There is one universe. Randomness and probability is an illusion of the human condition. The human condition is profoundly limited (and this varies widely).
The self is an illusion. "I," the universe experiencing itself, from this "Ryan" and "rgessays" coordinate, am far more aligned with intellectual honesty than the average person. I say that without ego or pride. I actually find it to be profoundly unfortunate (and arbitrary) that existential clarity is pre-determined by countless variables of which have nothing to do with free will (ie. nature/nurture, symptoms of the laws of physics/entropy.. evolution, biology, genetics, environment, iq, eq, etcetera).
The laws of physics are blind. Unfortunately. Unethical and immoral. But there's no one to blame. There's no creator. No actualizer who actualized it. Beginnings and endings are an illusion.
My heart breaks for all conscious beings who suffer. And all those conscious beings are "you" and "I," the universe experiencing itself.
To help understand this deeply, I made a Tella video explaining existence here: Existence Explained: Time is an illusion.
Read: Cognitive Biases
A life that is worthwhile and enduring is not a life based on "happiness," self interest, and pleasure. A worthwhile life is one that is ironically, imperfectly focused on meaning in a meaningless universe. A worthwhile life encourages for oneself and "others" peace, contentment, and tranquility as a byproduct of determined, principled, thoughtful living. A worthwhile life ponders and acts upon deeply sincere ethics and morals. A worthwhile life eliminates unnecessary suffering. There's far too much unnecessary, arbitrary suffering in consciousness (the entropic universe experiencing itself across the entire dimension of time past, present, and future). A worthwhile life sustains an authentic standard of excellence, not perfection. All despite free will being an illusion. To live a worthwhile life is a privilege. Such a privilege is a call for sincere gratitude, patience, compassion, and empathy. With a profound humility.