Dear Lloyd:

You are welcome. I guess my enthusiasm was expressed in all the exclamation marks I used in my last post (!!!)

Thank you for your kind words at the end of your post and for all the love you sent at the beginning. I think that you are a talented writer and I enjoy your writing!

“Today I’m so exhausted, uncomfortable, cynical, heartbroken, and still I’ve been able to smile. Life is revealing itself to me every day and it’s confusing, tiring, weird and amazing. I wish it was easier. I wish I could hold onto things forever in my arms and never have to let go. Life is so painful and tragic and crazy. I’m so tired of being tired and sick of being sick. I’m proud of myself and of everyone who keeps going. I’m proud of people who did their best and weren’t able to keep going. Despite it all, I’m proud of humanity” –

– so beautiful! The adjectives you used for life in the above quote and in the rest of your post (in alphabetical order): amazing, confusing, crazy, cruel joke or game, flash in the pan, painful, so long and so short, tiring, tragic, weird.  The adjectives you used for yourself: cynical, ever-hopeful optimist, exhausted, heartbroken, human, imperfect, proud of humanity, proud of myself, seeped in nihilism, sick of being sick, tired of being tired, uncomfortable.

About your magic mushrooms experience:  “I saw, felt and experienced countless rooms and tunnels embodying my psyche… the room I was most frightened of but also incredibly drawn to, was a room in a hospital with a bed in it. This room had so much gravity. It pulled everything slowly towards it…  I felt the presence of the grim reaper and I sensed that this is all for nothing. And I felt agony at the thought. I try so hard; we all try so hard to make something of our damn lives. And I just hope so desperately that it’s all for something. I hope there’s a reason for me to get out of bed in the morning and push through my pain and exasperation at the state of my body and the world”.

This is what I think, having read and studied your post: what you describe here is the following universal human theme: the desire to be God, and the great angst about not being able to be God, no matter what we do.

Being humans, we are capable of imagining a whole lot, so we think that if we can imagine it, it must mean that we can have that which we imagine. The “countless rooms and tunnels embodying (your) psyche” are, I think, the magnificent and breath-taking rooms and tunnels of your imagination. But alas, there is one room that threatens to put an end to all of your imagined magnificence at any time, and that room is death.

You wrote: “everything I do or say will likely someday be no more than a flash in the pan” – you used the word likely, as if there is a possibility that your life (or anyone’s life) can be more than a flash in the pan. Even the most powerful people in the world today will be no more than a flash in the pan once their power ceases to be. Having had power and having lots of books written about a person makes no difference to a dead person.

“I keep returning to my childhood. Standing around in shops looking with wonderment… The smell of rain. Feeling safe around my dad, laughing at his jokes. Seeing rainbows and wondering how they worked. Feeling like an outcast in school… Why am I here?”

We are here to experience life, same as the reason why any living thing (bacterium, protozoan, fungus, plant or animal) is here: to see, to hear, to touch, to smell, to taste, to feel, to think, to desire, to imagine. Don’t allow your human ability to have a huge vocabulary, to put words into magnificent sentences, to imagine so much… don’t let these abilities delude you into believing that you are anything more than a living thing.

We imagine (and have invented) God because we desire to be magnificent and eternal. You can be the first for a while, from time to time, but you can’t be the latter.

Seeing this truth and accepting it with humility will make you less uncomfortable, less heartbroken, less tired and exhausted, and life will be easier for you (“I wish it was easier“).

“And I felt agony at the thought. I try so hard; we all try so hard to make something of our damn lives. And I just hope so desperately that it’s all for something. I hope there’s a reason for me to get out of bed” –

–  when you accept this truth with humility, your agony and desperation will lessen and lessen; you will no longer be overwhelmed by the huge and impossible task of becoming God, you will no longer try so hard, or plan to try so hard to be God, spinning your wheels for nothing.

That something and reason to get out of bed is to experience life (that’s all, but it’s also a lot)!

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by .

Hi Lloyd!

Sorry for the late reply, it’s been busy!

What you shared makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve certainly had similar experiences with depression.

I think you’re on the right path! I have faith that you will be able to overcome the challenges that you are currently facing in time.

Considering the trauma that you have experienced the emotional pain you are in makes sense. It takes time to heal and recover from these experiences. It is okay to not feel okay.

My perspective on happiness is that it’s like many ordinary moments you experience in your daily routine. Except emotions and thoughts have settled and are clear. Without this weighing you down there is a chance to experience happiness and appreciate beauty.

Humans have a negativity bias, so it can be difficult to notice good moments when things are challenging. Gratitude practice can be helpful for drawing our attention to positive experiences throughout our day. Have you tried this before? If so, did you find it helpful?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Helcat.