Meaning of life is an interesting concept that fell on me like a tonne of bricks while depressed and in a state of dry addiction about 10 years ago. I had not been doing enough meetings and in my depressed state looked around at the life I had. I was in my early thirties, owned my own home with a woman I loved, had a profitable business that gave me flexibility, had beautiful kids, and my own hobbies like growing organic vegies. On paper my life was amazing, yet at that moment in time it all meant nothing, without recovery I was depressed and had no gratitude for any of it. I realised that a drug would change all that, a taste of heroin, or even something less favourable, like a handful of diazepam or dose of methadone, would give me meaning to life. The gifts of recovery, without recovery, mean nothing, yet a drug, not even my favourite, will give me meaning to life.
At that moment I understood addiction, with this cloud of darkness enveloping me I knew there were two options; meetings or narcotics/alcohol. Because of the previous hard work I had done in recovery I had no desire to use drugs. I also had faith that if I did meetings for a few days I would feel myself again and love my life as I had the week before. A few days and couple meetings later I was back to my old self.
7 or so years later I got bored of that life, I didn’t hate it but it no longer presented any challenges that inspired me, sure there were challenges, but they were boring and didn’t stimulate me. I left my relationship and took on the challenge of being single, now this was something I could sink my teeth into, the lows of loneliness and doubt, the highs of meeting, dating and fucking new girls, and the liberation of stepping out of the relationship culture. This was a big part of the red pill digestion process to opt out of the monogamous relationship model of our culture.
It took almost two years to feel independent and at peace with being single. That in itself was very freeing, but once I achieved it, again the novelty wore off. I knew business no longer excited me, another red pill red pill moment when I realised my motivation for business was only my animal instinct to get access to female eggs and that I could achieve that through charisma instead of grinding work. The denial fell away and business was fine to pay the bills, a good months sales might even spike my emotions for a few minutes, but it felt mostly meaningless.
I had plans for travel and I really did like the novelty of being in new cities (and trying to fuck their women) and I was finding a lot of satisfaction in writing, it could put me in a flow state and was actually quite nourishing to the soul. I also looked at my own life and a lot of my wisdom had come from books, it wasn’t just the content, but the way they made me think and feel. Books had been both the reference points to build my own knowledge from and and the catalyst to create new ideas. I considered that true value and could feel good about doing the same for others.
Psychedelics
My third LSD trip I didn’t really have any expectations. It was a beautiful summers day on the Redcliffe peninsula and I had some new acid I hadn’t tried. I only took one tab to trial it, like I had with the previous batch before taking a higher dose a few days later, but that one tab was stronger than the two tabs of different acid I had taken earlier that week. As it kicked in I did some yoga and started to realise how strong and how clean it was. I rode my bike to the beach and everything looked so new and interesting. I had a wonderful and therapeutic day. Being the third trip in 8 days, trying to mimic to some degree an ayahuasca retreat, I couldn’t have timed it better, it pulled together what I had learnt in the other trips and felt like it gave me real answers.
Although I went into the trip without expectations within a couple hours I had some big questions that I wanted to explore. The first was God, I was slowly turning to atheism and the research I had done on LSD showed that most people had a God experience on a solid dose like I was on now. I wanted to explore that question with my senses completely open on acid, which I did partly here on my search for a soul mate a-moment-by-the-ocean and from-god-botherer-to-atheist with my journey from God.
Once I felt like I had the God question sorted the “meaning to life” question become the logical follow-up. If there is no God and life is a beautiful dog-eat-dog world then is there a point beyond survival? If there is not and you can see the workings behind the curtain, if you can see the code of the matrix and realise it is only a game of survival how do you go on from there? How do you get depth out of that and avoid nihilism? As I walked along the ocean pondering these questions the realisation came to me that it is creation.
To create is divine, quite literally. If other people enjoy the product of that creation that’s nice, but it doesn’t have to be public creation. An artist is an artist because they create, not because someone enjoys the art. If creation is the goal, creation for the sake of creation, then ignoring the audience and commercial viability is going to make that creation more from the heart. From the inner genius which will make it both more nourishing to the soul and more likely to be unique and affect an audience because it is not compromising itself by trying to.
Sometimes the creation might be inspired by a desire to help. Bill Wilson’s desire to document the spiritual awakening in the AA big book would appear to come from this motive, but it could just as well well come from within, his desire to document the life altering experience for the sake of creation, for the sake of his ego (I’m sure Bill W’s ego was not completely absent in his motives). Altruism is a nice side product, I am creating this and it might help people, but altruism only exists as an evolutionary selfish strategy. Those who help others are more likely to have themselves and their offspring survive. The real fire comes from that which is at the core of our being, our selfish self-expression. Ironically this selfish self-expression is what causes the most benefit to others because it is the most uncompromising, the purest and most honest creation that does not take into consideration what others want.
Peering at the rocks of the breakwater, the flecks of colours looking oh so interesting, the sound of the waves hitting against them, the art of nature overwhelms and inspires. Nothing we can make comes even close. But we can mimic. We can spend a lifetime, many lifetimes if you want to believe, creating, mimicking nature in art. Pursuing something challenging that requires deep introspection. That It is worthy. That is enough to keep me inspired to stay on this rock a little while longer.
Red Pill Recovery 