Echoes of a restless mind

When I was little, I was naive to the world. I couldn’t figure out why cruelty existed, but at the same time, I had an idea. I had somewhat of an intuition that people were capable of horrible things. I also realized that people say and do things to make others happy, even if it means telling them something that isn't true. The imaginary figures our parents had made seem real weren’t. I never felt an attachment to Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. I wanted to meet them so badly, so I would stay up past midnight waiting for them to come through, but they never did. I was left feeling confused as to why I was told they were coming, but never did. I was eight. I would stay up year after year until I was ten. They never came. I started to realize the only other person who could have taken my tooth away and put presents under the tree were my parents. I could see them, I could hear them in the other room. They were real. I was equipped with the knowledge that both characters weren’t actually real, but essentially just that, characters. I didn’t want to tell my parents I knew they weren’t real, because I was afraid it would upset them. I stopped saying “God” during the Pledge of Allegiance because how could I be underneath God if he never revealed himself in the first place? I didn’t have a relationship with him, and he was never there in my darkest moments. So to me, singing about him felt impractical. It also felt bewildering. Like, what do you mean “under God?” Are we supposed to serve him or be at his mercy for not living a life in accordance with what he wants for us, which he has never explicitly said to begin with? I had never been a student to ask questions, mainly because I was too shy to, but I had so many questions, about God and these socially constructed characters that were made to seem real.

At some point, in adulthood, after many hardships, I started to lose hope. Hope in humanity. Hope in myself that I would ever amount to anything. Hope that I was redeemable and wasn’t a horrible person deep down. When you enter the realm of depression, you start to rationalize everything. You obsess. You ruminate. You eventually bottom out. You hit a point in depression where it no longer feels manageable because it eventually becomes exhausting. You take care of yourself, but it never seems to be enough. So not only do you lose hope, but you lose hope in ever living a meaningful life. That is the point at which one starts seeking out meaning. A person starts searching for meaning, because it’s something to live for. Because what else is there to live for when all you’re doing is living simply to survive.

I didn’t stop rationalizing. I only started rationalizing the existence of a loving God, and that it was possible to have a relationship with him through the spirit if you do enough good things in life. So I began reading the Bible, doing charitable work, caring for the gravely ill. And I wasn’t doing it solely to get in touch with God, but because I truly cared about people. But I continuously found myself in relationships where people would take advantage of my kindness and use it against me for their own selfish gain. I was always striving towards something for something else, whether it was a person or a perceived God that I thought could protect me. I was living in my own delusion. I refused to let go of people and situations that weren’t helpful to me because I had hope that at some point it would lead to a better outcome.

I spent years in this delusion, only to snap out of it in a single moment, alone, in the deep depths of my consciousness. I decided to take a heroic dose of DMT one night, and perhaps it was a blessing that I chose to, because it completely changed how I viewed the world and the self I had constructed within it. I felt myself melt like an ice cube. I thought I broke my brain. I was no longer me. I didn’t exist anymore, or so I perceived it that way, even though I was still alive in the flesh. The self that lived to serve the world came to an end. As I disconnected from my mind, there was nothing but a person. I was not the amalgamation of experiences that had negatively shaped me, nor the identities of the people I deeply cared about. I was just me. And in that moment of enlightenment, it changed the entire trajectory of my life, for the better. I became better by realizing that what I had constructed to be me up until that point was false.

I did it a second time a few months later, out of sheer curiosity. It wasn’t as life-changing as the first experience. In fact, I entered a completely different reality. I had what felt like hours of interaction with a divine being. I thought surely this must be God. He told me that I was not good, and the words resonated because they echoed the belief I had carried about myself for so long. I was being punished, but simultaneously being shown the love I was desperately seeking my whole life through his words. What felt like hours was only thirty minutes, and as I returned to reality, the person I had been having a profound conversation with disappeared entirely. What I thought was an external encounter, I later understood as an experience generated by my altered state of consciousness.

