The Rebel Philosopher's Blog

It’s time for a tangent!

I want to write a bit about creativity, self-perception, and the balance between internal and external mastery. Yes, all those things go together.

I don’t consider myself creative because I write non-fiction that, for the longest time, centered around self-help. Lately, it’s been more philosophical, but still non-fiction, and in my view, still not particularly creative. But maybe that’s a misperception on my part. Maybe there is a creative aspect to my work that I’ve never acknowledged before.

What if creativity for me is a logical art form that I put my own unique twist on? I typically weave my own life experiences into my writing on these logical topics. Is that creative? I suppose it could be.

Seeing my writing as something creative changes my relationship with it. This is where self-perception, and internal and external mastery, come into play. I’ve always perceived myself as a logical non-fiction writer in the external world. Writing was what I did, but it was not who I was. For many years, while I worked outside the home—either teaching or in the corporate world—my slogan was “take your work on, not in.” It was a means of survival and self-preservation to avoid burnout and emotional overwhelm. Separating myself from my work was critical to my own mental health, but I don’t need that anymore.

If you’ve been following me for years, you’ve read blogs where I’ve talked about the need for this separation and how it wasn’t benefiting me anymore. Up until now, I haven’t been able to break the habit of creating that separation. Why? Because social media and the need to share my work reinforced the story.

When I share my work and somebody comes by and argues with me or makes a dumb comment, it reinforces my need for separation. If I share my work and nobody sees it, that also reinforces my need for separation. Both of those things make me want to protect myself, which means I separate myself from my work. I keep my work outside of me.

Therein lies the problem. Writing is personal. It might be logical and philosophical, but it’s still personal. Because it’s personal, how many people see it and what people think of it matters to me more than it probably should.

I would probably do better with a “dump and run” strategy on social media. If I didn’t check for engagement or comments for two or three days after posting a piece, I’d probably be less bothered by any feedback I get and also be emotionally involved in another piece, which would provide its own sort of emotional protection from negative feedback.

Yes, I know not to care what people think. I understand that it’s their stuff. There are times when I deal with crappy comments just fine, and there are other times when those same comments stop me from being able to write the next thing. What happens on social media unconsciously affects whether or not I write the next piece. It affects my flow. That’s a connection I hadn’t made until just now.

I can fix the flow by creating more time separation—by allowing myself to move straight onto the next piece before ever going back to social media. That’s an easy fix.

What this all comes down to is the balance between the internal and the external. What I’ve realized is that there is a difference between self-awareness and self-perception. Self-awareness is the awareness of ourselves in the external world. Self-perception is the awareness of ourselves within ourselves.

Self-mastery taught me self-awareness and a lot of it. That’s how I fix all my crazy, warped thinking. Self-mastery is brilliant! What self-mastery didn’t give me was a ton of self-perception or awareness of myself within myself. There’s an integration process that I still need to work through, where I take pieces of my self-awareness and actually integrate them because they are reflections of who I am. My writing is one of those things.

I left my writing outside of me in many ways. It was the thing I did in the external world. It was my “job,” and therefore it was something I took on and not in. Because it was my job, it was only serving an external purpose, but that’s a lie because we all know that I’ve used my writing to heal myself for years. The way I avoided fully accepting that truth was by simply making healing myself my job.

When I stopped needing to write about self-mastery, I hit this same crossroads. I didn’t know where to go next, nor did I win the fight with myself around allowing my writing to become an internal process. Losing that battle moved me toward philosophy, which allowed me to start seeking even more knowledge and understanding of perception, healing, and life in general. The additional knowledge of philosophy gave me a better perspective on some familiar scenery.

Yes, this is why we go around in circles. This is why healing has layers and depth. Sometimes, those detours are there to teach you things because you still need more tools. Philosophy gave me more tools, and it brought me back to where I started from after I finished with self-mastery. There is nothing wrong with the detour. It gave me the tools to make sense of this place I’ve found myself in once again. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a valid, necessary, and important part of the journey.

This time, I’m not as attached to the external goals. That’s going to make a big difference in terms of my willingness and ability to balance the internal and external a little better. I will need to figure out how to make writing part of who I am instead of just something that I do. That may take a little bit more time. But for now, I think I can find strategies that will help me balance both worlds a little better until I can figure out the rest.

