A philosophical essay · PDF + EPUB

What are we really looking for?

You can change your life and still feel: “this isn’t it.” It is hard to move forward when you cannot say what is missing.

The Sense of Illusion helps distinguish a specific gap from an expectation nothing seems to satisfy. A short essay on freedom, consciousness, and the search for yourself.

The Sense of Illusion book cover

Szymon PodolskiPDF + EPUB

How “this still isn’t it” develops

One wish. Two different goals.

I want to be free.

One possible story — not a definition of this wish.

more time for my own life

There is a specific change to work toward.

“real freedom”

An imagined goal appears that the specific change may no longer satisfy.

Yes, but that is not it.

The search resumes, but what would count as enough is no longer clear.

The problem begins when more time still is not enough because “it is not real freedom yet.” Then it is no longer clear what concrete change would be enough.

What else is “freedom” supposed to mean here?

The problem

It is hard to change something when you cannot say what needs to change.

Sometimes you need time, a skill, or information. Sometimes even a real change gets dismissed with one sentence:

Yes, but that is not it.

The distinction matters. A specific gap gives you something to work on. An undefined “something more” leaves you unsure what would even count as progress. This essay examines that distinction.

Free

The first chapter is free.

The complete first chapter and the one-page “Not It” Test. Two PDFs to read before buying. No form and no email required.

What the book gives you

The difference between a gap and the feeling that something is missing.

What needs to change

A specific need — time, knowledge, an opportunity — rather than a general belief that something is wrong with you.

Why nothing seems enough

How answers can keep being rejected without a clear account of what they lack. And why simply continuing the search does not settle the problem.

What you seek in yourself

How an image of your “true self” can become a separate goal. The same mechanism appears in questions about consciousness and awakening.

A philosophical essay · PDF + EPUB

The Sense of Illusion

The full argument in a short essay: from the feeling that something is missing to questions about consciousness, the “true self,” and enlightenment.

I don’t propose any theory. I examine how something becomes an object of our search — and how to recognise what we actually expect an answer to provide.

$10PDF + EPUB

What you get

A short essay: 33 pages in A5 format. The price includes the PDF and EPUB.

Read the first chapter

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Szymon Podolski

Why I wrote it

Szymon Podolski

I spent years looking for better versions of myself. I did real work and made changes, yet “this still isn’t it” kept returning. I could feel that something was missing without being able to say what.

I wrote The Sense of Illusion to examine that mechanism. I did not want to pad it out to make it look like a bigger book. It is an essay: a concentrated account of what I wanted to say.

Today, when I notice this movement, I smile.

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