Opting Out

"The biggest tragedy in suicide is not that the person wanted to die, but that they wanted to live." Reading this quote for the first time struck me because of how true it is—nobody wants to leave Earth when they're having a good time and what determines whether you are having a good time or not, is your emotional state. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I'd bet that the vast majority of people who kill themselves do so because of emotional pain, not physical pain. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure there are people who want to end their lives because of physical problems. However, considering that most of us would rather endure a broken bone than a broken heart, I think it's safe to assume that emotional pain inspires far more suicidal thoughts than physical pain. Emotional pain usually precedes physical pain. Fistfights are usually preceded by verbal fights, and the hurt feelings that words can cause often lead to anger and then to action. Anger is an intense and unpleasant emotion (for most of us), which is why, when anger builds to a certain extent, it can feel impossible not to express it in some physical, and perhaps violent, way.

What inspired the topic for this week's newsletter was an article I read about how suicide rates among Black youth have been rising rapidly in recent years. Being that I was a Black youth not that long ago, I know firsthand how emotional health and emotional intelligence aren't really centered in our community. I think mental health would be taken a lot more seriously if we collectively internalized just how critical emotions are to our quality of life. Life is experienced from the inside out, not the outside in. It's true that the outer state (the world) can affect your inner state (that which experiences thoughts and feelings), but if the predominant emotion of the inner state is stable and positive, then most things that happen in the outer state can be enjoyed, tolerated, or at least hoped through. Let's say you just stumbled upon the person of your dreams. It's love at first sight. Loving thoughts of them consume your heart and mind, and even if the near future brought armageddon, it wouldn't be so bad as long as you were experiencing it with your beloved. Haruki Murakami said, "I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning." Friedrich Nietzsche echoed this sentiment with his thought, "He who has a 'Why' to live for can bear almost any 'How.'"

I think this idea is true for most people; we are not just able, but willing, to endure all kinds of suffering as long as we have hope that it will one day end. As long as we see that what we're enduring serves a purpose that we find meaningful. So, my theory is that what leads people to want to kill themselves is not a lack of pleasure but rather the inability to find meaning in pain. I understand that the saying "money can't buy happiness" can be unfair because, for many people, money would make them very happy, at least temporarily. However, suicidal ideation can still affect people who have money because what's worse than living a life with no money is living a life with no meaning. In fact, the most unbearable pain, in my experience, is disconnected meaninglessness.

For some of us, suicide just doesn't seem like a viable option, possibly because of a fear of death or not wanting to hurt family or friends. Personally, suicide never really seemed like a solution. There was a period from 2016 to 2017 when I often woke up disappointed that I hadn't died in my sleep, but since I tend to lean toward the reality of reincarnation, suicide always seemed more like a way to 'reset' the level rather than a way to take me out of the game. And what I wanted was to be done with the game. I was so tired of living, so tired of feeling, so tired of having to put forth effort to sustain a life that I really wasn't interested in. So, I did what many people do when they don't want to remove themselves literally but also can't find value in the reality they're living—I dissociated, which, for all intents and purposes, is a lot like suicide, but instead of it being the death of the body, it's the death of the spirit. It is disconnecting from that primary function that makes us human—feeling.

Emptiness is touching but not feeling

Ironically, at the height of my own emotional suffering, the predominant feeling I experienced and wanted to escape from was emptiness. Most people associate feeling empty with feeling nothing, but I'm not quite sure it's possible to feel nothing. Instead, the feeling of emptiness is a feeling of absence—of having felt something before and now feeling the void of it no longer being there. It may sound like I'm playing with words, but the difference between feeling nothing and feeling the absence of something is critical. Take a person who is born blind, for instance: a person who is born blind has no concept of darkness because, in order to know darkness, you also have to know light. Similarly, the only way to understand the concept of nothing is by first experiencing something. So, what makes the feeling of emptiness so heavy is not that no feelings are present but rather that several important feelings are missing. I'd argue those feelings are love, compassion, understanding, belonging, value, worthiness, faith, hope, and most importantly, connection. Before we are born and after we die, we are connected to everything. But in this space in between life and death, where the illusion of separation is so strong, it often feels like we are disconnected. Disconnected from others but especially disconnected from ourselves, or the Self, the Source that sustains all beings. Source is the invisible thread that ties all things together, and without an awareness of it, it's impossible not to feel disconnected at our core.

I've often fantasized about moving into the wilderness, living completely off the grid in solitude, away from the society I so often feel alien to. It's like, I love people, but I don't really like them, lol. By and large, intimately and collectively, people have disappointed me throughout my life to the point where, in most cases, I'd rather be alone. But the ironic part of it is, even though I love being alone, I hate feeling lonely. The truth is, I probably wouldn't want to be alone so much if I had a handful of people who regularly contributed to me feeling the feelings I listed in the paragraph above. I've often considered that my affinity for solitude is not a personality trait but rather a defense mechanism. Even though I'm not emotionally dissociating anymore, perhaps I'm still opting out of some emotions by rarely letting people get close enough to me to hurt me. I think that's a big reason why the lustful energy that I operated in for most of my adulthood isn't appealing at all to me anymore; because in the past, being touched was enough to distract me from the lack of connection that was missing in my life and now I don't just want to be touched, I want to be felt.

