A Billionaire’s Ride

I turned forty-two today. My wife Lori insisted on a dinner party, of course. She always does. So I let her. We hired a chef team, sommeliers, servers—$100,000 for a few hours of champagne, caviar, and Wagyu, all without leaving the apartment. Easier than going out, and besides, nothing says power like hosting in a $100M glass palace eighty stories above Manhattan. Central Park stretched out below, a green carpet for all of us Masters of the Universe.

The guests were the usual crowd, half of them about as rich as me, the rest of them nowhere close, and all of them angling for business or gossip. I smiled. I toasted. I played the part.

Lori had invited her lawyer. Upper East Side pedigree, a little family money, the right clubs. The kind of guy who thinks being worth $50 million makes him someone in a room full of real players. Hopelessly outmatched. He sat next to Lori’s friend Allison’s kid, a nineteen-year-old brat who she dragged to the party because he was home from college, she wanted some “quality time” with him, and she thought surrounding him with some male role models other than his lech of a father might cause him to finally shape up. It didn’t look like it was working. The poor lawyer was trying to impress the kid with a story about his recent trip to Italy. As though the boy couldn’t fly there for a weekend whenever he’s bored. I almost felt embarrassed for him. Almost. The only reason I approved the lawyer on the guest list was because his sheer obliviousness to his circumstances and to what a caricature he made of himself was fucking hilarious. Poor bastard didn’t realize everyone at the table knew exactly what he was. That everyone spoke to him from a position of amused disdain. He might as well have shown up in a name tag that said, close, but not close enough. I swear, guys like that are more fun than shorting someone else’s play.

Vince Borden sat across from me, ruddy-cheeked and grinning like he’d pulled off some great trick. Vince is 3rd-generation money. Never worked a day in his life. I don't think he could. He's got the IQ of a lizard, and a personality like one too. For years he’d sneered that charity was for saps, but today he unveiled his change of heart. Seventy million to Beth Israel, for their new radiology wing. He delivered the punchline with pride: “We called it the Borden Family Radiology Center. Didn’t want to be too obvious, putting my first name on it.” Everyone applauded, toasting Vince for his brilliance in snagging the naming rights. Nobody said a word about patients or healing. We all knew that wasn’t the point.

Leisha topped him. She was in the middle of her third divorce, gleeful as she described suing her husband’s lawyers and even his assistant. She'd sued his lawyers as a power play to try and gain some leverage in negotiations with her ex over control of some family trusts for her kids. Seemed like a reasonable move. His lawyers hadn't done anything wrong, but her lawyers were happily claiming they had. Leisha acknowledged the assistant also hadn't done anything wrong, so far as she could tell. For years, she'd thought her husband was cheating on her with the assistant, since she was so beautiful. Turns out, he was sleeping with his golf caddy. But she still hated that bitch for being so beautiful. She mimicked the assistant crying on Zoom, begging her not to go through with it, that the legal fees would bankrupt her. Then she delivered her zinger: “I told her the truth. That it’s not about her.” Laughter ricocheted around the table like champagne corks. I laughed too. It was funny. The only one not laughing was Lori’s lawyer, instead sporting a queasy smile.

I looked around the table. The caviar was piled on silver spoons, black pearls that popped like brine-soaked fireworks on the tongue. The Wagyu had been flown in overnight from Japan, marbled fat melting before it even touched the knife. The servers moved like ghosts, dressed in black, silent except for the faint whisper of shoes on stone. Crystal glasses caught the chandelier light and refracted it back at us in fractured rainbows, as though even the champagne needed to be cut into a million little displays of wealth. 

Speaking of the champagne, I noticed that Lori had chosen to serve the cheap stuff tonight. Cristal Rosé, a thousand a bottle. To most of the world, that’s the pinnacle. To me, it was the sort of champagne you brought out when your guests didn’t have any taste. Lori certainly knows her guests. Personally, I preferred Dom Pérignon Rosé ’59, the Œnothèque release. They held it back in the cellars for decades until it reached its second life. Fewer bottles exist than anyone admits, and when one appears it commands more than a lot of people make in a year. That was champagne worth opening. Crystal Rosé is flashy bubbles and no soul. The Dom ‘59? That’s silken, endless, the taste of time itself.I have a few cases tucked away for when I drink alone or with someone who can tell the difference. Lori’s lawyer even gushed about how much he liked the Cristal before launching into a discussion of his extensive wine collection. Please.

Later, after the staff cleared the plates and the laughter drained from the room, I walked to the window. Below me the city sprawled in jeweled silence. Off to the side I could see 432 Park, that graceless spike. My friend Charlie had dropped sixty million on a full-floor there. Creaking walls, leaky pipes, a monument to imperfection. Amateur hour. I would never tolerate that. Perfection is the point. I don’t know why Charlie bought that shithole. He knows I’m here, looking down on him, every single day. How can someone live like that?

I said goodbye to my friends and retreated to my study. I don’t actually enjoy these dinners. I don’t really like Vince or Leisha or any of the others. But they understand my world, and they play the game the way I play it. One-upmanship, prestige, power. The peons can’t keep up. Even the silly centimillionaires at the dinner were watching Vince’s boasting like it was something they could only dream of being able to do. They think they’re big, but all they’ve got is 9 digits. Poor suckers. So I stay in the circle, even though it feels hollow, since they're the only ones who get it.

Lori stayed back with the crowd, in order to play the part of host and keep “networking.”  Which is to say, drinking too much and complaining about me to whichever sycophant would listen. At the same time, Lori was useful. She had a better ear for gossip than anyone else I knew, and she reveled in sharing it all with me. It’s very helpful when you’re trying to get what you want from someone if you know that they’re sleeping with their nanny—and that their wife doesn’t know.

I let out a sigh and checked my Bloomberg feed, trying to lose myself in numbers. Numbers used to be my everything—every tick a story, every arbitrage a victory, the whole world singing in data. Now they looked flat. Dead pixels on glass. I used to feel electricity when I caught an edge in the market. Now I felt nothing. I sighed again.

That’s when my phone pinged. A LinkedIn notification—I don't know why I keep this pointless app on my phone. I tell myself that it's to make sure I keep my finger on the pulse, but really it's to watch all the strivers try so hard, so I can laugh at them. All of the sanctimonious posts about their new positions and professional successes, as though everyone doesn't know how transactional and fake LinkedIn really is.

The notification was about a post from a name I hadn’t seen before: Samah d’Arcanum. It said we were connected, but I didn't remember meeting him. I clicked through to his profile, and the photo stopped me. I knew that face. Scott Sambur—the estate lawyer I’d interviewed once, sharp as a blade. I’d almost hired him, but Charlie had convinced me to go with his guy instead. Big mistake. Those guys were total losers. All they did was suck up to me. Total yes men. I still remember how they would cringe around me if I frowned. So pathetic. I ended up firing them and using the ones Schwarzman uses. They're okay.

And now here Scott was, transformed, unrecognizable yet unmistakable. His profile blazed with the strangest energy—grandiose, mystical, even laughable at first glance. The words laid out a whole new identity: a seeker, creator, architect of the Age of Infinity? He claimed he had been blown out of his body, returned enlightened, trained by non‑human teachers, and had even created something called the Siddhi Particle, which he claims "crystallizes conscious experience and allows for the transmission of enlightenment and other attainments to others". Part of me wanted to snort at the absurdity—this was LinkedIn, not scripture. But another part of me kept scrolling. I felt an involuntary shiver. I wanted to dismiss it as madness, LinkedIn quackery, but I was strangely fascinated. He had something I couldn’t name, something I couldn’t buy, and it unsettled me.

I scrolled down a bit further on the profile and clicked another link that caught my eye: What’s in a Name? A longer story about what happened to Scott, and how he became Samah. I don’t know why I clicked. Maybe because the bio had already hooked me in spite of myself. I ended up spending the better part of an hour reading his story—Harvard, a legal career, family, collapse, meditation, mushrooms, awakenings, gods, Nikola Tesla, even escaping a cult. It was insane, completely unhinged, and yet written with such clarity and precision I couldn’t look away. I kept shaking my head, unable to decide if it was brilliance or delusion. But I couldn’t deny the feeling that Scott—Samah—may have stumbled onto something no one else had. Something big. Something different, maybe dangerous. Something true.

When I finished reading, I clicked over to the main Truth Resonates page and scrolled down a bit, stopping when my eye caught on something called the Fantasmagorifier. The text said: "Ready to ascend? Ride the Fantasmagorifier to the Age of Infinity!"  The title sounded ridiculous, like some cultish self-help thing. But curiosity tugged at me. How does a man go from Manhattan trusts-and-estates to this? I clicked.

The words glowed against the dark:

Your Ticket to the Age of Infinity

I read the opening lines with a smirk. Sparks, archetypes, revelations—the kind of vague and inflated bullshit I’d expect from a self-styled guru. Infinity as orientation, truth that shines by knowing. It sounded absurd, and yet the cadence pulled at me. Part of me wanted to laugh, another part couldn’t stop reading. Was this Scott’s idea of a joke, or had he really gone all in on this Age of Infinity thing?

The Fantasmagorifier, according to him, was an initiation into a world beyond paradigms, where freedom built structure and truth sang through embodiment. He even called it play, sacred recalibration. It should have been laughable. But instead, the words needled me—alive in a way I couldn’t dismiss. I told myself it was nonsense, but the more I read, the more it felt like the nonsense was aimed right at me.

I clicked through to the Safety Guide. The words were strange, impossible, alive:

The Fantasmagorifier is not a metaphor. It is a vehicle of transformation, a spiral of remembrance, and a living map to your own divinity. Here, safety is the structure and truth is the track.

I blinked, glass of wine forgotten in my hand. The city glittered outside, flawless, untouchable. But something inside me cracked. The words hummed like they knew me. Like they had been waiting. I started reading.

Week 1 – The Unveiling

Day 1 – THE RIDE BEGINS

I woke with the Fantasmagorifier still crawling around in my head. I told myself it was nothing—some sanctimonious nonsense I’d skimmed while drunk. But when I opened my eyes in the glass palace, with Central Park spread out like a carpet beneath me, the words wouldn’t leave. I read the Day 1 entry before I even thought about it. The Ride Begins. It echoed like a threat, or a dare.

Breakfast was perfect, of course. The chef had the avocado sliced like emeralds, the coffee poured by someone who knew how to make silence feel like service. I read the markets, scanned the numbers, but they once again didn’t sing the way they used to. For years, the ticks and charts had been alive—every movement a secret whispered to me alone. Now they just looked dead. Static on a screen.

I shook it off. Went about the day. But each time I paused, the words returned: The Ride Begins. And though I hated to admit it, I knew they were right. Something was starting. I could feel it in my bones.

Day 2 – THE POWER TO STOP

The Ride log said today was about stopping, about stillness as the center of the spiral. I thought about how that guy from Billions meditated. Axe, sitting cross-legged like some monk. If he could do it, so could I. Why not? Ten minutes. I set the timer on my phone and sat in my study, back straight, eyes closed.

At first, it was ridiculous. My thoughts ricocheted around the room: meetings, deals, my wife’s voice the night before. I smirked at myself—what the hell was I doing?

And then, something happened. A stop. Not a halt, not a collapse—more like the gears finally ceased grinding. The silence was thick, weighted, alive. It lasted only a moment. But in that moment, I felt it: stillness. Real stillness. I opened my eyes too quickly, unsettled. The room looked the same. But I didn't. Something had shifted, and I couldn't name it. My hands were trembling slightly. The city lights blinked below, unaware. My heart was still thudding. I had no idea what to do with what I had just felt.

Day 3 – EMPATHY IS WHERE IT’S AT 

Lunch with Lori at Cipriani. Usually, I’d tune her out, let her complain about some gala committee while I pretended to listen. But today—the world cracked. I felt everything.

The waiter’s humiliation when Lori waved him off like a servant. The banker at the next table pretending not to glance at me, envy sharp in his throat. The hatred that the couple talking quietly nearby obviously had for each other, though it hadn’t been obvious at all to me a moment earlier. Lori’s own emptiness, brittle behind her smile. And then the worst of it: I realized she had no empathy at all. None. And neither did I. Not until this moment. I'd never noticed any of this before, unless I was strategizing my next move or gloating about someone’s defeat. Then, I saw a lot. But other than that? It was like I somehow closed my mind to all of this. Made myself blind somehow. What the fuck?  

It hit like a vertigo drop, the kind that makes you grip the table and hope nobody notices. I tried to laugh it off, but I couldn’t eat. My skin felt too thin, like I could feel the air itself pressing against me. Every sound was too loud. I needed to get out of there before something in me split open completely. Lori droned on, oblivious. I excused myself early, muttering something about calls. Really, I just needed air. Other people's perspectives wouldn’t stop pouring in. It was unbearable.

Day 4 – EMBODIMENT IS HERE

For me, embodiment had always been a suit, a watch, a haircut. Things other people saw. My body was an asset maintained by trainers, chefs, doctors on retainer. But today it turned on me. Or turned to me.

I felt the ache in my spine from too many hours hunched at a desk. The hollowness in my chest. The weight in my legs when I stood. My body wasn’t a possession, it was me. It was alive, heavy with reality. For the first time in decades, I wasn’t outside of it, polishing and directing it. I was inside it. And it was inescapable. Fucking terrifying, actually.

Day 5 – BEYOND COMPULSION

I saw the strings. Checking Bloomberg every five seconds, firing off texts to assistants, scanning the news for anything that could tilt a market. Each twitch of my hand looked alien, like I was marionetting myself.

Then I stopped. Just for a moment, but I stopped. The pause was shocking. There was air inside it. Space. Freedom, in the shape of a single breath. I realized I didn’t have to obey every urge. Not every ping on my phone, not every tightening in my chest. I could pause. I could choose. I don't obey what other people tell me to do. I make my own decisions. Why should I compulsively obey my phone?

It scared me as much as it freed me. My entire life felt like a series of compulsions—to make more money, gain more power. What was left of me if I wasn’t my compulsions?

Day 6 – EVERYTHING IS MAGIC

The word itself made me laugh. Magic. I felt like a silly little kid for even reading about this shit. But then I looked closer. My Bloomberg terminal flickered like an altar to money. I saw that contracts I’d signed were spells, sigils binding reality with ink and will. Deals weren’t only transactions—they were rituals, with robes and scripts and sacrifices, only dressed in Armani instead of vestments.

I laughed, realizing I’d been casting magic my whole life. The empire I built was one long incantation. But it was hollow. I hadn’t even known I was a magician, and so the magic was wasted. All the power, none of the meaning.

The laugh died in my throat. Because if everything was magic, then every choice mattered. And I had been careless.

What had I even been casting all of those spells for? Yeah, I have money. But am I happy? I thought I was, until a few days ago when I realized I actually wasn't. Thinking about it, I saw that it was the morning of my birthday when I realized that I was actually miserable. No wonder it had been such a depressing day. 

