Tim Z. Brooks On Nonduality: Presence, Practice, Paradox

Why I Chose to Write Under a Pseudonym

By Tim Z. Brooks
December 22, 2024
2 Min read
762 comments

Lately I’ve been thinking about names, and the decision I made a while back to sometimes not use my own when writing. It wasn’t a dramatic choice, just something that felt natural, even necessary, for the kind of writing I do.

I still do plenty of writing under my own name and with my own headshot. But regarding my writing in the recovery community and authoring the book Nondual Recovery, using a fake name and an AI-generated avatar seems to alleviate my nervousness.

There are parts of me that want to be seen—especially the part that wrestles with hard questions: about God, politics, sex, madness. But there’s also a quieter part, more protective. I’ve lived through enough to know that not everything needs to be exposed to everyone. So the pseudonym became a kind of boundary, one I could draw for myself. A way to speak freely without giving everything away.

It’s not just about privacy. I live two lives, in a sense. One is professional, grounded, external-facing. The other is this internal current that runs through my writing: the questions I can’t shake, the voices I carry, the ideas that won’t sit still. I didn’t want these worlds to blur too much. It’s not fear exactly—it’s more like wanting to keep things clean. Let each part of me do what it’s meant to do.

There’s also the fact that some of what I write about might be hard for people to digest. Spirituality that doesn’t follow the rules. Politics that don’t land where people expect. Stories about addiction, altered states, mental illness, reckless behavior. These aren’t easy topics, and I didn’t want to filter them for the sake of appearances or reputation. I wanted to follow the thread wherever it leads, and I knew I’d need a little cover to do that honestly.

The name I use isn’t a disguise. It’s more like a vessel. A place I can speak from without the clutter of expectation. There’s something freeing about it. The work feels lighter, less self-conscious. I can let the words come through without needing them to reflect anything about me.

And maybe that’s the real reason. I’ve seen what happens when the ego gets too involved in spiritual writing. The need to be profound. The trap of being admired. I don’t want that. I’d rather disappear a little—just enough to let the ideas speak.

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Tim Z. Brooks

"Tim Z. Brooks" is the pen name for the anonymous author of Nondual Recovery.

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By Tim Z. Brooks December 22, 2024
762 comments
Tim Z. Brooks On Nonduality: Presence, Practice, Paradox

Tim Z. Brooks is a site with blog posts and drafts of several books-in-progress on the topics of spirituality, integrative metatheory, and Sacred Words. You can also subscribe to Tim's newsletter and follow him on Facebook to read daily notes on his Integral Life Practice.

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