“Look at us. We’re all born lost, aren’t we? We’re all born separated from God – over and over life makes sure to inform us of this – and yet we’re all real: we have names, we have lives. We mean something. We must. My heart is so cold. And I feel so lost. I shed my block of hate but what if nothing emerges to fill in the hole it left? The universe is so large, and the world is so glorious, but here I am on a sunny August morning with chilled black ink pumping through my veins, and I feel like the unholiest thing on earth.” – Douglas Coupland
This is an excerpt from Hey Nostradamus! a book by Douglas Coupland that I read some 6 years ago while being on a ‘spiritual journey’ a mind one, not an actual trip. I had read other books by him as well, including ‘Life after God’ of which I will probably write about some other time.
In this book he depicts an entire process of ‘struggling’ with the idea of there being some type of ‘god’ while walking a continual paradox as this reality that would indicate that there is non. However, this particular quote depicts the type of writings I would solace myself with, some type of misery that would enhance my world view, add the necessary ‘energy kick’ to keep my personality suit that I’ve described before in the Death and Destruction entry.
These type of writings is what I filled myself up while being on my late teenage years which was ‘cool’ at the time and in accordance to my questions and general desire to ‘know’ some type of ‘truth,’ to have or gain some sort of feedback as a ‘certainty,’ a kind of knowledge and information that could give ‘meaning’ to my life. Just as Douglas explains there, I was seeking for some sort of proof that this wasn’t only a cosmic joke and that our lives would have to inevitably ‘mean’ something.
Part of walking this process is debunking the lie that we’ve lived with this entire ‘yearning for God’ experience which is actually preprogrammed as an inherent belief to never see and realize that: we’ve always been here, that we are ALL that exist and that any form of philosophical trip looking for ‘meaning’ and ‘truths’ is in separation of the most obvious facts that are here, equally visible and tangible for all: we are the ones that have set the rules of how it all functions – we are the ones that have perpetuated the disagreements that are currently leading this world to a point of self-destruction based on the inherent disregard that we’ve had toward one another, yet keeping ourselves busy seeking some form of ‘inner-peace’ and ‘enlightenment’ while depleting the world and abusing all that is here in the meantime.
Our relationship toward an elusive idea of ‘God’ became another way of ‘coping with reality’ as if the idea of some superior and powerful ‘god’ could give us some ‘extra-strength’ to face ourselves. He places it quite nicely in the following quote: ”I think God is how you deal with everything that’s out of your own control”. I was once a God believer and as much as I have left this part of the process ‘behind,’ it’s cool to bring it up as a point of support for anyone reading this and still going through a process of disenchantment toward the belief in something ‘superior’ or ‘divine’ as an actual entity called ‘God.’ I clearly once believed out of tradition, out of passed-on belief, out of fear of literally having to realize there is nothing or no one ‘superior here’ – yet never getting to realize who I really am as one and equal as all that exists – who would want some type of ‘god’ within that equation?
The quote I placed here describes a general ‘mindset’ that I could tag with many names like melancholy, self-pity, misery, loneliness, gloom, sadness, depressive, shoegazer, doomy and mostly a general sense of ‘despair’ toward the world. Lol it’s cool to debunk this because this ‘attitude’ and general energetic experience became ‘my life’ and ‘who I was’ for such a long time. Seeing life through this smokescreen where everything seemed so elusive, so vague, so ‘magnificent’ yet seeing myself as something really ‘petty’ for this world, sometimes ‘not belonging’ and some others just believing that I had been born in the ‘wrong planet.’
Here I am, six years after I read this book and having walked for some years a process of understanding my personality and how I created myself, I can see how it is within this gloomy self idea of myself and the world that I kept myself just ‘busy’ with my own mind, seeking to create more experiences out of books like these, out of my own relationships with people that could fully support this type of ‘tragic’ perspective on reality, just sitting at caffés pondering about life, chain-drinking-smoking-coffee and doing nothing else but that.
Now I realize how all of that is an absolute ‘waste of time’ in terms of remaining only as a certain experience that becomes ‘who we are’ while limiting ourselves and our ability to actually step out of such mind-frame, which is essentially the process we’re walking here.
First of all to stop all hope and yearning/ wondering about ‘life’ and instead realizing how we can practically start actually LIVING in this world by investigating/ writing/ looking at how other beings are living, how is the system that I live in functions, how are we keeping this system running, why have I accepted and allowed myself to be consumed by my own self-created experiences instead of looking at the reality that is here, that is myself, a reality that I am a part of and that I’m disregarding while keeping myself ‘busy’ up in my mind, continuing my gloomy view toward this world as if that was the only ‘thing’ I could ‘do’ – helplessness, a general sense of ‘I’m a victim of this world’ is what I was oozing all the time. I’m glad those times are over – though the process of disengaging from the actual self-created personality is still being walked as this is HOW I have created myself – resonating with everything that could support my inability to stand up and take self responsibility – why? Because being a victim is much easier than taking the necessary steps to ‘step up’ and become the change that I was only judging and criticizing/ complaining about in this world.
