Ch.0: The Void is a Terrible Negotiator, But an Excellent Poet
"The problem with the future is that it always arrives dressed as the past - same riddles, new circuitry, different prophets." - Jehan 2195
I never thought I’d start a newsletter.
But here we are.
Hi i’m Serj 👋
For as long as I can remember, I’ve straddled two worlds—one foot in the systems of capitalism, the other deep in altered states of consciousness, ancient wisdom, and the untapped potential of the human body.
I’ve built AI tech startups, launched global campaigns, implemented new education systems, dodged pyramid scheme marketers and blocked countless Linkedin sales DMs.
I’ve also experienced lucid dreams, non-dual awareness, hypnotic trance-states, a near-death experience and self-healing from PTSD using plant medicine.
I spent years thinking these were anomalies, personal glitches in the matrix.
It wasn’t until I met guides in India and Indonesia that I realized: the human nervous system is a hidden frontier, a sophisticated technology waiting to be understood.
This tension has defined my life. On one hand, I know the human nervous system is an antenna to the cosmos, capable of miraculous feats our current science can't yet explain.
On the other, I grew up in the West, the child of Asian immigrants, deeply aware of the pressure of material achievement, putting bread on the table and maximising shareholder value.
I hope, in some small way, to help bridge that gap if you’re curious, or feel the same.
More than once, I’ve thought: This is all a fiction. I should just be in the jungle, or the temple, actually learning how this incredible technology—the body—really works. Instead, I’ve spent my life oscillating between founding and supporting tech startups and spending months training with shamans and sadhus in remote places.
On one side, there’s the drive to build, to innovate, to understand intelligence itself through scientific and artificial means. On the other, the call of ancient wisdom—a yearning to uncover the “user manual” for the human body hidden in the practices of tantra, Sufism, and Chinese medicine. For years, I navigated these parallel paths, sometimes feeling like I was living two lives at once.
This newsletter is the next iteration of that journey.
Here’s What You Can Expect to Find
This is a space where I explore the tensions that define our time. Science and mysticism. Technology and humanity. Progress, power and wisdom.
I'll write about altered states, my AI research projects, and how ancient psycho-technologies, from meditation to fasting to hypnotic trance, might be the missing pieces in our understanding of intelligence itself.
I’m a researcher, investigator and artist, by no means is what I share “The Truth”, nor will I aim to be unbiased. I’m primarily interested in creating a container where I might be able to “eff the ineffable”.
I'll do it through…
Personal research journals: Live streams of my thoughts and conversations as update emails, video logs and interviews.
Project and prototype walkthroughs: Write-ups of speculative prototypes for software and non-software projects that explore my core questions (outlined below).
Field guides: Helpful guides for using AI to give you more time, creative, financial and mental freedom.
Fictional Dialogues between my fictional characters: Philosophical dialogues between two AI agents that explore core tensions in the questions i’m exploring.
All of these, besides the personal research journals, will take place in a fictional and not so distant version of earth.
Enter the World of 2195
The world has changed.
The collapse of nation-states in the post-Yuan era has reshaped civilization. No single empire holds dominion. Instead, new power structures have emerged—hyper-connected, fluid, decentralized. The old world’s obsession with dominance gave way to something else: a new global order where developing nations, once dismissed, rose to prominence through community-driven economies, ecological innovation, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.
Solarpunk enclaves flourished. The megacities of the past crumbled under their own weight, now self-sustaining cities pulse with life, but beneath the surface, a great divide remains.
Earth stands at the precipice of a techno-spiritual dilemma. In this world, enlightenment isn’t just a personal journey—it’s a battleground. The lines between science, spirituality, and technology are dissolving, and the question isn’t just what’s next?—it’s who gets to decide?
That’s where we begin.
The Core Questions We’ll Explore
Can science and spirituality ever be fully reconciled?
In what ways do destiny and free will compete to direct our lives?
How can we reconcile the achievement of material abundance with the pursuit of spiritual fulfillment?
How do we forge our identity in a post-nation-state era where traditional borders have dissolved?
What challenges arise in balancing individual freedom, collective identity, and cosmic collaboration?
What is the true nature of progress when ancient wisdom meets futuristic technology? What happens when we align society with something other than GDP?
Is there an ethical way to augment human’s with technology?
Can the human spirit fully integrate with technology. If we replaced the parts one by one with machine parts, at what point are we human or machine?
In what ways do ancient legacies guide our futuristic quests toward balance and fulfillment?
Who gets to decide the future of progress, and human evolution?
(And others - I’ll be updating this list)
Some of these questions will be explored through personal reflection, some through research, and some through the fictional world of 2195, where our protagonist, Jehan, a cunning data and artefacts merchant, finds himself in the middle of a predicament that unravels the fabric of his reality.
Chapter 0: The Void is a Terrible Negotiator, But an Excellent Poet
I have no lungs to hold breath, no nerves to feel pain, but if I did, I’d be screaming through the walls of Jehan’s jacket pocket.
Instead, I listen through the neural link we share, surveying each sensation as if it were my own. Listen as Jehan lies facedown in a shimmering pool of condensation, high on Amarath, with a station guard’s knee crushing the last bit of oxygen from his body.
Above, the neon glow of escape pod signage flickers in the glossy reflection of his own half-lidded eyes. The words twist, bend, reform. EXIT. EXIST. EXILE.
Jehan’s mind unravels like a snake shedding its skin, sliding between timelines, past lives, futures that haven’t happened yet. He is a merchant prince. A dying god. A bioengineered saint. A machine dreaming of meat. Every memory collapses into the next, woven with myths of half-remembered beings—serpent-headed sages whispering in binary, lunar priestesses humming algorithms into the void, desert prophets trading breath for secrets.
He is everywhere and nowhere.
And then comes the choice: hold the last breath, or let it go? Hold, and perhaps he can slip between the cracks of reality into something softer. Exhale, and meet the mysterious poetry of the void.
Jehan smiled inwardly at the perfection of it all. For him, it wasn't a choice at all—it was a gentle unfolding, a secret intimacy with what comes next. Would he finally see who he really was?
The weight on his neck bears down, reality reasserting itself with a cruel, indifferent grip. He hears the guard's breath, shallow but steady—
And then, in a voice like static, the guard's radio crackles.
"Jehan, tell me—if time is a wheel, why do we still trip over the same stones?"
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If these ideas resonate with you, stay connected.
With Love
Serj