Nietzsche Study

I’m taking a course on Nietzsche this semester, so far it’s been excellent

I made a new website: Ernest Becker

I made a website a while ago for Ernest Becker

I used to want to become everything and anything. Mostly because I was nothing before, at least nothing I liked. Now I realize that’s not possible. Maybe it’s possible to force myself to like things that I initially dislike but what’s the point?

Force myself into liking graduate school, forcing myself to like being home, forcing myself to change my feelings.

I can decide my response but not how I initially feel. In vipassana, the pain, pleasure, and indifference is there no matter what. I can detach my conditioning but I cannot make pain feel like pleasure. But even here there is a paradox.

Sign. I’m tired of coming back home and being depressed. There was a rare year in my memory that home was a haven when college was going badly or so my memory tells me. These days, newark is my haven. But soon that will change and this home has become a living hell to be in. The only good takeaway was meditating with Mom for a few minutes. Who would have thought.

No Expectations

The same type of questions have been running through my head for years now. While I keep wondering whether I could ever leave these questions and be interested in more “normal” things, I’m coming to realize it’s just not me. The more I ask these questions, the more it becomes a part of my character and identity and the more the thirst grows. Unless something more powerful, like an instinctual need, such as food, shelter, or companionship appears, these questions occupy my mind.

What are these questions?

Generally, it comes down to what’s the meaning of life and what’s the importance of religion beyond its social or psychological functions? The two questions are linked together because I think ultimately religion does try to provide some guidance or tools to answering that question of existence. Naturally, this leads me to be interested in psychology, existential philosophy, people who seem to get “It”, happiness, and so on.

From my view, the distinction between Christianity (and most versions of religions) and Buddhism (specifically its contemplative and meditative aspects which I’m sure have counterparts in other religions) is how they address this question of meaning.

Christianity provides a clear answer. Eternal life and salvation through a relationship with Christ. The concrete daily activities of developing this relationship is another question. Seems to be a matter of Bible reading, being part of a Christian community helping others and spreading the Word, and helping to improve the conditions of the weak and disadvantaged. This is the best portrayal of Christianity I can offer. A relationship with the Absolute Being, beyond anything of this world, beyond being or nothingness. Thinking of mystics at that point.

Buddhism, for me, provides the counter answer. Not even an answer really. It’s that the very question and need for answers, for some permanent meaning is derived from a false sense of permanent selfhood, of wanting a fixed identity, to know “Who am I?” and assuming there’s an “I” in the first place. In Zen, there’s two schools, one focuses on koans and the other focuses on zazen meditation. Koans are typically something like “Who am I?” asked repeatedly over and over. Zazen is observing without judgment one’s body and thoughts to the point of completely deconstructing the entire facade. The koan I feel serves a similar purpose of breaking through the mind’s thoughts by asking an impossible to ask question and arriving at the absolute zero (counterpart of absolute being, Buddhism’s yin to Christianity’s yang). In that absolute clear state of mind, of being just one’s experiences, one is freed from asking or needing an existential meaning.

When I look at people, it seems obvious to me that most people live under subconscious habits and affixed to certain meanings to give purpose to their lives. Which is not necessarily bad…

After so many years of analyzing myself back and forth, push and pull, I am very open to things, at least in principle. In principle, I’d love to make friends with anyone, date any kind of girl, do any kind of job, practice any kind of art. In principle. In action and actual choosing, there’s the entire overwhelming rush of instinctual hormones and social habits that influence my actions before it even hits my conscious decision making side of my brain.

And that’s one of the things that bothers me most. That in principle I’m okay with so many things. With poverty, with wealth, with whatever. But as Osho said, if you really knew something then there’s no question of acting on it. Really knowing something means there’s no hesitation.

And looking back over my years, I see how much an influence Osho had over my thinking. Freshman year reading 100 pages of his talks in a single night shaped my brain and spoke to me in a way that no one else ever had before. These days I don’t pickup his books as much anymore, but his spirit and ideas still permeate throughout my writings, my interpretation of philosophers, and everything else. And the more read, the more it just seems that either he was at the forefront of the surrounding shift in all fields from philosophy to psychology and medicine and/or that he was before his times and new popular fields like positive psych are just confirming what he already had been saying.

But I’m going off a tangent here.

