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I remember many times losing interest in something I once enjoyed. Playing with plastic figures, toy cars, and building blocks. Collecting and trading baseball cards. Roller-blading, bicycling, and wiffle ball. Inventing fantasy worlds and characters. Playing board games, video games, and RPGs. Creating my own games and programming. None of these activities figured into any… Continue reading Depression means it’s time to level up

In this piece I explain the purpose and limits of the descentist perspective.  Descentism is a self-centric, practical theory of life written in a way that makes sense to me. Though it shares characteristics with solipsistic philosophies and others, it differs in ways which may become apparent with time and understanding. The primary difference is… Continue reading The descentist disclaimer

This piece contends that if we embrace our depression as a valid worldview, rather than a mental illness, we’d realize that we have a voice that needs to be heard, not medicated and suppressed. As an adult I came to learn that half of my family experiences severe depression. I didn’t even realize I “had… Continue reading Depression as a worldview

This piece provides practical guidance to integrating the principles of descentism into one’s life. Given that the author is the first and only “descentist”, this page will continue to be a work-in-progress as new challenges and solutions emerge in his life that are relevant to this topic. Note that this was never completed. The desire… Continue reading Practical disengagement

I asked friends, family, and an increasingly broad number of people what they thought life was and why they were here. They answered, some more enthusiastically than others. Everyone had an answer of some sort, but many hesitated and even crumbled when I asked for clarification. I wasn’t confrontational or contrary, just seeking inspiration. The… Continue reading Everyone I know is lost

This piece evaluates suicide as an option for those in despair. In the descentist perspective depression is an acute side-effect of being lost and living without purpose, but suicide is not a viable option because it is an asymmetrical disengagement from life. Descentism instead encourages those who are suicidal to seek existential alignment and a symmetrical disengagement.… Continue reading Symmetrical disengagement

Science is, first and foremost, the decision to participate in an external decison-making process. You must decide that all of the productions outside of you are of less value and reality than the internal science. You must make the decision that you exist as an observer of an external world. The descentist will turn inward… Continue reading But what about science?

I rejected the Christian characterization of God early in life because of its close association with organized religion, which I viewed as a negative force in world history. Aside from that, I didn’t have any direct experience of the concept, and descriptions were vague, arbitrary, contradictory, and difficult to apply to my modern life. I… Continue reading What is God? A practical answer

The fundamental question one would need to ask himself to determine if he is ascentist or descentist is the following: Is there value in preserving and extending life? Is there a shared external truth? Descentism is not the opposite of religion or science. Religion, science, and spirituality are all ascentist because they embrace productions and… Continue reading Where descentism fits

When we think of our “purpose” we can define professional achievements, performance, personal or spiritual achievements. Most of my adult life, I had two distinct sets of goals: build a successful company, and live a spiritual life.   Until I took a break after high-school, I imagined life as a series of professional goals and material… Continue reading The anatomy of an aligned existence