Hi Reader,

Spiritual is the opposite of empirical. In other words, there's measurable stuff (empirical) and stuff that must be interpreted (spiritual). Broadly speaking, I'm dividing reality into the physical world we can measure and the spiritual world that occurs inside each of our individual experiences of being.

When we look at the world from this perspective, we get a few valuable outcomes.

First, we get that my experience is mine alone (and yours is yours), because you can't experience my experience (and I can't experience yours).

This has been helpful to me because one of the painful things I've experienced in my life is judging my own experience to be "wrong" because other people told me it was. Most of my life I was operating with the understanding that my experience was subordinate to "Truth" (with a capital T). I still struggle with this habit.

These days, I'm not sure what the truth is (much less Truth). I am sure of my experience, though. (I'm so sure of it that I'm even sure when I'm unsure.)

For now, I'll just say that recognizing and accepting the fact that I alone am (or could be) responsible for interpreting my own experience means that I have some power I didn't have before: I determine the way I represent my internal self to others, and maybe even to a large extent the way things occur for me.

I think this might be what people mean when they say they determine their reality.

I'm far from being a master at this—I mean, let's be honest, I pretty much suck at it. It does seem like something people can get better at, though. There are people who appear to be masters, anyway. So maybe don't take my advice on it (if you ever see me give any), and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts and experience. And I'll keep working on it.

Next week: another valuable (?) outcome of this spiritual/empirical divide.