What I’m saying is just as Nietzsche, Becker, and Sartre showed clearly, every human being is born with a ?. In previous generations, social needs and traditions gave each person a permanent answer to their meaning and place in the universe. With Copernicus overturning man’s central place in the universe (of course, hundreds of years before Indian scientists had already discovered Earth was not the center of the universe and it wasn’t such a big shock for them…it’s amazing how we interpret everything through Western eyes and say it as if it’s true for everyone).

With democracy, equality, individualism, downfall of religion, and rise of objective scientific positivism, we have a unique situation now.

And ultimately the only two paths are trying to hold back to past traditions (keeping those socially given answers to people’s meaning) or to embrace this radical individualism and seek Buddhist enlightenment (removing the question itself altogether).

The third option, ever since the 1900s I guess) has been this vague, do whatever makes you happy. This permission to do anything and everything. Alcohol, sex, drugs, wealth building, power building, etc etc. This was the answer that Sartre and Becker gave, no absolute good answers possible but can at least work towards helping people’s freedom was their formula. Kierkegaard said this radical situation was the optimal condition for the leap of faith.

Being pushed in this direction towards finding meaning, it seems absurd and impossible to sit down and say we’re going to remove the question itself. Yet, to me, that is my ideal way and the only path that seems legitimate to me even if there are others.

Ultimately, when you’re doing something that is meaning at the moment, there’s no question of what’s the meaning of life. When among friends, when dancing, when doing anything I subconsciously judge to be good to me, there’s none of this existential despair. The question is shattering the expectations of what makes a good or meaningful action. Of remembering how beautiful a sunset is. To remembering that nothing in this life is guaranteed or permanent and so one shouldn’t expect or desire it to be so. And the damage we do to the world and others by trying to make it so is truly regretful.

We have a duty to take care of our bodies and live well while we are here but not to expecting infinite praise, fame, wealth, or other absurd goals that our nighttime dreams and daydreaming betray our real desire. It’s so simple…and yet so hard. The path of Dao is straight and wide but people love shortcuts.

It’s strange now that I’m being pulled in two directions and not sure whether they’re compatible or divergent.

In one sense, I want to improve my body and my mind. I’m learning social pickup, I want to start exercising and getting into yoga or taichi, I want to open successful business, be a good public speaker, and in Augustine’s terms, becoming a vain human being.

But on the other hand, I’m exploring meditation to uproot these damaging habits and misinterpretation of reality which ultimately I think only will help my “vain” pursuits by offering perspective and not being needy.

June 1, 2010

June 1, 2010

He completes his masters degree and leaves to head back to his hometown. But there’s no one really there anymore except for his parents. Daily life is too underwhelming, he quits his job, he quits living this type of life. He goes to Massachusetts to do longterm meditation. Maybe a few months, maybe a few years. But there’s this lingering guilt no matter of abadoning one’s family and responsibilities. The only responsibility to an Other that he has. And he cannot ask for permission because it’s like asking someone to sign their own death certificate. That very guilt is the last and only barrier to enlightenment.

June 1, 2010

Although a lot of people were cynical, he fulfilled his plan of making a million dollar business within a year. He’s pulling in tens of thousands of dollars a month and free and independent from any higher boss or tied down to any specific location. He pays to take lessons and have coaches and trainers in everything. He helps his friends make their own business and he spends a lot of his time improving himself, meditating, martial arts, languages, etc. Things aren’t perfect but he has a boundless opportunity that he never had before. His singular fear of everything crashing down one day is gone. He also…in a sense…buys his freedom from his single overwhelming guilt of taking care of his parents. The future is boundless.

June 1, 2010

Completes his MA degree but continues full time in his computer career. He has three favorite shows he watches devoutly, he goes out every weekend and makes new friends. He gets a girlfriend, he puts in his 40 hours, and all in all he’s another guy. He takes comfort in that everyone shares his joys and his burdens. Somewhere, deep down, his soul slowly is dying away though. Likely the alcohol, the cellphone, the constant texting, twittering, and everything else keeps him from noticing. The most likely future for everyone of this class.

June 1, 2010

He laughes. Most of his friends are doctors, lawyers, professionals, and graduate students.

———–

There’s a strange thing that happened ever since my vipassana experience. I talk more freely about my experiences than I probably should (although I’m not sure why it’s wrong to talk about it though..).

Yesterday, I picked up a book, a book I had read from countless times. A book of Krishnamurti’s lectures/talks. I read three or four pages and got to this part where it said something like neither good nor bad, just what is.

