Early in 2024, while my baby niece lay sleeping beside me I searched through the channels on YouTube for something to watch and discovered the Accepting the Universe channel. It was challenging to say the least. The guy spoke about Seneca, Greek philosophers, weighty, heavy topics of discussion and I at the time knew nothing about Ralph Waldo Emerson and Seneca at the time, Epictetus and others, but I listened. Now nearing 2025, I am glad I paid attention. I am richer intellectually, I am wiser for it and it has even inspired other chapters of the nonfiction book I started writing in June/July of this year.

We either accept the universe that we come into contact with or do not. To live a good life. What does that mean? Having gratitude, aiming high, preparing our goals, self-belief, realising that it is key to our survival, encouragement, motivating factors, having the correct and proper attitude. Finding seekers on the journey to the path of self-discovery is what we should all aspire to but being and awareness, being an instrument of change, being aware of humanity, what tests us, what divides us, what brings us together gives meaning and purpose to life. Your videos have set me upon a new path to the dedication of myself to thought and philosophy. I have often thought of the term intellectual. To me, humanity is made up of individuals not a collective of intellectuals. These videos of yours are powerful for the individual and the collective. They make profound statements about the world we live in today and are challenging as well as meaningful. They are meant for the thinker and the do-er, the teacher, the apprentice, and the master.

The question I am left with now, is the thinker a poet? If a person is an intellectual, can they be a poet too? For me, it is easy to say a poet has something to say but an intellectual too has something to say, but albeit an intellectual has something to say all the time. The intellectual knows rather when to ask a question, when to leave things unsaid and the intellectual is an effective listener. The video leaves me with a question and the answer usually is to read further and to figure things out on my own. How splendid is that? The apprentice in action, as well as the genuine action of teaching. The action of you making these videos, you are doing service. You are doing God’s work. You are bringing a community of people together for the greater good, for the betterment of society. Your aims make my aims possible now. Aims I never had or envisioned for myself before I started watching your videos. You are making a positive contribution to society and influencing others to do the same. You are also influencing us to read more and to think deeply.

Happiness and joy are fleeting, temporary as is the act of falling in love. For me, the act of negativity has taught me that there are shapes of consolation in self-acceptance, accepting what cannot be changed, accepting most of all other people’s indifference to my plight. In letting go of fear, personal anguish, and even anxiety something has been returned to me. Living a life of grace and intention. God, faith, having a spiritual outlook on life, and scriptural meditation has played a significant part in my life. I am careful what I expose myself to. These days, it is only what can nurture my intellectual faculties, reading, writing that feeds my spirit, that is what I expose myself to. The YouTube Channel Accepting the Universe, these videos have played an important part in the life I curate for myself now. They have also changed me profoundly. I continue to be motivated in the work that kind-hearted people are doing. People who are moved to change the world through random acts of kindness. It is something I wish to communicate in my own life. I want to tell everyone who is reading this. Continue to inspire others. You helped me in a daily struggle I was facing. Thankfully that period has lessened somewhat. God I believe sends angels when someone needs hope. The videos of the Accepting the Universe YouTube Channel have brought with them a message of hope to my life. Thank you whoever you are, angel of hope, messenger of hope.

Do I dare to be king of my castle? Do I dare to build a new civilisation after an empire has fallen? What is the inescapable truth of the matter that must concern me, that I must live up to, that I must acknowledge, that I must “worship”? The unseen, the invisible, spirit, the source of the universe. Dare I be co-creator and dream and imagine the impossible? What is this unseen? The goodness of humanity, the inherent access that we deny innocence, the neurological pathways to the divine realm, the spirit world, the source whence we come from, appear from. The invisible world is the supernatural world.

I post pieces of what I am writing in the comments section of some of the videos on YouTube. I get “Congratulations” notifications, one of my comments is highlighted, another gets a like. To withstand challenges, to take hardship on and to have it fundamentally change you at the most basic level is to change the psychological framework of the individual. It is also to make a choice. To choose to be determined enough to take the path less travelled. To be a poet, to have that career. To be an intellectual, a thinker, a do-er, to have supreme confidence in the divine, in the intellectual capacities of those that came before. To be king of the castle, to rebuild an empire into a civilisation, to learn, to study, to read, to think, to write, that is preparation to have a higher goal and resolute belief in the spiritual. That is what it means to aim high.