This isn’t to say that everyone who has established a connection with God has hallucinated it, but for me, the only real connection I’ve had with God was through a mind-altered state. Otherwise, he had never entered my mind, nor had I ever heard him speak to me. Not even through prayer.  I continued to do good for myself and others for many years, but he was never there. I would go to church just to see if I could revisit that connection I had felt was real at one point, but it never came back. The depression never left. That’s the only thing that remained. I couldn’t will it away, no matter how long it took. It’s always been there. Unlike the God I thought would always be there after meeting him, it was all a byproduct of neurochemical processes.

I had a few close friends that were lifelong Christians who tried to convince me of God’s existence, but it wasn’t resonating with me. I didn’t mean no harm by my declaration, for it was my truth. I wasn’t going to change my position, and trying to convince me wasn’t going to lead to a different conclusion, for it was up to me and my lived experience to come to that conclusion. I tried to maintain a friendship with them, but ultimately they stopped talking to me.

I wanted to climb out, but I couldn’t. I was tied to the fire that was burning me. It was a kind of physical and mental pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone. As the heat became unbearable, I had accepted that I would never escape. I stopped trying.

I didn’t believe in God, but praying worked. Not because something was going to come of it, but because it gave me solace over what I couldn’t control. I didn’t ask God for forgiveness because I didn’t know Him. I had never seen Him or spoken to him before. It was a connection that had never formed.

What made me feel complete in that moment was the realization that no one and nothing was coming to help me. I accepted that I would succumb to the natural events of life as a resident of a chaotic world, governed by the randomness of the universe. At least I knew that what was happening to me had an end, and so I accepted it for what it was.

I meditated on the acceptance of vanquishing into the unknown, something I had avoided contemplating until the fire. There was bliss in pain. I no longer felt heat, but a numbness throughout my body. It was a numbness that wasn’t accompanied by the emptiness I had known for most of my life. Instead, it was a connection I had made with the void. Within the void, I no longer felt pain, for it was something I had observed and accepted over time, and it ceased to have a hold over me.

I felt my soul leave the body that had endured so much suffering. I was somewhere else, somewhere I couldn’t name. Somewhere that belonged to me, where I felt safe and no longer harmed by the world I had been brought into against my own will. I didn’t know how I got there or why I was there, only that I had gone through the fire to arrive at a place of peace. It was the fire that saved me.

A part of my soul that had been shaped by the outside world had been reborn. I was no longer the version of myself crafted by my creators, but a newer, more evolved being, finally capable of growth.

Everything is brighter.

I feel as though I am in a prism of color, with each shade representing my good and bad moods. I’m surrounded by it, yet it feels okay to be me. The colors give me depth. They represent my struggle and my growth. Nothing good or bad was ever indicative of who I truly am, or who I’m capable of becoming.

I saw life for the beauty that it is, a beauty that lives silently beneath suffering, a suffering that sometimes feels all-encompassing within reality. My reality in that moment became known. Hope was no longer an illusion that I didn’t believe in. I couldn’t see it yet, but I knew that hope existed. It felt like freedom.

In that moment of color, I was freed of the grip that others had on me. People who I thought had good intentions but were never made for me. Some were uncomfortable with my growth because it challenged the role they expected me to play. I was drawn to people I thought I could fix because I felt I couldn’t fix the faults within myself, but when I finally saw color, I realized that I never needed fixing to begin with. I only needed to put myself in the right environment, one that nurtures me and doesn’t stifle or seek to keep me from becoming who I’m meant to be.

I was never selfish for wanting to put myself first. I was made to think that I was. Once I saw color, it was as if I freed myself from the chains that the world kept me in since I was little. Through color, I felt reborn. I felt like I could finally live life knowing I was worth it all along and no longer needed the validation I thought would make a difference in my growth.

The colors were so overwhelming that I collapsed onto the ground, staring at the ceiling and feeling my whole world cave in on me. It was exhilarating and, at the same time, terrifying. I thought I was dying as a dark vignette crept inward from the edges of my vision, like the final frame of a film fading to black. I ceased to exist. But not literally. It was only the beginning of my rebirth.

I realized that it was not I who was dying, but the self I had always known myself to be, the self shaped by the perceptions of others. And that’s exactly what needed to happen.