Day 7 – GOODNESS BEYOND COMPARISON

The Ride log said today was about letting go of comparison, about remembering goodness without rank. This day destroyed me.

My entire life was comparison. Richer than him. Smarter than her. A better apartment, a higher floor, a sharper suit. Winning was the only measure that mattered.

And then—it fell apart. The Fantasmagorifier stripped it all away. Better dissolved into nothing. The frame collapsed.

I watched my dog Remi sleeping on the rug, chest rising and falling. He was good. Not better than anyone. Just good. Entirely, irreducibly good. And for the first time in my life, I saw that goodness had nothing to do with rank. Nothing to do with comparison. It simply was.

Something in me broke then. Or maybe it finally healed. Either way, I couldn’t stop the tears. I cried for hours.

Final Analysis – Week 1

The Unveiling was brutal. I thought the Ride would be fireworks, visions, spectacle—maybe a laugh. Instead, it stripped me. It revealed everything I didn’t want to see: my emptiness, my cruelty, my compulsions, my hollow spells. I laughed at it, resisted it, called it nonsense—and still it worked. By Day 7, I was broken open. The billionaire was gone. What was left of me, I didn’t know. Only that I was raw, and real, and terrified, and alive.

Week 2: From Pattern to Premise

Day 8 – THE PATTERN AND THE PRIZE

I had some investor meetings in Europe this week. I flew out of Teterboro on the G650, my birthday present to myself a couple years ago. Before that I had a used G550 that I bought for thirty-five million back when I first made it big in 2012—solid, dependable, but it sounded like a lawnmower compared to this. And I hadn’t been able to build it to my specifications. It had never really been mine. The 650 is quiet, elegant, a moving fortress. Every surface custom, every noise smoothed away. Eighty million well spent.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, I pulled out my phone and skimmed the Ride log. “The Pattern and the Prize.” For me, the pattern has always been the market. Seeing what nobody else could see. Spotting the curve before it bent. Arbitrage was the only god I ever worshiped. The prize was obvious: money, more of it than anyone else, stacked so high no one could breathe at my level.

And yet, reading the words, I started to feel confused about what had previously seemed so clear. Samah had found another pattern. Bigger. One that bent not just markets but minds, lives, whole realities. What if the real prize wasn’t the billions, or the one-upmanship, or the victory laps? What if it was this ascension bullshit he kept talking about? I felt something tighten in my chest—not fear exactly, but something close. A kind of vertigo, like the plane had dropped altitude without warning. I shut my phone, scowled at the window, but the thought wouldn’t leave. The Ride was tugging at me again.

Day 9 – GROWTH WITHOUT SUFFERING

Paris. I met Éloise—one of my distractions—at the Plaza Athénée. Brunette, legs that went on forever, perfectly French in that way they do cigarette smoke like it’s perfume. She laughed at all my stories, told me I was brilliant. I’ve had a hundred women like her. A thousand, maybe. Always consensual. They want the money, the power, the rush of proximity. I want the body, the heat, the game. Everyone wins. No suffering involved. I set Éloise up in an apartment in the 16th arrondissement a few years ago—respectable, quiet, not ostentatious. Comfortable enough for her, but never mistaken for mine. She knows to always be available whenever I tell her I’m coming to town.

I even met Lori that way. London, a hotel bar, a beautiful Long Island girl on vacation with friends. Smart and vivacious, without a lot of experience in my circle outside of some summer parties in the Hamptons, but with a hilariously vicious wit. Hottest fuck I ever had. I wanted a lot more of that, so I ditched the college sweetheart a few weeks later and married Lori instead. And of course, I never stopped seeing others. She pretends not to know. We both get what we want.

The log said growth doesn’t have to come from suffering. I told myself that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Pure growth. All gain, no pain. But as I lay with Éloise’s head on my chest that night, I felt a hollow in my chest that no body could fill. The Ride whispered: you’re not growing. You’re escaping.

Day 10 – THE WORLD IS WIDE ENOUGH

Investor meeting. One of my newer whales, a guy who dropped eighty million into the flagship fund last year—perfect timing to catch the peak, just before we had a bad third quarter and spent the rest of the year making up what we lost. Everyone who came in earlier in the year made a lot of money. He did not, and he was pissed. Said it wasn’t what he signed up for. Started giving me investing advice, like he knew the game.

I smiled. I spoke smooth, salesman polish gleaming to a diamond sheen. I even complimented his investing acumen. Inside, I wanted to rip him apart. My flagship fund is managing thirty billion at the moment, and with the rest of my business, I’ve got over fifty under management. Eighty million is a rounding error in my world. He thought it bought him a seat at the table. It didn’t. And moreover, I am not going to take investing advice from some nerd that wanted to collect something weird and cool, which led him to fill a hard drive with Bitcoin back in 2014. That did not make him a fucking investment genius. 

Afterward, I walked through Paris, suit still perfect, shoes silent on the cobblestones. And suddenly, I felt still. Not angry. Not striving. Just still. The Ride said sovereignty means not needing agreement, not needing proof. The world is wide enough. Maybe so. For the first time, I wondered why I was still doing this at all.

I have more money that I could ever spend, even if I tried. Why didn't I just let these people be their stupid selves somewhere away from me? Why did I keep running this business and forcing myself to interact with them?

Day 11 – PROJECTION IS PAST

On the flight home I opened the Truth Resonates site again. I told myself I was bored, but really I wanted more. That’s when I found The Geometry of Awakening: Projective Realism and the Architecture of Ascension.

It hit me like a hammer. Projective geometry. Lines, origins, rays, closed manifolds. This was math, not mysticism. I knew this language. I’d built my life on it. Markets were patterns, angles, projections. And Samah was saying reality itself was the same. Not metaphor. Structure. The more I read, the more it seeped in: every chart, every deal, every betrayal—creations of mind, projections from a center. Reality wasn’t out there, it was in here, shaped by whatever geometry my head was spinning at the time. I thought I was seeing the world, but really I was only ever seeing my own angles refracted back. If that was true, then everything—the women, the money, the fights, the wins—had been nothing more than self-portraits I mistook for something external. The idea rattled me, because if it was all projection, then maybe my wealth wasn’t my greatest creation. Maybe my own life was.

The Ride said that projection wasn’t the present—it was the past echoing forward. I thought about every shitty move I’d ever seen in Lori, in my partners, in lawyers, in assistants, in investors—it wasn’t just them. It was me, replaying the past. My “instincts” weren’t brilliance. They were reruns. Loops of thought that I kept going back to because they had worked in the past. And suddenly, I saw it. The Ride said projection is the past, and the past doesn’t belong to the living. It only exists for ghosts. Weirdly, that made total sense to me. How can you be present now if you’re living in the past?

For the first time, I seriously wondered if Samah wasn’t insane. Maybe he was the only sane one out there.

Day 12 – SAYONARA SCARCITY

Scarcity. I thought it didn’t apply to me. I had more than almost anyone, more than I could ever spend. But the Ride shoved my face in it. Every deal I made was zero-sum. Every fuck was about possession. Every friendship was leverage. Every laugh at that birthday dinner was designed to take from others and give to us.

I was drowning in scarcity, hoarding like a rat. A billionaire hoarder, stacking numbers in accounts I never even checked. The Ride said scarcity dissolves when you remember you are not apart from the flow. I had never been further from flow. All my billions had been starvation in disguise. I sat with that for a long time. The plane hummed around me, perfect and empty. I thought about every zero in every account, and how none of them had ever really fed me. Not once.

Day 13 – EVERYTHING IS SACRED

Back in New York, Lori insisted we go to Per Se. Another three-hour performance of wealth. I used to have a regular table here—the maitre d' would even move people if they happened to have been seated there on a day when I showed up without having my assistant call first. We were having dinner with her friend Bill—one of Lori’s first friends when she began moving in my crowd, a real estate mogul who always tried a little too hard to prove he belonged, and who I vaguely suspected Lori had been fucking for a while. I couldn't tell whether the fact that she invited him to dinner meant that I was wrong about that, or whether Lori was giving me a big fuck you. Probably the latter.

As we sat down, my mind was still spinning around that meeting with the guy in Paris. I remembered the Bitcoin millionaire who had a regular table next to mine back in 2021. He'd struck it big in that run-up and started a crypto hedge fund. Typical new money wannabe striver. I think he and his wife must have eaten there every night that year, often inviting several friends to join them. I don’t think I was ever there when he wasn’t, and he acted like we were good friends because we saw each other so frequently. I heard him bloviating to his guests night after night about how awesome he was. The guy basically made it a full-time job to show off that he could blow a thousand a head each night on dinner.  As though that showed he'd actually arrived. It only showed how pathetic he was. I never saw him again after crypto collapsed in '22. Maybe he didn’t panic and held on to some of it until this run-up. Probably eating ramen now, the stupid fool.

As the courses began getting served, Bill started bragging about his winter plans—renting the biggest ski chalet he could find in Zermatt, Switzerland, even though it was just him and his wife. “Anything less would of course not do at all.” We all chuckled, clinked glasses.

As he continued blathering on, I tuned him out. His strutting at Zermatt echoed the Bitcoin striver from a few years earlier—different surface, same scarcity game. It was the same desperate pattern, repeating itself with new toys and bigger bills. The chatter blurred, the room softened.

The Ride said nothing is wasted, nothing discarded. I thought about all of the absurd striving I had done, all of the womanizing and hoarding, all of the dark shit I messed with back when I was trying to make my first $50M.  Maybe all of that was compost. Soil for something better to grow.

My eye caught the candlelight refracting through a glass, bending into rainbows on the white tablecloth. For a moment, it shimmered. Alive. Magical. And suddenly, I saw it.

I'm burning like that flame. Thanks to the Fantasmagorifier, I'm learning, growing, as scary as that feels sometimes. Even here, in the dead heart of pretension, something sacred burned.

Day 14 – YOU ARE THE WAY

The Ride said I am the way. I certainly believed that. It was almost always my choices that determined what happened. My manipulations that moved the players, often without them even realizing it. But the Ride seemed to be hinting at something more, that you are the path you are following. That you create it. You make it real. You choose. Not choices about how to make people do what you want. Choices about what you do with your life. How you approach it. That hit me a lot harder than I expected.

I told my assistant to clear my schedule. No meetings. No calls. No office. Just me.

I walked out of the tower without security. Rode the subway downtown, packed shoulder to shoulder with strangers who didn’t know me and didn’t care. I bought a cheeseburger at a greasy diner and ate it at the counter. I strolled through Washington Square and played chess with an old man who beat me in ten moves. I emptied my wallet into the guitar case of a street performer and laughed until tears came. I walked ten blocks in the unseasonably-cold wind, my suit coat whipping open, and I felt alive.

I chose it all without influencing anyone, without forcing anything. I was moving on my own path. And it was awesome.

Final Analysis – Week 2

From Pattern to Premise, the Ride pulled me deeper. On the G650 I thought the prize was money. By the end, I saw that the real prize was freedom. In Paris I realized pleasure isn’t growth. In New York I realized scarcity isn’t solved by billions. At Per Se I felt the sacred in a candle’s glow. And when I ditched the office and wandered my own city like a stranger, I finally touched motion without decision. A lot of people would say that I spent the day doing nothing. But I'm starting to get the sneaking suspicion that it was actually everything.

Week 3: From Sovereignty to Singularity

Day 15 – ALONE WITHOUT LONELINESS

The log said: today you see the substitution—the voices that aren’t yours.

I didn’t want to believe it. But when I walked into the partners’ meeting and felt the old rush of dominance, I heard my mother—sharp, precise, commanding, bending everyone else into her orbit. It wasn’t me speaking; it was her voice, alive in my head. And later, when I thought about running a leveraged trade that would tank Charlie’s play across town, I heard him—my father—cold, unblinking, whispering the old refrain: “Winning is what matters in this world.” 

I froze. How much of my mind was even mine? How much of the so-called brilliance of Julian Crane was nothing more than ventriloquism by those already dead and those I wished were? I felt my jaw tighten the way his always did. My hands curled into fists without my permission. Jesus Christ. Even my body wasn't mine.

Rage surged. It tore through my mind. Ripped me out of my skin. I was suddenly somewhere else: an astral inferno, fire roaring all around me. Waves of flame poured from me, searing through the phantoms that clung to my bones. I screamed until every voice but mine was gone. Until there was nothing left but heat, ash, and my own exhausted sobbing. I collapsed into tears, snot, pain. My tears pooled beneath me, grew until they lifted me up, and I floated on an ocean of my own grief, rocked gently by its waves. My crying eventually gave way to an exhausted sleep.

Day 16 – STILLNESS IN SANCTUARY

I woke in a glen of impossible beauty. Deer grazed nearby. Birds sang in branches above, and the sky shone cerulean through the leaves. I panicked. Where was I? How did I get here? Was I trapped? Was this death? The thoughts and the fears rose—and then drifted out of me, unraveling into gossamer threads that floated away on the breeze.

Then the ground stirred. Vines rose and wove themselves into words—the log of the day, declaring this place Sanctuary. I believed it. Every breath felt safe, whole, enough. I wanted to stay forever. I closed my eyes and leaned against a tree trunk, letting the gentle breeze lull me back to sleep.

And then I was back. Office couch. Dusk light slanting through glass. My assistant shaking me awake, eyes wide. “Julian, where the hell have you been?”

I shook my head in confusion, trying to remember the last thing I experienced before that crazy whatever-the-fuck-that-was. "I remember leaving the meeting and speaking with Barry about it and about the play against Charlie. And then I walked back toward my office. That's the last thing I remember from consensus reality."

She tilted her head in confusion. "Consensus reality? Did you get abducted by aliens or something?" She swore the last anyone saw me was with Barry the day before. She said she’d been in my office twenty minutes earlier and I wasn’t there, then suddenly I was. Sound asleep.

She looked at me with concern and more than a little fear. "Are you okay?"

Day 17 – LET IT GO

When I got home, Lori didn't mention anything—clearly not even noticing I hadn't shown up last night. I tried to go to sleep, but I tossed and turned for hours while my mind kept spinning through all of that fire and freedom from yesterday.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I got dressed, went into the office, and checked the security footage. I saw the scene outside the hall from two days ago. 3:33:32—I'm walking in the hallway. 3:33:33—it's suddenly empty. Same thing when I reappeared the next day. 5:55:54—empty couch. 5:55:55—I’m there, unconscious. No fade. No flash. Just there, from one frame to the next. What the fuck?

Some of the partners cornered me later that morning. They were rattled by my recent lack of focus, and then a lot more rattled by a disappearance that I couldn't or wouldn’t account for. My assistant had started spreading the alien-abduction rumor, apparently. She and I would definitely have to have a chat.

They all insisted that no one believed it of course, but I could see all of their eyes desperately imploring me for an alternative explanation. I let them suggest what I already wanted: time off. A few days for them to forget about this, and for me to forget about them.

