Death And Life, 1908 by Gustav Klimt (1908)
“You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
“My whole life is a battle; between me and me, between me as I am, and me as God wants me to be.”
-Saint Nikolai Velimirovich
Volume 3
Chapter 4: The Burden
My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.’ That’s how Camus opens his book The Stranger. The line is no doubt designed to shock the reader. Since my last writing, my mother has also died—on 29 October 2020. I can’t help but draw a connection to Camus, though my experience was markedly different. Earlier in the year, she was diagnosed with cancer. Although she underwent chemotherapy, the disease was far too advanced for the treatment to be effective. At the time, I was living abroad and wasn’t there when she first received the diagnosis. To complicate matters, this all unfolded during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which made international travel difficult. Still, I managed to return to my home country not long after her diagnosis. I stayed for some time, but as I no longer lived there and her treatment plan stretched over many months without a clear timeline, I eventually had to return to my life with my partner.
I visited her again that summer. My memory is, unfortunately, unreliable—not just about these events but in general—and I can’t clearly recall her condition during that visit. What I do know is that the chemotherapy seemed to be helping temporarily. Her pain, though, required medication. My mother, despite her illness, carried on with characteristic resilience, a trait that always defined her. After spending time with her, I went back once again to my home abroad. Later that year, I received a call from one of my mother’s friends. She told me my mother’s condition had worsened significantly, and that I should come home. The news caught me off guard. I had been speaking to my mother fairly regularly—though admittedly not as often or as long as I would have liked. In our conversations, she avoided dwelling on her illness, clearly reluctant to burden me with her struggles. She always ended our calls sooner than I wanted, a pattern that reflected not just her approach to the situation but a deeper aspect of her personality. Looking back, I can recognize the subtle changes in her voice during those conversations. At the time, I attributed them to the grueling side effects of chemotherapy, which I had come to accept as part of the process. In truth, her condition was deteriorating. My questions about how she was feeling yielded little clarity; she had a way of downplaying her suffering—an effort, I suspect, to shield me from worry.
After that call, I made arrangements to return once again to my home country, navigating the challenges of pandemic-era travel. This time, I knew the situation was serious. I didn’t tell her I was coming. I wanted to surprise her. And surprised she was—completely astonished when I showed up at her door. Her reaction filled me with joy, an overwhelming happiness born from seeing her delight. For a brief moment, it felt like we had stepped outside the grim reality of her illness. But as that initial euphoria subsided, the truth became starkly apparent: my mother’s condition was far worse than I had imagined. I was profoundly grateful to her friend for urging me to come. The cancer had spread aggressively. It had started in her stomach, and though surgery had been performed to remove what they could, the doctors had warned that recurrence was almost inevitable. By the time I visited her, the disease had advanced beyond her stomach. It had reached her liver, her bones, and likely many other parts of her body. These devastating details weren’t something she had shared over the phone. She only confided them to me once I was there, standing in front of her, unable to look away. Her reasons for withholding such news were clear, even if they frustrated me. She didn’t want me to worry or feel obligated to put my life on hold because of her illness. It was a reflection of who she had always been—unwaveringly selfless, even in the face of her own suffering.
She was in constant, overwhelming pain, and it was incredibly difficult to witness. Her pain medication was as strong as it could be, yet even that wasn’t enough to alleviate her suffering completely. I remember vividly one occasion when she asked to take more medication than she was allowed. Normally, such a request might not have catastrophic consequences, but with drugs this potent, an overdose was a very real danger. I explained this to her, only for her to reply that an overdose might actually be for the best. Hearing her say that was devastating—listening to my own mother express a desire to die. Yet as painful as it was to hear, I couldn’t fault her for feeling that way. She was enduring excruciating pain, pain that was entirely futile. Her cancer was far too advanced for chemotherapy to offer any hope of recovery or even significant improvement. It crossed my mind, if only briefly, to grant her request and give her the extra dosage. I knew I couldn’t bring myself to do it, but the thought lingered, weighing heavily on me. I even wondered if it might be the most moral thing to do, considering the circumstances.