You have probably heard people say “I’m at my lowest” in the midst of a depressive episode. It’s a scary place to be because for many of us who do struggle with depression, that’s a statement made when someone is on the verge of giving up on life entirely. It may not necessarily be the case for everyone, but in the months leading up to my friend’s suicide, she vocalized that. Despite her commitment to finding comfort through God’s word, she still decided her time was up.

She might have genuinely felt comfort from the presence of God in the darkest time of her life, but does it justify her suicide?

Many Christians would say that it doesn’t. Many Christians believe that committing suicide is a sin in and of itself. The Bible doesn’t explicitly say that, though it does mention the sanctity of life in that an individual’s body belongs to God, for it's the temple of the Holy Spirit. Since the body is a divine gift, taking one’s life is understood as being in direct opposition to God’s will. 

Keep in mind, Exodus 20:13 outlines the sixth commandment: 'Thou shalt not murder,' which has been interpreted by believers to include suicide as a form of self-murder.

Some will say that the consequence is eternal damnation in a lake of fire. Others may argue that there is no damnation, but rather that one has succumbed to a terminal illness of the brain rather than  rebellion against God, and that the person chose to be with God to escape their suffering.

I feel that when we are in between the decision to preserve our lives or to end it in order to alleviate suffering, there’s a lack of control in both directions. It may seem like control because ultimately you are making a decision, but that decision is contingent on the state you are in when making it.

The reason to continue living despite a life shaped by depression is not always for others, but for ourselves. Yet for many, the issue is that they no longer want to keep going, and what keeps them alive instead is often others, like the people that love them. That leaves a person with very little control over their own life.

Suicide is a kind of decision made with a degree of autonomy, though it is often shaped by an internal state that narrows one's sense of choice. In that way, it can feel less like a fully free decision and more like something driven by the illness. Depression often exists outside of conscious control, which is why it can also feel like an external force.

Those who suffer from depression are often not able to exert full control over it. Otherwise, we would hear more stories of permanent resolution rather than recurrence after periods of relief. There are people who haven’t experienced significant adversity and are still plagued by depression, something they never asked for, and which may be linked to biological and genetic vulnerability.

Similarly, many believers don’t have a fully rational explanation for their belief in God beyond a felt sense that it exists in their heart. Something that is felt is not always under conscious control. What is within our  control is the extent to which we believe in that feeling, whether we fully embrace it, remain on the fence about it, or question the existence of God altogether.

For that reason, I feel that religion, while it provides a stabilizing framework in an otherwise chaotic and indeterminate world, requires a degree of self-examination regarding how much we allow it to guide our decisions.

This is why, as a mental health provider, I find mindfulness to be such a crucial tool for every aspect of living. It centers us before making an impulsive decision like suicide, and it can steady us before we make a decision guided solely by faith.

This isn't some sponsored ad or promotion for mindfulness, but I’m simply stating that if you can harness its ability to shift your life in a more tenable direction, it can potentially save your life. It’s not a cure, but it can certainly feel like one in moments that seem entirely out of our control.

When we have a greater degree of awareness over our emotions, it becomes easier to make decisions that are more aligned with the kind of life we want for ourselves and the direction we need to take in order to move toward it.

It can potentially save you from a situation in which you attempt to take your own life, maybe out of impulse, but fail and are left permanently disabled. That would be a kind of hell no one would want to be in.

When profound emptiness and unrelenting emotions that become exhausting to deal with take over, it’s important to recognize where you are. You aren’t living in your head, though it might feel like it. If you can recognize that the situation you’re in can be left at any time, that is the beginning of regaining control over a life that has long felt like a lost cause.

This applies to any kind of situation, whether it be a job or a relationship that you feel stuck in. There is not always an immediate way out, but there is forward momentum. You might say, okay, thanks for stating the obvious, but how can you say there’s always a way out if I can’t get out without compromising the little stability I need in my life right now?

I’m not saying just drop everything and walk away when things get tough. If escaping an unhealthy situation were that easy, more people would be able to do it safely. But the reality is that trying to break free without the right support or the internal conscientiousness to plan it out often ends in tragedy. I know everyone's circumstances and safety nets are completely different.