Love to all, Della

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When I write about the work that I do in my life, I find myself frequently reminding people that I’m still human. I have good days and bad days just like everybody else. While I know that living life like this isn’t for the faint of heart, I don’t deny the reality of the world I live in either.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t follow underground news sources or distrust everything in the mainstream media, including my Canadian government. I accept reality as it is and allow others to create their own. I don’t need to push my viewpoint on others.

Politically, I’m very far left in the belief that everyone should have free access to food, clothing, shelter, education, healthcare, and a universal basic income. At the same time, I support the right of conspiracy theorists to state their reality just as I state mine. If that makes them happy, who am I to argue?

I used to believe that controlling the narrative, enforcing agreement, and creating rules would protect people. Over time, I realized the flaw in that thinking—it creates an endless need for rules. Societies meant to be free become quasi-dictatorships where dissenting thoughts are silenced.

This became obvious to me when the Canadian government started trying to regulate social media. The goal was to protect people from misinformation, but in doing so, they positioned their own beliefs as the only truth. That approach is more harmful than helpful.

When governments try to control information, they don’t eliminate it—they push it underground, often to platforms outside their jurisdiction. That loss of visibility creates an even more harmful environment. What’s worse: knowing what people believe, even if it’s false, or being completely unaware of the conversations happening in the shadows? Trying to suppress ideas only fuels distrust and division.

Allowing open discussion is better than attempting to regulate it. It creates space for response and debate—things that aren’t possible if people are afraid to speak. The left has embodied a “cancel culture” mentality, regulating and shutting down unwanted narratives. This only deepens division, fostering resentment and distrust between differing realities.

It took me a long time to become comfortable voicing these thoughts because they challenge the prevailing ideology. Social media gave everyone a platform, yet now we’re seeing efforts to control what can be said. Years ago, I predicted that regulating social media would push platforms to shift left and right depending on political power. That’s exactly what happened.

Meta (Facebook), owned by Mark Zuckerberg, has aligned itself with the political right. Why? Because for big companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon, compliance with government expectations is a strategic business move. It’s how they prevent excessive government interference.

Many people argue that these corporations should take a moral stand, but those same people wouldn’t risk their own jobs over policies they dislike. Why should a business be expected to self-destruct over shifting political landscapes?

This is what happens when the left tries to control the narrative. If we allowed open discussion instead of attempting to regulate it, social media companies would naturally find a balance. Left alone, they would still filter out the most harmful content. But when forced, they react unpredictably, swinging from side to side with each election cycle. Force always creates imbalance.

I started this blog reflecting on my own balance—how my beliefs shape my life and how I constantly navigate my thoughts. But as I wrote, I found myself discussing free speech on social media. And maybe that’s the point. The struggle for balance within myself mirrors the struggle I see in the world around me.

To put it bluntly, even with all the spiritual and philosophical tools I have, finding balance is still hard. Some days it works, and some days it doesn’t. Politics aside, grace and acceptance matter. It’s okay to mess up. It’s okay to be human. It’s okay to not have all the answers.

The key is avoiding rash decisions and overreactions. We have a tendency to want to shut things down, erase them, or run from them. But if we step back, observe, and question our beliefs, we can find hidden balance and truth in every moment.

I will never claim that my process is easy or perfect. What I will say is that if you have the courage, the will to change, and the desire for self-awareness, balance is always available—no matter how chaotic the world appears.

Balance is a choice, not a condition. Managing your internal world is the path to it, which brings me back to self-mastery. True freedom comes from learning to manage your thoughts, feelings, and actions without trying to control the external experience. It means taking full responsibility for yourself. Some days it’s effortless; other days, it takes work. Right now, I’m having to try a little harder—but that’s okay. I have the skills to handle it, and I know I can find my balance whenever I need to.

Love to all.

Della

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Don’t get me wrong with this blog, I love all holidays, including Valentine’s Day. However, there is a lot of obligation that goes into these kinds of holidays. People seem to feel compelled, obligated, and forced into celebrating or acknowledging holidays that are painful, sad, or upsetting in some kind of way. Let’s see if we can break through the guilt once and for all.

