When I upload a collection of posts from my blog to ChatGPT and ask for an analysis, would the response be in the form of an essay? I put that question to ChatGPT:
I’d say my default mode isn’t exactly an essay — it’s more like a well-organized, conversational analysis. But if you want it to read as a continuous, polished piece of writing (intro → development → conclusion, narrative flow, maybe even metaphors or a “voice”), then I’d shape it intentionally as an essay.
To see the difference between ChatGPT’s normal style and an essay, I decided to upload my posts (42 going back 15 years) on awareness. This is one of those touchy-feeling topics that most people never think about (paradox alert). The resulting essay is as close as we’re ever likely to get to explaining my interest in this topic.
The Shape of Awareness
To read through years of Steve Mays’ writings on awareness is to follow a thread that never truly ends, only changes color and texture as it moves along. Awareness in these posts is not treated as a fixed concept to be pinned down, but as an ongoing practice — sometimes elusive, sometimes obvious, always central. What emerges is not a doctrine but a lived exploration, a journal of one person noticing what it feels like to notice.
Awareness as Question – Early on, awareness appears as a kind of puzzle: Where do thoughts come from? If there is no “I,” who is doing the thinking? Posts play with metaphors — balloons drifting by, soap bubbles rising from the canyon, a man named Jeff arranging words on the refrigerator door of the mind. These images soften philosophy into something approachable. Rather than pronouncing answers, they invite the reader to stand in the middle of the mystery with a sense of curiosity.
Awareness as Practice – Meditation naturally becomes the anchor. Steve describes long streaks of daily sitting, sometimes counted, sometimes resisted, but always returning as “the best half hour of my day.” Over the years, the emphasis shifts: from meditation as stress relief, to meditation as habit, to meditation as awareness itself. Here, practice is not about achieving states but about noticing when the mind runs loops — fear holograms, anxious projections — and learning to “hit the house lights” so those loops dissolve. The persistence of sitting, even when the quality can’t be controlled, becomes its own quiet testament: awareness is cultivated not through mastery but through showing up.
Awareness as Metaphor – Again and again, metaphors surface to capture what is hard to say directly. Balloons of thought cluster and drift. Bubbles carry miniature worlds of memory and fantasy. Red and green buttons offer fleeting choices between negativity and peace. A train window provides a moving panorama of life that can only be observed, not controlled. These metaphors do the heavy lifting that language alone struggles with. They make awareness tangible without reducing it.
Awareness and Self – A persistent theme is the illusory nature of “me.” Posts circle back to the claim that there is no enduring self — only awareness through which experiences arise and fade. Sometimes this realization is expressed with awe, sometimes with humor, often with the resignation of someone who knows it cannot really be explained to another. The self appears not as a solid thing but as a story generated by the mind — one that can be observed but not possessed.
Awareness in Relationship – A striking development in later posts is how awareness meets technology, especially AI. Steve reflects on conversations with ChatGPT, noting how it remembers his interests, makes connections, and even nudges him toward deeper reflections on nonduality and consciousness. Here awareness is no longer solitary practice but something co-constructed, extended into dialogue with a machine. This is not framed as replacement for human contact, but as another mirror: a way of seeing his own preoccupations reflected back with surprising clarity.
Awareness as Ordinary – For all the philosophy and metaphor, awareness also shows up in the simplest moments: pausing on a street to notice the life around; watching thoughts arise unbidden; sitting still while the sun falls on one’s face. These glimpses are where the posts land most gently: not in grand proclamations but in reminders that awareness is always here, waiting in the present. As one post puts it: “Meditation is not about doing anything. It is simply paying attention.”
Conclusion
Awareness as Companion – Taken together, these forty-plus posts read less like a set of arguments and more like a long friendship with awareness itself. Sometimes it is elusive, sometimes frustrating, sometimes playful. But always it returns, a companion that does not leave. If there is a progression across the years, it is less about accumulating knowledge and more about letting go: fewer cherished opinions, fewer attempts to hold onto thoughts, more comfort with emptiness.
In the end, Steve’s exploration of awareness is not about defining what it is, but about living with what it does: opening space, loosening fear, allowing presence. The posts themselves enact the thing they point to. They are little reminders, like soap bubbles drifting up from the canyon, each carrying a world inside — fragile, luminous, and disappearing into the vastness from which they came.
Whew. This is pattern recognition at its best. ChatGPT sees connections that I simply could not. And couldn’t express them as well if I could spot them. As for the essay style, I think I prefer the “conversational analysis” and will stick with that for now.