who i thought i had to be

Hey friend, 

When you let go of all the things that you are not, that you thought that you needed to be…

You can finally begin to embrace all that you truly are.

This year I have truly stripped my life back to the core essentials. 

I stopped moving, and signed a 2 year lease here in Buenos Aires. 

And have done far less “things”

No motorcycle trips

No surf trips

No (big) psychedelic trips 

Not a great deal of travel, apart from what we required for visa runs or residency paperwork, and a family visit

And I have really dedicated myself to myself.

And a lot has been revealed. 

For so long, I felt like in order to be enough I had to do all of these “crazy” things. 

I had to be a “crazy” guy.

Big cliff jumps, solo skydiving, standing up on my motorbike, surfing big waves, fighting, foreign lovers

Being the “wild” guy, is where i always got attention, from an early age

And so I dedicated so much time and energy these last years into trying to be this person I thought that I needed to be.

To be enough, to be accepted, to be loved.

And in that, there was a great absence to who i truly am

And in some ways, i feel like i am kind of just beginning that journey of understanding who Jay Topp truly is- apart from all that i thought i needed to be

I think one of the most fucked up things about life, is how is easy it is to deceive ourselves. 

We are all fairly good at detecting the lies of others, it’s a survival mechanism

But we are all terrible at detecting our own bullshit- because of how deep it is.

It’s generally the same for all the young people that I speak with.

We have all been so deeply conditioned and programmed by culture 

It’s fucking impossible almost, to get to the truth of what we really are

To live a life of truth, truly requires a great renovation of all that you are

A great gutting of all the shit that you have taken on until now.

Consider that we have all been trained since birth to conform to a version of reality that is so far from our highest good, and truest expression.

I am only starting to understand how far I was taken from my true nature. 

And it goes a lot deeper than the school system and 9-5 paradigm.

But it's a good place to start.

This is what a real "alternative education" means to me.

The adventure always calls,

-Jay

Jay Topp is a 24 year old writer, marketer, film maker & self-led educator originally from Australia, now based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. You can see his films here. Instagram here. And his business website here.

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