Welcome to True North

The Substack Odyssey Begins

I, Christian, having been born of goodly parents, was taught in the learnings of my father (Mormonism); and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days (Vegas baby), nevertheless, having been highly privileged of the Lord in all my days (heterosexual cis gendered white male); yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God (psychedelics), therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days (Substack).

If you’re a Mormon, you probably didn’t love that, but hey… forgive me?

If you’re an EXMO, you’re welcome 🫠

If you’re neither, you’re probably wondering what in the actual fuck is going on here.

That’s fair. I suppose its not really a great hook if you don’t have the context.

Let me try that again.

I’m Christian, former cult-kid turned heretic and wandering fool.

Welcome to a weird little corner of the internet.

I’m the founder of True North Project, and for now, the primary author of this fledgeling publication [substack].

So what is this strange land you’ve wandered into?

True North Project

True North Project came to me as a “download” in a float tank in 2018 and has since become the Muse [and vocation] to which I humbly offer my service.

In the beginning, True North Project was simply a call to adventure, a kick in the pants to follow my curiosity beyond the pale of my comfort zone and current understanding.

But once this simple seed (of life) was planted in my soul, a transformative odyssey was initiated. I traveled around the world to learn from various wisdom traditions, to explore the psychedelic realms, and to take in the wonders of Earth.

I even wrote some blog posts about it, but those have been lost to the sands of time… and they weren’t very good TBH.

True North later took root as a brand, sprouted up a podcast, grew into a wellness center, and flowered as a design space for liberating structures — art for a more beautiful world.

This substack will be a new iteration of the ongoing odyssey, a publication for sense-making, soul-searching, and story-telling.

Sense-Making

I was born inside a fundamentalist Mormon cult, and had a bit of an “unconventional” childhood.

My first chapter of life played out in an insular town of a few thousand people, surrounded by majestic mountains and the natural beauty of Utah. I grew up in a large polygamist family with 3 parents, 23 siblings, and more cousins than seems reasonable (not sure exactly how many but definitely more than 1000).

My religion and culture provided me with a nice tidy story of the nature of reality, the meaning of life, and how to live life well — which was mostly agreed upon by virtually everyone else around me.

That bubble popped at age 20, when my faith crisis “shelf” reached critical mass and folded under the weight of the CES letter, resulting in the collapse of my story of meaning and the burning of my “map” of reality.

Thus my journey of sense-making began.

This full story will take some time to unpack, and it will be the focus of my next post.

As our world gets increasingly more weird [AI, psychedelics, meta-crisis, etc], sense-making seems to be somewhat of a full time chore. Our shared reality is fracturing into echo chambers and reality tunnels, as we fall hopelessly down rabbit holes into a post-truth information labyrinth.

This publication is my attempt at “making sense” of this wild terrain as I navigate it.

Sense-making: the action or process of making sense of or giving meaning to something, especially new developments and experiences.

Soul-Searching

With the collapse of my faith in my Mormon god (and Joseph Smith) in 2012, I fell into a vacuum of meaning. I moved to Las Vegas and pursued a lifestyle in direct opposition to my sheltered, conservative, fundamentalist upbringing (naturally).

I filled the vacuum with the hollow trinkets of our capitalist society — pussy, money, weed (as Lil Wayne eloquently put it).

For 5 years, I wandered in the desert (Vegas) of nihilism, meaninglessness, and despair. I drowned my sorrows and emptiness in alcohol, as my soul was slowly ground down by the incessant onward march of the economic machine that I served — Mammon.

And of course, I also had some good times. Frank the Tank was in full force.

Nietzsche’s decree “God is Dead!” became painfully true for me as I realized that my new “god” of self-maximization was even worse than the Mormon god I had forsaken.

With this utter collapse of meaning began my sojourn out of the darkness.

This publication is my attempt to share what I have discovered from that ongoing soul-search, my personal pursuit of meaning.

“Honor those who seek the truth, beware of those who’ve found it.” - Voltaire

Storytelling

Storytelling is the base layer operating system of humanity. For thousands of human generations we exchanged perspectives and wisdom around the proverbial campfire.

In the distant mists of pre-history, the language revolution became the substrate of human culture and storytelling became the medium of intergenerational knowledge transmission.

Our primordial orientation towards story sets us apart in the animal kingdom, affording our species the privilege (and responsibility) of accelerating our own evolution.

No longer is the rate of evolutionary change at the glacial pace of mutation and natural selection. Having transcended mere gene replication, we steward the power of meme replication. This magical quality has transformed our planet (for better or worse), and seems to be the lever by which we move the world.

The myths, memes, and metaphors we employ in our culture bind us together, orient our behavior, and thus impact our environment.

This publication is my attempt at telling the story of a more beautiful world, grieving the old world that is being lost, and having some laughs along the way.

“Language is the liquid that we’re all dissolved in.” - Modest Mouse

What’s Next?

If you find yourself on a similar odyssey, be sure to subscribe for weekly (maybe) posts.

My intention is to post weekly, but time will tell if I actually have what it takes to make it as a “writer.” After all, I am also committed to releasing weekly podcasts, growing a wellness business, and keeping a fire going for other wanderers on the path.

If you want to support the project, a paid subscription would be epic.

Just know it doesn’t get you anything extra, besides my gratitude… and maybe some virgins in the next life 🛐

Everything I write here will be accessible to everyone for free, so you’ll have to fall further down the rabbit hole before you hit a paywall ;)

Thanks for tuning in, and best of luck on your path.

Christian

Las Vegas, NV

P.S. Up next is a gnarly 6-part story to get you up to speed.

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