Here is your first free sample of what is introspection.
“It’s time for you to look inward, and start asking yourself the big questions. Who are you? And what do you want?”― Uncle Iroh
Origin Story Time
As a child I had known to study, learn behaviour from others, learn interaction etc. I had also been taught structured thinking via mathematics, literature, history, chemistry, physics.
I had been given this road of how life should”play out” through school, getting a job, starting a family etc… To aim for the stars. The usual roadmap.
I’d been given instructions on what’s right and wrong, good and bad, productive and counterproductive, healthy and unhealthy,
what is the right way to live… And what is the wrong way.
But what do I do when I accidentally choose the wrong way?
Why is the wrong way wrong in the first place? Am I worthless as a human being ifI want to do something else than follow the path set before me by others? What else is there even to do? What if I fail?
Yup, that’s where I ended up. Turns out, people are so afraid of being wrong and to fail, they don’t consider it an option, and are then left to fend for themselves. Good job, society! Let us raise a toast to the people who never made a mistake and are pristine enough to lead us to abundance and world peace!
Anyway, I’d say fear of failure is rather well-founded considering how quickly we can judge and condemn others, and even ourselves.
We can be incredibly harsh to those who make mistakes, from disappointed voters judging the ones they elected to parents disciplining their children with often disproportionate consequences.
They failed, better let them know, and make that lesson harsh so it sinks in.
People are scared to be wrong and even more that others know they’re wrong because of the fear of potential outcome. A lovely cycle.
But what if you fail at life before even becoming an adult? Straight out of high school, make the wrong decisions that seemed right at the time, yet end in catastrophe? How do you recover, who do you go to for help?
You skipped a year of university, is life now over? Am I suboptimal? Am I a disappointment?
Truth be told I found school to be rather easy. In fact, so easy, I barely bothered to put an effort into it.
It does not mean I was top ace of everything. It means I did not give a fuck because I passed everything without hardly trying.
And that reflected in the external validation structure provided: marks were ok.
Schoolwork in my school was well-structured, provided routine and all I had to do was pay attention, think along and everything sort fit together naturally. I barely had to do any homework because I did most of it during class.
Back then I did not know how school is basically an external feedback loop and how society itself extends this given how successes are praised and failures ridiculed. How children are so used to being externally validated
that they have essentially created a life beyond it that follows the same pattern because of the conditioned needfor someone to tell you how well you did. Of course, school is only one aspect of why society is this way, but I digress.
I was in school, it was easy, I got praise and I reveled in it.
I saw how others had to put in effort to achieve results I got with little to no work and that inflated my ego. I was cocky, elitist, too smart for my own good. I didn’t think I could fail even if I tried to. All I had to do was show up and everything would solve itself.
Ah, the hubris of a young lad. Turns out life is just a tiny bit more complex than that.
But when you’re in puberty with more hormones than grains of sand on a beach, who cares?
Sure, you’ll study, do all sorts of things young people are supposed to and more.
But what if you fail so hard it makes you question your worth, entire existence, shake the very foundation of your core and go against everything you thought you value and hold dear? Nothing really prepares you for that.
The Breaking Point
I was living my best life as a teenager, fell madly in love, had hopes and dreams for a bright future and family.
I came from a broken family with a classic case of growing up without a father. The whole ordeal had made me think “If I will ever be a father, I will never leave my children.” which makes sense because I knew the pain it brings.
Situations like this are far more complex than one might think at first glance,
but to a child it is simple for adults to say “Don’t do this yourself” or “Learn from their mistakes” without even elaborating what that means.
Was leaving the mistake?
Or making decisions that lead to that point?
How does one even know that decisions can have such impact?
So me and my girlfriend thought what a splendid idea it is to start a family at ages 18 and 20 (I know, right), me being 18 at the time. We had been together for 3 years and I considered her to be the love of my life.
I guess we both ignored the red flags that were present in the relationship that pointed towards it not lasting, let alone being something to invite a child into.
We had great times, sure, but the bad times were truly horrible, beyond toxic.
Our fights were loud, often accompanied by violence from both sides, physical and mental. A baby in the mix only added to the pressure between us. Naturally, we grew apart and me being especially nasty at key moments sealed the fate of that relationship.