This internal struggle went on for some time, as her condition continued to worsen. Eventually, her pain became so intense that I decided to call an ambulance. We had avoided calling one earlier because there wasn’t much they could do to help her. She was already on the strongest medication available, and the only alternative the hospital could provide was IV morphine. While it offered better relief than oral medication, the effect was only temporary. Once she felt somewhat better, they would discharge her, sending her back home to endure the same torment. The decision to involve the ambulance wasn’t an easy one. The process of getting her to the hospital was arduous in itself. She lived on the third floor of an apartment building with no elevator, and even with help from the medical personnel, moving her was painful and far from straightforward. The temporary relief she experienced from the IV medication often didn’t seem worth the ordeal of getting her there and back. Yet, on that day, her pain was so overwhelming that it felt like there was no other choice.
She went to the hospital, and there she stayed. Thankfully, the medical staff recognized the severity of her condition and allowed her to remain as an inpatient. In some ways, this was a relief—it meant she could receive IV morphine, which significantly reduced her pain. While the situation was far from ideal, knowing she wasn’t suffering as much brought a small measure of comfort. I visited her a few times after she was admitted. Due to the pandemic, hospitals weren’t allowing visitors under most circumstances, but fortunately, they made exceptions for extreme cases like hers. Even so, visits were limited, and they requested that I avoid coming daily. I could only visit her a few times a week, which felt insufficient, but I was grateful for the opportunity to see her at all.
The hospital itself felt eerie and unsettling during those visits. I remembered it from before—bustling with activity, crowded with people rushing through the hallways. Now, it was empty, or at least it felt that way. The patients were still there, of course, and in significant numbers, but without visitors, the usual chaos of a hospital had vanished. The desolation created an uneasy, almost dystopian atmosphere that lingered every time I walked its halls. Despite this unease, I was thankful they allowed me to visit, even knowing the risks involved. Hospitals are dangerous places during epidemics. Though hygiene is a priority, the nature of closed spaces and frequent contact makes them hotbeds for transmission. The stakes were high for everyone—if healthcare workers became infected, it would lead to a shortage of personnel. If patients contracted the virus, their weakened immune systems would make them far more likely to succumb. Every visit carried the weight of these risks, and I couldn’t ignore the precariousness of the situation. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to stay away, not when I knew my mother needed me there. When I visited my mother in the hospital, I was grateful to find her surprisingly lucid and, at least outwardly, in a good mood. Her resilience was remarkable, though it was impossible to ignore the undercurrent of dread that lingered beneath the surface—an unspoken acknowledgment of her dire condition and the bleak inevitability of what lay ahead.
During one of my visits, she told me how much she loved me and how proud she was of me. She teared up as she spoke, fully aware of the importance of saying these words while she still could. It was a profoundly moving moment, one that touched me deeply even though I am not typically an emotional person. I teared up too, though only slightly. These moments often carry a certain awkwardness for me, and my natural tendency toward awkwardness made it harder to fully embrace what was happening. Looking back, I wish I had handled the moment differently. I wish I had told her how much I appreciated what she said and how deeply I loved her in return. But I didn’t. I didn’t realize at the time that it was my last chance to say those things, and even if I had, I’m not sure I would have known how to articulate them. Thankfully, I know my mother understood. She didn’t need to hear me say those words to know how I felt; her unwavering understanding of me gave her that clarity. Still, I can’t help but feel regret. Perhaps it’s because of the infinitesimally small chance that she didn’t know, or perhaps it’s because even truths that are understood should be spoken aloud. Maybe it’s both. Hearing her words of praise was difficult in an unexpected way—it made me feel bad about myself. She spoke of how proud she was of me, how good a son and person I had become, but I couldn’t reconcile her words with how I saw myself. I knew I wasn’t the son she described, nor the person she believed I was. Her praise filled me with guilt, directed at an ideal that didn’t exist outside of her mind.
I think she genuinely believed what she said, and I believe she was truly proud of me. Yet, I can’t completely shake the possibility that she was saying what she thought I wanted to hear, or what she felt it was her ethical duty to say as my mother. What if, deep down, she resented me for the attention I had failed to give her? What if she harbored rightful disappointment in the son who hadn’t been there enough? I don’t think this was the case—everything in me tells me that her pride in me was real—but it doesn’t ease the guilt. I felt like I had deceived her into feeling gratitude for something unearned.
