What you are about to read is a series of selected journal entries from a journal I wrote in 2023 using only my eyes to prepare for the loss of hand function made unavoidable by my diagnosis with ALS (aka MND, Lou Gherig’s or Charcot’s disease).
What began as a practical exercise soon transformed into a powerful meditation on mortality, nature, and the fundamental luminous nature of all things. Now finished, I feel compelled to share it, as if I had plucked a treasure from my suffering, that may be of benefit to my fellow travelers.
It was during the time I was rewriting and revising the selected journal entries for Autumn, that I was forced to spend nearly two weeks in intensive care.
The ordeal began with what seemed like a minor cold. It triggered a bronchial spasm that my weakened respiratory muscles couldn’t overcome. My oxygen levels dropped, and the situation quickly escalated into a serious crisis. Paramedics were called, and I was rushed to the hospital.
There, I spent four days in intensive care—mostly on a respirator, unable to speak or wear my glasses. They didn’t allow me to eat or drink to avoid complications. I lost weight I could scarcely afford. Finally, after many tests, I was allowed to return home.
After a few days at home to celebrate Father’s Day and my son’s 14th birthday, I began feeling worse. What looked like another cold turned into pneumonia in both lungs, and I was admitted to the hospital again.
Since pneumonia is exactly how so many ALS/MND stories end, the doctors were deeply concerned. They placed me on high doses of antibiotics and steroids, and began a regimen using a “cough assist” machine to vacuum out the fluids that were threatening to drown me. At one point, they told my daughter I had only a 50% chance of recovering.
The outpouring of love and support during this time overwhelmed me. Upon hearing the news, my business partner and dear friend traveled immediately from Manhattan to Doylestown, PA. My family—my caring daughter Abby and her wonderful husband Marcus, my devoted son Luke, my tireless caretaker Dan, and even my long- divorced first wife, Amy—never left my side. Their gentle care often moved me to tears.
At the start of my hospital stay, I was immobilized and unable to speak. I couldn’t see clearly due to the respirator mask leaving no room for glasses. A course of steroids improved my condition but left me with severe insomnia. I spent long, still hours staring at the ceiling, focused entirely on not choking. It was far from pleasant. Initially, the experience was panic-inducing and claustrophobic—until I had a realization: people travel across the world and pay handsomely for silent meditation
retreats. And here I was, already immersed in one.
Rather than resist the discomfort, I began to treat it as a period of intensive spiritual practice. An opportunity.
If you don’t yet have a contemplative discipline—be it meditation, prayer, or anything else that connects you to a larger reality—I strongly encourage you to establish one. Few things are more valuable in difficult times.
So, like it or not, I began a practice of advanced meditation: two-hour sessions while on the respirator, six times a day, followed by long, sleepless nights of silent reflection.
As I lay there, I revisited the ideas of thinkers like David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake, Karl Jaspers, Aldous Huxley, the Zen tradition, and my own namesake, William James. Many of them proposed that consciousness doesn’t originate in the brain—that the brain acts more like a receiver, transmitter, or filter, much like eyes detect light or ears detect sound.
This idea resonates deeply with me. Our brains seem to “change channels” constantly. A parent tunes into the mind of their family. At work, we engage with the collective mind of the organization. In sports, we synchronize with the mind of the game. When reading, we enter the mind of the author. We adapt to the logic and rhythm of different minds, harmonizing with them as needed.
But as Douglas Hofstadter and others have suggested, the brain can also turn inward, creating a recursive loop that gives rise to the illusion of a separate self. This self- referential loop is isolating—a mirror consuming the entire field of vision, or a nose smelling only itself. In
this loop, the logic of the self becomes unstable, tossed by moods, perceptions, and circumstance. The noise of the self drowns out everything else. Our awareness of other minds—including the universal mind—becomes clouded.
And so, suffering begins.
To escape, we turn to romance, music, literature, wealth, sports, vanity—even drugs—anything strong enough to let us “lose ourselves.”
But there’s another way: we can simply change the channel.
During those long, silent hours, I saw that my mind had become fixated on pain and fear—anchored to my immobilized body and suffering self. My first step was to attune myself to the compassionate minds of those around me: doctors, nurses, family, and friends.
Then, I reconnected with the luminous awareness I have attempted to describe throughout this book. From that vast, eternal mind, the suffering of the self seemed small. Clarity returned. I remembered that my human body is just one among 8.1 billion others. I remembered that, in that same moment, stars exploded in distant galaxies, planets orbited in ancient rhythms, rain fell, water flowed, flowers bloomed, and life—in infinite forms—continued.
I could feel that all is transient, yet eternal—
interconnected, unified, still, and flowing.
Wondrous.
This is the foundational mind—luminous and eternal, present in all things. It defies description, yet includes everything. Nothing can be added or subtracted. It transcends birth and death. There is only transformation, like waves rising and falling on a sunlit sea.
This is the unified mind from which all things arise and to which all return. This is our true self—not the frightened, isolated one.
Confined and silent in my hospital bed, I found that when I tuned into this greater mind—not the fearful, pain-filled self—fear dissolved. In its place arose wonder, compassion, and deep gratitude. My heart rate slowed. My blood pressure dropped. My oxygen levels rose.
Why wouldn’t they?
I was no longer operating from the limited mind of
one man, but from the boundless mind of the infinite.
And even when this body inevitably fails, that true self remains—radiant, vast, encompassing.
Unchanging amid constant change.
Ancient, yet fresh as the morning flower.