Things have always seemed strange to me.
My whole younger life was spent in a feeling of lostness and misunderstanding, never able to really “get it.”
I spent most of my childhood expecting some sort of magical wave of understanding to eventually wash over me, as if one day I’d just wake up and things would suddenly all make sense.
This was easy enough to just ignore and push to the back of my mind as a child, but as I slowly started to transition into adulthood the fact that this cloud of confusion was still lingering started to become more and more disconcerting.
Eventually I reached a point where I realized that understanding was not going to magically come to me and I would have to seek it out instead.
I started looking for answers but often times I found that there simply weren’t any to be found. I wrongly assumed that those things that seemed strange to me as a child were because I wasn’t “getting it”. Often times there was simply just nothing to get.
This naturally caused me to feel ten times more lost than I previously was. It made it feel as if the entire world was some sort of wild fever dream.
I spent a lot of time wandering around aimlessly in this state, feeling around in the dark, trying to make some sort of sense of anything.
Through trial and error I eventually stumbled across something that felt true. This tiny feeling of sense and understanding of the world was enough to get me hooked. I was done with trying to “get it” and now I just wanted to know what was true.
Making myself feel physically, mentally and spiritually well was, and is, essential to this mission, so I quickly began to gravitate more and more to activities and practices that would do so. This alone greatly improved the quality of my life which increased my motivation further.
I was fortunate enough to eventually connect with other individuals who were also on their own personal journeys towards some sort of understanding. We began to meet on a weekly basis, initially with no particular goal in mind, other than, I suppose, helping each other learn more and improve one another. This immediately felt very rewarding and beneficial to me.
After several months of these consistent meetings the idea of UpRiver emerged organically.
I didn’t have a clue what UpRiver was or would be back then and still now, to be completely honest, I have no idea what UpRiver is or will come to be. All I know is that it has felt like the truest thing I have yet to do in my life, so I will continue to pursue it.
I am still in that cloud of confusion. Things seem stranger than they ever have before but I have faith that if I continue trying to look for what’s true I will eventually catch a glimpse of it. UpRiver is my attempt to do so.