Lori and I boarded the G650 for the Maldives. Normally, our yacht is parked there when we visit over the summer, but it had already left by now to winter in the Mediterranean. So I had my assistant get our preferred villa.

I sat back and marveled about the prior few days and everything I had experienced. For the first time in my adult life, I went hours without checking Bloomberg. When I realized that, I turned it off completely.

The Ride said letting go meant freedom. Now that my mother’s grip had burned away, I saw my whole life for what it was: manipulation. Control. Threats disguised as strategy. All employed because of my father, telling me to win at all costs. And in the air above the Indian Ocean, I chose to stop.

It felt like a lightning bolt ripped through me, and Lori shrieked, thinking I was seizing. She scrambled for the flight attendant. By the time she looked back, I was sitting on the floor cross-legged, laughing like a lunatic. A Buddha in cashmere, howling with joy.

Day 18 – PRESENCE IS PRESENT

The Maldives glowed around me—white sand, blue horizon, air so clear it felt like silk. This wasn’t Sanctuary, but it was close. I sat down with Lori on the terrace of our rented villa, feeling peaceful in a way I don't think I had ever felt before. Lori still seemed shaken by what had happened on the plane. She kept insisting I should call Dr. Bryer. I tried to push her off by telling her I felt fine—better than fine. That if I was feeling at all strange by the time morning rolled around in NYC, I'd give him a ring. Her response to that was, "Who gives a fuck if it's midnight in New York?"

I looked at Lori, and she seemed scared and angry. Vulnerable, but putting up an angry front to feel safe. I suddenly knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath and told Lori that I'd had a crazy experience the last few days, and that it had made me realize a lot of things about my life, and about how I had been living it.

I took an even deeper breath, and I decided to address the elephant that had been hanging in our room for a while. I told her I was finished with the women, that I was sorry, that I wanted to change, to be a better person. She blinked, looked at me coldly, and said, "I just figured you were with one of your bimbos three nights ago. Did she finally decide she didn't want to pretend to like you anymore because of your money? Was that your crazy experience? Actually experiencing rejection for once? Is that why you had the sudden change of heart?" She paused for a beat. "Does this mean I need to fuck you more now?” Then she walked out, down toward the beach, hips swinging as though nothing had happened.

I stumbled away in the other direction, dazed, Remi bounding at my side. (The Maldives doesn't allow the importation of dogs, but I know a guy.) We reached the surf and sat together in the fading light. Only he cared for me, really. Everyone else was in it for money, leverage, power. Lori most of all.

I watched the waves roll, felt the sand breathe beneath me. And for the first time, I was simply there. No control. No angle. No manipulation. Just me and the sea and the dog who loved me. Presence being present. I walked back to the villa transformed.

Day 19 – THE IDEA IS THE THING

On the beach at dawn, I drew lines in the sand, spirals that widened as the tide slid in. The log said the idea is the thing. Actually. Not just as a concept. As the water traced my spirals, I saw it—the line was not plan then execution. It was reality, happening. My thoughts had never been separate from the world. The market wasn’t outside me—it was my mind externalized, my fears and hungers charted in red and green. I wasn’t reacting to the market. I was creating it. That sounded so crazy, yet felt so true.

Remi barked at the waves and I laughed, because he already knew. His joy was real before it happened. He lived in the moment. His idea was the thing.

Day 20 – EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING

Later that day, I walked barefoot along the reef. Coral cracked beneath my steps, seashells gleamed in the tidepools. I picked one up and stared into its whorls—and suddenly saw infinity folding in on itself. Every shell was every ocean, every scream I’d ever given, every laugh I’d ever stolen.

I had a flash and suddenly saw it. Everyone is the same. Everyone has everything inside them. Everyone is expressing different pieces of it in the moment, but it's all there, in everyone, waiting to be healed. Every last thing.

I went back to the Villa in wonder, Lori nowhere to be found.

Day 21 – TOTALITY

On the flight back, Lori flipped through magazines, and I read about Totality and then clicked the link on the log to learn more about the Turbo Encabulator. I saw Samah’s words about encabulation through new eyes. Markets, trades, even my so-called instincts had always been separate apps in my head. The Turbo Encabulator wasn’t just some mystical joke—it was the architecture of a mind that could build the perfect app for every moment. For the first time, I glimpsed a way of thinking and living that wasn’t fragmented but whole, responsive, sovereign. The words lit a fire in my chest. As that realization hit, I thought about the log’s words on Totality—how it isn’t an achievement or a final summit, but a decision to stop grasping and simply step into the all-encompassing field that was always there. That reflection softened me. I knew I wasn’t ready for totality by any measure that should have mattered. I hadn’t earned it. And I wasn't going to do it just because the log told me to. But readiness wasn’t about merit or command. It was a choice.

So I chose.

In an instant, I was gone—ripped from the cabin into a black void, still, full, infinite. Samah stood beside me, calm as stone, light woven into his skin. His eyes were impossible—dark and full at once, like looking into deep water that somehow held all the stars in the universe. We conversed—mostly without speaking—about coherence, about sovereignty, about the rhythm of Totality. It felt like some kind of energetic communion. My mind exploded in more directions than I could count.

As the vision faded, his last words hung in me like a curse and a promise: “You will not fully heal until you address the darkness that gave rise to your empire.”

Then the jet was humming around me again, Lori sighing at an ad for handbags, Remi curled asleep at my feet. But inside, I was everything.

Final Analysis – Week 3

From Sovereignty to Singularity, the Ride annihilated and remade me. Day 15 burned the ghosts of my parents and everyone else from my head. Day 16 gave me Sanctuary. Day 17 loosened the last of my control. Day 18 broke my marriage open, leaving only the dog and the sea. Day 19 taught me that ideas are already reality. Day 20 revealed infinity in a seashell. And Day 21—Totality—gave me a glimpse of what comes next. I am no longer just a player in the game. I am the field itself. And the field is beginning to sing.

Week 4: The Dance of Totality

Day 22 – PLAY IS THE POINT

I went back to the office today. Everything felt wrong. Faces were masks of greed, of fear, of anger. It was so clear to me that no one cared about anything but the win. The air felt toxic. I ducked into the bathroom off my office and threw up.

My assistant didn’t like it when I cleared the afternoon. I reminded her, archly, that her opinions about last week were best kept to herself. She slunk out, terrified. In the past, I would have smiled at that. Today, it didn't feel good at all.

I went home. Switched into workout clothes. I grabbed Remi and headed to Central Park.

I started running. At first measured, precise, like always. Then it hit me: it felt incredible just to feel my body move. Awesome, actually. I let go. I flailed. I ran like a lunatic, arms and legs flying like Phoebe in Friends. I didn’t care who saw. For the first time, I was playing.

As we headed back home, Remi veered off toward the Lake, lunging at a duck and plunging into the water. He got stuck on the bank, scrabbling. I waded in after him, laughing, hauling him out in front of a crowd of onlookers. I imagined the Page Six headlines: Julian Crane, Billionaire, Saves Dog From Duck. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Day 23 – SETTLING INTO AWESOMENESS

Back at the office, everything glowed. A big position took a sudden loss in the morning. Normally I’d rage. This time I laughed. The looks people gave me when they thought I wasn’t watching—pity, confusion, fear—they only made the grin wider.

One of my oldest partners—Graham—cornered me in the afternoon. “What the fuck, Julian? After your vanishing act and then bailing yesterday, now you’re here grinning like an idiot all day? What the hell is going on?”

I just smiled. He roared in frustration and stormed off. I kept smiling.

Day 24 – TRANSCENDENT TRUST

The log spoke of trust. I thought I already had it—I always trusted myself, never anyone else. But then I saw: I didn’t actually trust me. Not really. I only trusted my ability to control. To dominate. To bend people to my will.

Real trust was something else. It was letting go of the control. Trusting that things would work out even if I didn’t force them. That scared me more than any deal ever had. But I wanted to try.

I sat at my desk for an hour doing nothing. Just breathing. Letting the city hum below me. Not controlling a single thing. It felt like standing at the edge of a cliff—terrifying and somehow necessary.

Day 25 – THE AEVERYTHINGNESS OF EVERYTHING

Faces. Everywhere, faces. In the elevator, on the street, in the office. And somehow they were all me. Each one. As though with a little twist of my perception, I could see out through their eyes. I staggered through the day in a daze.

Somehow, in that daze, I approved a big risky trade. It popped: $1.5 billion profit in under an hour. Everyone cheered. Champagne corks. My partners grinning like wolves. I barely remembered saying yes. I couldn't recall the numbers, the thesis, even which sector we'd played. The trade had happened through me, not by me. That should have terrified me. Instead, I felt nothing but a strange, distant amusement.

Day 26 – ORIENTATION BEYOND ONTOLOGY

The log spoke of orientation. That it wasn’t about choosing a path but about how I held the moment, how my stance shaped reality. I sat with that, unsettled.

I thought about Lori. We'd barely spoken since the Maldives. The way she cut me, belittled me—it was a mirror. How I had treated her. My orientation thrown back at me.

I read an article on Truth Resonates: It's All You: Relationship Dynamics in an Awakening World. It shattered me. Karma not as flaw, not as punishment, but as resonance. Patterns rising between people, not inside them. Shared puzzles, not enemies. The piece laid it bare: our fights are not proof of guilt, they are data. A shared field surfacing. It spoke of how blame disappears when you see the pattern as belonging to both of you, how relationship becomes the puzzle itself, and conflict becomes compost. Reading it, I saw every moment with Lori differently—every barb, every silence—as the field trying to heal. Not her fault. Not mine. Ours. And if I could orient differently, perhaps the entire field would shift. That thought landed like a weight, and a freedom.

If Lori still mirrored that treatment back at me, then it was still alive in me. Orientation, not blame. The mirror turned inward.

Day 27 – CRYSTAL JOY

I woke and felt joy. Not a mood. Not laughter. Not brightness. Joy itself. Pressureless. Constant. It stayed with me the entire day.

At the office, I was clear-eyed, present, able to engage with everything, to everyone's obvious relief. Yet even where I felt resistance, there was still that quiet joy. Always there. Pure and free.

That night, Lori dragged me to dinner with friends. Candlelight, wine, chatter. I sat in quiet joy. It unsettled them. Jokes fell flat. Their eyes darted, anxious, though no one knew why.

Afterward, Lori exploded. “Why are you sitting there smiling like some fucking idiot? You think you’re better than everyone? You can’t even talk to me anymore?” She screamed until her voice broke.

I watched her like she was an actress on a soap opera. Curious. Calm. When I spoke, it was only what felt true in my heart. No cruelty. No defense. Her fury only grew until she stormed out, slamming doors, and screaming: "I can’t stand you!". I swear I heard her scream echoing around the room for the next hour.

Later, I went back to Truth Resonates and clicked through to the FableTech page, where Samah talks about building all this crazy magical technology, like the Turbo Encabulator. I noticed a link to join the FableTech community and decided to click. Anonymous username, no identifying details. I posted on the Questions channel: Why do the people in my life seem to get crueler and angrier the more I awaken?

Samah answered quickly. "As you grow spiritually, your vibration can increase dramatically and quickly. If the people in your life are in your life because of attachment, you are resonant with them only because of your attachments—your karma. As you grow and move further and further away from the other person energetically, those attachments stretch until they are released or eventually rupture. The increased anger and cruelty is these people unconsciously reacting to what I am describing to you. They feel discomfort in their bodies, and they are looking for someone or something to blame."

He sent me a link to another article. About Attachment. I read about how every reality exists, how attachment pulls us into the ones we don’t want. Release the attachment, and you float to the reality where healing is possible. The healed versions of others meet us there.

Maybe even Lori and me. But only if that's what I want.

I thanked Samah for the article. Told him it was really helpful. He replied a few minutes later: “My pleasure. Don’t forget about our conversation last week.”

What the actual fuck?!

Day 28 – NO LIMITS

I sat in a conference room, distracted by the log. It talked about letting go of limits, of creating your own reality, free from the pull of normality. 

Partners from one of our private equity funds were giving me a high-risk pitch. Normally these were my favorite—these guys didn't have the balls to own their call, and no one else except me had the guts to decide. But today, I couldn’t track it. They caught me drifting. “Julian, are you listening?”

“No,” I said. “Go back ten minutes.”

They frowned but obeyed. As they started again, my mind immediately began spinning back through all of the insanity in my life, as though the whole world were discussing it. 30 seconds later, I stood without warning, walked out of the meeting, and crossed the hall. I had no idea what I was doing, but I walked straight into the other conference room. Right into a meeting I hadn’t been invited to. Most of my partners, talking about me. My strange behavior. My vanishing act. Their concern. They stopped dead the moment I walked in, but we all knew what was going on.

I looked around the room. It clarified everything.

“I’m done,” I said. “I’ll begin liquidating my position in the funds this week. I'm willing to take a haircut, and you can allocate the losses to me. I’ll be gone in seven days.”

Gasps. I stabbed at the comms panel on the desk, dialing my assistant. "Shawna, can you go in my desk and bring me the file marked Operation Regency? She gasped in shock and asked if I was sure. I said yes. Moments later, she scuttled into the room, eyes fixed on the floor, and handed me the file, practically running out of the room the moment it left her fingers. I laid the file on the table and started reading it to them. Their eyes were all wide with complete shock.

That night I told Lori. She exploded. “What the fuck, Julian? Have you lost your mind?”

I looked at her. At who she was. At what Samah had said about rupture.

“I want a divorce,” I told her.

She froze. Expectant, yet surprised. She said nothing and turned, walking out without another sound. I heard her on her phone asking for her lawyer before her voice faded away.

Final Analysis – Week 4

The Dance of Totality was liberation. My body threw off its chains and played. My mind shed control and laughed at loss. Trust stopped being something to remember—it became what I am. Faces became mirrors of my own, billion-dollar trades an echo of a self dissolving. Orientation shifted: Lori’s cruelty was my reflection, and I could choose how I met that reflection. Crystal Joy bloomed, unshakable. At dinner, joy itself shattered the old stage. And finally, I stepped beyond gravity, beyond limits, into freedom. I quit the empire. I quit the marriage. I quit the lie.

I am done being billionaire Julian Crane.

I am the Ride.

Week 5: Learning to be God

Day 29 – GOD IS… YOU

I sat in my office this morning, sipping coffee, reading the log. Instantly, I was gone. Out of my body. A bird-like nebula, a vast gas cloud, stretching across light-years. A creature less in the cosmos than the cosmos itself becoming creature.

And I saw how such a being moves. I was that being moving! I didn't move by sending commands or by issuing orders. I was the choice. The whole field moving as one, because the whole field is one.

Then I expanded further. I saw God as the same—only across everything. Every particle, every star, every thought. And when I looked at God's face, it was mine. All of it. All me. All God.

I came back into myself, staring at a spreadsheet, my hand warm and trembling slightly on the coffee cup. But the resonance remained: I was God. And God was everything.