Sometimes it blows my mind just how much power 'pussy' held over me. I apologize if you find the word 'pussy' to be demeaning and diminishing but I'm using it purposefully to illustrate how my fear of intimacy prevented me from connecting to the women it belonged to. One of the biggest consequences to opting out emotionally is losing compassion for other human beings because compassion is the capacity to feel others. To connect with others. To see the humanity in others. To see the Divinity in others. And most of the women I dated casually, I saw only as human enough to charm into giving me what I wanted from them. Instead of seeing them as people, I saw them as puzzles— some thing to figure out. And once I'd figured them out, I discarded them, as if they were objects. Which is why meaningless hookups almost always left me feeling more empty than complete.

Objects are without substance, meaning they lack the capacity to fulfill us; instead, they provide us with a few moments of distraction from the gaping hole inside us, only to be reminded of the gaping hole again once the novelty of the object wears off. Being the coward that I was at the time, I was too afraid to let someone get close enough to hurt me, to judge me, to see me, and to realize that I really wasn't the pretty image on the inside that I worked so hard to maintain on the outside. And that's why my mom getting sick was both the worst thing and the best thing that ever happened to me, because it affected me so deeply that I couldn't run anymore. It exposed me and everything inside me, leaving me with two options: heal and live or spend every day of the rest of my life wishing I were dead.

The Final Boss

I think life is very similar to a video game, which is why video games are usually inspired by life. We souls are like player characters who set off on an adventure, often guised as being about 'saving the world' but really about discovering ourselves. On this journey of discovery, we encounter obstacles and enemies as well as friends and power-ups. As we overcome challenges and learn new skills, we develop our characters and eventually level up, which grants access to higher levels. But before we can ascend to the next level, we have to face and defeat the 'boss' of the level we're currently on.

Unlike video games, life has no real cheat codes that let you skip levels, which means there's no way to beat the game of life without overcoming every obstacle and defeating every boss on our path. We may get stuck, lose our way, and some of us may choose to 'reset' the level with the hope of gaining a new avatar with a different set of characteristics. But the only way out of the game of life is by bravely taking every step of the hero's journey, completing every level, and ultimately conquering the final boss, which, more often than not, is just the shadow version of our own selves.

My first tattoo is the image of a koi fish, swimming against the current, surrounded by the text 'The Only Way Out Is Through'. I don't remember where I first heard that sequence of words but I know that they always took up space in my mind and after facing one of the biggest disappointments of my young life at 23, and realizing that many more likely lay ahead of me, it seemed like the perfect reminder to put on my skin. The legend of the koi fish is that it has to spend ages swimming against the current towards its destiny to evolve into a dragon, and though swimming against the current is arduous, it's that resistance which gives its final form the strength it embodies.

I have not always been an emotionally strong person. Growing up sensitive without any education on how to navigate the depths of my feelings, I developed an early habit of just trying to avoid them. Trying to find shortcuts around them or ways to not feel them. Seeking the path of least resistance and trying to get as much of a reward as I could while doing only as much work as was necessary. But what that disappointment at 23 taught me and what life has continued to teach me in the 11 years since is that life does not get any easier, we just have to get stronger. And to be able to enjoy this life is not a matter of avoiding challenge and obstacles, but rather is a matter of overcoming them and discovering that what makes human beings so special in not our opposable thumbs or our pre-frontal cortex but is instead our indomitable spirt. Pain, challenges, heart break, and other obstacles are not bugs that the designer of this game we call 'life' accidentally left in the code but rather are features, tools to help us discover ourselves and grow in the ways we are destined to. But that growth can only happen if we commit to seeing the game all the way through.

I'm grateful to say that it's been a long time since I've woken up sad that I didn't die in my sleep. And it's not because my life has been all sunshine and rainbows — far from it. What has really changed is that I no longer opt out of my emotions. I no longer am afraid of my feelings or of being judged for expressing them. I no longer seek to fill the void within myself with fleeting experiences because that void is no longer empty. If you're willing to brave the darkness and see it all the way through, I promise that there's a Light at the end of the tunnel that will illuminate the void and the most profound thing you'll discover on your journey is that the Light at the end of the tunnel is you.

What's Going On With Me?

I'm feeling pretty good considering the state of things. Lately I've been reflecting on how drastically my life has changed over the past couple of years. One of the major ways that it changed is that I transitioned into a career in tech and have been a Web Developer fom over a year now 🤯 Last week I was recognized at work for my work and it felt good — way better than any recognition that I've ever received at any other job. And I think that's because, I actually like this job. Don't get me wrong, it has its bullshit just like any other job but I actually like coding. It suits me. It's not just something that I have to do to make money but it's also something that I would do for free, just because it interests me. And that's such a blessing.

I'm getting closer and closer to a video offering and have recently figured out a new way to share these newsletters which I'm excited about bringing into fruition in the coming weeks. I'm not someone who relies a lot on hope because I'm not super attached to what the future brings. However, I feel hopeful. There's a lot of chaos going on on the outside, but I think it's necessary and is going to contribute to a brighter present than we've seen in a while. The Darkness only serves the Light.

With love,

Micheal Sinclair 💜