“Confronting the Shadow on 5-MeO DMT”

I found the solution to the nihilism I have felt since a young child.

The solution is daring to have faith in love.

Daring to have faith that there exists a pure form of love that transcends the transactional relationships and validation games born out of our ego defences. The armoured ego in its habitual defensive posture does not dare believe in such a pure love. It does not dare leave itself vulnerable enough to truly open to the love of another without holding back. To do so would be to risk death from its perspective. And so, the armoured ego, in its neuroticism, paranoia and desperate need for control, only feels safe receiving and giving love transactionally, and will seek to control the objects of its love.

Within all of us there is a place that deeply yearns to be seen and loved for who we are. But this place is so vulnerable, so gentle, so easily hurt, and wants to be loved so sincerely, so desperately, that no one can bear revealing this place to one another, so we hide ourselves, wear our social masks and settle for these unfulfilling social games we all play to meet our deep yearning for love. But to be loved only for our surfaces is meaningless, for our deepest loneliness is that we are not seen or loved for who we authentically are at our core.

Much of the early trauma I have experienced stemmed from the various abuses I have suffered within these social games. And so in my suffering, I turned away from my own yearning for love, my own innate sensitivity and developed a compensatory character armour, numb and hardened enough to withstand the abuses of my childhood and the realities of my then current social environment. But as much as this need to be loved  is suppressed, it is always in the background, within every social game, under every social mask, no matter vicious, fraudulent or transactional. This need, through the veil, through the armour of our ego defences, expresses itself within the social game as the constant search for external validation. This is why teenagers who routinely emotionally abuse one another still desperately seek validation from one another, it is why misogynistic young men who have no respect for women still desperately seek out female validation, it is why even those who critique the oppressive nature of civilization and its rigid standards still seek to live up to those rigid standards.

And this need to be loved, our desire to find belonging amongst one another, it points to something else. Something fundamental. One does not seek love or belonging from those one does not value. On some level, deep down, beneath the defences the ego has built to protect the heart, one only seeks love and belonging from the ones who are beloved. So under all the pretences and social games, underneath our chasing of status and external validation, underneath our masks, our personas, there is a deeper love we all share. A deeper love that transcends our pettiness and our squabbling. A deeper love that connects us to each other, unites us and makes it possible for us to cooperate and form groups. A deeper love that emanates from a place so vulnerable and gentle, so soft and kind, and so unfit for this cruel transactional world, that we don't dare reveal it to one another, or even to ourselves.

To allow this love in its full expression is to come in contact with meaningfulness. It is to realize our interconnectedness with our surrounding environment, with our community and the human family at large. It is to realize our responsibilities for contribution to the greater whole, and through acceptance of this responsibility, our purpose and our higher calling. But it is also to bear the suffering and weight of a broken world. A world inundated by insincerity and exploitation. Such is the cost of integrity.

And it is this gentle, soft, vulnerable love that leaves us so unprotected in the face of each other's harsh judgements. It is this love that connects us with our need to belong and by extension, our feelings of shame and our fear of rejection. It is this love that leaves us so controllable and so manipulable in a society that gives love and acceptance so conditionally, because deep down, despite any surface appearances to the contrary, we are all seeking love the only ways we know how.

The nihilism I Inhabited was a cage. A cage my mind had constructed to trap, control and suppress this deep yearning for love. Because this yearning had been so painful, because this yearning had been so unfulfilled for so long, because this yearning leaves me so vulnerable, so helpless, and because this yearning had been exploited, made me a prey to be used and discarded, in my deal with the devil, I casted this part of me into the shadows, into the cage, into the darkness and in place of my yearning for love existed a fiery rage, a seething hatred and a deep empty hollowness. It's ironic. The extent of the hatred, the disconnection, the nihilism I felt, was in direct proportion to the degree to which my suppressed vulnerable parts loved the world, its people and wanted that love to be reciprocated.

The nihilism as an ego defence mechanism was a precise counter-reaction to the purity of the innocent love that existed at my core, and the strength of my resistance to this love was in direct proportion to the softness of my vulnerability. For what is evil, but wounded innocence.

It is in our moments of deepest suffering where it is so tempting to trade in our innocence to escape the pain of our broken hearts, to let our bitterness and hurt disfigure us, change us into something else, something other than who we are meant to be. We do not get to choose whether or we experience traumas (we all will) and we do not get to choose whether these traumas will cause us pain (we will hurt), but we do get to choose how this affects us. It is between the moment we experience pain, and the moment we interpret that pain imbuing it with meaning, where there is a moment in time, a bifurcation point, a space. It is within this space where we are free.Free to choose who we are, who we will become and free to choose our destinies.

And therein lies the challenge. Can you stay open, can you continue to believe in love, can you stay true to your faith, can you grasp the bigger picture, can you find the courage to take your stand in your own original innocence, amidst the suffering, the turmoil, the abuse? Can you weather the storms of life without faltering? Can you rise above your suffering,  pain and bitterness? Can you choose love in spite of it all? And not for anyone else, but simply because that is who we are. Who we choose to be.

Ahn-Nuah Tsao
15/04/2023