One of the hardest things for me has been the constant chatter of my mind. We all experience this, but for anyone familiar with books like The Power of Now, developing the ability to be present—and to quiet that mental noise—is far more difficult than it sounds. I’ve known this was something I wanted to work toward for at least a year and a half. Yet my obsessively curious nature, combined with my mind’s tendency to narrate everything, has made this goal feel elusive.
The advice in The Power of Now is good. I can observe my thoughts. But they arise so naturally and so quickly—often without my noticing—that it feels like trying to hold back a powerful tide.
On January 1st (happy New Year, by the way), I watched a YouTube video that introduced the workbook for A Course in Miracles (ACIM). I had recently bought the audiobook, and I found the workbook exercises surprisingly helpful. The first lesson is simple but unsettling: nothing has meaning. The exercise asks you to look at everything around you—tables, chairs, even a Christmas tree—and tell yourself, “This object has no meaning.”
Lesson two follows: my mind produces all meaning. And lesson three goes further: I don’t understand anything. In other words, the meanings we assign are false meanings, created in the absence of true understanding.
Why don’t we understand anything? Because our ego creates stories—stories shaped by fear, insecurity, bias, and conditioning. This egoic filter distorts everything we see. Even inanimate objects aren’t exempt. We may assume a chair has no meaning, but it does: it’s a place to sit, something familiar, something associated with rest or conversation. We attach feelings to it without realizing we’ve done so.
But imagine an alien encountering a chair for the first time. It would have no idea what it was. To the outsider, it has no meaning at all. And if meaning isn’t inherent—if it only exists in the mind of the observer—then perhaps there is no meaning in the object itself. The chair simply is.
The same applies to objects we hold sacred. A Christmas tree carries enormous symbolic weight for many people: renewal, tradition, family, generosity. But to an outsider, it’s just an object standing in a room.
This realization made me reflect on a piece of epoxy art I created around the time of my spiritual awakening. For reasons I later associated with my sacral chakra opening, I had this urge to create artwork. I chose epoxy art, because I enjoyed the idea of using a chemical reaction to create art pieces. The first mold I bought was a pyramid. After several experiments, I figured out how to make an epoxy pyramid and eventually created one filled with symbolism. Inside it, I placed a small metal Buddha and a metal tree with gemstone leaves—representing the tree of life. I added a glow-in-the-dark marble, placing it near the tip so it resembled the moon. The Buddha sat beneath the tree, absorbing all these influences. To me, it represented my own spiritual journey.
I put a great deal of thought into that piece. Every element carried meaning—my meaning. And yet, through the lens of ACIM, I can see that all of it was built on what I thought I understood. Now I’m confronted with the idea that I don’t truly understand anything at all. I made a pyramid. It kind of means nothing now.
There’s a peculiar sidenote to this “meaningless” pyramid. I had used too much dye in the epoxy, layering colors to represent a sunset. The result was darker than I intended, so I bought a small LED light to place behind it. The light can shine white, display a single color, cycle through colors, or turn off. I don’t touch it. I don’t control it.
And yet it behaves in ways that feel uncanny. Around the holidays, it turned off on its own. Later it came back on with white light. Then it began cycling through colors. Close to midnight on New Year’s Eve, it shifted to red—and it’s been red ever since.
My mind desperately wants to assign meaning to this. Of course it does. That’s what the ego does. But I don’t think I understand enough to justify doing so. It’s strange, and I can’t explain it—and perhaps that’s the point.
When I was in college, I took a philosophy class to fulfill a general education requirement. I was majoring in chemistry and loved science—clear hypotheses, testable ideas, concrete results. No fluff. I remember the philosophy professor asking, “What is the meaning of the word meaning?” I rolled my eyes and thought, I don’t have time for this nonsense. It felt like the kind of question that sends you in circles and gets you nowhere.
And here I am, forty years later, contemplating meaning itself—thus proving that I understand nothing.
Our interpretations shift constantly with mood, experience, and inner state. I’ve observed this clearly in myself. If I wake up grouchy, traffic irritates me, red lights feel personal, and delays provoke impatience. In a rested state, on a sunny spring day, those same experiences barely register. Same external reality. Completely different inner response.
How can we claim to understand anything when our minds are always changing?
The ACIM exercises serve a purpose: disidentification. By reminding ourselves that nothing has meaning and that we don’t understand anything, we loosen our attachment to thought. We stop believing that we are our thoughts, or that the emotions they generate define reality.
The ego tells endless stories—about inadequacy, fear, worst-case outcomes, or impossible futures. All of them are illusions, built on misunderstanding. When we stop taking those thoughts so seriously, we create space. We become observers rather than captives. In that space, something else can enter: presence, intuition, inner knowing.
I still struggle with my thoughts. But I notice that I feel more peaceful when I remind myself that I don’t understand anything. There’s a quiet freedom in that admission—a letting go. And perhaps part of what I need to let go of are my fears: fears about whether I can make a living in beautiful Vermont, fears about whether my store can support me. These fears hold me back. They tighten my mind instead of opening it.
Letting go may be exactly what’s needed to move forward.
Thank you for reading.
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