This is the letter I would have written to myself ten years ago.
Back then, I was curious about meditation—but skeptical. I’d tried it a little, read a few things, maybe even felt a flicker of something during a sit. But mostly, I didn’t understand what the big deal was. I thought it might be a nice way to relax. Or a tool to focus better at work. I certainly didn’t think it would change the way I understood the world.
I didn’t believe in enlightenment. I thought “emptiness” sounded vaguely depressing. I figured the people who talked about this stuff with too much certainty probably hadn’t done their homework. And in fairness… some of them hadn’t.
But something in me was restless. The models were beautiful, but not complete. The thinking was sharp, but didn’t reach all the way in. There was a quiet, persistent whisper: There’s something more. Not outside the world, but inside the seeing of it.
So if I could talk to that version of me—precise, intellectually careful, and just a little bit afraid to be wrong—here’s what I’d say.
Dear Skeptic,
I know you. You like clarity, clean arguments, first principles. You like things to be true—not “true for you,” not metaphorically interesting, but actually true. You’ve built your world on precision and parsimony. You’d rather not believe something than believe something that turns out to be wrong.
I respect that.
And I get why meditation might have sounded, at one point, like a soft landing into woo. Or a way of avoiding hard questions by retreating into vague language and subjective impressions. You want to know: Is this real? Does this do anything? Or is it just another model—another pretty fiction?
So let me try to meet you there. Not by explaining meditation in mystical terms, but by speaking your language. The language of evidence, inference, and direct observation.
Start with what you can verify.
Forget everything you’ve heard about chakras or third eyes or cosmic awareness. That’s not the on-ramp. Sit for ten minutes. Pay attention to the breath—not conceptually, but physically. Noticing how it moves, where it goes, how it feels.
Within minutes, you’ll discover a few things:
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Your attention is unstable.
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Your thoughts arise without permission.
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Your mind prefers storytelling to silence.
You don’t need to believe in anything for that to be true. You just have to watch. Already, we’re in empiricism territory. This is observation, not doctrine.
And here’s the strange thing: if you just keep noticing—gently, without force—the noticing itself begins to change you. Not because you believe differently, but because you see differently.
Emptiness is not mysticism. It’s precision applied inward.
At first, the idea that things are “empty” might sound like a philosophical shrug. A poetic way of saying “nothing matters” or “everything is illusion.” But that’s not it at all.
“Emptiness” is more like a tool. A lens. It invites you to question how you’re constructing what you see.
A chair isn’t “just” a chair—it’s a pattern of sensory input filtered through expectation and memory. The same way a photon isn’t “just” a particle—it’s something that shows up differently depending on how you look.
You don’t need to take that on faith. You can feel it. Try sitting quietly and observing a sound. Any sound. A car passing. A bird call. A fridge hum. Watch what your mind does. Labeling. Separating. Assuming. What happens if you pull those assumptions away?
Meditation is not a way of checking out. It’s a way of checking in so deeply that the whole framework wobbles.
The self isn’t a given. It’s a process.
This one might sound like a stretch. “Of course I’m me,” you’ll say. “Who else would I be?”
But sit with attention long enough, and the cracks begin to show. You’ll notice how your sense of “I” moves depending on mood, context, intention. How tightly it clings to roles and stories. How, in moments of presence, that “I” goes quiet—and things still happen. Experience continues.
This isn’t a mystical disappearance. It’s just… a quiet shift. A background process going offline. A spotlight turning outward.
The first time I lost track of the “little guy in my head,” I didn’t panic. I felt relief. Not loss. Not confusion. Just space.
And I thought: Maybe I don’t have to hold this together so tightly.
So what? What’s the point?
The point is not to become a spiritual person.
It’s not to believe new things or impress anyone with your equanimity. It’s not to build a better ego or win at being wise.
It’s to suffer less.
Not because you’ve figured out the rules of the universe, but because you’re no longer arguing with your experience every time it fails to match the model. Because you’ve softened the need to be someone, and discovered the freedom of simply being.
It’s to realize that presence is not a mood. It’s a capacity. One you can train.
And when you do—it changes how you relate to pain, to joy, to others, to yourself.
Even if you still love math. Even if you still doubt half of this.
One more thing.
You don’t have to choose between rigor and reverence.
You can bow and measure. You can scan for bias and sit in silence. You can let mystery live alongside logic—not as a contradiction, but as a complement.
The part of you that needs proof won’t be exiled. It’ll be invited into the lab. Given a new field of study: not galaxies or quarks, but mind itself.
And in that field, there’s so much left to discover.
Sincerely, Craig (but a little quieter inside)
This is part of the “Unbuilding the Self” series. View the series overview