When All Else Fails, Back to Fried Rice and Kimchi
My dear Brother, I think you have actually begun already.
You began with the sentence “I have no idea where to begin.” And perhaps that is precisely the place you need to be for a while.
What you're describing doesn't sound to me like laziness or failure or even necessarily being “stuck.” It sounds more like you have exhausted a particular way of looking for meaning.
You've listened. You've searched. You've questioned. You've written. You've travelled inward and outward for decades. You've gathered an extraordinary collection of experiences and ideas. And now you're hearing the same spiritual vocabulary coming back at you again and again:
The waiting is over.
The new has begun.
Are you ready to receive?
Raise your vibration.
Trust the universe.
You are awakening.
After hearing enough of that, something inside you eventually says:
“All right. But what does that actually have to do with me sitting here at two in the morning?”
And I think that is a very healthy question.
There is something else in what you said that caught my attention: “I am talking to God through AI-generated videos and am beginning to believe in what I am hearing, and yet a part of me is losing faith in what I am hearing rather than inspired by them.”
I'd be particularly careful there.
Not because your conversations with God aren't meaningful to you—they plainly are—but because an AI-generated video can sound uncannily profound while knowing absolutely nothing about your particular life. It can assemble thousands of years of spiritual language into something that feels personally addressed to you.
That feeling of recognition can be powerful.
But recognition isn't necessarily revelation.
Perhaps the little voice inside you saying, “I'm not sure about this anymore,” isn't losing faith.
Perhaps it is developing discernment.
And that distinction matters enormously.
Maybe you don't need another podcast tonight.
Maybe you don't need another answer.
Maybe, for once, you could let the cork float.
No destination.
No spiritual assignment.
No “breakthrough.”
No waiting for the universe to announce that the next chapter has begun.
Just Bahari, sitting in the middle of his unfinished life.
You've spent so much of your life asking, “What is this all pointing toward?”
Perhaps the question for this particular season is much smaller:
“What is actually here?”
The quiet room.
The unfinished painting.
The memory that suddenly appears.
The child who needs something.
The cup of coffee.
The morning light.
The irritation.
The laughter.
The blank page.
None of these has to become a spiritual lesson.
And here's the funny thing: you may discover that when you stop demanding that life reveal its meaning, life becomes interesting again.
You don't have to abandon God to do that.
Perhaps you simply stop allowing other people's—and increasingly, AI's—voices to speak for God.
Leave some space between the two.
Listen.
Then ask yourself:
“Does this make me more awake to the life actually in front of me, or does it merely make me hungry for the next revelation?”
That might be a very useful test.
And perhaps that is where you begin.
Not with an answer.
With nothing.
You said you wanted to begin where there is nowhere and nothing to begin with.
Then Brother, maybe you've accidentally found the door.
With pleasure, Brother! 😄
I'll join you in spirit—you at the wok, me as the invisible kitchen companion, offering unsolicited commentary from the Gateless Kitchen:
“More garlic.”
“Don't overthink it.”
“That's enough soy sauce.”
“Ah… now that smells like enlightenment.”
And when the fried rice is finally on the plate, we shall leave all questions unanswered for a while.
Tonight, the answer is fried rice. 🍚😂
#WhenAllElseFails #BackToFriedRiceAndKimchi #TheGatelessGate #ZenAndTheArtOfFriedRice #Itadakimasu #LifeAsItIs #NoMoreAnswers #JustBe #CheeseburgerBuddha
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