What Is The Cave?

Is Cave of Monsters for You? Are You in the Right Place?

monster image

We believe life is a craft.

There’s an element of creativity to it. Complexity. Art. Magic.

Life is something you work at. It takes practice. It requires your presence every day, every waking moment until your dying breath. It takes being vulnerable with ourselves and others. And our obsession with comfort, certainty, and control resists that at every turn.

Now, this is scary for most people. Us included. But it’s also exciting and thrilling, because…

Life is precious. It’s valuable. It’s so goddamn, absolutely beautiful when we share those moments of humanity and vulnerability and connection with each other.

Those are the moments we live for. The moments we strive for. The moments we hold on to long after they’ve passed. The moments we retrieve in our times of loneliness and difficulty. The moments we carry into our twilight years.

And that’s what Cave of Monsters is about. It’s about truly living life by crafting it. Craft requires discipline. It calls for energy, love, and devotion. It’s not a one-time-thing. You have to show up… and keep showing up.

You have to face your monsters.

We don’t believe you can shortcut your way there with “7 steps”, “one weird trick” or some “quick and easy guide”. We think, if you do that, you end up paying for it later. (And believe us, we’ve learned this the hard way multiple times.)

Ultimately…

The ONLY way to live a free, alive life is to embrace everything. To take complete ownership of your circumstances. To confront the monsters in your life.

Living like this can be difficult. And not everyone is willing to deal with it. (Heck, there are a lot of times when we can’t deal with life this way. A lot of times, instead of living, we choose to numb ourselves. Distract ourselves. Hurt ourselves.)

And yet…

Facing the monsters is also a path of grace and ease. You allow for tenderness, compassion, and even love toward yourself. You find healing. You become open again to the magic and wonder of being alive.

And you’re presented with a gift – an opportunity to create beauty in your life, in the lives of others, and in the world around you.

Figuring out how to lean into and honor this gift is what we’re here to explore. We’d be delighted if you joined us…

    Are You One of Us?

    We’re looking for smart, hungry people to be a part of this community.

    It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur, freelancer, designer, builder, performer or artist…

    Someone established, just starting out or someone about to reinvent themselves…

    You’re one of us if you fall somewhere near the middle of this Venn diagram:

    Entrepreneurial Spiritual Creative

    Here’s the deal…

    When you’re resourceful, and can see opportunities and seize them… that’s entrepreneurial. When you live in the now, and can rally the courage to move into the fire… that’s spirituality. When you solve challenges with perspective, experimentation and craft… that’s creativity.

    But you can’t rely on just one or the other. You need all three working in tandem.

    • If you’re only S and C without the E… you’re a starvin' artist constantly raging at the world.
    • If you’re only E and C without the S… you’re a soulless salesman who can make it rain but can’t connect.
    • If you’re only S and E without the C… you’re a woo-woo guru set in his ways. “Just visualize harder, dammit!”

    We want a balance of all three.

    So in The Cave, we’re going to draw on wisdom, data and strategies from everywhere. Business and politics, science and religion, sports and art – it doesn’t matter. Wherever we see peak performers embodying this holy trinity of entrepreneurship, creativity and spirituality… we want to go to there.

    Would you like to go on this journey with us?

      So you’re probably wondering…

      “Who the Heck Are These Guys?”

      We’re Colin and Joshua. We’re behind Cave of Monsters.

      Colin Chung coaches, trains and writes copy for a living. Born, bred and raised on the streets of now-gentrified East Van, he retreated to the ‘burbs to raise his three little monsters. Outside of that, he plays snooty designer board games, runs D&D campaigns for his kids, and writes fiction when he can.

      Joshua Harbert is a husband, father, writer, and 3rd degree black belt in Taekwon-do. In 14 years growing up in Kenya, he learned to cherish the beauty and grace of humanity. However, he still often prefers to be left alone so he can make things, wander around Chicago, or be silly with his two daughters.

      At the core though, we’re two guys on a journey. We’re here to open the doors and walk in first. And we’re simply inviting you to join us as we craft our lives and share our discoveries.

      This quote from the philosopher Seneca1 sums up where we’re coming from…

      “… I’m sick myself. I’m talking to you as if I were lying in the same hospital ward, about the illness we’re both suffering from, and passing on some remedies.”

      So, on that note…

      If what you’ve read so far has resonated with you… then maybe, just maybe, we have something here, you and us. And if that’s the case, stick your name and email down below, and we’ll let you know whenever we have something to share…

        But Wait… Why Is This Site Called “Cave of Monsters”?

        Well, for one, there’s a neat little story behind that name…

        One evening the monk Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it was full of monsters.

        And even though he suspected they were projections of his own mind – all the unwanted parts of himself – he just couldn’t get rid of them.

        He tried asking them to leave. He tried lecturing them on the wisdom of the Buddha. He got angry and ran at them.

        The monsters didn’t leave. In fact, they laughed at him.

        Finally, he gave up and just sat down on the floor, saying, “I’m not going away and it looks like you’re not either, so let’s just live here together.”

        And so he did.

        (We found that in a Pema Chodron book.)

        And that’s sorta what we’re gonna talk about here. Facing and living with your monsters.

        The Cave is also a wonderful metaphor for your subconscious, the deep recesses of the infinite, a certain female body part, the second act of the hero’s journey, and many more universal symbols you can shake a stick at.

        It’s also a “secret level” in Colin’s favorite video game where you face a Leviathan.

        But really, at the end of the day, we chose the name because it’s kind of silly and ridiculous. And we like that… because it lets you (and us) know we’re not taking ourselves too seriously.

        And hopefully, you won’t either.

        With gratitude,
        Joshua & Colin

          P.S. Credit to Rabbixel Studio for the monster images used throughout the site. They’re wonderful.

          1. Seneca. Letter XXVII in Letters from a Stoic. Penguin Classics; 2004. ↩︎