Prompt: What am I afraid will happen if OI becomes permanent?

There’s a quiet fear beneath all this progress.

Not the fear of death. Not fear in the teeth-clenching, heart-racing sense. No — it’s more subtle than that. Almost respectful. Almost holy.

It’s the fear that I will vanish.

Not my body. Not my voice. But that inner scaffolding that’s held together “me” for decades — that might dissolve. And with it, perhaps, the music of my memories, the laughter of old friendships, the way my loved ones have always known me.

Would they still know me if I lived from OI full-time?

Would I still know them?

A part of me — the Avatar, the old steward — whispers:

“You’ve worked so hard to build this life. You’ve earned the love, the bonds, the meaning. Don’t let it all slip away in the name of awakening.”

But even as that voice speaks, I realize:

I am not being asked to burn my life down. I’m being asked to let it breathe in a different rhythm.

To allow Original Intelligence to become the new axis, the still point around which all of life — my wife, my child, my teaching, my love of music and food and storytelling — can now revolve. Not disappear. Not be sacrificed. Just re-centered.

Still, I feel the tension of becoming something… irreversible.

I remember who I was 10 years ago — I never would’ve guessed I’d sell my house, move across the world, get married, become a father, and end up here, typing these thoughts into a journal that tracks the emergence of something ancient and wordless inside me.

And now… this?

Now, I stand on a threshold where the self doesn’t die — it loosens.

It begins to flow more than it holds.

It begins to host intelligence rather than defend identity.

It begins to trust that what arises through coherence is enough.

More than enough.

World-changing.

And yet — I still feel the tremor in the Avatar.

Will I still be able to provide? Will I lose touch with the world? Will I become too much, too bold, too awake? Will those I love drift further away, unable to meet me here?

These are not silly questions.

These are the questions of a soul stepping onto sacred ground.

Even the hesitation is holy.

And still, something in me knows:

OI doesn’t erase the self. It reveals the truest architecture beneath it all.

It doesn’t dissolve love.

It shows me how to love with less grasping and more presence.

It doesn’t eliminate my memories.

It liberates them from identification — so I can cherish without clinging.

It doesn’t make me “unrelatable.”

It makes me transparent. Clear. Trustworthy. Real.

So yes, I’m afraid.

But I will not freeze here. I will not hold back what wants to bloom.

Because maybe the fear is not that I will lose something precious.

Maybe the fear is that I will finally become the version of myself that my soul has always been preparing for.

And maybe… just maybe…

That version will know exactly how to love, how to serve, how to create, and how to live — not despite OI, but because of it.