At the time, I thought it’s a rough patch, we’ll get over it, but the damage had been done.
The final year was especially awful and by then I had turned into something I barely recognized anymore.
I hated myself, the situation I was in, what I was doing to her and what she was doing to me.
But I loved her and our son, so I desperately held on to the idea of me never leaving because my father had left me. But now I was in a situation
where I desperately wanted out, I wanted to leave.
I tried talking to my dying grandfather who had been my father figure, told him what I was struggling with. He told me: you’ll manage. You only have to endure for 18 years, then you can go do whatever you want.
This internal conflict resulted in clinical depression and suicidal tendencies.
That entire year I felt like I was living someone else’s life, it could not have been mine.
I had ideas, plans, to build a life, family, study chemistry in university. And there I was, in this train wreck of a relationship, about to walk out on my son because I could not keep going.
We broke up, I promised never to reach out to them.
I was forced to look at myself,
see what I had done,
what I had become,
and how I had failed everything I had believed in.
All I had left were some clothes, a clinical depression and a job I somehow managed to keep.
I dropped out of university and there I was, even then not realising the extent of my self loathing.
I had thought my innate abilities would carry me into the real world, that everything would sort of figure itself out, only to be forced to look at myself and see how spectacularly I had wasted my potential.
Everything I thought I was had been crushed before my very eyes.
From Spiralling Out to Introspection
What do you even do in this situation? Nothing I had ever learned at school could have prepared me for something like this.
How do you face the people who love you after having let them down?
How do you face yourself?
How do you pick up the pieces you want to leave lying on the floor because you hate yourself?
Although I had entertained the thought of ending it all, I chose to keep going and see what happens. At first I simply carried on, went to work, went on a date.
I had found a new girlfriend who would later become my wife, and she was supportive of me in my torment.
But things only got worse for me mentally as I kept blasted by the torrent of thoughts, finally realising the magnitude of the blunders I had inflicted upon myself and others.
All I knew was I wanted the pain to stop. As I was spiralling down this mental abyss and decided to end it all, I got a phone call from my mother, who said she wanted to meet me and asked me where I was.
Turned out my grandfather, who had been like a father to me had died, and she wanted to tell me in person.
The call happened at the very moment I was going to slice my wrists.
I shit you not, that’s actually what happened.
That was the lowest point of my life. My emotions overwhelmed me
on a daily basis and I had no idea what to do. And yet…
Somehow I knew after my grandfather’s burial that things cannot go on like this and I have to do something.
So I started thinking.
How on Earth did I end up like this?
What the fuck happened?
Why me?
Who the hell even am I?
And suddenly someone responded.
Someone who had always been there, but to whom I had never paid attention to.
Imagine this: you are crouched on the floor, snot and tears everywhere, mentally devastated.
And then you suddenly become aware of the fact that your thoughts are interrupted by other thoughts.
Something else is thinking in the same headspace as what I thought is just me. It’s just been very quiet, almost blending into the background soundscape of whatever else is going on.
And at this moment of absurdity it feels like the thoughts you get from this other entity want to tell you something, like they want you to know they are there, and they want to be heard.
It was no longer some sort of background commentary, but a presence that wanted to respond to my questions, but could not do so directly.
The response was more like a swell, or a sharp drop on a roller coaster,
non-verbal, but undeniably real.
I had no idea what to make of it, it seemed absurd.
The fact that my thoughts somehow generate other thoughts made me realise that I can talk to myself in my mind and feel emotions, real emotions based on what I think. And it turned into a weird as fuck dialogue:
me trying to tell me something.
But when I focused on trying to understand, I was overwhelmed.
Instead of saying one thing, it was as if it tried to scream everything at once, a cacophony of different emotions and states of mind.
Imaginary example:
Me: Why am I suffering?
Other: Sure! Here’s everything that is currently making you suffer and how it came to be, all at the same time! Queue existential void.
I had discovered introspection…
and I sucked at it.
If you’ve ever been here — wondering if you’re broken beyond repair, staring at a life you barely recognize — yeah, you’re not alone.
Turns out the soundtrack to rock bottom is a duet.
And if you keep practicing, the band will only grow.
“If politeness were enough to save the soul, we’d all be saints already.” ― unknown
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