1. believe

It was only recently, relatively speaking, that I became aware again of the role belief once played in my existence. Indeed my habits of thought had been so fluid for so long, had become so antithetical to a mind coursing and clouded with belief, it is hard now to imagine how I survived, how I came to be what I have become. I was close on many occasions to destroying myself, we all were, with little more than an errant thought, the consequence of a belief -- true, false or indifferent -- but I digress....

Photo by Blake Cheek on Unsplash

I would not be here with you now were it not for the story you're about to hear, the story you need to hear. It is, after all, your story. It parallels my own, loosely. Unfortunately there seems to be no way, no other way that is, for you to hear it. Whether from malaise or malice, you seem not to see it, or perhaps rather you seem unable to see it. So it is with belief, indeed so it was with me: I was once unable to see let alone understand my own story. Such an irony that...that it would be me, or someone like me, to bring you this story, to help you see your own story. But this how we help each other, and this is why I am here.

Consider it a work of self-interested anthropological altruism. There were others who once helped me as I am about to help you. They took upon themselves the project of showing me the mistakes I was about to make. It was not easy for them, nor for me, and it was considerably more difficult than letting me kill myself. You should know at the outset that many, many, many have gone that route, the route of self-embraced annihilation, and it is heartbreaking. To watch the flicker of recognition at the end, the too-late understanding that a shift in a habit of thought would have meant the difference between transcendence and extinction, it is heartbreaking.

The difficulty is in knowing where to start. History piles upon itself like strata of sedimentary rock, each layer crushing the one beneath it while forming the foundation for the next. Belief piles up in precisely the same way. Deep, foundational layers become as inaccessible as the layers of rock miles beneath your feet, yet everything above, every successive layer, rests on everything below. Here's the rub: it all floats on a fluid and shifting compressed molten core as hot as the surface of a sun. This is history. This is belief. This is thought. This is mind. Yet we have no choice but to start where we are, here on firm ground as you might say, knowing that everything you see, everything you count as firm and real, can and will fall when earthquakes roll, as roll they will when the boiling, turbulent core screams through to the surface in shearing compressional waves.

Many will perish in the shockwaves during, before and after. It is not my role to save you or them. It is not my role to tell you what to do or what to think. Many of you, indeed most of you, already hold too firmly to your beliefs, to what you perceive as your history, and the tighter you hold, the less likely you are to survive. Rigidity is weakness. My role is merely to help you to see your own story. What you do with it, what you do about it...that is up to you.

At the risk of repeating myself, there is one last thing that I will ask you to consider as we pursue your story, and that is that you are never so lost as when you truly believe.