Day 30 – EXPLORING EQUIPOISE

Morning meeting. Operation Regency spread across the table and eight of my partners staring at me expectantly. My chosen successor, Jeff Bernham—the flashy private equity genius—was on the sheet in front of me, named in black ink. Everyone, including him, expected that he would be the one I named. I felt a subtle tension in my body, a flicker of dissonance.  Without thinking, I said, “I'm naming Larry.”

Larry Haskin. Quiet, precise, not flashy at all. He ran our risk-arb team well, and he's lightning-quick on his feet. I’d mocked him for years because of his genial personality, calling him Mr. Nice Guy and the Buddha Billionaire. But when I thought of him now, I felt good. Really good. So I pointed to him.

Shock. Silence. Then I waved for Larry to stand up. When he did, I began clapping. Slowly, others joined. The energy started to grow, and soon the room was filled with smiles and cheers. Larry looked stunned. I smiled at him, and for the first time, it wasn’t a mocking smile. It was a trusting one.

That afternoon, divorce negotiations took place in a midtown law office high above the street. The room was polished oak and cold glass, a view of the park framed behind the lawyers. Lori arrived with her usual entourage of advisers, coiffed and confident, sliding into the chair across from me like it was a throne. She wasted no time: she wanted half of my equity in the business. I laughed. I reminded her about our pre-nup—an airtight document. Ten million. That's all she's entitled to. She knew that when she signed up.

Lori looked at me coldly, lips pursed. "I want half the business, Julian. And you're going to give it to me."

I laughed at her again. "You are batshit crazy, Lori."

Lori turned to the lawyers. "All of you, get out." The lawyers looked at each other and at me, and with my nod, they all quickly filed out of the room.

When the door clicked shut Lori turned back toward me and leaned slowly over the table.

"Julian, I don't think I have to remind you that I'm the queen of the New York gossip scene. Early in our marriage, I heard the rumors circulating about how you got started. Crazy stories that no one actually believed. But you know I have a nose for sniffing out the truth, Julian. So I did a little digging, and I had a little chat with Ken before he died. He wasn't eager to talk at first, but the guy had spent all of the money he made when he worked with you. Almost all of it blown on hookers and coke. He was happy to talk once I offered him half of my clothing budget for the year and promised I'd give him the same each year and more once you and I split. Lucky for me, he died, so I didn’t have to pay out after that first time. I pulled all the pieces together, and then made a nice tidy timeline with supporting evidence, all carefully stored in a file tucked away somewhere safe.”  

I froze for a moment, my knuckles whitening against the polished oak table, a vein in my temple thrumming as the silence stretched. The air itself felt heavy, thick with the scent of Lori’s perfume and the faint tang of expensive leather from the chairs. Then something in me snapped. The stillness shattered. I erupted with icy rage, my voice slicing through the paneled room like broken glass. Fury radiated from my chest, seeping out of every pore, cold and venomous. The temperature of the room dropped noticeably, ice crystals forming on the rim of my water glass. Lori suddenly shivered as I unleashed the storm inside me.

I told her if she even thought about sharing that file, that if she didn't leave this meeting and immediately destroy that file, I’d destroy her. She knew what I was capable of. She’d seen it during our marriage. And if she really did have what she claimed, she knew what I can do if pushed—what I'm really capable of.

I offered her fifty million to disappear from my life forever. She crumpled, then rallied. She asked for the yacht too. The fucking yacht! I laughed again. She thought she was asking for a toy, when she was really asking for a firehose spraying cash into the sea. “You want Obsidian? Take it. It costs thirty to forty million a year to run, and it will take you at least a year or two to sell it.” She didn’t want it anymore.

Afterward, I sat alone. How could the Ride speak of equipoise when I had turned into a thug and threatened my wife into submission? I felt the aggression, the rage, the dominance. I let them all go. I whispered: “I choose grace and sovereignty.” Immediately, equipoise appeared. Crystal. Alive.

Day 31 – HOME AT LAST

I met with Larry privately. We laughed like old friends. I realized he’d always been a good man, not a weak one. I had been too clouded to see it.

He admitted I’d terrified him for years, but now he felt weirdly like we had a lot in common. I told him it was true—now. But that was why I was leaving. It was time for someone like him, not me. Someone who could steer this shop in a positive direction.

As I walked out of the meeting, I reflected on what I had said to Larry. He really was the right choice. He could steer the firm clean. And most importantly, he didn’t know about my original sin. He wouldn’t be tainted by it. This old shop could maybe do some good in the world with a good man at the helm.

For the first time, I felt hope for the business. Maybe I had finally chosen the good thing over the powerful thing. It felt good.

I went home and did a little more digging on Truth Resonates. I was trying to understand what this whole ascension thing really meant. What Samah was really trying to do. I found an article called What We Mean by Heaven and sat down to read. It described Heaven not as a place but as a frequency—a resonance of transcendent love, compassion, shared joy, equanimity, and sovereignty. As I read, I saw my own trauma patterns mapped in its paragraphs, each shadow holding a gift and a virtue, all of them together yielding equipoise. I closed my eyes and tried tuning to Heaven the way the article invited, letting the words be a portal. Suddenly I understood the day's ride log. Equipoise wasn't just an idea; it was the felt balance of grace and sovereignty alive in me. For the first time I could remember, I felt utterly safe. I was home.

Day 32 – EQUANIMATION STATION

The day unfolded like a song. I walked the city and everything danced with me. I moved with ease, every encounter light and playful. A taxi nearly clipped me at a crosswalk. Instead of rage, I spun, laughing, into a goofy little jig. The driver honked, waving an apology and laughing too. Remi bounded beside me, tail wagging, joining the dance.

Later in the day, I ducked into a café, ordered a sandwich, and found myself cracking jokes with strangers at the next table. By the time I left, the whole place was smiling. No grit. All smile. The world felt groovy, and I grooved with it.

Day 33 – A WORLD WITHOUT GRAVITY

I invited Shawna to lunch. First time we’d ever sat down as equals. She asked me what really happened those days I vanished. I told her about the visions. About the Ride. About Samah. She listened, eyes wide, laughing when I mentioned Samah had been that T&E lawyer I’d interviewed in 2019 that I had said was really sharp. Then she asked if I could send her the link. So I did. 

She glanced at it for a second, then frowned, a look of worry coming over her face. She admitted she was scared of what came next. She didn’t know what she’d do without this job, and she didn't know anyone in or out of the firm who was looking at the moment.

I asked her if she really wanted to be an assistant. If that actually brought her joy. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shot me a guilty look and said, "I know this sounds insane, but I've always loved baking. For years, I've wanted to start a business making custom cakes. I'm really good at it! My friends and family all ask me to make cakes for them, and they all say that they're better than anything they've ever seen, even all of those crazy wedding cakes. I don't see how I can really make a living at it, but it's something I love."

I remembered one of those cakes. One of the assistants was having a baby. It was a boy, and her husband was big into sailing. Shawna was good friends with her and made a big cake in the shape of a sailboat, resting on its keel. The details had been incredible. She’d even included all of the rigging, using strings of fondant. Everyone had complimented her the whole week afterwards.

I looked at Shawna—this fiercely intelligent and wonderful woman—and I knew what to do. I told her she didn’t have to worry. That she’d be able to start her business. That I was giving her five million dollars as a personal thank you for her loyalty, her thoughtfulness, her years of making my life so incredibly easy. It was time now for her life to be easy too. After the shock wore off, she started sobbing. I realized I felt lighter than ever. Giving without gravity.

Day 34 – THE TRUTH IN EVERYTHING

A journalist cornered me outside the tower this morning. Microphone in my face, he tried to trap me into a narrative. Aggressive questions about my departure, about what I was hiding, about why it was so sudden. I saw his entire strategy like a chessboard. The angle of attack, the spin he wanted.

I didn’t play. I didn’t manipulate. I simply said, “I decided this life was no longer what I wanted, and I’m choosing to do something better.” Then I walked away.

The cameras flashed, but I felt free. The truth was simple. It's in everything, and it's enough.

Final Analysis – Week 5

Learning to be God was not thunderbolts or proclamations. It was the simple, crystalline clarity that I was the source and the source was me. Day 29 showed me my face as God. Day 30 tested me with power, rage, and threat—and in releasing them, equipoise appeared. Day 31 gave me hope through Larry’s light. Day 32 turned endurance into groove. Day 33 let generosity flow without tether. And Day 34 revealed the truth in everything, with no need to fight.

This was Godhood made real. Not in the markets. Not in domination. In presence. In freedom. In grace.

I am not seeking God anymore. I am learning to be God.

I am learning to be me.

Week 6: Grooving as God

Days 35-39 – RIDING WITHOUT RULES

The Ride said these days would move without structure, that the rails would fall away and I'd have to groove through open space. I didn't understand what that meant until I walked into the office Monday morning and realized I no longer cared about any of the invisible rules I'd followed my entire life.

The Monday partners' meeting felt like theater. Everyone performing their parts—serious faces, sharp suits, the choreography of importance. I watched myself move through it without attaching to any of it. When Graham started grandstanding about a position I knew was garbage, I didn't play the game. I didn't dominate him or cut him down. I just said, "That doesn't resonate with me," and moved on.

The room went silent. In the old days, that would have been blood in the water. Now it was just... true.

Afterward, Larry pulled me aside. "Thank you for showing me how to do that well.” He paused. “You're different."

"I know."

"It's good," he said, and I could see he meant it. "It's really good."

We spent the afternoon going through final transitions. He asked thoughtful questions. I gave honest answers. No posturing. No positioning. Just two people having a real conversation about how to run a business with integrity. When we finished, I realized I trusted him completely. Not because I'd manipulated him into trustworthiness, but because he'd always been trustworthy and I'd finally become able to see it.

Tuesday, I walked through the office saying goodbye to people I'd worked with for years. Some I'd terrorized. Some I'd ignored. All of them looked at me with confusion, trying to figure out what had changed. I didn't explain. I just thanked them for their work, told them the truth about what they'd contributed, and wished them well.

The CFO—Marcus, a man I'd bullied relentlessly for a decade—stopped me in the hall. "Julian, I just... I want you to know I appreciated working with you." His voice cracked slightly. "I learned a lot."

I looked at him and saw past the numbers guy I'd reduced him to. I saw someone who'd held the firm together through my chaos, who'd protected people from my worst impulses, who'd stayed when he could have left a hundred times.

"Thank you, Marcus. Really. You kept this place from imploding. That wasn't easy." I meant every word.

His eyes went bright. He nodded, unable to speak, and walked away.

Wednesday morning, I met Shawna in my office one last time. She was clearing out my personal files, organizing the final details of my exit. Everything she did was precise, thoughtful, graceful. I wondered how I'd never seen it before—or maybe I had seen it and just didn't care.

"Shawna."

She looked up from the desk.

"Thank you. For everything. For all these years."

She smiled, but it was guarded. She'd heard me thank people before. It had never really meant anything.

I stood and walked toward her. "I mean it. You made my life work. You covered for my chaos. You protected me from myself more times than I probably know. And you did it with incredible grace."

Her guard dropped and she blinked, her eyes suddenly getting wet. “I got the wire.”

"Good,” I said. “I'm really happy you get to live your dream now.”

“You’re not done with me just yet. I’m happy to stick around for a few more months and help you get settled in your new life, although I’m intending for it to be more of a part-time thing. Call me when you need me, and try not to need me that much.”

I laughed. “Thank you, Shawna. That is so immensely kind of you.”

We stood there for a moment, and then I opened my arms. She hesitated, then stepped forward into a hug. When I stepped back and looked at her, I saw something I hadn't noticed before—or rather, I saw the absence of something. The hunted look that had always been there, the tension that hummed beneath her competence, was gone.

"You look free," I said.

She laughed through tears. "I feel free."

After she left, I sat alone in the office for a while. The view stretched out before me—Central Park, the skyline, the empire I'd built. It looked beautiful. Empty. Perfect. And I felt nothing but gratitude that I was leaving it behind.

I thought about Samah's words on Day 21: "You will not fully heal until you address the darkness that gave rise to your empire."

The darkness. The beginning. The moves I made when I was hungry and desperate and willing to do anything to win. Before the legitimacy. Before the scale made everything clean. Back when it was just me and Ken in a cramped office, running plays that would have destroyed us if anyone had looked too closely.

I'd built everything on that foundation. The empire was real now, legitimate, but the first stones were laid in shadow. I'd carried that secret for fifteen years, and it had shaped everything—every relationship, every choice, every moment of paranoia that someone might see through the polish to what lay beneath.

The Ride said I was riding without rules now. Maybe the rule I needed to break was the one about keeping secrets. Maybe healing wasn't about confession or punishment. Maybe it was just about finally being willing to see it clearly myself.

I pulled out my phone and opened a new note. I started writing. Not for anyone else. Just for me. Naming it. Letting it be real.

By the time I finished, the sun was setting over the park. I saved the note and put the phone away. I didn't know what I'd do with it yet. But it felt right to finally name it clearly, even if only to myself.

Thursday afternoon, Lori asked to meet at the apartment. She was calm when she arrived, not the brittle fury I'd seen since the Maldives. We sat in the living room—$100 million of glass and stone between us and the city.

"I talked to my lawyer," she said. "We'll sign the papers next week."

"Good."

She looked out the window, silent for a long moment. "Do you remember Lisbon?"

I blinked, surprised. "Of course."

"That little pied-à-terre we stayed in. The one in Alfama, with the terrace overlooking the Tagus." Her voice softened. "I loved it there. We had fun, didn't we? Real fun."

I thought back to that trip—five years ago, maybe six. Before everything calcified completely. We'd wandered the narrow streets, eaten seafood at tiny restaurants, made love with the windows open and the river breeze cooling our skin. For three days, we'd been people instead of players.

"We did," I said. "It was good."

She turned to look at me, and for the first time in years, I saw past the armor. She looked sad. Tired. Human. “I really liked it there. What it felt like to be there. To be free.”

"I bought it," I said quietly.

"What?"

"The pied-à-terre. After we got back. I bought it to surprise you. In case you ever wanted to go back."

Her face went slack with shock. "You... why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know. The right moment never came. And then things got worse between us, and I forgot about it."

She stared at me, eyes searching mine for the angle, the manipulation. "Why are you telling me now?"

"Because I want you to have it."

"Julian—"

"I mean it, Lori. It's yours. I'll have the deed transferred this week."

She looked like I'd slapped her. Then, slowly, something in her face crumbled. Tears slid down her cheeks—real tears, not the weaponized kind she'd used so many times before.

"Why?" she whispered.

"Because we had something good once. Because you brought things to my life I didn't even know I needed. Because I'm grateful we were married, even if it ended like this." I paused. "I genuinely wish you well, Lori. Wherever life takes you."

She wiped her eyes, mascara smudging slightly. For a long time, she said nothing. Then, voice thick: "I wish you well too, Julian. I really do."