What I’m trying to say is that you begin leaving a bad situation little by little the moment you acknowledge there’s a way out and start taking small steps to reach that goal of finally leaving.

I hate the idea of “winning,” but there are small wins that keep you alive. Like the dream of one day becoming a researcher or having a family of your own. It can become possible in that small fragment of time between the thought of leaving this world and choosing to stay, because there can feel like an option to leave the current reality you’re living in that’s stifling you.

There is clarity in uncertainty. We just choose to believe in it or not based on our established beliefs.

One dilemma in being devoted to a certain religion is that it can provide a strong sense of certainty, which can sometimes leave less room for the nuances of everyday life and the random events that are out of our control.

It’s scary what can happen when we are confronted by something that can upend our lives in a negative way, and all we feel we have to rely on is our faith, because we haven’t taken that moment to assess whether we truly feel we can change the situation we’re in without some kind of divine guidance. There's still the option to step away or shift in a different direction.

This isn't to say that you can’t lean on or develop your faith, but it is worth recognizing that you matter in this entire equation, with or without a God. Without you, your faith cannot continue, and without faith, you can still find a reason to continue living a life you at one point envisioned for yourself.

So if we’re being mindful, God can protect us while also giving us the strength to choose what is best for us.

You are not a bad person for looking inward. If anything, I think a loving God would appreciate you for extending that kind of compassion towards yourself.

You are also not a bad person for relinquishing your faith if you don’t feel comfortable calling yourself a believer when you don’t truly feel it in your heart.

There is neither a deadline nor a set of rules you need to abide by to be guaranteed a way into heaven. None of us are promised that, nor will we ever know what our fate will be at the end of our lives. That's the mystery of it all.

The struggle was over as she dwelled atop the mountain for hours. She meditated for quite a while, and though her soul was engulfed in serenity, the emptiness returned once more. The same emptiness that pervaded her childhood and adolescence, the one from which her unbelief arose, was no longer a place of meditation but merely darkness. 

She knew the darkness well. In fact, she had learned to temper it with the light, but even that endeavor did not quell its unrelenting disturbance to her spirit.

As nothingness began to consume her once again, she decided to abandon the peaceful stillness she found at the top of the mountain. A peace that she could only have found through her leap of faith to believe in something higher than herself, a being she couldn’t comprehend, one that felt like God’s presence.

So she picked up her things and began to descend down the mountain. 

The emptiness felt heavier than the backpack she carried, and from that emptiness came despair. Halfway down the mountain, she fell to her knees. Her faithlessness endured in every thought, that the peace she found at the top of the mountain was only temporary relief from suffering, and that once back at the bottom, the suffering would continue.

She knew that God was never coming for her, and His transience felt like abandonment.

At that moment, all she wanted to do was jump.

The tears born from loneliness, from feeling like an outsider, and from being an emotional burden on everyone in her life ran down her face. The only thing stopping them was the hurricane-force wind blowing across her face, wiping them away. She touched her cheeks, now completely dry, as if she had never cried at all.

It wasn’t God, but it could have been. He could have been there all along, just not a constant presence watching over her. It was merely His peace that lingered, providing comfort when she least expected it. 

So she stepped back from the edge of the mountain, choosing to descend with peace on her shoulders and ease in her steps that carried her forward.

For she knew from that point on there was a peace she couldn’t describe or fully know, but its presence was divine and beyond her understanding, and that was enough.

She cleared the skies of the turbulent storm, one that rested within her and tried to suffocate her. While ascending the mountain, she quieted the winds that pushed her back. The voices from above that told her to jump. They were merely a test. A test of whether she would continue climbing.

Her faithlessness kept her rooted in place, but it never carried her forward.

To have faith in something means traversing the storm rather than allowing it to blind us to what might lead us out of it.

We were the storm all along, but through realizing that about ourselves, we see a different light. One that hides within ourselves. A light we discover in those with whom we share a profound connection.

She wasn’t sure if it was a God or Gods. All she knew was forward motion.

The violent winds that almost consumed her became a quiet place where anger doesn’t linger.

And when she finally reached the top, she could breathe again.

