Field Notes from the Double Life
The Short Version
I’m a software engineer who started meditating in 2022 to fix my burnout. I was looking for stress relief. Instead, I accidentally dismantled my entire worldview.
Technically Mystic is the documentation of that dismantling. It is the logs of an atheist turning into a mystic, written by someone who is still trying to keep their day job.
The Long Version
For a decade, I’ve built systems, debugged code, and lived by logic. I am a Virgo Sun, a Senior Engineer, and a skeptic by trade.
But 3.5 years ago, the stress of the tech industry broke me. I turned to meditation as a survival mechanism. I expected better sleep and focus.
What I got was a complete system override.
I went from an agnostic workaholic to a “mad mystic” writing poetry to the Divine at 2 AM. I went from seeking stress relief to navigating the “Dark Night of the Soul” while trying to act normal in morning stand-ups and in my marriage.
I spent years thinking I was living a double life—torn between the person everyone knew and the heart beating under the floorboards.
Why I’m Writing This
This is not a self-help blog. I am not a guru. I don’t have a “5-step plan to enlightenment” or a “hack” for your anxiety.
This is a repository of field notes.
We have plenty of books by gurus and saints who have already reached the mountain top. We have endless manuals on how to meditate.
But we have very few field reports from the messy middle.
I couldn’t find the field notes for the part where you’re halfway up the mountain, terrified, exhausted, and wondering if you’re losing your mind or finally waking up.
So I’m writing it myself.
This publication is for the “Undercover Mystics.” It’s for the professionals, the skeptics, and the rational minds who have felt a tug they can’t explain—and are terrified to talk about it because they don’t want to look crazy.
How to Navigate This Space
I organize my posts by “depth,” so you can choose how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.
Level 0: Technical
The starting point. Burnout, skepticism, and the rational analysis of spiritual phenomena. This is where I try to make sense of the “woo” without losing my grounding.
Level 1: Transitional
What happens when meditation stops being just stress relief. This is where the existing worldview starts to crack and things start getting... interesting.
Level 2: Mystical
Where meditation becomes devotion. The longing that keeps you awake at night. The Dark Night that strips everything away. Poetry, grief, ecstasy, and the visceral ache of falling in love with Something you can’t see. Enter when the hunger won’t let you turn back.
Level 3: Union
Space Division field notes. Boundaries dissolve. The body teaches what books can't. Ancient patterns recognize themselves through you. Direct experiences of union, non-duality, and phenomena that sound impossible until they happen to you. The helmet comes off here. (Note: This content is Web Only. It is excluded from the main newsletter and will never appear in your inbox. You must explicitly visit the “Level 3” tab to read these field notes. This is intentional.)
Why Subscribe?
Most spiritual content is written from the mountaintop. This is written from the side of the cliff.
Subscribe to get raw field notes from the "messy middle"—the confusion, the breakthroughs, and the reality of navigating the Dark Night while holding down a 9-to-5.
No Spam, Just Signal
I’m an engineer. I hate spam as much as you do. You’ll only get posts when I have something real to report—usually once or twice a week. No daily spam, ever.
Join the Underground
Join a community of "Undercover Mystics"—professionals, skeptics, and rational minds who are secretly navigating the shift from the mundane to the mystical. You don't have to do this alone.
