What had I been searching for all these years?
Accolades? Popularity? Love? Career? Purpose? Money? Divinity? Recognition? Connection?
I had been searching for all of the above at various interjections.
My search has taken me far and wide. The desire for divinity and connection led me to the home of Buddhism in a Himalayan Town in Northern India, I was surrounded by different schools of thought and spiritual practice; I dipped my toes in various practices, a little of Buddhist teachings, silent retreats that I’d inevitable leave within a couple of days of severe discomfort, I would travel great distances on sleeper trains or local buses to immerse myself in the promise of overcoming something, or gaining something. At this time, I would always retreat to where I found comfort: a local bar, a Kingfisher beer, or someone to give me attention. I found respite in lost minds like my own, deep thinkers desperate to fill their traumatic wounds with some promise of salvation or to drown out the noise with endless partying.
The polarity of my existence, a desire for divinity drawn to hedonism, exhausted me, damaged me, and made me unwell. I’d yo-you between an ayurvedic retreat and a hotel nightclub. Balance a foreign concept when the extremities of my greed would lead me to hurt others and myself. A desperation that adopted ignorance as bliss until a moment of awakening and shame would take its place. Only then to return to numbing sensations, repeat old habits, and try to reframe them.
My desire for a career, for meaning and purpose, an endless road of trial and failure, often finding financial stability in the pits of depression and broke, moneyless disasters when following the whim of a new ambition—training in massage therapy, nutritional therapy, landscape architecture, psychotherapy, tattoo art, mosaics, hypnotherapy, interior design, and counselling, always striving to become something but never quite finishing anything.
Multiple businesses started to almost no prevail, the first bit of wind in my sails giving room for elation for growth, but the first time I hit a storm, I’d throw myself overboard. Never quite resilient enough to see it through to the end, putting it down to experience and not to lack of commitment.
I devoured self-help books as they would go out of fashion, I researched neuroscience, brain trauma, and addictive behaviours like it in itself was an addiction. I filled book after book with the rambles of my mind till convinced by a friend I should burn them or perhaps find them somewhere to hide.
I drank tea with the Dalai Lama whilst he discussed quantum physics and intercultural relationships, flew to the Ecuadorian rainforest and sat beneath an old tree, whilst drinking ayahuasca in the company of a Shaman. I felt sure both times were the moment I needed, that an epiphany would happen, that something would change in me. Neither entirely delivered me from the pain I was experiencing.
I scanned my surroundings, people, and the world and consumed all I could see in greed to be full. Nothing ever remained, all was fleeting—careers, studies, lovers, friends, happiness or any of the emotions. I lived in over thirty houses by the time I reached the same age. I felt I never had a place to call home or a place I felt safe.
This search for self, meaning, and chance to not feel so broken was fuelled by hope, born of desperation. Yet age 34, I find myself in the same dark place, where the world seems absent of meaning and living has no point in this endless destruction and mass consumption.
If a man has moved far beyond having the symbiotic relationship with nature it is expected to have, the price of our consciousness, our greed, is, in fact, our very unhappiness.
The men with the biggest bellies are fed by those who aspire to have the same. Yet this is not natural, our current state of living, our obsession with technology and money and possession, whether a little or a lot, this state of ‘something missing’ is the fundamental cause of us needing religion.
We feel we need that something to hang onto, to make us feel safe when we are so far removed from our natural selves.
I’ve lost friends to suicide, and I know many, myself included, who have pondered the same, it’s unsurprising, as we are battling so many demons of our own making. Childhood scars left by unintentional neglect from parents themselves struggling with life. Trauma is inherited through each generation.
Yet in all these things I’ve sought to save me from myself, a common theme is present that binds them together, that what we desire externally is, in fact, always found within and that we should stop asking what we want from the outside, but what we need within. To do so, though, one must have a clear mind.
To become sober in an insufferable world is a feat so terrifying very few can achieve it. Sobriety not only shows the shame hidden within oneself but shows the world in greater colour, not only beauty is shown as we are made more aware of the suffering. To see people suffer, to see them grow old, to see people being ignorant, mean or brainwashed in the world, it makes one feel helpless, makes one feel very much alone. It’s the stage of awakening, it’s painful to behold.
Beyond the sobriety, there is the chance at salvation, the offer of all religious outfits, a greater meaning, a sense that we are all so intrinsically connected that the smallest of movements can have the greatest of effects. Or if you are an Atheist, you may choose not to assign meaning, that life is just meant for living, there is no point, no meaning, we come from the earth, and we will return to it in the end. So solemn a belief, to live just to be, all whilst witnessing the destruction of each other and biodiversity.
Can I achieve sobriety at age 34? I know that must be where I begin, that I must treat myself with respect it needs to channel some self-belief. Can I ride the discomforts of low serotonin whilst my body craves sugar and alcohol to lift me from depression? Can I avoid endless youtube whilst I am in need of dopamine? Can I achieve this without being institutionalised and without going to rehab? Who can afford rehab anyway, it’s so far from being near. It’s no surprise we have many homeless drug addicts living on the streets.
In a past life, I’d be strapped to a table or burnt at the stake to rid the demons that cause this intensity of emotion that make me appear sensitive, reactive, and a little too extreme.
I know I must seek salvation in nature and request mother nature to heal my depression. I pray she can remove this deep self-hatred and replace it with a feeling of satisfaction. I know my mind cannot maintain this level of back and forth between divinity and indulgence, as the friction it creates will eventually burn me to the ground.
I have tried it all, it’s clear what must be done, sobriety is the foundation of a successful transformation. If sobriety is the foundation, but it’s so hard to obtain, will I forever remain in this whirlwind of exhaustion, will I never be saved?
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