I am not a religious person in the traditional sense. This is because, as a knowledgeable inhabitant of the Information Age, I do not need to have the meaning of life explained to me by divergent dogmas that can be traced back to the Bronze Age. Thus, I choose not to depend upon these faith-based narratives mythically characterizing our ontological origin, intrinsic purpose, and eschatological destiny, to provide me with their often irrational protections against existential anxiety.

I only follow the dictates of mystical spirituality that align with the rationality of my own metaphysical insights. Accordingly, I am neither a theist nor an atheist—in the binary context defining these terms—but a paradoxical combination of the two, in that those who identify as either would likely accuse me of being the other.

As such a non-non-theist, the basis of my rational religion is the simple belief that only our unifying acts of love embody the will of our divinely selfless self. Its straightforward logic merely requires faith that there is compassion inherent within each of us, while any room for doubt is reserved by one’s relative lack of empathy.

Spiritually, I am typically identified as a secular Black man, although I have no antipathy toward non-exclusive, unifying mystical aspirations. However, I will always be an implacable adversary of any divisive, hierarchical system of existential belief.

My Blackness is noteworthy because, in America—where I was born, raised, and presently reside—secularity is generally only regarded as an acceptable characteristic of white people. Therefore, the equanimity embodied in my relentlessly rational perspective implies to Americans who cannot imagine a Black person logically deriving existential insights that a white man had not already found, that I cannot possibly be Black.

Contrary to that white supremacist assumption, I fully embrace my Blackness. In this race-obsessed society—within which my self-esteem surprisingly thrives—such Black pride represents both an act of humility and a badge of defiance against America’s continuing identification of Blackness as exuding a fearsome aura of inferior untouchability. Conversely, I see my Blackness as embodying my gateway to transcending this American perspective, rather than merely seeking success within it. Consequently, while I may be an improbable American, I am obviously not an impossible one.

Currently, I self-identify as an enlightened person, who happens to be a diasporic Black man, who had previously come to realize the exploitative potential of mysticism, and thus applied his innate talent for rational analysis to mainstream physical and metaphysical schools of thought to develop A Concise Theory of Truly Everything. According to this comprehensive philosophical framework, on the other side of the uniqueness that differentiates your interiority from that of every other person with which you interact, we are actually the same entity adopting different conscious perspectives within the same universe. The truth of this wisdom is revealed to us through our empathy. Therefore, as other beings facilitate my conscious growth, thus increasing my empathy, the separation I experience from other conscious beings correspondingly decreases. Nonetheless, my personal preference is to remain Black until I completely transcend my uniqueness.