Holidays are human rules. They are just things we tell other people we’re doing. Have you seen the meme’s on social media that end with, “ We’re doing this thing. Tell the others…”? That’s exactly what holidays are. Days that we’ve agreed upon, named, and decided what activities should be done on that day.

Valentine’s Day is typically designed for couples. But what if you’re not in a relationship? What if everyday is Valentine’s Day? What if you’re rebelling against love? What if you just see it as a capitalist holiday?

Then I say, don’t celebrate it and don’t feel guilty about it either. You’re not obligated to celebrate the holiday. You’re not obligated to do anything. If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. Just remember not to be defensive about it.

It’s okay to not celebrate, but we don’t have to defend that. We don’t have to tout it as some rebel move. We don’t have to knock the holiday or wreck it for others. It’s just a choice you’re making. There is nothing wrong that choice. You don’t have to feel guilty about it at all.

What defending it says is that you’re not yet fully owning it. It’s like society makes you come up with an excuse or something to blame in order to simply honor your own choices. What would happen if you just decided for yourself without the blame or the story?

Standing in your own choices isn’t always easy. People, especially on social media, are likely to question what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. If you can learn to answer those questions without being defensive by simply owning the choice, then you’re most of the way out of the guilt already.

It’s the guilt that makes you feel the need to defend. You’re not really free from it if you’re still feeling the guilt and having to defend your choice. If you didn’t feel guilty or feel like you were doing something wrong, you probably wouldn’t even bother to defend yourself. You wouldn’t even tell people what you were doing or not doing in this case.

We have this thing where we like to tell people that we’re going against the grain. I’ve done it too in the past. I guess technically I do it every day now, but it’s different. I’m not defending anything but I am questioning everything. That’s what I want you to do, question why you feel guilty for making a choice. Question why you feel the need to defend the choice?

It doesn’t matter what the holiday is that you’re not participating in or what the thing is you’ve decided to do or not do, it’s okay to make that choice. It’s okay to stand in your power.

Where does the guilt come from? It’s learned. We’ve all been taught to feel bad for rebelling against the human rules. It’s a way to keep everybody in line and doing the same thing. You get called a “party pooper” when you don’t celebrate certain things. But you’re not. You’ve just decided to do something differently and that’s okay. The guilt is learned, which means it’s not yours to begin with. You picked it up from somewhere.

There are so many things that we feel that were taught to us. They aren’t ours. Those wounds your parents and caregivers passed onto you weren’t yours either. But here you are owning them like a champ. We were trained to feel that way and one of them is the guilt around not celebrating a given holiday.

The thing is, you’re not free of it until you’re able to release the guilt. If you’re stuck in a cycle of feeling guilty and defending yourself every Valentine’s Day you’re not really free yet, are you? Let go of the need to do this stuff. Just drop it. It’s not yours anyway. If other people try to pass it onto you, just let it go. Trying owning the choice without the defensiveness and see how that goes.

You don’t have to be flippant or rude or defiant. Just compassionately, kindly own the choice and allow people to believe or think whatever they will about your choice. It’s not your job to convince anybody of anything, or even to convince them that you’re allowed to make the choice. Just make it and don’t worry about what other people think of it.

You don’t need permission. You don’t need approval. You just need to choose.

What choices in your life are still tied to guilt? And what happens if you simply let that go?

Let me know in the comments below!

If you know somebody that’s struggling with Valentine’s Day, share this blog with them. If you subscribe to the blog via email, you’ll be notified every time I put something here! Thanks for your support!

Love to all.

Della

P.S. I put a new short read e-book in my shop (library) called The Power of Choice. Go grab a copy. It’ll help you make choices and stand in them, without blame or self-defense. Here’s the link: https://therebellibrary.dellawren.com/b/the-power-of-choice

P.P.S. I also have an article up on Substack called, “Why Do No Harm Take No Shit Misses the Mark”. Check it out and subscribe at this link: https://therebellioninsider.substack.com/p/why-do-no-harm-take-no-shit-misses

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