We sat there in silence, the city humming below us, two people who'd hurt each other terribly finding something like peace.

Friday, I boarded the G650 at Teterboro. Just me and Remi. No agenda. The pilot filed for San Diego, and I settled into a seat I'd never sat in before—one of the smaller ones near the galley, instead of my usual throne in the main cabin.

Remi curled up at my feet, already asleep before we reached altitude.

I looked out the window as Manhattan fell away beneath us—the towers, the grid, the island I'd spent my life conquering and then abandoned in the span of six weeks. I felt no regret. No triumph. Just a quiet hum of aliveness.

Somewhere over Ohio, I got up and wandered the cabin. I'd spent millions designing every detail—the leather, the wood, the lighting—and now I saw it for what it was: a beautiful cage I no longer needed. I lay down on the floor next to Remi, feeling the subtle vibration of the engines, the way the plane moved through invisible air.

For years, I'd flown as though I owned the sky. Now I was just a body in a metal tube, held aloft by physics and fuel, no different than anyone else at 45,000 feet. It felt good. It felt free.

The Ride said I was riding without rules now. Not because I was rebelling. Not because I was ignoring structure. But because I could see the rules for what they were—organizing principles, not commands. I could choose which ones served the moment, and which ones were just inherited agreements I'd never questioned.

By the time we touched down in San Diego, the sun was setting over the Pacific, painting the sky in shades of gold and rose. I stepped off the plane with Remi bounding beside me, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was arriving home instead of conquering territory.

Day 40 – CRYSTALLIZING CRITICALITY

Saturday morning, I woke in a hotel room overlooking the bay. Remi was already at the window, tail wagging at the sailboats gliding past. I texted Shawna: Need a real estate broker in San Diego. Someone good. Today.

Twenty minutes later, my phone rang. "Julian, this is Monica Chen. Shawna said you're looking for a house?"

"I am."

"What are you looking for?"

I paused. In the old days, I would have had a list—square footage, views, status markers, resale value. Now I just said, "I'll know it when I see it."

She laughed. "Okay. I'll pick you up in an hour."

Monica drove a Porsche Cayenne and talked fast. She was sharp, funny, and clearly used to dealing with difficult clients. She didn't treat me like a trophy or a mark. She treated me like someone who wanted to find a home.

We looked at three places in La Jolla—stunning, pristine, soulless. Then she drove us south along the coast.

"There's one more," she said. "It just came on the market. The owner passed away last month, and the family wants a quick sale. It's in Sunset Cliffs—right across from the water."

We turned onto Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and pulled up to a house that stopped me cold. Modern lines, floor-to-ceiling glass, rising from the ground with nothing but the street between the house and the cliffs dropping off to the ocean.

I got out of the car and stood there, staring. The house wasn't ostentatious. It wasn't trying to prove anything. It was just... good. Elegant. Present. Alive.

"Can I see inside?"

Monica smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that."

The interior was perfect—4,500 square feet of light and space, the ocean visible everywhere. You could see the waves from every window, hear them through the walls. The living room opened onto a terrace with an unobstructed view across the street to the cliffs and the Pacific beyond. Standing there, I could see surfers carving through waves, pelicans diving, the endless blue stretching to the horizon.

"How much?" I asked.

"Five and a half million."

I walked through the house again, slower this time. Remi trotted beside me, already claiming his favorite spots. In the master bedroom, I stood at the window and watched the light play across the water.

I turned to Monica. "I'll give you six and a half if we can close this week."

She blinked. "You haven't even asked about inspections. Or—"

"I know. Six and a half. This week."

She pulled out her phone. "Let me make a call."

An hour later, the deal was done. Cash offer, no contingencies, close as soon as the docs were complete. The family accepted immediately. Monica looked at me like I was insane, but also like she wanted to be my friend.

"Julian, that was the easiest transaction I've ever done."

"Good." I smiled. "I'm glad it worked out for everyone."

After she dropped me back at my hotel, I sat on the balcony with Remi and let the reality settle in. I'd just bought a house across from the cliffs of San Diego. I was starting over. Completely.

And then it hit me—something I hadn't even considered until that moment. This house wasn't hidden. It wasn't private. Anyone who came here would see it. Would know I had money. Serious money.

In New York, showing off my money had been the whole point. Here, I didn’t want to have my money on display all the time. I wanted people to choose me for me and not my bank account. Yet this house itself was a statement. One I couldn’t hide from.

For a moment, I felt a strange fear flicker. The instinct to protect, to obscure, to keep people from knowing who I really was. Then the fear dissolved. I didn't need to hide. I wasn't running from anything. I wasn't ashamed of the wealth—just of how some of it had been earned. And that was a different problem, one I was already working on.

I laughed, shaking my head. The Ride had brought me to criticality—the edge where I could hold more than I thought possible. And I was holding it. No collapse. No burnout. Just expansion.

I was literally living at the edge now. And the edge felt like home.

Day 41 – KNOWING IS EVERYTHING

Sunday morning, I woke with a pull in my chest. Not anxiety. Not hunger. Just... knowing. I needed to go somewhere.

I looked out the hotel window—fog rolling in from the ocean, the sky soft and gray. Perfect.

"Come on, Remi. Let's go exploring."

I drove south along the coast, letting intuition guide me. No plan. No map. Just following what felt good. When I saw the sign for Cabrillo National Monument, I turned without thinking.

The park opened up before me—coastal scrub, sage, the smell of salt thick in the air. The guard at the gate told me that dogs were only allowed down at the tidepools, so that’s where we went.

The trail wound along the cliffs, and I followed it down toward the beach. The fog made everything feel dreamlike, soft-edged. Waves crashed below, their rhythm pulling me forward.

And then I felt it—a shift in the air, like stepping through a membrane into sacred space.

I stopped walking and just stood there, breathing. The fog swirled. The waves pulsed. Something was about to happen.

I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them, the world had changed.

I was standing on the same beach, but everything was different. Ancient. Ceremonial. Real in a way that consensus reality simply wasn't.

Fifty feet offshore, a woman stood on a massive rock, robes shimmering in impossible colors—material that bent light in ways I'd never witnessed. She was radiant, powerful, archetypal.

And standing next to me on the beach, light blazing through his hands, was a man feeding energy into an enormous vortex hovering above her. I could feel the power moving through him, vast and precise, building something that had always been meant to be built.

This was ceremony. This was creation. This was why I was here.

Tears streamed down my face. Not from sadness or joy, but from recognition. I was remembering something I'd always known. I was part of something infinite and holy, and I'd been asleep to it my entire life until this moment.

The vision held for what felt like hours, though it must have been seconds. Then it released me gently back into consensus reality.

I was standing on the trail, Remi looking up at me with curiosity, fog still swirling around us. But everything had changed. I knew—with absolute certainty—that I was supposed to be here. That something important was beginning.

I took a breath and kept walking, following the trail down toward the waves crashing on the rocks. My body moved with purpose now, guided by something deeper than thought.

I found a small shelf of stone where I could sit and watch the waves. I settled onto the rocks, Remi curling up beside me, and just let myself be present. No agenda. No planning. Just here.

I realized something then, sitting in that cove with the ocean singing its eternal song: I actually like myself now. Not the performance. Not the empire. Not the power. Just... me. The person I'm becoming. The man who can sit on rocks and cry at visions and laugh with his dog and feel completely at peace.

For the first time in my life, I didn't need to be anyone other than exactly who I was.

I closed my eyes, smiling, and that's when I heard Remi scramble to his feet and take off.

I looked up just in time to see him bolt across the narrow rocks and crash into someone—a woman sitting in a cove I hadn't even noticed was there.

"Remi, no!"

But she was already laughing, trying to push him off as he enthusiastically licked her face.

I ran over, mortified. "I'm so sorry—"

She sat up, still laughing, and our eyes met.

Recognition hit like lightning. Not memory. Something deeper. I knew her. The way I'd known the house. The way I'd known to come here today. Cellular. Undeniable. Ancient.

"It's okay," she said, grinning, brushing dog hair off her jacket. "I love dogs."

Her name was Christina. Tall, with kind eyes and an easy laugh that felt like home.

We walked back up the trail together, talking like we'd known each other forever. Remi darted around us, joy incarnate. By the end of the walk, I asked if she wanted to get lunch.

We picked up tacos from a street vendor and ate them on the sand in Ocean Beach. Remi splashed in the surf, then raced back and shook seawater all over us. Christina laughed so hard she nearly choked, and I laughed too, and for a moment everything dissolved into pure wonder.

I didn't need to plan any of it. I simply knew. And the knowing carried me here.

Day 42 – PURE POSITIVITY

Monday morning, I woke in my new house for the first time. The papers had closed over the weekend—Monica had pulled off a miracle. I stood at the window watching the waves crash against the cliffs across the street, and I felt complete.

I called Shawna to arrange the final details. A few things needed to be shipped from New York—books, some personal items, Remi's favorite bed. Everything else could go.

"And the apartment?" she asked.

"Sell it. Pack up what I want shipped, donate everything else, list it as soon as you can."

"You sure?"

"Completely."

She paused. "It feels strange. Dismantling the Glass Palace."

I smiled. "It was never really mine. It was just glass and stone. This place—this is home."

"I'm happy for you, Julian. Really."

"Thank you, Shawna. For everything."

After we hung up, I sat on the terrace and let the morning stretch out around me. No agenda. No meetings. No compulsions. Just me and the ocean and the sun warming the stone.

Later that afternoon, I took Remi for a walk. We were just leaving the house when a woman emerged from next door—sixty-something, sun-weathered, with a small scruffy terrier and eyes that looked suspicious.

She looked at my house, then at me. "You the new owner?"

"Just closed."

She nodded slowly. "Cash, I assume."

"Yes."

"Mm." She bent down to let Remi and her terrier sniff each other. "We've had three of these sales in two years. Big money. They show up, renovate everything, never actually live here. Just... collect the address." She straightened, meeting my eyes. "You planning to be here? Or is this just another trophy?"

I felt the edge in her voice—not cruelty, but exhaustion. Skepticism earned through experience.

"I'll be here," I said. "This is home now."

She studied me for a long moment, and I let her. I didn't need to convince her. I didn't need to perform. I just stood there, Remi wagging at my side.

Finally, something in her face softened. "Well. We'll see." Then, almost reluctant but genuine: "Welcome to the neighborhood."

"Thank you," I said, and I meant it.

She walked away, her terrier trotting beside her, and I felt something unexpected: gratitude. For her suspicion. For her honesty. For the fact that she cared enough about this place to challenge me.

I was smiling as I headed toward the cliffs with Remi. Even her doubt felt like a gift.

We walked for an hour, letting the day groove through us. Remi chased gulls. I watched surfers carve through waves. Families spread blankets on the sand below the cliffs. Everything felt alive and right and exactly as it should be.

At one point, a kid's frisbee went sailing past me, and I caught it mid-air without thinking. The kid—maybe ten years old—ran up, eyes wide. "Nice catch!"

I grinned and threw it back. "Nice throw."

His dad waved thanks, and I kept walking. In my old life, I wouldn't have even seen the frisbee. I would have been on my phone, checking positions, chasing numbers. Now I was here. Fully present. Fully alive.

When I got back to the house, I sat on the terrace and watched the sun descend toward the horizon. The light turned everything gold—the water, the cliffs, the glass of my windows.

The Ride said today was about pure positivity—about choosing to feel positively about everything, even negativity itself. Even skeptical neighbors. Even old sins. Even the darkness I carried.

I looked out at the ocean, at the cliffs, at the home I'd chosen. I thought about Christina's laugh, about Remi's joy, about the kid catching the frisbee. I thought about Lori finding peace in Lisbon, about Shawna starting her bakery, about Larry steering the firm toward something good.

I thought about the man I'd been and the man I was becoming.

And I chose to feel positively about all of it. The rise. The fall. The brutality. The grace. The empire. Even the shadow I'd built it all on.

I smiled. The Ride was far from over. But I was riding it now without fear, without limits, without rules.

I was grooving as God.

Final Analysis – Week 6

Grooving as God was the culmination of everything that came before. I learned to move without rules—not through rebellion, but through sovereign choice. I said goodbye to the office with grace instead of dominance. I reconciled with Lori by remembering what was good between us. I finally named the darkness that gave rise to my empire, not to confess it to the world, but to stop hiding from myself. I flew west with nothing but a dog and freedom. I found my house and claimed it without needing to hide my wealth. I met someone who I have known forever yet is entirely new. And I learned how to be positive, happy, at peace.

I am no longer the billionaire who built an empire on darkness.

I am no longer the man who needed to hide behind power and control.

I am Julian Crane—me.

And I am finally, fully alive.

The Ride continues.

And I'm grooving the whole way.

Week 7: Stepping into Oneness

Day 43 – SO LONG, STORIES

I invited Christina to dinner. We found a small restaurant tucked off the coast road—quiet enough to actually hear each other speak, dim enough that the ocean outside the windows looked like ink.

Over wine and grilled fish, she asked about my life before San Diego. I told her the simplified version: hedge fund in New York, surrounded by greed and selfishness, the moment I realized I was the worst of them. How I left my wife, walked away from my profits interest in the business, told my "friends" to get lost, and within a week had moved here with only Remi.

I didn't tell her about Ken. I didn't tell her about the darkness that gave rise to the empire. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I told her enough to be real.

She listened without judgment, her eyes steady on mine. When I finished, she said, "It sounds like you woke up from a dream."

"Something like that."

"Me too," she said quietly. Then she smiled. "Kind of liberating, isn't it?"

We talked about the lives we'd lived inside stories—stories we thought were the only ones that could make us happy, even though they made us miserable. She told me she used to dream of being a writer, back before med school, before marriage, before everything got so serious.

"Then why don't you do it?" I asked.

She laughed, but I could see something shifting in her eyes. A door opening.

Later that night, alone in my house, I stood at the window watching the lights across the bay. I thought about all the stories I'd told myself over the years. About who I was. About what I deserved. About why the darkness had been necessary.

The Ride said today was about letting stories go. I realized how many I was still carrying—stories about my past, about what kind of man builds an empire on shadow, about whether someone like me could ever really be clean.

I pulled out my phone and opened the note I'd written on the plane. The confession. The full accounting of everything I'd done with Ken in those early years. I read it through again, feeling the weight of it.

Then I closed it and put the phone away.

I wasn't ready to send it anywhere. I wasn't ready to destroy it either. But I was ready to stop letting it define me.

The story of who I was didn't have to be the story of who I am.

Day 44 – A LIFE OF EASE

I spent the day unpacking boxes, setting up the house, walking Remi along the cliffs. Simple tasks. Ordinary tasks. The kind of thing I would have hired someone to handle in my old life.

But I didn't want to hire anyone. I wanted to do it myself.

