Jamie Wheal’s first solo book (he co-authored Stealing Fire with Steven Kotler in 2017) launched in April 2021, with an aim to help leaders learn to rethink God, Sex, and Death in a World that’s Lost its Mind. With an international online cohort, Zac worked through the content with Jamie and Curt Cronin ahead of the book launch. The final assignment was to return to the beginning, remembering the content with a personalized introduction to the course, written to oneself. Here is Zac’s intro to the book/course:
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Welcome to hell!
Just kidding. But this will feel like a journey into deeper and deeper circles of making sense of the biggest and most meaningful parts of being a human.
Maybe the end is nigh… but we definitely aren’t the first generation to utter such an eschatological plea. This is the way the world ends... with a bang or a whimper.
But the world ends every day.
This baton is being passed from those who’s plug gets pulled, to those who’s umbilical cords get cut. From last breath to first, and all of us still breathing in between, the world ends every day.
But don’t confuse the Apocalypse for Armageddon. As we wake each morning, and breath each breath, something new can be revealed to us, should we have eyes to see. Instead of girding our loins and gripping our spears, we might do better to quiet our minds and consider where in the story we might be, and that it’s not finished yet… at least, not while we are still breathing.
But what of the others?
If there were a cataclysmic event, or a magical evaporation of the chosen into the sky, what would become of the leftovers (assuming that you’re one of them)? Would preparing for such an event bring you more in line with a peace that passes all understanding? Or a suspicion that supersedes all inclination to vulnerably love your neighbor?
What game do you want to be playing? If you end up the winner of a game that ends… what have you really gained? Who will be around to play with next? Might it be better to play the game of games, always mindful of becoming a skillful player? Or is there even another curtain to lift? Where you might become a game designer and architect yourself? Those recently cut umbilical cord types sure do grow up fast…
Regardless of when life begins, that first breath doesn’t happen until that cord is cut. And it’s how we can identify the living from the dead. Well… sort of. There’s living and breathing, and then there’s playing the game. If you pace yourself, you can continue to breathe deeply for many games to come.
Speaking of breathing, what else can be used by the players of the game to reach new levels of awareness? Inhale, count, hold, count, exhale, count. Repeat. Repeat.
But we aren’t just mouths and noses, breathing in and out from first to last. We hear. And even those who cannot hear can feel.
As BJ Miller quips: “as for being subjected to the clock..., WE created music.”
Breathing to the music will take you to new heights, especially when you stop breathing and begin to practice death and resurrection. And YES, we talking about PRACTICE. The game is practice, and the practice is the game. Take the game too seriously, and you more easily fall into a cult. I mean, a culty cult. Like David Foster Wallace wryly observed: Everybody worships. And so, Everybody cults as well.
There is a truth and light to seek, but it will never be FULLY found, or FULLY known. It’s a direction. It’s a magnetic pull. Even when it seems that it has been uncovered (apocalypse), it’s not that either. Maybe it’s just better to let the mystery stay the mystery…
But there ARE ways to “know” this truth, and to “see” this light. And they are the others. Through our highs and lows, we can share the game with those around us. Though the maxim preaches that the “physician, heal thyself”, the aim of the physician is to heal others.
The purpose of the game is to remember that you’re in it. The world ends every day, but it continues to be infinite for SOMEBODY. And maybe it’s best to consider that we are a part of that somebody. That the crucified god that rises again is made manifest in everyone, everywhere, everywhen.
So the hell that we descend into may just give way to a blessed unveiling of the game we’ve all been playing. The Big Bang is really just the Big Bounce, and so the powerful play goes on.
Grab a pen. Your life is a living scripture for someone else. Someone yet to come. Your rebirth is someone else’s remembering.
So practice…
And play…
And remember.