In the aftermath, I tried to comfort myself with a sense of purpose, framing it as my cosmic duty to live up to the version of me that she believed in. I told myself that becoming the person she thought I already was could, in some way, honor her short and tragic life. But even that brought guilt. Her death, as profound as it was, didn’t magically transform me into a better person. It didn’t erase my flaws or failures, and I was left with the weight of knowing I had fallen short.
Despite all the challenges and complexities of that moment, I still deeply appreciated everything she said. Beyond the words themselves, I felt a profound sense of awe at her strength. The fact that she could say and do exactly what she felt was right, despite her immense pain and the looming presence of death, was something I couldn’t fully comprehend. It was a strength and wisdom that seemed almost otherworldly to me, far beyond anything I could ever hope to achieve.
I know myself too well. I know that even if I recognized the importance of a moment, I’d likely overthink it and fail to act properly. Awkwardness would take over, just as it did when I responded to her heartfelt “I love you” with a clumsy and inadequate “me too.” Such moments have always felt unnatural to me, as though I didn’t belong in them. Since meeting my partner, however, expressing affection has become a little easier. I still struggle with finding the right words and often stumble through emotional moments, but physical affection has started to feel more natural. Unfortunately, in this case, I couldn’t simply give my mother a hug to compensate for my verbal shortcomings. COVID-19 restrictions made physical contact nearly impossible, and her frail body was attached to various medical apparatus, further limiting what was possible. Even now, I’m not sure whether those barriers were the real reason I didn’t embrace her. If there had been no pandemic, no medical equipment in the way, would I have managed to give her that hug? I want to believe I would have, but deep down, I can’t say for certain. It’s entirely possible that I would have frozen, paralyzed by my own awkwardness and inability to express myself. That doubt lingers, and it’s something I’ll carry with me until the end of time.
My grandmother lived with my mother, who was her full-time carer. She had been bedridden for well over a decade. I still remember, as a child, taking walks with her. Those moments seem distant now, as her decline was steady and relentless. First, she became too weak to leave the house. Then, she couldn’t get up from her chair. And eventually, she became confined entirely to her bed. My grandmother remains one of my greatest motivations to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Watching her decline was profoundly difficult. While she wasn’t young, she was still at an age where she could have taken so much more from life. But her body, frail and failing, robbed her of those opportunities. Her life was essentially destroyed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it all could have been avoided—or at least delayed—if she had been healthier. What made her situation especially heartbreaking for me was the contrast between her physical state and her mind. Her mind was perfectly intact—lucid and sharp, capable of engaging in completely normal conversations. That clarity only seemed to emphasize the tragedy of her condition. Her body had trapped her, leaving her unable to experience the life her mind was still fully capable of appreciating.
I always felt a bit awkward with my grandmother. While I spent a lot of time with her as a child, I was so young that I barely remember much of it. What I do recall are fleeting moments—like walking with her to the local shopping center, pretending to be an adult, and being allowed to sip the remnants of her coffee. She loved cats and had many throughout her life. I remember a few of them and how I used to play with them, building pillow forts and trying to coax the cats to jump over them. But these memories feel more like snapshots than vivid recollections. They exist as fragments, frozen in time, almost like old photographs. And, as with most of my childhood memories, they’re not even proper memories anymore. Instead, I feel like I’m remembering the act of remembering them. It’s as if the original moments have eroded, leaving behind only faint impressions of what once was. I don’t know if this is normal or unique to me, perhaps a result of having a poor memory—likely tied to my ADHD. Whatever the cause, most of my older memories feel secondhand, like echoes of something once clear but now faded. Since I didn’t remember much of my grandmother from my childhood, I never felt particularly close to her. When her health deteriorated to the point that she couldn’t move on her own, she required constant care. Initially, she lived with my uncle, and I would visit her with my mother from time to time, though not very often.