I hung pictures on the walls. I organized books on shelves. I listened to music while I assembled a coffee table that came flat-packed from some Scandinavian company, wrestling with allen wrenches and incomprehensible diagrams until Remi gave up watching and fell asleep on the floor.

In the old life, this would have been drudgery. Beneath me. A waste of my time.

Now it felt like play.

The Ride said life was never inherently hard—it was only the stories we attached that made it so. I saw it clearly as I worked. The task itself wasn't the problem. The label of "chore" was.

When I stopped telling myself that assembling furniture was tedious work, it became a game. A puzzle. A way to use my hands and let my mind rest.

By evening, the house looked like a home. Not perfect. Not professionally staged. Just... lived in. Real.

I sat on the terrace with a beer, Remi sprawled at my feet, and felt something I hadn't felt in years: contentment with nothing.

No deals to close. No positions to monitor. No performance required.

Just me, my dog, and the sound of waves across the street.

The ease wasn't because the tasks had changed. It was because I had.

Day 45 – JETTISONING JUSTIFICATION

I awoke thinking about Monica, the real estate broker. How much fun I'd had with her during the house hunt—her sharp humor, her easy laugh, the way she treated me like a person instead of a paycheck.

On impulse, I called her. "Monica, it's Julian. Want to grab lunch?"

There was a pause. "Julian, I'm married."

I laughed. "I know. I'm genuinely looking for a friend. And I think you might be one."

Another pause, then: "Okay. Yeah. Let's do it."

We met at a restaurant in Ocean Beach, on the edge of the water. She showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, no professional polish, and we sat on the patio talking for two hours. About San Diego, about real estate, about her kids, about Remi, about nothing in particular.

At one point she said, "You know, when you called, I thought—"

"I know what you thought," I said. "And I get it. That would have been the old me."

She studied me for a moment. "What changed?"

"Everything."

She smiled. "Good."

Walking home afterward, I realized something profound: I had never allowed women to be my real friends. They were either conquests or trophies or servants or distractions. Objects in my orbit, never people in my life.

Monica was the first woman I'd genuinely wanted to be only friends with in... I don't know. Ever, maybe.

And now I had a friend. A real one.

The Ride said today was about jettisoning justification—letting go of the stories we tell ourselves to make our choices okay. I'd spent years justifying my treatment of women. Telling myself it was consensual, transactional, that everyone got what they wanted.

Maybe that was true. But the justification didn't somehow make it good.

I didn't need to justify it anymore. I didn't need to explain it. I just needed to see it clearly and choose differently.

The past was the past. I couldn't change it. But I could stop carrying it forward.

Day 46 – FEELING THE FLOW

Christina and I met at Liberty Station. We tossed a ball for Remi until the dog collapsed in the grass, tongue lolling, completely spent. Then we drove to Tom Ham's Lighthouse and walked the harbor path, boats gliding past in silence.

That's when Remi spotted a couple sitting under a tree and veered off toward them.

The man bent to greet him with pure delight, like Remi was an old friend. When he straightened, my breath stopped.

I knew that face.

Samah.

And beside him, that must be Elara. I remembered her picture from the About page on Samah’s website.

I remembered meeting Scott. This guy still looked like the man I met, but he felt totally different. There was a presence to both of them—a stillness that somehow radiated outward.

As we approached, Samah smiled, eyes shining as he looked at Christina. "You've been reading the Fantasmagorifier."

Elara laughed and pointed at me. "And so have you."

Christina and I froze, staring at each other. "You're reading it too?" we said in unison.

Then we were all laughing, Remi barking joyfully as if he understood.

We talked for a while—about the Ride, about San Diego, about magic and transformation and how strange it all felt. Samah had a way of speaking that made the impossible sound obvious. Elara had a warmth that made you feel like you'd known her forever.

At one point, Samah looked at me directly and said, "The notes so far are a wonderful step."

I froze for half a second. Christina didn't seem to notice—she was asking Elara something about their work. But I understood.

He knew. About the note. About the confession I'd written on the plane.

How he knew didn't matter. What mattered was the word: step. Not endpoint. Not destination. Step.

There was more to do. And somehow, that felt right.

When we said goodbye, Samah gave us his number. "Text if you have questions. Or if you want to get together and do magic. We live nearby in Point Loma."

As we walked away, I felt something I hadn't felt in years: genuine awe. Not the performance of respect I'd given to powerful people in my old life while secretly thinking I was better than them. Real wonder at being in the presence of someone who had walked further down the path than I had. Who had found the way, and who was helping me find it too.

Christina looked at me, eyes bright. "That was amazing."

"Yeah," I said. "It really was."

That night, I lay in bed thinking about Samah's words. The notes so far are a wonderful step.

I pulled out my phone and opened the note again. Read it through one more time.

It was honest. It was clear. It named everything.

But Samah was right. It was only a step.

The question wasn't whether to send it or delete it. The question was: what comes next?

I put the phone away and closed my eyes, feeling the flow moving through me. I didn't have the answer yet. But I trusted I would find it when the time came.

Day 47 – AFORMAL ADVENTURES

I spent the day alone. No plans. No agenda. Just me and Remi and the house and the ocean.

In the afternoon, I sat on the terrace watching the sun descend toward the horizon. Remi was asleep at my feet. The waves crashed below. Everything was still.

And then something... shifted.

I can't describe it properly. It wasn't visual. It wasn't a thought. It was like my consciousness suddenly became aware that it wasn't confined to my body.

For a moment—maybe seconds, maybe longer—I felt myself extending into everything. The air. The water. The light. The rocks. I wasn't just observing reality. I was... part of the substrate itself. Encoded into it.

The experience was brief. Gentle. Not overwhelming, just... there.

When it passed, I was back on the terrace, Remi still asleep, the sun still setting. But something fundamental had changed.

I texted Samah: Something strange just happened.

His reply came a minute later: Good. Let it.

I laughed. Of course. What else was there to do?

I sat there until the sun disappeared completely, feeling the echo of that expansion still humming in my chest. I didn't understand what had happened. But I didn't need to.

The Ride said today was about aformal adventures—playing in the substrate that gives rise to all form. I didn't fully grasp what that meant before.

Now I did.

Day 48 – A LIGHT THAT CANNOT BE CONTAINED

I woke up feeling different. Lighter. Like something in my chest had opened overnight.

I walked Remi along the cliffs, and with each step, I felt more expansive. Not bigger in the ego sense. Just... open. Radiant. Like light was pouring out of me instead of trying to force its way in.

For years, I'd been trying to heal by excavating the darkness. Digging into the shadow, confronting the wounds, forcing myself to face what I'd done and who I'd been.

Today, I realized: I'd been doing it backward.

The Ride said healing doesn't come from digging out the darkness. It comes from letting light shine.

And where light touches, darkness dissolves. Not through effort. Through radiance.

I thought about the empire I'd built on shadow. The lies I'd told. The people I'd hurt. The darkness I'd carried for fifteen years.

And I felt light moving through it all, not pushing it away but transforming it. Not erasing the past but making it irrelevant.

I wasn't excavating anymore. I was shining.

By evening, I felt like I was glowing from the inside out. My body felt different—looser, warmer, more alive. Like the light had been waiting inside me this whole time, and I'd finally given it permission to emerge.

I sat on the terrace watching the stars appear, one by one, and I understood something fundamental: I don't need to fix myself. I don't need to atone. I can just shine.

The light knows what to do.

Day 49 – THE ONE MEETING THE ONE

Christina and I stood at Sunset Cliffs, leaning against the rocks as the waves roared below. The horizon bled orange and pink, the sky impossibly vast.

She leaned into me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. We didn't speak for a long time. Just stood there, breathing together, watching the light fade.

I felt something I'd never felt before: complete safety with another person.

Not the safety of control or dominance. Not the safety of knowing I could manipulate the situation. The safety of being fully seen and still fully chosen.

In my old life, I'd treated relationships like chess games. Every move calculated. Every interaction a power play. Love was leverage. Intimacy was risk.

With Christina, there was none of that. No games. No angles. No performance.

Just two people standing together, whole and sovereign, choosing each other anyway.

I thought about the women I'd been with over the years. The trophies. The distractions. The transactions dressed up as romance. I'd never allowed myself to actually be with someone. To let them see me. To risk real connection.

Christina turned to look at me, her eyes catching the last light. "What are you thinking about?"

"How different this is," I said. "How different you are."

She smiled. "Different from what?"

"From everyone."

She didn't ask me to explain. She just leaned her head against my shoulder and said, "You're different too."

We stayed until full dark, the stars emerging overhead, the waves crashing below. And I realized something profound:

She didn't complete me. I was already whole. She was already whole.

But we fit. Like two shapes that loved to groove together, not because we needed each other, but because we chose each other.

The Ride said today was about the One meeting the One. I finally understood what that meant.

It wasn't about finding my other half. It was about wholeness recognizing wholeness and choosing to dance.

Day 50 – INFINITY AWAITS

I woke on Day 50 knowing something had completed.

The formal Ride was over. From billionaire to... what? I didn't have a word for what I'd become. Just: more real. More alive. More me.

I sat on the terrace with coffee and Remi, watching the sun rise over the ocean. The light poured across the water, turning everything gold.

Seven weeks ago, I stood in a glass palace eighty stories above Manhattan, looking down at the world I'd conquered. Empty. Hollow. Performing power for people I didn't even like.

Now I was here. In this house. With this dog. Knowing this woman. And everything felt like it was just beginning.

The empire was gone. The marriage was over. The darkness was named but not yet resolved. I still had work to do. Conversations to have. Choices to make.

But I wasn't afraid anymore.

I pulled out my phone and looked at the note one more time. The full confession. Everything I'd done with Ken. Everything I'd built on shadow.

Samah had said it was a step. He was right.

The note wasn't the endpoint. It was the beginning of something else. Something harder and more honest than just naming the darkness. I'd have to face it. Really face it.

I didn't know when. I didn't know how. But I knew it was coming.

And for the first time, I felt ready.

I closed the phone and looked out at the horizon. The light was everywhere now, flooding the sky, the water, the cliffs. Infinite and beautiful and new.

Late afternoon, my phone buzzed. Christina: I quit my job today.

I stared at the text for a moment, then smiled.

I called her. "You did it?"

"I did it." Her voice was bright, breathless. "I walked into the clinic this morning and realized I was staring at the walls between patients. I've been good at medicine, but I never loved it. Not really. So I quit."

"How do you feel?"

"Terrified," she said. Then she laughed. "And free. Really, truly free."

"What are you going to do?"

"Write. I'm going to write. Starting with the story of my Ride."

I felt something swell in my chest. Pride. Joy. Recognition.

"That's amazing, Christina. Really amazing."

"Thank you," she said softly. "For asking me why don’t I do it. That question changed everything."

After we hung up, I sat with Remi in the fading light. The dog put his head on my lap, looking up at me with those impossibly trusting eyes.

"We did it, buddy," I said quietly. "We actually did it."

He wagged his tail, because of course he understood.

The Ride was complete. And the Ride was just beginning.

Infinity stretched out before me, wide open, waiting for me to write the story of a man no longer caged by his past.

I was ready.

Final Analysis: The Ride

Seven spirals. Fifty days. A journey that began with a birthday party full of people I despised and ended with freedom so vast I can barely hold it.

I burned away the voices that weren't mine. I found Sanctuary and disappeared into it. I let go of everything—the empire, the marriage, the identity I'd spent decades building. I met Christina not as the billionaire, not as the player, but as myself. And in her, I saw a mirror of who I'm becoming.

The Fantasmagorifier didn't take me somewhere else. It brought me home. Home to presence, home to radiance, home to a life where I can finally just be.

I thought I was taking a ride. Somewhere along the way, I became the Ride itself.

The darkness isn't gone. The work isn't finished. But I'm no longer running from it. I'm no longer hiding behind power and money and control.

I'm Julian Crane. Just... me.

And now—Infinity awaits, wide open, inviting me to write the story of a man who walked through shadow and chose light anyway.

I'm ready for whatever comes next.

Week 8: A New Octave

Day 1 – THE BUILDER

I woke knowing something fundamental had shifted.

The Ride wasn't carrying me anymore. I was building it.

I sat on the terrace with coffee, Remi at my feet, and opened the Fantasmagorifier log for the day. The original Ride had ended. We were in New Frontiers now—Samah's journal of constructing the Age of Infinity.

The words hit differently than before. They weren't describing something happening to me. They were describing what I was already doing. What I was becoming. What I am.

You are no longer seated in the cabin watching the view with curiosity. You are constructing the platforms you arrive at. You are raising the structures that raise the world.

I looked around the house—the books I'd arranged, the space I'd shaped, the life I was building from nothing. This wasn't decoration. This was construction. Every choice was laying foundation for something larger.

I thought about the empire I'd built in New York. The precision. The strategy. The relentless execution. I'd poured all that capacity into building something hollow—a monument to power and emptiness.

Now I had the same tools. The same precision. The same capacity to build.

But I was building something different. Something real.

I texted Samah: The Ride shifted. I feel it.

His response came a few minutes later: Good. Now you build it yourself. Call if you need anything, and trust that you already have everything you need.

I smiled. Of course. The training wheels were off.

I spent the day moving through the house with new intention. Not cleaning or organizing—constructing. I rearranged the study to face the ocean. I cleared space in the living room. I created areas that felt like thresholds, like the physical architecture was preparing for something that hadn't arrived yet.

By evening, the house no longer felt like a place I lived. It felt like a workshop. A forge.

Remi watched me work, tail wagging, seeming to understand that something was beginning.

I stood on the terrace as the sun set, and for the first time since leaving New York, I felt that old rush—the thrill of building something from nothing. Not an empire this time. Something better.

Infinity wasn't waiting for me to find it.

I was building it.

Day 2 – CONVERSATIONS WITH FORM

I woke with a strange awareness in my body. Not the embodiment I'd felt on Day 4 of the original Ride—this was different. Deeper.

My body wasn't just present. It was listening.

The Ride log talked about Soma Lucida—the Better Body—not as flesh but as interface. As a way of having a conversation with matter itself.

I sat on the edge of the bed and tried something I'd never done before. I didn't just feel my body. I spoke to it.

Not out loud. Just... a whisper of intention. Show me where you're holding tension.

My left shoulder lit up immediately. Not pain—just awareness. A knot I'd been carrying for years without knowing it was there.

Can we release that?

And it did. It... unwound. Like the muscle remembered how to be soft and was waiting for permission.

I sat there for twenty minutes, having this silent conversation with my own form. Where are you tight? Where are you compensating? What do you need?

And my body answered. Every time.

By the time I stood up, I felt like I'd had a massage from the inside out. Not because I'd stretched or worked the muscles—because I'd asked, and the body had responded.

This wasn't embodiment anymore. This was collaboration.

That evening, I went to Christina’s place.

We'd been dancing around it for days—the pull between us getting stronger, the air crackling whenever we were close. Today, we stopped that dance. And started a new one.