And my mind blanked out. The words literally become unfocused and looked like just symbols without being letters. Breathening and Heart slowed down, eyes blinking reduced dramatically, and my mind was so quiet that I could Hear the silence of the room. It was so silent that it was present.

Besides my eyes getting watery, I never had this experience of words becoming unreadable symbols. It reminded me of a tale by a stroke patient where the phone numbers become just weird lines without any meaning to them. My scope/range of vision also expanded just like Alan Watt’s spotlight rather than laser light analogy.

Now, I have read this book before and typically it can calm my mind down but never this type of radical emptying of mind.

It’s as if there’s some body intelligence, some part of me that just automatically responds and adjusts accordingly when I read or hear or see certain things, lectures, passages. It happens without me intending to or even thinking about it.

And of course, I couldn’t sleep for another hour or two afterward. But what the hell was that? I need to know.

The Path as It Stands Now

Let’s be completely honest to myself as much as possible.

My utmost desire, more so than anything, is to become like my role models – Fox, P, Osho, Suzuki, Watts, Gandhi, and countless random gurus, spiritual social activists, and so on.

But as it stands, I am very much attached to who I am and who I will become and am not completely open and free to plunge into nothingness, emptiness, zero.

Money matters. Money matters because it always mattered in my life and family. Because family dinners were always interrupted with talks about how the store did today, about a new customer, or bounced check. Because holidays were interrupted by store breakins. Because I had to work for free as a teenager in the store because we didn’t have enough money. Money mattered. And it’s ingrained in me as much as I try to decondition myself from fashion, impulse buying, desiring stupid trends, and fads. Even as I become more frugal, smart consumer, and budget wisely. I take care of my finances because precisely they matter. When I drive to my friend’s place and my car breaks down and the repair bill is $800, money matters and affects my life.

So, I gauge everything by three criteria in no paticular order. Money, health, and social relations. I won’t sell my kidneys and damage my health. Nor would I disown a friend or family for wealth. But would I trade my free time for enough money? Yea, it’s called a hourly wage. Until I find ways to replace my current income streams with new, better ones, I’m stuck with the jobs I have now. IT, graduate school, research assistatnt/teaching assistant, etc.

I want to make a lot of money. Not so that I can buy a big house or nice car but so that I “can feel free” and have, very concretely, more choices available to me. But while the promise of great wealth in a short amount of time is a great motivational factor, it’s not enough for me to want to do this for the rest of my life. I want to make a lot of money, automate it, and pursue my real interests.

I want to break through completely my perspective of self. I don’t know how to even put this into words. But this by far is more important than anything else in my life except perhaps my health and my family. But once that selfhood notion is broken, even those two will likely no longer bug me as much.

I love good friends. I might not be blissful among friends but I am happy among friends.

I’m still very young and I place way too much importance on my daily decisions.

One strange thing is that I feel like I’ve conditioned myself to get over a lot of common fear conditionings. I feel perfectly fine doing a rollercoaster now, skydiving, eating any kind of food, doin whatever. I ask people about skydiving, a lot of ppl talk about fear of doing it. And I wonder why? Rationally, there’s very little chance you’ll die. In reality, you’ll be scared shitless for 30 seconds and then it’s fine. So why not plunge in. Yet, while in belief, I’m fine, in actual situations I still have that instinctual thing kick in that needs to be accepted or overcome. Just like being at a car and knowing you can approach the hottest person there and the worse is you get rejected for 10 seconds yet still cannot do it anyway. In belief, I have no problem approaching the girl but in action my instincts still overcome my consciousness.

I joke with people and say I want to become a motivional speaker instead. It’s only half joking though. I want to be a great preseneter (hence doing toastmasters and thinking of doing improv comedy). I want to learn about psychology, hyponosis, and theraphy. I think a lot of spiritual and mystical teaching is related.

Yet, I am mostly in thought and not action these days. I need more action, more engagement.

I want to learn pickup, I want to learn comedy, I want to learn motivation, I want to be mystic. A lot of that is mind if not al of it.

What is not in my list anywhere right now? Marriage, long term career, traveling, buying/obtaining any certain title or material object. Essentially, I want to transform the person that I am to someone exceptional.

You know I’ve forgotten who I’ve shared this blog with now..I wonder.