It wasn’t rebirth, but reformation. It was proof that she could push herself and succeed.

Whether or not it was divine guidance, the only way she could have made it to the top was by continuing forward.

there you are

you quiet the noise

you calm the storm that lives inside me

when the dark consumes

your love and light come through

there you are

loving me at my worst

when hope becomes meaningless

you give it meaning again

and deep in my being

In the places

that feel empty

there you are

In emptiness lies peace

and within it

you make it whole

you make me whole again

If there is any repentance

it’s in accepting your love

and never forsaking it

for it is pure

even in suffering

there is respite

and in weakness

When you’re at the bottom is there anything left?

Where do you go when there’s nowhere left to run?

How do you rest knowing your life was all a lie?

Maybe it’ll be different tomorrow. You tell yourself that because running is all you know.

Pain doesn’t leave.

At the bottom, what remains are remnants of yourself you abandoned to keep the lie alive.

So when you wake from your slumber,

remind yourself

you’re the only one who will be there in the end.

Nothing and no one

It’s not God. It feels like Him, But what I found is the void.

Let there be light, not from Him, but from within.

A presence in the parts of me, I abandoned for others who never saw me.

Not God, but something reformed, something that wouldn’t conform to the universe.

It lives in the mind, where it takes hold, and darkness becomes mine.

Nothing, no one, could have done this.

When words cannot speak,      when thoughts lie still, when crying no longer avails,      I see the exit sign.

It is bright,      as the light that brought me in.

Only this light      is a way out.

The light that brought me here      shines for me no longer.

It was merely brightness      in a darkened room where my mother delivered me.

She delivered me      like a God      promising deliverance, yet we are left      in a world that thrives on suffering.

Darkness was all there ever was,      and all that I would ever be.

When our hearts cease to beat,      we shall be returned      where we belong in the darkness.

In regards to biblical teaching, my understanding is that the old covenant is rife with condemnation and punishment, including animal sacrifice, whereas the New Covenant which was forged following Jesus’ death, opens the possibility of salvation, obviously through faith, offering forgiveness and internal transformation. I like the idea of the New Covenant because it loosens the grip of eternal punishment, but it still doesn’t answer how much forgiveness can make up for the possibility eternal punishment for our sins. It’s not something one can measure, and it leaves a person feeling indebted to God their whole lives, living in fear of His wrath, and thus leading a life that isn’t truly theirs.

That doesn’t seem to pave the way for internal transformation. If one is constantly living in fear of judgment, they will never grow, and will certainly live a life that is fraught with suffering at the behest of the fear surrounding their sins. What saddens me is seeing those who have been through a significant amount of trauma throughout their lives turn to God and forsake transformation within themselves for transformation according to God. That doesn’t feel like true transformation.

Some believe thatGod doesn’t want us to turn inward, but rather to reflect through His word. But that doesn’t seem to allow one to truly delve into the inner work that is beneficial for transformation. Then one wonders why they continue to make the same mistakes time and time again, even when they are deeply immersed in God’s teachings.

I think it’s okay to commit oneself to and live a life in accordance with God’s teachings, but at some point it starts to bottom out. When the same mistakes keep occurring, it becomes not about how God’s word is shaping you, but how you’ve abandoned yourself in the process. Believing in God shouldn’t just be a measure of adherence to faith, but also about looking inward when God isn’t watching, understanding how to meet your own needs, and, when that is fulfilled, cultivating a genuine connection with Him.

It’s okay to be a Christian and not agree with every single thing mentioned in the Bible. Not all Christians take the Bible literally, as there are a lot of inconsistencies due to multiple different eyewitness accounts of a single event. But one thing all Christians can share is that God has helped guide them to making better choices in life. Every experience of that is subjective, which tells you something profound: that looking inward is indeed a necessary component to coming closer to God.

This applies to other religions as well; it’s surely not limitedto Christianity alone. All religions may not come to the same conclusion, but one thing that seems to be universal is the principles we follow to keep us striving toward a better life, one that follows the light rather than constantly being entrenched in the darkness that has kept you stuck.