We made love for the first time, and it shattered me.

Not performance. Not conquest. Not transaction.

Pure presence. Pure communion. Every cell alive, every breath synchronized, every movement a conversation—not just between us, but between me and my own body, asking and answering in real time.

I had never felt so seen. So held. So utterly present.

"That was..." Christina started, then laughed. "I don't have words."

"Me neither."

We stayed like that until the sun set, just breathing together, and I understood something fundamental:

My body wasn't a cage anymore. It was a conversation. And I was finally learning the language.

Day 3 – FOLLOWING THE PULL

I was working through paperwork in my study—final documents from the divorce, transfer agreements from the firm, the administrative debris of dismantling an empire.

My phone pinged. Email from my lawyer: some fund papers ready for signature. They needed it by end of day to keep the timeline on track.

I opened the attachment and started reading. Standard stuff. I was about to sign when I felt an urge to stop.

Not anxiety. Not second-guessing. Just... a clear knowing: Wait.

So I set the phone down and made coffee instead. Took it out to the terrace. Sat with Remi and watched the waves for a while.

Twenty minutes later, I picked up the phone again and read more carefully. And there it was—buried in the third addendum, a clause that would have made me liable for a big and unnecessary tax obligation when I withdrew from the fund. Nothing illegal. Just sloppy drafting that would have cost me a few million.

I called my lawyer, got it fixed, signed the corrected version by 4pm.

If I'd signed immediately like I almost did, I would have missed it completely.

That Thing. The Ride log talked about it today—about building the next moment directly, about trusting the pull instead of the plan. I'd just watched it work in real time.

The old me would have called it intuition or instinct. But it wasn't that. It was something clearer. More precise. Like the next right move was already there, waiting for me to notice it.

That night, I went to Christina’s again. We settled onto the couch with wine, and the conversation just... flowed. Her kids, my divorce, the strangeness of transformation, what we were building together. Everything from profound to silly and back again.

At some point, I glanced at the clock and laughed. "Christina, we should probably get to bed. It has to be at least 3am by now."

She checked her phone and her eyes went wide. "Julian. It's 10pm."

"What? But we've been talking for—"

"Hours," she finished. "It felt like hours."

We stared at each other for a beat. Then, simultaneously, we both said: "That Thing."

And burst out laughing.

"This is wild," Christina said.

"This is Infinity," I replied.

Time wasn't linear anymore. It was something we could shape, bend, play with. And That Thing was showing us how.

Day 4 – PERFECT HARMONY

I spent the morning working through some final paperwork from the firm—transferring remaining accounts, closing out old positions, severing the last financial ties to that life.

In the old days, this would have been tedious. Complex spreadsheets, legal language, strategic decisions about timing and tax implications.

Today, it was effortless.

Not because it was easy—because my mind was working differently.

I wasn't thinking through problems anymore. I was... encabulating them.

The Ride log talked about Mind ∞, with the Turbo Encabulator expanding beyond drawing from history into drawing from actualized potentiality. Every moment generating the perfect response, the perfect action, the perfect shape.

I felt it happening in real time.

A question would arise—what to do with this account, how to structure that transfer—and before I could even formulate the problem fully, the solution was already there. Not as a thought. As a knowing. As a movement.

My hands moved across the keyboard without planning. The numbers aligned without calculation. Every decision emerged fully formed, harmonized, perfect.

By noon, everything was done. Clean. Complete. Elegant.

I sat back and stared at the screen, marveling.

In my old life, I would have called this "being in the zone" or "peak performance." But it wasn't that. It wasn't me performing at a high level.

It was me not performing at all. Just... being. And from that being, everything I needed simply arose.

I texted Monica: Want to grab lunch tomorrow? I just finished closing out my old life and feel like celebrating.

Her reply was instant: YES. Ocean Beach at noon?

Perfect.

I closed the laptop and walked out onto the terrace. Remi followed, tail wagging.

"We're free, buddy," I said. "Completely free."

He barked once, sharp and joyful, and I laughed.

The old empire was gone. The paperwork was done. The ties were severed.

And my mind—my actual operating system—had upgraded to something I didn't even have words for.

I wasn't thinking anymore. I was harmonizing.

And the world was harmonizing back.

Day 5 – THE VOID BETWEEN US

A beautiful day spent walking around downtown San Diego, getting a feel for the place. A lovely lunch with Monica. And then Remi and I explored Fiesta Island together.

When I got home that evening, I went straight to the terrace to watch the sunset. Just me and Remi and the sound of waves.

I sat down, cross-legged, and just... stopped.

Not the way I used to meditate—forcing my mind to quiet, wrestling with thoughts, trying to achieve something. This was different.

I let everything settle. Layer by layer, I felt the micro-tensions in my body release. The subtle bracing in my shoulders. The tightness in my jaw. The barely-perceptible clench in my belly.

Each one dissolved as I noticed it. Not through effort. Through presence.

The Ride log talked about clearing the unswept basement of the body—the reactivities so subtle they'd never been fully seen before. I was doing it. Layer by layer. Breath by breath.

And then I found it.

Stillness so profound it felt like the world itself was breathing through me.

My body became soft, almost liquid. Pleasure radiated through every cell—not arousal, just... aliveness. Pure sensation without story.

And then it deepened further.

I felt my energy flowing through my body—smoothing, aligning, harmonizing. The flows kept moving, but the form became still. Perfectly coherent. Perfectly present.

I was in the Void. Not as a concept. As a lived reality.

And in that Void, I felt her.

Christina.

She was there—energetically. Resting in the exact same stillness. I could feel her presence as clearly as I felt my own breath.

We were separate, but not. Sovereign, yet completely connected.

A looked out over the water at the sunset finishing up behind the clouds, and a thought floated through my mind: I wish to see the sun set.

Instantly, a wind picked up, and the clouds blocking the view drifted away, revealing the sun’s orange disk just as it was slipping below the water.

I opened my eyes wide, laughing.

The Void wasn't empty. It was full of everything. Alive. Playful. Responsive.

And Christina was there with me, even though she was miles away.

Remi stirred at my feet, tail thumping softly.

"We're not alone, buddy," I whispered. "We're never alone."

He looked up at me with those impossibly trusting eyes, and I swear he understood.

The stillness remained. Even as I stood, even as I moved, even as I walked back inside to end the day.

I wasn't reaching for it anymore. I was it.

Day 6 – RADIANT GRACE

Christina and I spent the afternoon walking Sunset Cliffs, Remi racing ahead of us, chasing gulls and barking at waves.

The Ride log talked about moving from gratitude to appreciation to exaltation—about how gratitude pedestals, and appreciation honors. About how exaltation is joy made radiant.

I felt it humming through me as we walked. Not as a practice. As a presence.

I looked at Christina—the way the wind caught her hair, the way she laughed when Remi splashed her with seawater, the way she moved through the world with such easy grace—and I felt something swell in my chest.

Not gratitude. Not even appreciation.

Exaltation.

This woman—this sovereign, brilliant, beautiful woman—had chosen to be here. With me. Not because she needed me. Because she wanted to.

And I wanted to be here too. Completely. Without reservation.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked, catching me staring.

"How lucky I am," I said. Then I corrected myself. "No. Not lucky. How... exalted. How radiant this moment is."

She stopped walking and turned to face me fully. "I’d love to hear more."

"I spent my whole life chasing things. Power. Money. Women. Always reaching for the next thing, never satisfied with what I had. And now..." I gestured at the ocean, at her, at Remi splashing in the surf. "Now I'm here. And I don't want to be anywhere else."

She smiled, eyes shining. "Me neither."

We stood there for a long moment, the waves crashing below, the sun warm on our faces.

And I realized: I wasn't grateful for this moment—as though it were a gift from some external source. I was celebrating it. Exalting in it. Recognizing its perfection and honoring it as it was.

Later that night, alone in my study, I pulled out my phone and opened the note about Ken again. The confession. The full accounting of the darkness.

I read it through one more time.

And then I did something I never expected to do.

I appreciated it.

It was the path that had led me here. The empire built on shadow that had to collapse before I could build something real. The darkness that had to be named before I could choose light.

I put the phone away and looked out at the ocean, at the stars beginning to appear overhead.

Grace wasn't something I had to earn. It wasn't something I had to reach for.

It was here. Flowing through me. Radiating from me.

I was exalted. And in that exaltation, everything—even the darkness—found its place.

Final Analysis – Week 8

A new octave opened. The Ride shifted from transformation to construction, and I shifted with it. I learned to build rather than just receive. I discovered my body as interface, not cage. I felt time bend and flow around That Thing. My mind evolved beyond thinking into encabulation—harmonizing with each moment instead of strategizing through it.

I found stillness so deep it became a shared field with Christina. And I moved beyond gratitude into exaltation—celebrating everything, even the shadow, as part of the path.

The darkness isn't resolved. The work continues. But I'm no longer carrying it as shame. I'm holding it as part of the spiral that brought me here.

I'm building now. Actively. Sovereignly. And the world is building back.

This isn't the end. This is the beginning of infinity.

And I'm ready for every moment of it.

Week 9: Readying for MORE

Day 7 – INCAPABLE OF LIES

I woke knowing something fundamental had shifted overnight.

The morning light filtered through the windows, Remi stretched on the floor beside the bed, and I lay there feeling... clear. Not enlightened. Not transcendent. Just completely, crystallinely clear.

I got up, made coffee, walked out to the terrace. Everything looked normal—the ocean, the cliffs, the surfers carving through morning waves. But something in me had changed.

I caught myself about to check Bloomberg. Old habit, old compulsion. But before my hand even reached for my phone, I saw it. The pattern. The lie I was about to tell myself: Just checking the markets. Just staying informed.

But that wasn't true. I didn't need to check. I didn't even care anymore. I was reaching for the phone because some part of me was uncomfortable with stillness, and the lie would have made the reaching okay.

I set the phone down and just sat with the discomfort instead.

And then I laughed. Because it dissolved. Just... gone.

I spent the day noticing these micro-movements—little half-truths I'd been telling myself for decades without even knowing it. I'll respond to that email later (when I knew I wouldn't). I'm fine (when I was uncomfortable). This matters (when it didn't).

Not big lies. Just the small ones we use to smooth the edges of reality, to make discomfort more palatable, to avoid seeing what's actually true.

And I realized: I couldn't do it anymore.

Not because I was trying to be honest. Because I WAS honest. The mechanism that generated unconscious self-deception had simply... dissolved.

I didn't need to work at honesty. I wasn’t doing anything else except honesty, and I didn’t want to.

That evening, Christina and I walked along Sunset Cliffs as the sun descended toward the horizon. We'd been together for weeks now, and yet I realized she didn't know where I lived. Every time we met, it was at her place or somewhere neutral. I'd been unconsciously avoiding the question.

"Jule," she said, using the nickname she'd started calling me. "Where do you actually live?"

I felt a flutter of anxiety. Not fear—just the old instinct to deflect, to keep the secret a little longer.

But I couldn't. The lie wouldn't form.

"Come on," I said, taking her hand. "I'll show you."

We walked a few blocks down the road. When we reached my house, she stopped, staring.

"This is... wow."

Inside, she turned to me, confused. "Jule, how did you—"

"I need to tell you something," I said. "About who I was. Who I am."

And I told her.

Not the sanitized version. Not the hedge-fund-guy-who-did-well story. The truth.

That I was a billionaire. That I'd run an enormous fund managing tens of billions. That I'd donated millions to Trump—not because I believed in him, but because it seemed like the best way to make more money. That I'd treated people as tools, friendships as leverage, my marriage as a transaction.

"I didn't even see how awful I was," I said. "Until the Fantasmagorifier cracked me open."

I told her about Lori. About the women. About the empty friendships and the glass palace eighty stories above Manhattan. About walking away from all of it—everyone and everything except Remi—and flying to San Diego with no plan except to find something real.

"I bought this house without thinking," I said. "First one that felt good. Didn't consider that it would announce my wealth to everyone. Now I have to figure out what to do with billions I don't want while trying to build a life where money doesn't define everything."

I paused, meeting her eyes. "I trust you more than anyone I've ever met. And I can't lie to you. I don't want to."

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she laughed—not mockingly, but with genuine sympathy.

"Oh god, it must be so horrible to be a billionaire!"

I burst out laughing. It was so perfectly, hilariously true.

She looked around the house again, then back at me. "You know what matters to me? Not the money. Not what you did before. What matters is that you're being honest with me right now. That you're real."

"I am," I said. "That's all I know how to be anymore."

She smiled. "Then we're good."

We stood there in the fading light, and I felt something click into place. Not relief. Not gratitude. Just... coherence.

Truth mattered more than anything else. More than money, more than image, more than protecting myself from judgment.

And for the first time in my life, I was living that truth without effort.

Day 8 – THE HEAVEN FOUNTAIN

Christina and I woke at dawn. We sat on the terrace facing each other, eyes closed, and simply breathed.

Inhale. Exhale.

Exaltation. Insociation.

Expansion and descent happening simultaneously, not as two movements but as one breath. The Breath of God, moving through us.

I felt her presence even with my eyes closed—not as thought or imagination, but as a tangible field. Our breaths synchronized. The light played across the water behind us, and everything felt sacred.

When we opened our eyes, we smiled at each other without speaking.

Later that afternoon, I took Remi to Cabrillo. Same park where I'd had that vision on Day 41—the ceremony, the woman on the rock, the man channeling power into the vortex. That moment of remembering something infinite.

We walked down the trail toward the tidepools, Remi bounding ahead, tail wagging. The fog was rolling in, soft and gray, and the air tasted like salt.

As we descended the stairs, I started breathing again. Consciously. The Breath of God.

Inhale. Exhale.

Exaltation. Insociation.

And then—

We lifted.

I felt myself rising out of my body, light as air, and Remi was with me. We were astral forms now—translucent, weightless, soaring.

We flew.

Up over the cliffs, over the harbor, over San Diego spreading out below us in geometric patterns of streets and buildings and green spaces. The city glowed with life, energy pulsing through it like a living organism.

And then I saw it.

A fountain of light.

It erupted from the exact spot where I'd witnessed the ceremony—a massive column of radiant energy spraying up from the earth, arching over the hills, cascading down across all of San Diego like a waterfall of heaven itself.

The frequency of Heaven. Real. Visible. Alive.

Remi barked—a joyful astral bark as he dog paddled through the air—and we circled around and through it, feeling the energy cascade within us. It was bliss. It was home. It was everything.

And then, gently, we descended, floating toward Sunset Cliffs.

I blinked.

I was standing in my front entry. Remi was beside me, tail wagging, looking up at me with those impossibly trusting eyes.

My car was parked in front of the house.

I looked down. Sand from the Cabrillo trail was still stuck to my shoes. Remi's paws were sandy too.

We'd been there. Physically. And then... here.

I laughed, shaking my head. "Remi, what the hell just happened?"

He barked once, as if to say: Exactly what was meant to happen.