And yet…..as Zen, as Osho, as Krishnamurti(s) emphasized so many times, our minds play tricks on us. As much as we say and believe we want X, we sabotage ourselves. Not 100% of us wants X. Instead it’s more like ~50% wants it and the rest doesn’t. Right side, left side brain.

I should be reading instead right now to do my thesis. Sabotage.

I should be working on my internet businesses instead. Sabotage.

I should be sleeping instead so I can wake up early. Sabotage.

ec etc etc

As I type and write, haha, after so many years I can see myself doing these things subconsciously and doing them anyway. Maybe this is why people need coaches and trainers and support networks so badly. Whether it’s starting a business, quitting an addiction or doing a lab.

and really….the only thing is vipassana. fuck, i’m going to boston and doing vipassana. Everything else is second to that.

Low Grades, Dreamers, and Seekers

So, I finally got my grades for the semester, didn’t do too well although I can’t say that I’m too surprised. I really let my last two papers go badly. I’m entering this weird cycle of: (A future in this field looks bleak) –> (I don’t know this subject matter well) –> (I don’t like this field) –> (I don’t try as hard as I could) –> (I don’t enjoy my classmates or class that much) –> (I get bad grades) –> (A future in this field looks bleak) –> repeat.

I’m not really sure where the starting point is or whether it’s all collectively happening at the same time and reinforcing each other. All I do know is that I don’t even really feel like applying to a ph d program next year or even really finishing this program.

I miss being surrounded by people who were dreamers. People who wanted to travel the world or cure a disease or become just anything beyond who they are conditioned to be right now. I feel like so many of the people I know are just controlled so much by their circumstances, specifically their job circumstances. It’s not so much what we really want to do versus what we tell ourselves we want to do based on what’s possible. I’m tired of hanging around people that just care about philosophers or money or sex or whatever. I’m interested in all of that, but I want to go beyond that too. Everyone’s a dreamer in college, the horizon is endless. Real life tries to beat that dreaming out of you, but I won’t let it. I won’t be a slave to my circumstances and won’t go to a Ph D program just because it makes the most “sense”. I want to live life on my terms. For those that have some great talent or have family wealth, this may not be such an issue. But for the rest of us 20-something year olds who are just as interchangeable in our jobs as anyone else and have to make our own living, this is a real problem. In many ways, I feel like I’m at the very bottom crawling my way upward, I’m below average in many areas and my dreams go further than those above me. And I can’t help but wonder am I the crazy one or are they? Maybe we both are.

There’s a quote in the Dao De Jing that goes those who know contentment are content enough. This kidn of goes completely against that. But the fact of the matter is that I’m no saint, stoic, or monk. I have certain expectations, needs, and desires I want satisfied. In a way, I know I’m going off the path but in a way I also know that lying to myself to stay on it is equally wrong. There’s a Nietzsche and Osho passage that goes those who renounce life are often not really that special. In fact, it’s usually life renounces the man and so the man renounces life. The point being that it’s one thing to renounce the pursuit of wealth out of ignornace and spite when you’re poor rather than to renournce the need for wealth when you’re already wealthy and know you could continue to be so. To say that you’ve stopped a habit when you never even had one or even know what it is is meaningless.

Hegel said that stoicism was a result of a slave consciousness, a weak person who has no control or happiness in this material world and so invents the idea that he is the master of his ideas, of his thoughts and then privileges his thoughts over his existence in the world. In a way I agree. And it poses a challenge because it would seem a lot of Positive Psychology, Buddhism, and other things I’m interested in are all techniques of being more sensitive to your thoughts and thereby leaving reality. It’s a real danger and temptation. Frankl said every man always has an inner freedom and choice that no one can take away. I agree. But there’s a difference between using your freedom to run away from life or to embrace it. In Frankl’s case, being in the concentration camp doesn’t provide you with too many opportunities to exercise your freedom in the world and Stoicism is a likely result but…we don’t live in a concentration camp except the one we put in our minds.

Those passages always struck me and made me really think. Was I leaving the world out of spite and failure or because I genuinely learned something. Did I stop going to the bars because bars and drinking are really bad or because I didn’t know how to socialize? Many times it was probably both. There’s a fine line, a middle path between the two extremes that I’m trying to find.

Ideal Me

I was watching Michael J. Fox’s new documentary-show tonight exploring optimism. He had a piece on Bhutan, the happiest place on Earth. Overall, a pretty great show. I read his first book a few years ago, Lucky Man, and it sold me.

