The last post I wrote was in May 2016, which is quite some time ago. So much has happened since that I wanted to take a moment to check back in and update my -future- self (and any readers, I suppose) of my progress up to this point.

I think it’s clear that I’ve hit my formative years, the years when my brain is finally reaching its final stages of development, my frontal lobe is definitely evolving; I’m making much better decisions and I’m actively participating in life, which is something that I could never have imagined before… In fact, every fiber of my being used to rail against that idea. I didn’t believe in the society humans had set up, I didn’t think any of it had a point, and I would’ve much rather died than participate in something I didn’t believe in.

I think of all philosophical pitfalls, nihilism must be the scariest. To come to the belief that none of this matters, that we are indiscriminate specks of life in an infinite universe, that we exist momentarily and are crushed into oblivion, over and over again, that all the rules society has set up, all the things we are told we must do or must be, all of it, are just mumbles into an empty void, the sound garbled and dispersing as quickly as it was made, changing nothing, affecting nothing, being nothing.. It drowned me.

I couldn’t breathe.

For a good year or two, I didn’t leave the confines of my mind. I was on autopilot, I did the bare minimum necessary to survive, I sustained myself out of weakness, too fearful to end my life, too empty to live it. What I experienced of this world overwhelmed me with its pointlessness; I saw people getting into their cars in the morning and drive off to work and my insides burned at the ridiculousness of it, what was even real? Were they even real or were they just participating in the system on a higher level of autopilot than I was? Was anyone alive? Was anyone awake?

I had to wake up. And I tried. I flung myself off of cliffs and I jumped out of planes, I rode motorcycles at breakneck speeds down canyon roads and I drove off into the desert at 2 am and when I got to the middle of nowhere I screamed at the top of my lungs just to feel the sound reverberating through my bones and echoing over the empty landscape. I cut myself on knives and I got into fights with people bigger than me. I played with fire and got lost in the mountains and I almost drowned in the ocean when I got caught in a riptide and was saved only by a stranger in a red shirt whose face I can’t remember. I did so many drugs it felt like my body was glitching; when I turned my head too fast it felt like I was leaving my soul behind me. I lost months of my life blacked out on drugs, punctuated only by the memory of standing in strange bathroom cells staring blankly into the mirror at my sunken eyes, cold shaky hands barely supporting myself on the ceramic tile sink. Other, colder memories are lost, I think, suppressed by my drug-addled brain in a desperate attempt to survive what I couldn’t relive.. but the feeling lingers, blowing through my memories, cold hollow drafts of gut-wrenching pain and regret, whispering stories of goodbyes I never got to say, and things I’ll never get to make right.

God, I’m so sorry.

I started speaking to a friend or two again. It was difficult to operate on an emotional level but I could speak to those who could communicate with me on an objective level. We talked about life, the futility of it all. A dear friend started telling me about studies of other religions and the practice of meditation. He gave me some books to read, taught me to meditate and took me to a temple. I saw peace and I wanted it. He would tell me about the value of emptiness and my curiosity was sparked. I didn’t understand it. He told me that the value of the mind is much like the value of a bowl in that it’s value lies in its’ emptiness. My mind was full and I needed to empty it. I started meditating. I practiced clearing my mind and inhabiting my body. Feeling my existence and the weight of my presence, identifying and accepting the tortured thoughts of my mind-identity and distancing myself from it. Slowly I started to feel peace internally; I never knew how deafening the sounds of my thoughts could be. I thought it was society that was drowning me but turns out it was me.

Slowly, as I got better, I started readjusting my philosophy on life. I realized that the point of life was to live. And by live, I mean to be alive. It’s for those moments when you are fully inhabiting your body; the energy of your presence crackling at your skin, joyful for this momentary experience, the physical existence of an infinite being. It’s for the people you get to meet along the way, to laugh and enjoy their presence and to experience life with, to let yourself be vulnerable and present enough to feel all of it; the pain, the sadness, the suffering, the boredom… vulnerable enough to experience love and happiness.

I still have a long ways to go in terms of letting myself be vulnerable, but I’ve bought in and I am actively participating in life. It’s still a struggle to not get disassociated from myself, to not find myself lost in a room full of people and separated from them by a wall of thought, wondering about the point of it all, but little by little I am learning to stay present, and I can honestly say, I am the happiest (and healthiest) I have ever been.

For anyone else who may be going through what I did, some books to read for the sanity of your soul:

The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle (for your soul)

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fck – Mark Manson (for your philosophy)

The Defining Decade – Dr. Meg Jay (information for the 20s ‘what the fuck am I supposed to be doing’ crisis)