About Us
Are you a "seeker"?
A “seeker,” as we see it, is someone who asks Big Questions about life and searches for better answers.
It's about the crazy idea that important things are worth actually looking into.
But what's "the search" really for?
It might be happiness, enlightenment, to figure yourself out, or just "IT" - or something else.
After all, life is tricky.
It confronts us with Big Questions that we all have to face, one way or another.
What’s it all about? Why are we here? Is life meaningless? If not, what’s the point?
Is there a God, or is "this" all there is?
Who or what am I? Am I a spiritual being with a “soul,” or just a clump of genes, cells, and atoms, or something in between? What is genuine happiness, and how do I find it?
What the heck is going on?
These are just a few.
Our answers to these questions are (ahem) kind of important.
Yes, that’s putting it mildly.
They’re hugely important. They govern everything we think, feel, and do.
"Good” answers generally lead in the direction of “the good life,” the life well-lived, sanity, clarity, goodness, “happiness,” and so on. “Bad” answers to these questions tend to lead to unnecessary misery and suffering.
But how much time do we spend actually working on our answers?
Sometimes, it isn't much.
Seekers, however, realize the importance of all this, and look for better answers.
A seeker has embarked on a quest.
But answering Big Questions today is no small task.
We’re often surrounded by bad answers.
A lot of folks today either assume that The Big Questions can’t be answered, or they assume they’re already found the answers. (These two groups tend not to get along.)
A key problem today isn’t a lack of answers.
It’s too many answers.
There are floods of “answers.” Some are incoherent. Others are so complex that they’re useless. Some turn out to be empty platitudes. Many answers contradict other answers. A lot come from “experts” who disagree with other “experts.” And so on.
In this predicament, the real trick isn’t finding answers, but sorting through them, finding ones that make sense and work for us right now, and applying properly them to real life.
And from here, things can get even harder.
How?
Our worst enemy is often ourselves.
Depression. Anxiety. Stress. Addictions. Meaninglessness. Confusion. Dysfunctional relationships. Life just falling apart. Nothing making any sense. Everything seeming stupid, painful, or pointless, or all of the above. And so on. All of these conditions (and others) can cloud our thinking, warp our judgment, and prevent us from seeing clearly.
"Know thyself" turns out to be good - and even practical - advice.
This leads us on a search for exceptional mental health,. “existential fitness,” mental clarity and emotional strength, and so on.
These are treacherous terrains.
Because of this, some people recommend essentially giving up. They assume that we can’t answer Big Questions, and we’ll never be able to, so therefore we should stop trying and just swim in the shallows.
But of course, that’s an answer itself.
And that’s the trick.
We’ve all “answered” these questions already, consciously or not. Those who insist we can't do it seem to miss this. The question isn’t whether we answer them or not. We have no choice. We have to answer. The real question is how well we do it.
The trick is to make our answers as high-caliber as possible.
But how?
We sometimes look to “experts” to figure all this out for us. We might hope they’ll find the answers and just tell us about it. That would save us a lot of trouble.
But these realms don’t really work that way.
Each of us has to do this for ourselves.
As it turns out, that’s probably a good thing. “Experts” in these areas tend to have track records that are terrible. Gurus, slick-talking speakers on stages, ivy-league geniuses with miles of credentials, and so on: you could make a stack to the moon with folks like these who say or do things that are ridiculous, absurd, horrible, or all of the above. Even if we do wind up trusting someone other than ourselves, we’re still the ones deciding who to trust.
So, the safest policy in these areas today seems to be this:
Trust no one.
Including us.
So, who is “us”?
Are we folks who have decided that we've figured out the answers to The Big Questions, and now our job is to just tell everyone else about them?
Nope.
We’re seekers, too.
We’re a rag-tag bunch of misfits. Nobody special.
That said, we have been trying to "seek" in a fairly intense, open, and systematic way, for a while now.
Our mission is to seek out better answers to The Big Questions of life.
Our approach is practical, no-nonsense and “see-for-yourself.”
We're open to insights from anywhere and everywhere - but we also tend to be rigorous about it.
We occupy ourselves with a relentless questioning in a pursuit of truth.
This is how we organize it:
Body | Physical Arena - The Search for Vitality
Mind | Psychology Arena - The Fight for Sanity,
So, we scour the globe in pursuit of the best nuggets of practical wisdom – the best of science and religion and everything in between – gather them here, present them as clearly as possible, and talk about them.
We aim for clarity, sanity, common sense, and truth.
But in practice, we make dumb jokes, say dumb things, and make dumb mistakes all the time. The idea is to make our dumb mistakes in public, and learn from them. This will hopefully help other folks avoid hitting the same potholes we did.
So, don’t take our word for anything.
The motto is, “see for yourself.”
So, if you like seeing for yourself - but you also don't like hitting existential potholes - well, you just might be in the right place.
LiveReal is, in a way, a gathering spot for the spiritually homeless.
It's where religion and science meet common sense.
It’s a headquarters for seekers.
When so much in these realms can seem weird, absurd, or outright crazy, we aim for the sane, the reasonable, and the self-evident or "hidden obvious."
It’s a place where wanderers and explorers can find a warm shelter, a cold drink, a hot meal, a soft bed, some maps, compasses, canteens, a fresh pair of socks, and maybe a little flash of sanity or clarity or insight while traveling some treacherous terrains.
So, if any of this sounds like you, welcome to LiveReal.
To get started, feel free to browse around and just hang out.
You can also sign up here, and we’ll keep you posted on new developments in our ongoing adventures.
Until then, Peace to the Wanderer.
All the best and warm regards,
The folks at LiveReal