What is it about suffering and defeat that makes happiness all the more real? Or is the only way?

A fundamental part of happiness is social connections, having friends.

Happiness and optimism are ultimately things within oneself. It is a choice that we make, subconsciously or consciously.

I remember even my freshman year of college being aware of this split dual nature of myself. The pensive, sarcastic, and fault finding deep thinker. Years of mediocre living and loneliness shaping my outlook. But there was also the childlike wonder too with spontaneous laughter for no reason, unbridled optimism, and no concern over the past or future. I felt “good” when I took certain Fox’s classes and favored them more in my college years. I felt good being a McNair scholar with its optimistic message of pursuing excellence, empowering oneself and others.

I remember very vividly finishing what was one of the hardest classes I ever took freshman year, spring semester. I shaked the professor’s hand and walked outside with a joyous grin on my face, nearly dancing and skipping back to my dorm. I remember thinking that this is my ideal me.

I remember coming out of my meditation retreat and watching the rain fall on a glass roof and thinking this was the most beautiful thing in the world. I remember seeing a field of grass move with the wind and thinking wow, this has always been here and I always missed it. I remember in New Orleans, after a hard day of labor, coming back to the church monastery and walking in its courtyard, completely satisfied with my life.

So why do I feel miserable often these days?

Maybe it’s because I no longer have any regular method to ground myself back into reality, where I can just relax and not be so hurried. I no longer have Fox’s classes, McNair, tai chi, or meditation. Maybe, it’s because I don’t have my old friends anymore where we could spend hours just eating dinner and chatting. Maybe, it’s because that I’m more worried than ever about my future now that I don’t know what I want to do.

I’m pursuing online money making avenues this summer, but it doesn’t make me happy. It gives me a sense of direction and meaning. It may even make me feel smart. But it’s a means to an end. My philosophy and religion classes, my meditation practice, my tai chi and etc. were all things that I did for themselves as well as for future betterment. But ultimately, I want to collapse this means and ends into one passion.

I think back to when I’m my ideal self. When I’m most relaxed, joyous, and social. When I’m in “Flow”.

It happens when I feel safe. When I’m not worried that others are looking at me negatively. When I know (or feel) that there’s nothing else in the world that I should be or need to be doing.

And really, that’s it. Safety and being present in the present.

What’s perhaps the most amazing is that I always feel that way after three things.
1) Finishing my last week of a semester and finals
2) After a hour of Tai Chi
3) After a hour of meditation

Well, there’s also alcohol and drugs. But there’s a lot more variance there and seems like less me rather than more me.

What is this focus on productivity rather than happiness? Are they necessarily opposite of each other? I remember a friend telling me how difficult and expensive it is to just live in the US. To just live.

With the breakdown of communities and families, people have become individualized, alone and detached. No safety net, everything is up to you.

I’m not a socialist really. But there is something missing. We are more efficient and we are on the bleeding edge of new technology and science. But something of our soul is missing that people have noted for at least a hundred years now.

My predominant mode of being these days is that sarcastic, closed-up, insecure self. I have a good friend that loves to tell the story of how we meet and how everyone thought I was some weird, quiet kid for so long. Then one day, I just opened up and was the funny, talkative guy. And that story gets repeated so often. It happened when I was a RA. It’s happening now among my graduate program. Except, I don’t think I really opened up to any of them until this last month after a round of drinks.

And maybe this is why I’m so drawn to spirituality, meditation, positive psych, social dynamics, and pickup of girls. It’s about surpassing myself. It’s about overcoming this mental wiring that is insecure, fearful, and shut off from the world. And also why I’m not satisfied with drugs or superficiality or self-help stuff. Because, at the very root of the problem, is this fear of death and meaninglessness. and that’s why i endorse buddhism more so than anything else. the overcoming of meaning, of boredom, of a self that even needs protection or can feel insecure.

I’m a far way off still and yet…the solution is right here in this very moment. I repeat a little mantra, “You are already enlightened fully and completely”. And time stops. Back straightens. Life is ok.

How do I keep this when I approach strangers or even my enemies? This is why I admire MLK or Gandhi over the the smart intellectuals or other worldly saints. I’m not sure if they were as wise and enlightened or not but they definitely kept this sacred treasure even in confronting others.

For now, I have 23 pages to write in less than 24 hours. It’ll get down because it has to. But after tomorrow, a new chapter begins.

