I write about how a mind builds a self, how that self gets stuck, and what happens when it lets go. My book, ActualizationOS, turns a decade of that investigation into a working system for inner change. Lately I test the same ideas on machines, because the loop that makes a person believe in a separate self shows up in AI too.
Top 10A diagnostic system for inner change, drawn from Stoicism, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Buddhist psychology and neuroscience. Instead of telling you what to want, it starts by asking where you are, then matches the practice to your state. It ships with a free AI coach and open-source software.
“The prose is crisp and aphoristic… the voice that of a man reporting from the far side of his own collapse.”
“Thoughtful, engaging, and memorable… a must-read non-fiction self-help guide.”
Tell the ActualizationOS guide what’s going on. It works out where you are right now and suggests the practice that fits. Or switch to an AI model of how I think and ask me anything.
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This is a tool for reflection, not a substitute for professional medical, mental-health, legal or financial advice, and it can make mistakes. If you’re in crisis, call or text 988 (US) or contact local emergency services. How your information is handled →
How does a mind come to believe in a separate self, and what is left when that belief relaxes? The nondual traditions answered this long ago. I write about their answer in plain language, try to state it formally, and then test it on AI, where the same loop that builds a self-image can be watched as it runs.
How the “Second Arrow” works. The State-Method Rule: why the right practice in the wrong state turns medicine into poison.
Why affirmations backfire, why dropping the desire is what fulfills it, and how inner change actually works once you stop forcing it.
The Identity Immune System. Why founders sabotage their next stage because their nervous system prefers familiar stress.
Why large language models mirror the recursive loop that builds a self, and what watching it run in a machine teaches us about our own minds.
“The claim is not that AI is like consciousness. It is that consciousness is like AI.”From Zero-Axis Theory
More than 30 million views and 311,000 upvotes on Quora, five-time Top Writer. Some answers were picked up and republished elsewhere.
Before writing about the mind, I studied how it gets trapped. As a researcher in addiction medicine, I was invited to co-author textbook chapters alongside David E. Smith, founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, and Walter Ling and Donald R. Wesson, leading addiction researchers.
Gone are the idle promises,
Of love’s desires from my youth,
I am hollowed and gentler now.
I come here in silence, my love,
Something has broken free of me,
Or rather, I am broken and free.
My love does not feel boundaries,
It is whole and it seeks for you,
Like roots reaching for falling rain.
It is peaceful here in the center,
Far away from all fears and loss,
Come, take my hand and follow me.
We will live here quietly and always,
While our bodies and minds run free,
Living out their own destinies.
I have nothing rich to offer,
But if you will take them from me,
I will give you my heart and time.
Give me a chance to share with you,
This ordinary, uncaused joy,
Arising endlessly from love.
We will stand shoulder to shoulder,
Inseparable from our shadows,
Unfolding life together.
If the time comes when you must go,
Know that freedom was always yours,
My love is a cage without walls.
There is a silence within,
Once touched, slowly spills outwards,
Making all of life quiet
Not the finding of answers,
Instead, the death of questions,
As time slows and space expands.
You tease the clouds for their calm,
That which grows seems so alive,
Everything is connected.
Until memories visit,
Distracting you from silence,
Reminding you to be afraid.
You are that flower,
Blossoming here and now,
For whom every element,
Every atom of creation sings.
For you to be here requires,
The heavens and sea, and the light.
Time and space have to stretch,
Allowing you to unfold, beautifully.
Open your eyes and behold,
Not just creation, but yourself.
You are that undeclared glory,
That unstruck, unworded song.
There is nothing except you,
Nothing exists without you.
Yet wherever you look there you are,
All of this is of you and for you.
My beloved, always remember,
When all suffering is gone,
When only joy and love remain,
You are that flower.
I grew when you weren’t looking,
Brought to my knees, my roots took hold.
In your shadow, there was no sun,
Only the memory of one.
In that darkness, my flowers grew,
Their fragrance singing my true song.
Each year, another ring of hope,
Grew to embrace disappointment.
Look at me, see how I blossom,
Come, have a seat within my shade.
If you are hungry, reach to me,
And eat the fruit you once let fall.
Three seeds I planted years ago,
In the stubborn soil of my dreams.
Untended, loved, and wild they grow,
I think of them and my heart beams.
My firstborn giggles with delight,
Bringing her own music along.
She’s a mystery, like the night,
An ancient tune, the ocean’s song.
My second daughter feels all pain,
Her heart and voice know what is true.
When she sings, I hear falling rain,
Reminding me of love I knew.
Drumbeats guide the youngest one,
Righteous in her thoughts and action.
When she dances, I come undone.
Her spirit free, filled with passion.
These seeds I watered with my tears,
My heart the soil for them to grow.
They stand bigger than all their fears,
Three trees that I am proud to know.
The method I built to map cause and effect in contemplative texts turned out to work on any body of writing. That became the Causal Wisdom Harvester, a patent-pending system that turns text into structured models an AI can reason from. These are the experiments that came out of it.
Two of these experiments are live. Talk to the ActualizationOS guide, or to an AI model of how I think built from hours of interviews. →I’ve spent my life between two worlds that rarely meet: running companies, and studying the mind.
A first-generation American born in British Hong Kong, I studied English Literature at UCLA, then went to work in addiction medicine, where I co-authored chapters in two standard psychiatry textbooks. I later founded and took public CrowdGather, Inc., a digital media network that reached millions of monthly users. Today I’m a senior executive and board member at a private-equity-owned technology company, where I lead legal, compliance, governance, and AI research and development.
Losing my company and my marriage in the same year started a decade-long investigation into why inner change so often fails. ActualizationOS is what came out of it. Zero-Axis Theory and the Mūla-Śūnya-Kārikā grew from the same work, and so did the AI research.
I live in Dallas, Texas, and I’m the proud father of three daughters.
Podcast hosts: the themes under Ideas are the conversations I enjoy most. Happy to send a media kit.
I’d love to hear from readers, podcast hosts, and anyone working where the inner life meets the machines we’re building.