David's Story
Throughout my teens I'd had a very strong sense that something fundamental was missing in what everyone seemed to take for granted. It seemed to me like there were so many loose threads that connected together somehow but I couldn't figure out how. Having had a very happy childhood I'd felt like I was lucky enough in life to appreciate that there was this missing piece and felt it so strongly that I was determined to find what it was even if I died trying.
But high school really seemed to epitomise that thing that was missing more than anything else. Justifications for why I should do certain things and not others never seemed to satisify. And religious answers that should usually provide comfort; rang intellectually hollow as well. So with an increasingly poor academic record and various stages of rebellious behavior, I dropped out during the final exams and drifted. I drifted between odd jobs and various degrees but in the process found few answers and even more questions..
"Why do anything? What's the point to all this? Why does everyone go on when it seems like we're doing things out of habit more than anything else? What's the point? Why?"
All the time asking these questions I strongly felt that something vital seemed to be missing. Something that seemingly everyone was missing. I strongly felt that there was an obvious answer to all my questions but there was no obvious way of knowing what it was.
Before long I'd quickly ran out of ideas, was stuck, despondent and started to even contemplate suicide out of frustration more than anything else. But even then I saw no reason to. Even that didn't seem to make sense..
It was at this point, that I thought of the only person who I felt could understand where I was in life more than anyone else. That person was an old teacher of mine from an advanced learning class I was placed in during an especially rebellious period in high school. After visiting him at my alma mater, he handed me a book by Robert Pirsig called 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. We talked for a while and then he asked.. "Do you know what Quality is?"
I struggled to answer.. "I'm.. not.. sure.."
He said "The reason you struggle is because it's before definitions and concepts.. Do you like to read?"
"I hate reading"
"Why?"
"Because whenever I read something I just get overwhelmed with anger." I said.
"Have you ever written anything down? Write down everything that comes to your mind after you read something and then keep reading. You're stuck right? Here - read from this book from the word 'stuckness' onwards in Chapter 24.."
So I took the book home and did what he'd said. I bought some empty notepads, took out a pen, and read from the word 'stuckness' onwards filling page after page with writing. Then I re-read and re-read the book from start to finish, filling notepad after notepad with crazy messy scrawls and lines. My mind was now 100% occupied with the ideas in the book and I was determined to understand them and how they related to one another until I could find some acceptable level of coherence.
After a week or so I had a feeling as though the book had got to something fundamental. I'd felt as though the author had found what I was looking for. I'd felt like he'd written the book I was to write in my life. So I then found out he had a second book called Lila and jumped in a car and drove to the library to borrow it - almost crashing on the way I was so busy still thinking about the first book. I then did the same for this second book and re-read it many times and filling many notepads with scrawled writing.
Safe to say - these two books changed and saved my life. I now spend my time applying the ideas in the books to myself and to the issues of our time - thus making myself and things around me better..
I hope to continue to communicate and use the Metaphysics of Quality in a way that everyone can understand and to make it accessible to all. I think the Metaphysics of Quality is one of the greatest achievements of the 20th Century. A century which was filled with great scientific achievements but not many great cultural changes beyond them. The Metaphysics Of Quality sets out to change that. It is a Metaphysics of the 21st Century and is a great framework for us to correctly, logically and morally navigate all problems that we face now and into the future.
Contact? You can reach me on twitter here