In this incantation, I confront the tension between knowing and believing, recognizing that true conviction dissolves outdated habits effortlessly. I also examine how overanalyzing experience obscures its raw clarity. In India, I am welcomed warmly, yet when I impose historical or cultural narratives, I dilute the moment’s purity. Presence demands trust in what simply is—untainted by interpretation, free from abstraction, and fully embraced in the now.
The critical variable in all of this is what I now call “latent conviction”—the state of knowing something but not yet believing it deeply enough to dismantle the habits and behaviors shaped before that knowing. I see clearly where I want to go; when I close my eyes, I am already there. Yet, upon awakening, I continue pursuing goals that entangle me in worldly narratives, behaving as someone I no longer am.
Reshaping the fabric of my waking life takes effort, yet the truth I have come to know is persistently, albeit gradually, doing just that. A moment is approaching—a moment when I will close my eyes and fully know. Not just intellectually but completely, with every fiber of my being. In that moment, conviction will no longer be latent but absolute, and with it, the bliss of unwavering certainty. That moment is not some distant future; it is here, now—effortless. I need only recognize what I am looking at.
Consider this: an example of nonpresent analysis.
India. Here, people are warm, welcoming, and hospitable toward me. That is the raw experience, the truth on the surface. Yet, when I shift my focus away from the present, I start weaving explanations—historical, cultural, sociopolitical—diluting the purity of the moment. I begin entertaining the belief that my experience is merely one among many, that all Westerners are treated similarly, that colonization, privilege, or other abstract narratives must somehow be responsible. But these are nothing more than subsurface constructs, layered interpretations that obscure the immediate truth: I am being treated in a certain way, right now, for no other reason than what is happening in this moment. At the surface level, I am simply something different here.
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