Scott Knight's Blog

Don't Wait to Be Free

Scott Knight — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 07:23:43 -0500

“A man should never get lost in the details of his life and forget that, ultimately and in truth, life amounts to nothing rather than what is the deepest truth of this present moment. Tasks don’t get a man anywhere more conscious or free than he is capable of being in this present moment… Know eternity. Do whatever it takes. And from this depth of being, live the details of your life… But if you postpone the process of submerging yourself in the source for the sake of taking care of business first, your life will be spent in hours and days of business, and then it will be gone. Only if you are well grounded in that which is larger than life will you be able to play life with humor, knowing that each task is a mirage of necessity… The test of your fullness in every moment is your capacity to die in free and loving surrender, knowing you’ve done everything you could do while alive to give your gift and know the truth of being.” —David Deida

There’s something sobering in Deida’s reminder, that no matter how packed our schedules, how urgent the emails, how noble the goals we’ve set, all of the “doing” we stack up for ourselves amounts to nothing if we forget to be in this moment.

This idea cuts to the heart of philosophical living. The external world, with all its tasks and apparent urgencies, is a transient stage. What matters is not how much we accomplish, but the quality of presence we bring to whatever we are given.

We live in an age where productivity is too often mistaken for purpose. Too often we believe that clarity, peace, or insight will arrive after we’ve completed our obligations. But the to-do list is, by design, infinite. If we aren’t careful, we only believe we are actually living while we are only staying busy.

Deida’s point is to realign and reframe how we approach action rather than rejecting it outright. Freedom is not the result of outer control, but inner alignment. When we act from the center, from that which is essential within us, then even the most ordinary tasks can become meaningful. Otherwise, life becomes theater. A cycle concealing its own emptiness.

Freedom is available right now. In breath, in body, in awareness. Even in the middle of your most mundane obligation.

The test of our interior freedom is simple. Can we remain inwardly whole while outwardly engaged? Can we live from a depth that is unaffected by the demands of life?

We are not here to master life, but to meet it fully, deeply, and consciously.

Ozymandias

Scott Knight — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 13:29:46 -0600

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

— Ozymandias, Percey Shelley

Ozymandias is one of my favorite classic poems.

Most analyses of this piece focus on the temporary nature of power, but for me the tale has always served as a poignant reminder of human mortality and how we should address it.

The sonnet shines a spotlight on the transient nature of our existence, urging us to prioritize meaningful actions over the pursuit of ephemeral power or stature. As the old epigram goes: “The world was not big enough for Alexander the Great, but a coffin was.”

Memento mori indeed.

The fate of Ozymandias calls us to embrace the brevity of life by cultivating our relationships and leaving a positive impact on the lives of those around us. Rather than erecting monuments of stone, we should instead strive to build legacies of compassion, love, and benevolence.

In the face of life’s transience, let Ozymandias remind us of the enduring value of human connection and the importance of our contributions to the collective human experience. Make every moment count, recognizing that even the grandest legacies will ultimately fade into the sands of time.

On Wealth

Scott Knight — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 15:05:55 -0500

What does it mean to be wealthy? What does wealth look like? Is it just being rich? How do we know when we’ve achieved wealth?

As I move toward purchasing my first home, this is something I’ve been reflecting on in recent weeks.

Cultures around the world are abundant with stories of characters on the pursuit of wealth who don’t quite get what they bargained for—King Midas, for example. Over the years I myself have gone through bouts of chasing “wealth”, pouring everything I had into startup businesses, scraping by in hopes of eventually making it big.

We’ve all been taught that you can become wealthy if you work hard and earn enough money to buy your financial freedom, thereby amassing an amount of money sufficient to afford the freedom to use your time to do the things you want to do in life. But if this is the goal, then the money is only a means to get us what we really want: freedom and self-sufficiency.

The pursuit of wealth from a purely financial perspective is a fool’s errand if driven by ambition alone, and with no defined end goal. Ambition, as the Stoics wisely recognized, is itself a form of slavery. If we’re always unsatisfied and seeking more, what we already have will never be enough. One can easily lose sight of what’s really important (our families, passions, etc.) by becoming blinded by unmitigated ambition.

True wealth is an internal outlook as much as an external holding. It’s all about perspective.

Wealth, then, is more than a simple dollar figure. It’s about recognizing your needs and values, and working toward those; or perhaps, recognizing when you may already have them.

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
—Epictetus

I’ll leave you with a short story I read several years ago that’s informed my philosophy on this topic.