There are two lights that come together to form a whole being: the light that has always existed within you, and the light that comes through spiritual exploration. What I mean by light that has always existed within you is your true essence, the part you were born with, before it was corrupted by the world. It doesn’t mean that Christianity or any other faith is necessary to become spiritually whole, but there is something that is collectively apparent in the disciples in the Bible, and that is the subjective experience of suffering that ultimately leads to a feeling of wholeness within the self.

That also brings about a different implication of spiritual growth, which is that there is no objective, measurable standard for getting closer to God or living a life that God would deem ideal. After all, He’s not here to tell you what is and what isn’t. And surely, he’s not here to determine whether you’ll be going to heaven or hell. You will never know, and that is precisely why blind faith can be more of a detriment than a predictor or driver of spiritual growth.

What I mean by spiritual growth isn’t limited to a belief in God. It’s feeling whole, feeling like yourself, and at times, feeling a divine connection that brings you closer to your true self. I feel that every human being is capable of spiritual growth, whether or not they believe in God, irrespective of the mistakes they have made in life. I’m simply providing an alternative perspective to those who adhere strictly to the Bible.

You don’t need to live in fear of His wrath or judgment. In fact, He said Himself in the Bible that He doesn’t want believers to live in a perpetual state of fear, but rather in a state of love and a sound mind. I feel that, and God might agree with this sentiment, that a sound mind can be cultivated through biblical wisdom as sort of a moral guidance system, but also as a pathway to individuation.

Individuation is a concept Carl Jung posited in which a person reaches a state of wholeness by integrating their unconscious mind with their conscious mind. This involves, at times, coming to terms with the darkness that lives in one’s mind, while recognizing it doesn’t make up the totality of one’s identity or path in life.

I think God himself would agree that this is a purposeful process in coming to the light of His grace and accepting His wisdom in ways that can transform one’s life for the better. Obviously, I can’t speak for Him, but this process of individuation seems to be a crucial part of internal transformation through faith.

For many of the disciples throughout the Bible, they seem to have something in common, which, in Jung’s terms, is the “shadow.” For example, Peter confronting his own hypocrisy is a challenge to his shadow, or the ego that was telling him he needed to be better than the others or prove himself to the other disciples.

This is how individuation and the path to a sound mind begins. The fear that Peter struggled to face (the unconscious) came to light when he was forced to confront the ugly truth (conscious awareness): that he was just as weak as the people he was placing himself above. This is individuation in a nutshell, it’s laid out in the Bible.

Internal transformation is a process that involves moving from psychological death to rebirth. Even Jung suggested that turning inward is a crucial part of encountering what he called a “living God.” Turning inward isn’t as simple as saying one is moving away from God and relying on the corrupted human psyche for transformation, but rather, it’s essential in knowing God, or even fostering a connection with Him.

So when you’re having doubts or feeling guilty about looking inward, remember that your faith is yours alone. It only becomes detrimental when you’re relying on others to dictate what kind of relationship you aim to have with God.

Hey there, just calling from the dead to see how things are going. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living? It seems like you don’t have an answer for that yet.

I’m here to tell you that you don’t need an answer, for anything. Humans weren’t born with answers. We were merely placed on this earth to reckon with our own suffering.

You might be wondering: what’s the point of going through it if all you do is suffer? What is the purpose behind everything? It’s not a person, place, or thing, only a construct we cling to. A fragile thread we use to stitch meaning into the fabric of a life we never asked for.

Ending it might seem easier than to creating meaning from nothing, but don’t take that route.

Before my demise, I made peace with chaos. In fact, I thrived in it. I died for you. I died when I realized my existence was never my own. I paved the way for you.

You don’t realize it yet, but when you do, it will feel divine. It will illuminate all the parts of you that once felt worthless. It will be the death of me, but in that unraveling will come a rebirth.

You will find meaning, and not from the suffering that riddles your awareness, but from the renewal that arises through it.

As the dust settled dark skies filled with smoke a perpetual night fire scorched the earth everything I knew everyone I knew was dead

including the life that was never mine to begin with

loneliness was all that was left for all my life I've thrived in it

the only thing left worth living for was myself

A child is born. A life placed into a corrupted world, set down here as if it were prey. We are introduced to existence through pain, and whatever pleasure we find is spent avoiding what is inevitable. Here, a cyclical existence ensues.