There was a period when I was living alone while my mother was working in the UK. I believe I was 18 years old at the time. During that period, I also visited my grandmother on my own. But, much like when I went with my mother, I couldn’t help but feel awkward during those visits. I was there more out of a sense of duty than genuine desire. Sometimes, I truly wanted to visit her, but it wasn’t because of an innate longing to see her—it was because I wanted to feel like a good person. I knew she enjoyed seeing me, and I recognized that visiting her was the right thing to do. But the desire never came from a natural, intrinsic place. Instead, it was rooted in my understanding of what was expected of me, and in my own attempts to live up to that.
At some point, my uncle could no longer care for my grandmother, and she came to live with us. This was a few years before I moved away from home. During that time, I was able to connect with her a bit more, but I still didn’t feel very close to her. It felt as though I had already missed my opportunity. I often thought I should visit her room every day, sit with her, and talk, but I didn’t. There were days when I didn’t go to her room at all, and sometimes those stretches lasted far longer than they should have. I spent most of my time confined to my own room, studying, working, reading, or playing video games. I avoided visiting her because it felt awkward. As I got older, and particularly as I became more influenced by Christianity, I made an effort to spend more time with my grandmother. But even that, in the end, was a failure. I tried for a few days to sit with her and talk, but it never felt natural, and I eventually gave up. There wasn’t much for us to talk about. I lacked any meaningful memories of the time we had spent together when I was younger, and now our lives were so vastly different that finding common ground was nearly impossible.
The generation gap between us felt enormous, and I had no idea how to bridge it. I tried making small talk, but that quickly ran out—especially for someone as socially awkward as I am. Still, none of that excuses my behavior. I knew I should have stayed, regardless of the awkwardness. I should have sat with her and simply been there, but I didn’t. Instead, I left. Every time.What’s worse is not just reflecting on this now, as I write, but knowing that even if I could go back, I would probably do the same thing. At first, I would be motivated by the desire to be a good person. I would stay, determined to push through the discomfort. But then the awkwardness would settle in. The small talk would run dry. The pull to return to my own life—its routines and distractions—would grow stronger and stronger. Eventually, it would win, and I would leave. My grandmother would be left alone in her room, with little else to occupy her life except short bursts of attention from my mother. She spent most of her days watching TV, something she enjoyed for much of the time she was bedridden. But even that changed toward the end. In her last year, not even the television brought her any comfort. She would rather have it off and simply sit there, alone for hours on end. Her body, too weak to fix even minor discomforts, left her trapped in both stillness and solitude.
When I returned to my home country after hearing how sick my mother had become, I believe I was there for about two weeks before her pain grew so unbearable that she had to be hospitalized. She never came back home after that. About a week after she was admitted, my grandmother passed away. That morning, I was with my grandmother. I believe I even gave her breakfast. It felt like just another ordinary day. Around lunchtime, I went for my usual walk, listening to an audiobook as I often did. During my walk, I was stopped by someone who recognized me, which took me by surprise. In my home country, even in a city that felt large by my standards, it’s not unusual for people to run into someone they know. But for me, someone who wasn’t living there anymore and had never had much of a social life to begin with, it felt strange. The person who recognized me was one of my grandmother’s former carers. Back when my mother was working, and her boyfriend—who lived with her—was also working, we relied on carers to look after my grandmother. Over time, the carer became a more regular presence, though I can’t recall exactly why she stopped. Perhaps someone else had taken over, or maybe we didn’t need a carer anymore because my mother’s boyfriend wasn’t working at the time. I can’t quite remember.
Either way, we had a brief conversation. She introduced me to her family, who happened to be there having coffee with her. The introduction was, unsurprisingly, awkward for me. Yet, I remember feeling a small sense of warmth. Even though I barely knew her, it was nice to see someone enjoying time with their family, smiling and happy. It was a brief, unexpected moment of comfort. I shared the news about my mother, explaining that her condition had worsened significantly and that she’d been hospitalized a few days earlier. She asked about my grandmother, and I replied that she was the same as always. I mentioned that my grandmother had always remained lucid, though I knew that wasn’t entirely true anymore. In her final year, dementia had begun to creep in, making her slower and less coherent. It wasn’t caused by any specific illness, but simply the relentless effects of age.