Interfaith Dialogue

It’s difficult at times coming back home to live with my parents for a few days. Often, it’s like we live in completely separate worlds.

My parents knew that I studied religion for a while and that I went to a Buddhist meditation retreat two summers ago. Yet, I think they always thought I was a Christian despite the fact that I stopped regularly attending church or even doing prayers before I eat.

I told my mother recently that God doesn’t exist. And then I tried to elaborate that even if God does exist, most people who profess a relationship with God are lying to themselves. In this sense, I suppose I’m a religious elitist like Kierkegaard. I don’t think she understood the second part but shes definitely got the first part. And she really tried to tell me the usual facts, “God created the world, everything we have is from him, etc etc”.

The next day, I told my Dad that if I could do anything I wanted without any hindrances, I would devote myself to doing Buddhist meditation for some time (well, I actually said I really like meditation and would ideally be a Buddhist monk). He had a different tactic and tried to convince me to try Catholic meditation/contemplation and try going to CUA to study with Jesuits. At least, my dad ended with do whatever you think is right, you’re a smart kid.

I think partially I’m doing this because I’ve long known that a lot of my mental blocks and limitations stem from habits I developed as a child with my parents. That ultimately, I had to overcome and reconcile all these things with my parents. And that my past career options that I was pursuing have all lost their flavor to me and I’m contemplating more radical, more risky, and more rewarding futures instead. And what son doesn’t want his parents’ nod of approval and support? Didn’t quite get it this time, but it’s been done at least.

I’ve always been interested in religion and in interfaith dialogue. I find myself adopting different bits and pieces from all over the place. I don’t think any single person or religion has a monopoly on truth. Even in the worse people, there’s something that one can learn. Indeed, it’s usually in the exceptional cases (good or bad) that we can learn the most.

But who wants to follow or read some guy who doesn’t have any affiliated group? Who says that everything has its faults and truths?

I would like to bridge the gap more between East and West, between religions, between science and spirituality, between psychology and spirituality. It’s already started and been happening the last 50 years but I want to do it more.

Equality – Root of All Evil

Yesterday, my department hosted presentations for a philosophy seminar class made up of senior undergraduate students which included a free lunch. I attended for the four hours along with a few other students and faculty. Oddly enough, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had this year in my program. There’s something about presentations that I love. When they are philosophical presentations on social issues, I’m even more happy.

Afterward, we went to a local bar and a few hours rolled by. Not the best plan since I have three papers due in a week’s time, two of which haven’t began. But it was good times.

I gained a lot of interesting thoughts during the presentations. One thought I had was on equality.

The presentator was talking about welfare, how our current mindset is to offer welfare to the “Other” to make ourselves feel good. We designate these people as unfortunate or weaker than us, give them aid, and make ourselves feel superior. This seemed only like the liberal side of the coin though. What about those who don’t think they deserve welfare and don’t want to help and still feel superior?

Equality fit the problem perfectly. It’s because, in America, for the most part we assume that everyone is equal. “Anyone can become President” which only seems more real with Obama.

But the truth is that we’re not equal. We’re not the same. Not only do we all have radically different experiences and early lives, we do not need or even want the same things.

The problem is fundamentally judging my life towards some standard, often my peers. I have a certain expectation of what I deserve and what should happen. If my peers make 50k then I should be making around 50k. If my peers are getting married, I should be getting married. If last year I made 20k then I should make more than 20k this year. There is this absurd vision of continual progress upward in every meaningful area. There’s this idea that I deserve just as much as anyone else. There’s this idea that if someone isn’t doing well then it’s completely their fault. I am the sole responsible actor for my own success and failure.

Absurd.

Maybe, it’s the K-12 education where we progressively learn more and mature physically each year that gives us this sense of continual progress. Maybe, it’s the media. Maybe, it’s the stories we are told. I don’t know.

Equality is a source of justice and inspiration. Equality is a source of misjudgment and false expectations.

Even more fundamentally, all of it is grounded in a false idea of self. A self that sees everything only through its own eyes. Yesterday, sitting next to one of my professors, I constantly was self-conscious of how he might be viewing me. Every time he turned towards my direction, does he want to talk to me? Is he reading my notes? Is he judging my posture? Absurd.

What is alcohol but just a way to remove this over active self-consciousness?

In a way, I feel so very detached from everything and everyone. In a way, I keep hearing the call towards spiritual inclinations. In a way, in a way.