We’re not LOST, we can only LOSE ourselves up there in the self-created mazes of our mind – we are here, we are breathing, we walk, we eat, we shit, we interact and all in all I keep ‘finding myself here’ therefore, such ‘lostness’ was certainly another excuse to be aloof and idle and a general ‘drama queen’ to not face my reality and instead, indulge into addictions that could support my eternal ‘yearning’ for something/ someone to change the world.
Such feeling and experience as feeling like an outcast, a sense of being kicked out of paradise, looking for ‘god’ all the time is only the belief of such separation from ‘god/ source’ which has gotten us to neglect the life that we are and have been all the time, Here – get the interviews on the Atlanteans to understand how and why this point happened. It’s all been an actual disregard of ourselves – us missing ourselves as ‘the point’ of our existence. We only can redeem ourselves to be actually able to stand here in Self Honesty as one and equal to this world by walking a process of Self For.giveness: I give myself back to myself to realize that the only thing I’ve missed is ‘myself’ as life – hence I walk a process to learn how to LIVE in equality as everything/ everyone that is equally here.
Through this process of Self Honesty, I’ve learned how to trust myself, to not only seek to ‘stand in the back’ within this form of ‘inferiority’ and ‘pettiness’ as part of a self experience, wanting others do everything for me, to have someone ‘stepping up’ and keeping myself in a comfortable zone wherein I cannot make any mistakes or get ‘harmed’ by others – which was quite the ultimate defense mechanism within me to not face myself. My personality was then able to ‘fit’ into the world as a ‘sensitive person’ that could then be justified for being ‘down’ and then seeking something/ someone outside of myself to ‘get up’ and then down again in a never ending rollercoaster of energetic thrills. I remember how a friend of mine would say how he’d get to ‘enjoy’ being immersed in absolute self-misery and depression – I couldn’t fathom that and I judged him in that moment without realizing I was doing exactly the same thing within myself.
So – topics on alienation, loneliness, black comedy, drama, spirituality, angst, sorrow, acceptance, tragedy, the absurd and complex have been part of the ‘key words’ that I’d sought for and that I just took from the back cover of this book – lol.
What’s great about this is that once that the ‘pattern’ and personality is in my face, I cannot fool myself in pretending that I have not ‘become’ this by mere act of empathy. It’s called personality designs and I’m here to stop it, because it’s only a bloody program, because I see how even if in my mind there is still this desire to ‘keep it in place,’ it’s the ultimate statement of separation from the physical reality that is just HERE: no experience attached!
Have a look at a skinny, leafless tree with several branches twisted up high in a forest-like scenario at dusk – that I would immediately associate with this entire self-experience which indicates to what level I have brainwashed myself to add an entire experience to the sole expression of a single tree in a certain environment. Fascinating.
I am here to stop that, to see reality for what it is, to see and realize how I do not require to add any extra-toppings to reality with emotions and feelings that I had deemed as ‘indications’ of ‘being alive’ – that was probably one of the most impressive revelations in my life, whereas I had deem that the more I ‘felt’ = the more alive I was. What a lie – but we are fortunately well prepared now to face these buckets of cold water and support ourselves to actually LIVE.
So, no more gloomy self experiences for me – all of this is coming out quite nicely so I suggest that you, reader of this blog, take on this exercise for yourself: have a look at the points that you’ve identified yourself with in your reality and see how they have defined ‘who you are’ in one way or another. To me this is kind of ‘bringing up the past’ but unless I stop myself from participating in all types of emotions and feelings, I will continue existing as that past – hence it is cool to lay it out for oneself to see what I have accepted and allowed myself to identify ourselves with as the preprogrammed personality design and stop participating in it here, for once and for all.
Now, this is not in any way a ‘bashing’ toward Coupland, he’s written out cool books that I see were ‘bridges’ for me to walk upon to then get to the actual swallowing point of realizing: there is no God, there is no such thing as ‘ultimate truth’ – you are it, you are here, you take responsibility and create a world that’s best for all – simplicity at its finest – but here I leave some cool quotes by Mr. Coupland.
Enjoy and thanks for reading
”I wondered why it is that going to heaven is the only goal of religion, because it’s such a selfish thing”
”To acknowledge God is to fully accept the sorrow of the human condition”
“A world of continuous miracles would be a cartoon, not a world”
”I think God is how you deal with everything that’s out of your own control”
”Dear God,
I’m going to stop believing in you unless you can tell me what possible good could have come from the bloodshed. I can’t see any meaning or evidence of divine logic”
Assist and support yourself to walk out of the personality suits we’ve become as part of this game or roles we’ve played in this world – let’s walk a process of actual LIVING and not only feeling and believing in something/someone that we are Not.
Coupland, Douglas. Hey Nostradamus!. 1st ed. New York: Bloomsbury , 2003. 146. Print.
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