The Parable of the Fisherman

A smartly-dressed enterprising tourist is taking photographs when he notices a shabbily dressed local fisherman taking a nap in his fishing boat. The tourist is disappointed with the fisherman’s apparently lazy attitude towards his work, so he approaches the fisherman and asks him why he is lying around instead of catching fish. The fisherman explains that he went fishing in the morning, and the small catch would be sufficient for the next two days.

The tourist tells him that if he goes out to catch fish multiple times a day, he would be able to buy a motor in less than a year, a second boat in less than two years, and so on. The tourist further explains that one day, the fisherman could even build a small cold storage plant, later a pickling factory, fly around in a helicopter, build a fish restaurant, and export lobster directly to Paris without a middleman.

The nonchalant fisherman asks, “Then what?”

The tourist enthusiastically continues, “Then, without a care in the world, you could sit here in the harbor, doze in the sun, and look at the glorious sea.”

“But I’m already doing that”, says the fisherman.

The enlightened tourist walks away pensively, with no trace of pity for the fisherman, only a little envy. (Source)

A Mindful Journey Through the Woods

Scott Knight — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 11:03:59 -0500

I’ve always enjoyed nature. But, I work from home as a data engineer, so to counterbalance that I make sure to spend as much time as I can exploring the outdoors, far away from digital distractions. Most days, this can be as simple as taking a walk around the local park or going for a bike ride.

Last month, I took a solo camping trip to All You Need Institute with the goal of exploring the concept of “forest bathing” and getting some peace and quiet.

Forest bathing, a Japanese concept I recently came across (though it’s been around since the eighties), is the practice of immersing oneself in nature in order to promote physical and mental well-being. They call it shinrin-yoku. It’s meant to be a mindful activity where you purposely slow down and pay attention to the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of the natural world. The health benefits of this practice are myriad.

I arrived at AYNI for my five-day excursion without too much of a plan for the weekend. The sprawling homestead, run by two New Orleans natives, is located on a beautiful plot of 111 acres in the Sandhills of Mississippi, in the Piney Woods region. The grounds are lush with new growth, with towering pine trees, rolling hills, a swimming pond, and unique flora and fauna such as deer moss and gopher tortoises.

I stayed in the “Cozy Pineland Micro-Cabin”, one of the non-primitive sites on the grounds. It’s a tiny camper with just enough room for a bed and an air conditioning unit, which was a nice amenity in the upper-eighty-degree heat. The only things I took with me were my phone (for family check-ins), my Kindle Paperwhite, my black lab Gracie, and camping essentials like food, water, and a hammock.

Once the camp was set up, I spent the next five days exploring the grounds and soaking in the natural surroundings. Gracie and I hiked through the winding network of trails, enjoyed the one-acre pond, and throughout the weekend I read Nick Offerman’s book, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play in the piney shade. While I’m not sure I agree with every aspect of Offerman’s book, his writing reminded me to appreciate the simple things in life, and of the importance of intentionally connecting with nature (by now, you can probably sense the theme here).

Here are a few book quotes from that weekend I saved to my Kindle clippings:

And so I go into the woods. As I go in under the trees, dependably, almost at once, and by nothing I do, things fall into place. I enter an order that does not exist outside, in the human spaces. I feel my life take its place among the lives—the trees, the birds, the living of all these and the dead—that go and have gone to make the life of the earth. I am less important than I thought, the human race is less important than I thought. I rejoice in that. My mind loses its urgings, senses its nature, and is free. —Wendell Berry, A Native Hill

A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles. —Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

…our species is merely one small part of the “great economy” that is all of nature, and the ecological humility that our place in nature subsequently requires. —Nick Offerman, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

Wherever a man separates from the multitude and goes his own way, there is a fork in the road, though the travelers along the highway see only a gap in the paling. —Henry David Thoreau

All in all, it was a great trip.

Reflections

My time camping in the Piney Woods was a refreshing experience. I enjoyed the rest and reflection and emerged feeling reinvigorated.

I think the Japanese are onto something here. Forest bathing is a simple but powerful practice that can have a profound impact on many aspects of general wellbeing.

If this sounds like something you might enjoy, I highly recommend doing a bit of forest bathing yourself. It’s a great way to relax, de-stress, and reconnect with nature. If you’re looking to improve your physical and mental health, give it a try.

Additional Thoughts

I am more patient and peaceful when I am out in nature.
I realized I should make more time to relax and recharge.
After the trip I appreciate the simple things in life more, like running water, birds chirping, and the cadence of the pine trees in a gentle wind.
We have our own special ecosystem back home in Sportsman’s Paradise. As a hunter and fisherman myself, I’d like to further my own education so I can be a better steward of our natural resources. I’m looking into becoming certified as a Louisiana Master Naturalist and getting involved in some conservation volunteer work.