Can’t believe it’s taken over a decade, and multiple stages of red pill thinking, just to crack the first layer. I know this is only the beginning now. I’m starting to see where this goes. It feels similar to mastering an instrument, another passion I’ve kept alive for almost a decade and a half. In the last year of that decade, I realized I needed to stop focusing so much on the notes I was playing, and focus more on the spaces between the notes. I also started noticing basic things that seem obvious in hindsight, like how if I hit a drum dead centre with my stick, it produces a sound with a certain dynamic (volume) and pitch. Then if I hit the drum again, even half a centimetre away using the exact same strength, it produces a slightly different sound with a different pitch and texture. You’d think this would be taught more in percussion, but outside of government-sponsored percussion societies and drumlines, almost nobody talks about it. Once you realize it, it becomes painfully obvious, and it completely changes the way you play.

Mastery is usually the destruction of false obviousness. The beginner thinks depth lives in advanced techniques, but the veteran realizes the deepest complexity was hidden inside fundamentals the entire time. That is why simple concepts can take a decade to truly understand. “Be outcome independent” was never just a sentence about not caring. It was about separating desire from emotional dependency. Knowing what you want, moving toward it clearly, while not tying your self-worth or stability to whether reality gives it to you. The words stay the same for years, but eventually your nervous system catches up to them. I realized the same thing through drumming. At first I focused on the notes themselves, but later understood the real depth lives in the spaces between them, the tension, timing, silence, dynamics, and touch. Even moving a drum strike half a centimetre changes the pitch and emotional texture of the sound. Most people learn patterns, but never truly learn sound. The same applies psychologically: most people obsess over visible mechanics and outcomes, while the deeper layer is learning to perceive tension, attachment, pressure, timing, and emotional control beneath the surface.

I discovered RP over a decade ago now. And man has it been a journey. Ive identified 3 different stages. Every stage, i reread the side bar, sometimes multiple times, read rollo, all the basics, got some practice, some success, some failure, and the thought "ah now i get it".

But now i realise, you will never rrach a point where you fully get it, because some things aren't for getting. You just gotta role with the uncertainty, and navigate it as best as you can with the frame that you are. Thats really the closest you'll get. Theres in infinite x infinite amount of possibilities that can affect an outcome, and that doesnt even multiple the infinite variables that affect those outcomes. You just gotta decide on the outcome you want, and decide if things align with that or not, and make actionable steps to actually get there. And its not even about getting there. Its about the journey getting there.

Fuck, i been over thinking the wrong things, and underthinking the things that really matter to me. Thats the only thing that matters. My own experience.