After that brief encounter, about five minutes later, I returned from my morning walk. As I opened the front door, I was confronted with a chaotic scene. My grandmother was lying on the floor, surrounded by a few people. One of them was performing CPR on her. I stood frozen for a moment before the person doing CPR looked up and told me to go outside. One of the carers led me to the street and explained what had happened. She and her colleague had come to give my grandmother her usual lunch, but she wasn’t responsive. They called 911, but in the meantime, one of the neighbors, who happened to be a fireman, had stepped in and started performing CPR. That was the scene I had walked into.
CPR, in these circumstances, was almost certainly futile. It rarely works, and even when it does, it often causes broken ribs and leaves the person traumatized—especially if they were already frail. For many, survival is short-lived, with death following days or weeks later. The successful CPR stories we associate with TV dramas are misleading; most of those cases involve people who never truly died but simply lost consciousness or had a faint pulse undetectable in a chaotic environment. Performing CPR on someone as old and frail as my grandmother was likely pointless. I suspect the fireman knew this, but he probably felt compelled to try anyway. Perhaps it was a natural instinct to act, to do something in a crisis, even if it didn’t make sense. Or maybe he feared that not trying could invite blame or accusations later. Whatever his reasons, it was a futile attempt, but I don’t fault him for it.
While I was still outside on the street, the ambulance arrived. The paramedics rushed into the house, and I stood there, waiting. A few minutes later, they came back down and informed me that my grandmother had died. They tried to deliver the news with some degree of humanity, but it still felt cold. I don’t blame them for that. To them, it was just another call—a random person, an elderly woman, another death in a job where such events are routine. They had likely seen this hundreds of times before. But for me, hearing the news delivered so plainly, so directly, stung. It felt like her death had been reduced to a formality. Even as I felt that way, I wasn’t sure what I had expected instead. What could they have said or done to soften the blow? Perhaps nothing. The reality was stark, and no amount of gentleness could have made it easier to hear.
My grandmother’s carer and the neighbor were trying to calm me down, offering words of comfort, but in truth, I wasn’t nervous, terrified, or anything they might have assumed. If I had to describe how I felt, the most accurate word would be surreal. My mother was dying of cancer and had just been hospitalized, and now my grandmother had died. The sequence of events felt almost too much to process, as though it were happening to someone else entirely.
What complicated my feelings further was the guilt. I felt it, much like I did toward my mother. There was guilt for not having done more for my grandmother, for not having spent more time with her when I could have. But there was also a guilt that felt stranger—guilt for not being as distressed as I thought I should have been. Everyone around me was treating this as a deeply traumatic event, yet for me, it wasn’t. The truth was, I hadn’t been very close to my grandmother. I had tried to connect with her, but it had never really worked. While her death was unexpected in the sense that there was no particular sign or warning that it would happen on that day, it wasn’t entirely shocking either. She was very old—93 at the time—and her health had been fragile for years.
I was already struggling with the guilt I felt toward my mother, and now I had the added guilt of my grandmother. And on top of that, I carried the guilt of feeling guilty. People close to me were dying, and yet, somehow, I was still making it about myself. I was drowning in self-pity, consumed by how bad of a person I believed I was. What I’ve always thought defines a good human being is the ability to shine love into the world. But guilt and self-pity are the opposite of that. They spiral inward, collapsing on themselves, and yet I couldn’t stop. That only made me feel guiltier, which created a feedback loop—a familiar, relentless cycle.
I wasn’t new to such loops, especially when it came to guilt. I’ve experienced similar patterns in conflicts with my partner. I’d feel guilty about something I had done or said, then sink into self-pity. But self-pity doesn’t resolve anything. It’s just another form of self-centeredness, and recognizing that only deepens the guilt, pulling me further into the spiral. It’s a cycle that feeds on itself, seemingly endless. When I was younger, I struggled with depression. Through philosophy, discipline, and sheer willpower, I managed to rise above it. But depression is like a shadow that never fully leaves; it’s always waiting for an opportunity to pull me back. And when I find myself caught in these guilt loops, I can feel its pull. Escaping them is incredibly difficult. Fortunately, my partner has a way of breaking me free. Somehow, every time I start to spiral, she manages to pull me out—through her love, patience, or some intangible quality that I can’t fully explain. Whatever it is, it keeps me from falling completely, time and time again.