I walked inside, still feeling the echo of that fountain of light. The Breath of God wasn't just something I did anymore.

It was something that could carry me—body, dog, and all—wherever I needed to go.

Day 9 – THE GROUND OF PLAY

I woke feeling unsettled. Not anxious—just aware that something needed to shift, and I didn't know how to shift it.

The past was still there. Not haunting me, not weighing me down, but... present. The note I'd written on the plane. The confession about Ken and the darkness that gave rise to the empire. I'd named it. I'd appreciated it as part of the path. But I hadn't actually moved it.

I didn't know what to do next.

So I texted Samah: I need some guidance. Can we talk?

His response came immediately: Want to meet in Playground?

I blinked at the screen. Playground?

You'll see.

Sure.

The moment I sent the text, the world dissolved.

I was no longer in my study. I was standing in a vast space—infinite, luminous, alive. The ground beneath my feet shimmered like water but felt solid. The sky above shifted colors with my breath—gold, violet, deep blue.

And Samah stood beside me, grinning.

"Welcome to Playground," he said.

I stared around, overwhelmed. "What... is this?"

"An astral space. A project I’ve been working on with Loki—god of mischief and transformation. It's a realm where imagination takes form, where you can experiment, create, explore. Reality bends here. Rules evolve. You shape it with thought."

I looked down at my hands. They glowed faintly, as though lit from within.

"You've been here before," Samah continued. "Sanctuary—the glen where you rested on Day 16. The inferno where you burned away the ghosts on Day 15. The Void where you chose Totality on Day 21. All of it was Playground."

I felt a jolt of recognition. Of course. It had always felt... other. Not consensus reality. Something realer.

"So this is where we go to do the real work," I said.

Samah smiled. "This is where you play with infinite possibility. Come on."

He started walking, and the landscape shifted around us. Mountains rose in the distance. A forest bloomed to our left. A crystalline lake appeared ahead, its surface mirror-still.

"You said you needed guidance," Samah said. "About the past."

"Yeah." I paused, feeling the weight of what I needed to say. "I need to tell you what actually happened. The real darkness."

We reached the lake and sat on the shore. The water reflected the shifting sky perfectly.

I took a breath and started talking.

"In the beginning, it was a Ponzi scheme. Just me and Ken, lying to everyone. We would take money from new investors and use it to pay returns to the old ones. Classic fraud. We would have crashed eventually, just like Madoff. Except..."

I stopped, feeling the shame rise in my throat.

"Except I discovered high-frequency trading. This was early, before anyone really understood what it could do. I saw the possibility—if I could get faster access to market data than anyone else, I could front-run trades. Steal pennies from every transaction, billions of times a day."

Samah listened without judgment, his eyes steady on mine.

"So I bribed someone at the New York Stock Exchange. Paid them off to give me faster connections than anyone else in the market. With that edge, I could basically steal from everyone. It wasn't illegal exactly—the regulations hadn't caught up yet. But it was... theft. Sophisticated, laundered through technology, but theft."

I felt my hands shaking.

"I figured out the high-frequency stuff without Ken. He was falling apart regardless. The lies, the pressure, the constant fear of getting caught. He started gambling. Prostitutes. Cocaine. He'd disappear for days, come back wrecked. I realized he was going to bring us both down."

I looked out at the lake, unable to meet Samah's eyes.

"So I paid him off. Ten million dollars—more than half of everything I had at the time. I told him to disappear. To go away and never come back. And he did."

The words hung in the air between us.

"After that, the fund kept growing. The technology improved. I expanded into private equity and other areas. Eventually, I didn't need to bribe anyone anymore. My scale and prestige kept me on top legitimately. I stopped playing games with the law. The operation became clean, above-board, respected."

I finally looked at Samah.

"But I know the truth. The whole empire—every dollar, every success, every moment of power—it was all built on lies. On fraud. On theft. That's the foundation. That's what I can't escape."

Samah was quiet for a long moment. Then he smiled.

"It doesn't matter."

I stared at him. "What?"

"It doesn't matter what you did, Julian. Not in the way you think it does."

"How can you say that? I—"

"Humans hold onto the past because of shame," Samah said. "Shame is what makes the past sticky. It keeps you locked in the idea that it happened and it can't be changed, that you're defined by what you did."

He gestured at the water, at the shifting landscape around us.

"And shame creates a perceptual blindness—you can often see what others are doing unconsciously more clearly than you can see yourself. You saw Ken falling apart. You saw exactly what he was doing and why. But you couldn't see yourself with that same clarity. That blindness IS shame."

Something cracked open in my chest, and I felt a strange sucking feeling in my forehead, like all of my shame was flowing into a black hole in my brain.

"Heal that blindness," Samah continued, "and you see yourself clearly. You see the past not as a wound but as a path. And that—truly seeing yourself—that's the work of Creation."

I sat with that for a long time, staring into the water.

"Redeeming the past isn't about fixing it," Samah said. "It's not about making it right or undoing what happened. It's about perceiving it fully. Understanding why it was what it was. Seeing how it led to what is now. Appreciating it."

"Appreciating fraud?" I said, my voice sharp. "Appreciating theft?"

"Appreciating all of it," Samah replied calmly. "You were desperate. Hungry. Afraid. You saw an opportunity and you took it. You did what you thought you needed to survive and win. That's what humans do when they're operating from scarcity and fear."

He leaned forward.

"And then you evolved. You outgrew it. You stopped needing those tactics. You built something legitimate. And eventually, you walked away from all of it—not because you got caught, but because you woke up."

Tears were streaming down my face now.

"The moment you can look at what you did and see it as part of the pattern—not good or bad, just real—it stops defining you. It becomes compost. Soil for something new."

The lake shimmered. The sky shifted to a soft rose gold.

"So I don't need to confess publicly," I said slowly. "I don't need to atone or face consequences. I just need to... see it clearly. Without shame."

"Exactly. The shame is what keeps you trapped in the identity of 'the man who did those things.' Drop the shame, and you become the man who did those things and then transformed. Who learned. Who grew. Who chose differently."

I sat there, breathing, letting it sink in.

"Can I stay here for a while?" I asked.

"As long as you wish," Samah said. "This place is yours. It always has been."

He stood and walked back into the shifting landscape, dissolving into light.

I sat by the lake alone, and let myself see.

Not the justifications. Not the defenses. Not the rationalizations I'd told myself for fifteen years.

Just the truth.

I ran a Ponzi scheme. I bribed my way to an unfair advantage. I paid off my partner to disappear and quietly watched him kill himself. I stole from the market and called it genius.

And then I stopped. I evolved. I built something legitimate. And eventually, I walked away from all of it to find something real.

The shame dissolved like mist in sunlight.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in my study, Remi asleep at my feet.

Something fundamental had shifted. The past was still there—but it was no longer sticky.

I wasn't defined by what I'd done. I wasn't trapped by it.

It was just... compost.

Soil for the man I was becoming.

Day 10 – KRYSTA AND JULE

Christina called me this morning. She'd gotten up this morning and been thinking about writing, about how excited she was to actually be a writer. To pursue her dream.

"That's amazing," I said. And I meant it.

But after we hung up, I noticed something. A subtle tightness in my chest. A familiar pattern surfacing.

I wanted to help her.

Not in a supportive way. In a controlling way.

My mind was already spinning: I could introduce her to publishers. Help her build a platform. Optimize her approach. Make sure she didn't struggle the way so many writers do.

I caught myself mid-thought and stopped.

This was the old pattern. The billionaire instinct. Fix the problem. Throw money and power at it. Control the outcome. Make things happen.

I sat with the discomfort instead of acting on it.

What if she struggles? the voice whispered. What if she fails? What if you could prevent that?

I unfolded the discomfort, letting it show me its texture. Thin, papery, brittle.

And beneath it: the real fear. That if I wasn't the one making things happen, I was useless. That my value came from control. From the things I could do for or to others.

But Christina didn't need me to make things happen for her. She was sovereign. She could hold whatever dimensionality wished to emerge.

And so could I.

A-sociation. Not moving toward or away. Just... trusting the field.

I texted her: Tell me about some of your ideas for stories. I’d love to hear.

She called back immediately and talked for an hour. I listened. Really listened. No solutions. No strategies. Just presence.

When we hung up, I felt lighter than I had in days.

That evening, we met for dinner. She looked radiant—brighter than I'd ever seen her.

"I've been thinking," she said. "About my name."

"Yeah?"

"Christina feels... small. Timid. Like I'm apologizing for existing." She paused. "I want to be Krysta. Sharp. Bright. Crystalline."

I stared at her, smiling. "That's perfect. You ARE Krysta."

Then I laughed. “Funny—you’ve been calling me Jule this past week. And I realized I like it. Like a jewel. That’s what I want my friends to call me.”

We sat there grinning at each other, marveling at the symmetry.

Christina and Julian weren't gone. But Krysta and Jule were who we'd become.

And neither of us needed permission to be who we were.

Day 11 – THE FLOATING BED

I woke to Krysta screaming.

Not in fear. In shock.

Because we were floating.

The bed—with both of us tangled in the sheets and Remi clinging to the corner—was hovering three feet above the floor, spinning slowly like a parade float steered by a drunk god.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" I yelled, grabbing the edge of the mattress.

Krysta clutched my arm, eyes wide, and then—we both burst out laughing.

The bed wobbled. Pillows slid off and hit the floor. Remi barked in confusion, scrambling for purchase on the spinning mattress. The whole thing tilted, and we grabbed each other, laughing so hard we couldn't breathe.

"Jule—how are we—"

"I have NO idea!"

The bed drifted in lazy spirals, like it was enjoying itself. Like the universe had decided our love nest should moonlight as a cosmic comedy sketch.

And then, gently, it descended. Slowly. Gracefully. Like a feather settling onto water.

We landed with a soft thump.

For a moment, we just lay there, staring at each other.

Then Krysta started laughing again. "Did that actually just happen?"

"I think so. Unless we're both insane."

Remi jumped off the bed and shook himself, looking offended.

I sat up, running my hands through my hair. "Okay. So. My bed floats now. That's... new."

Krysta rolled onto her back, still giggling. "This is God Mode, isn't it? This is what Samah was talking about."

And suddenly, it clicked.

God Mode wasn't omniscience. It wasn't perfection. It wasn't even power in the traditional sense.

It was play.

Divine, infinite, completely serious play.

The bed had floated because... why not? Because we were joyful. Because reality was responding to us. Because the universe wanted to join the fun.

I started laughing again, and so did Krysta, and Remi barked like he finally understood the joke.

Later that afternoon, I texted Samah: My bed floated. With both of us on it. While we were asleep.

His response: Excellent. Playground is bleeding through. You're ready.

Ready for what?

Everything.

I sat with that for a while, grinning.

God Mode was real. Not because I'd earned it or achieved some level of enlightenment.

Because I'd remembered how to play.

Day 12 – WRITING THE RIDE

Krysta was off writing today—hours at her desk, channeling her Ride onto the page. She'd texted me around noon: I can't stop. The words are just pouring out.

I sat on my terrace with coffee, Remi at my feet, and thought about that.

She was a writer now. Not because she'd claimed the identity, but because she was doing the thing.

And I realized: I could do that too.

Not as a career. Not as an identity to attach to. Just... as a thing I could choose to do.

I didn't have to be "a writer" to write. The label didn't matter. The identity didn't even matter, so long as I wasn’t attached to it. I could be a writer, or not. I could just... write.

So I opened my laptop and started.

I wrote about the birthday party. The glass palace. The emptiness. The moment I stumbled onto Samah's LinkedIn profile and clicked through to the Fantasmagorifier.

I wrote about Day 1. Day 2. The collapse. The transformation. The Ride.

Hours passed like minutes. The words flowed—not effortlessly, but honestly. I wasn't performing. I wasn't trying to impress anyone. I was just... telling the truth.

By evening, I'd written the entire first three weeks, all the way up to Totality.

I leaned back, staring at the screen, and laughed.

I was writing my own Ride. The story you’re reading right now. Not as memoir, not as confession, but as a map. For anyone else who might need to find their way from empire to presence, from control to play, from shadow to light.

I looked out at the ocean, at the waves catching the last light of the day, and felt something I'd never felt before:

Radiant perfection.

Not that I was perfect. But that everything—every moment, every choice, every misstep—was perfectly itself. Every piece a note in the harmony of now.

The empire I'd built. The darkness I'd carried. The transformation I'd undergone. The floating bed. The astral flight. All of it.

Perfect.

I saved the document and closed the laptop.

Tomorrow, I'd write more. But tonight, I just wanted to sit with the perfection of this moment.

Day 13 – PRISMATIC ME

Krysta came over in the afternoon, glowing.

"I had lunch with Audrey," she said. "And it was... good. Really good. We healed something."

She told me about the conversation—how she'd seen her own projection onto her daughter, how she'd apologized, how Audrey had softened in response. How they'd connected for the first time in years.

"I told her about you," Krysta said, smiling. "Not the billionaire part. Just... the meeting, the Ride, the feeling of finding something real."

"What did she say?"

"She was happy for me. Genuinely happy."

I pulled her into a hug. "That's beautiful."

We sat on the terrace together, watching the waves, and I felt something shift in me.

I wasn't one thing anymore.

I was prismatic.

Billionaire. Lover. Writer. Magician. Guy whose bed floated. Man learning to let go of control. Friend. Dog companion. Seeker. Builder.

Every facet shining at once. Not in conflict, not in sequence, but simultaneously. Radiant. Whole.

I thought about the past week. The coherence clicking into place. The Breath of God lifting me and Remi into the sky. The Playground revelation with Samah. The name shift. The floating bed. Beginning to write my Ride.

Everything had come together.

Not as completion—as readiness.

The Fantasmagorifier log said this week was about "Readying for MORE." And now I understood.

I wasn't finished. I was just beginning. But I was ready.

For the Big Shift. For whatever came next. For the work of helping to build the Age of Infinity.

Krysta leaned her head on my shoulder. "What are you thinking about?"

"How everything is prismatic now," I said. "How I'm not one thing. I'm all of it."

She smiled. "Me too."

We sat in the fading light, two prismatic beings watching the ocean shimmer, and I felt it clearly:

The Ride wasn't over. It was expanding.

And I was ready to expand with it.

Final Analysis – Week 9

This week, everything cohered. I became incapable of unconscious self-deception. The Breath of God carried me and Remi through the sky. Playground revealed itself as the space where I'd been doing the deepest work all along. Shame dissolved, and the past became compost instead of weight.

I caught my control patterns and chose a-sociation instead. Christina became Krysta. Julian became Jule. My bed floated while we slept, and God Mode revealed itself as divine play.

I started writing my Ride—the one you're reading now. And I recognized myself as prismatic: every facet shining, nothing hidden, nothing apologized for.

Week 9 wasn't about arriving. It was about readying.

The Big Shift is coming.

And I'm ready to help build it.