We enter and we exit at the same point. All that’s in between is experience, and we waste it striving toward the best of it, as if it will matter in the end.

Religion holds us together only in the way that we believe it does, because ultimately it is all unknown. It’s comforting, because nothing else feels more comforting than eternal life.

We’re built to withstand a tremendous amount of suffering, but not to sustain it. Suffering doesn’t inspire, nor does it build character. It breaks what’s real, exposing the ugliest, darkest parts, only to consume you and make it more tedious to move past.

If you survive long enough to withstand the worst of it, you may be left with a sense of sterility in the world, and within you. A lack of meaning arises, or a constant search for meaning, only to bottom out and fall back into the same patterns of suffering.

You begin without a concept of suffering, only to have it become all you will ever know to be true and live to strive against.

We are nothing more than a processor inside a system,

a blank slate in a failing environment that corrupts us,

we deteriorate, our system collapses.

Our programming existed before us.

We enter a system  we’re not made for,

working to keep it afloat, to continue until we no longer can.

Once the processor dies there is no system to uphold it.

Not even our system we were built into can save us.

A network that was never ours,

only to suffer for decades and die with broken components.

We’re nothing,

I’ve found many different arguments regarding consciousness such as the “hard problem” associated with David Chalmers. It takes materialism into account, but goes even further, positing the question of why there is subjective experience at all, why it feels like something to someone, and whether consciousness can ever be fully captured by physical description alone. There are other similar arguments, like those from Frank Jackson that question whether all facts about experience are reducible to physical facts.

From there, you enter the realm of panpsychism, which much of my writing seems to circle around. The view that consciousness may be a fundamental feature of reality that's present in some form even at the level of matter itself. What I experience as something larger than my own awareness might be the Self, an expression of inherited psychic structures, what Carl Jung would call the collective unconscious, that feel as though they belong not just to me, but to something far older and more universal. At the same time, the Self isn’t some cosmic substance. For Jung, it’s the totality of the psyche, or something that relies on the individual to manifest, and that evolves through lived experience.

I had a close friend who experienced seizures as a result of alcohol withdrawal. His final seizure, however, led to cardiac arrest. He sustained a brain injury referred as global hypoxia, meaning there was no longer any meaningful activity in either hemisphere of the brain. He wouldn’t have been the same person anymore. He wouldn't be able to form any long-term memories, feel or express any emotion, nor make any decision rationally.

That’s what has left me with the question of whether anything more fundamental than the individual mind remains a part of reality. I’ve always felt that some part of us continues in the universe after we die, though I can’t say in what sense. We’ll never really know, at least not in any way we can return from, and as an agnostic, that uncertainty becomes something I circle back to and often keeps me up at night.

I don’t subscribe to any particular religious belief that the spirit survives in a personal sense, even though I’ve heard accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) that seem to share similar features, like visions of light, or an entity guiding them toward it. Whether that points to something beyond the brain is unclear, it could just as easily be what the brain does as it’s dying. I’ve had my own experiences with altered states, and there seem to be some parallels as far as patterns, figures, a sense of something beyond my comprehension. But similarity doesn’t necessarily imply truth, and it leaves the question open rather than resolved.

So, if panpsychism is right, then the mind is not something that begins and ends with an individual brain, but a fundamental feature of reality, what changes is its organization into a person. In that sense, what ended with him wasn’t the mind itself, but the way it came together to make him who he was.

If that’s the case, then what was lost wasn’t something simple. It was the way everything in him came together to form someone who could be known. Whatever remains, if anything does, would not be him in the way that matters to those who knew him. It would belong to something more general, more diffuse, something that doesn’t carry memory, identity, or the small details that made him who he was.

And perhaps that’s where the question stops being philosophical. Because no matter how we frame it, whether consciousness is fundamental or emergent, or whether anything persists at all, the fact that remains constant is absence. Not some abstract absence, but a lived one. The kind that lingers in conversations that can no longer happen, and in the realization that a particular way of being in the world is gone.