I debated with my partner, my mother’s boyfriend, and my family about whether or not to tell my mother that my grandmother had died. It was a difficult decision. On one hand, I’ve always valued truth and openness, believing that honesty is paramount, no matter how painful the truth might be. I’ve carried this belief into my relationship with my partner. Early on, I made her promise that we would never lie to each other, no matter how ugly or difficult the truth. I believed—and still believe—that as long as a relationship is built on truth, any problems that arise can be worked through together. What’s ironic, though, is that while I placed such a strong emphasis on honesty, I am the one who most often, if not exclusively, breaks that vow. In the case of my mother, however, the decision to withhold the truth wasn’t driven by inconvenience or a reluctance to face the inevitable consequences. It came from a genuine concern for her well-being. She was already enduring so much; I didn’t want to add the extra burden of knowing that her own mother had died. So, I made the decision not to tell her. To this day, I’m still uncertain if it was the right choice. No one has ever blamed me for it, but that doesn’t resolve the lingering question. On one hand, I didn’t want to deepen my mother’s suffering, but on the other, it feels fundamentally wrong to conceal such a significant event.
Several days later, the hospital called. My mother’s condition had deteriorated, and they urged me to come as soon as possible. Upon arrival, I was ushered into a meeting with a psychologist and one of my mother’s physicians. Their stated purpose was to ensure I understood the gravity of her situation and to offer psychological support. I found the encounter somewhat perplexing. While both the doctor and psychologist were undeniably polite and compassionate, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being almost insulted. Did they really need me to confirm my understanding of my mother’s imminent death and the futility of further intervention? The meeting felt strangely out of place, though its purpose became clearer later. After this somewhat disconcerting exchange, I finally went to see my mother. But the person in that hospital bed was no longer the woman I knew. While technically alive, she was completely unresponsive, her eyes vacant. She showed no sign of recognizing me, or even her partner, though he later claimed she had briefly acknowledged him. Perhaps he was right; perhaps he simply saw what he desperately wanted to see. I couldn’t know for sure. But even if she had fleetingly recognized him, it didn’t alter the profound sense of loss I already felt. For all intents and purposes, my mother was already gone.
Although I don’t consider myself particularly emotional, and by most standards, I was navigating this difficult period with relative composure, seeing my mother in that state triggered an uncontrollable breakdown. It wasn’t immediate. At first, the visit proceeded like any other. But the moment the reality of her absent mental activity struck me, it felt like a sharp divide in time, a Kairos moment, as I mentioned earlier. My mother was gone, and all I could do was weep—a deep, visceral sobbing that seemed to emanate from the very core of my being. This intensity of grief was unfamiliar, almost bizarre, because I couldn’t recall ever experiencing anything like it. As a child, I cried frequently, often for no discernible reason. Yet, as a teenager, I became the opposite. It wasn’t a matter of suppressing my emotions; it was more like an absence of them. In my fervent atheism and my self-proclaimed rational existence, I dismissed emotions as mere evolutionary baggage, devoid of purpose. I believed myself superior to such base impulses, capable of dispassionately analyzing any situation and acting solely on logic and evidence. Fortunately, this naive and flawed understanding of human life eventually eroded, particularly after meeting my partner. However, I believe the true catalyst for this shift was my experience with psychedelics, which shattered my rigidly rational worldview.
This experience stood in stark contrast to Meursault’s attitude towards his mother’s death, as depicted in Camus’s The Stranger. Yet, I still find myself strangely identifying with certain aspects of Meursault’s emotional detachment. This connection likely stems from the emotional apathy I experienced in my youth, as I described earlier. To be clear, my own emotional state was never even remotely close to the profound indifference portrayed by Meursault. Nevertheless, his character resonates with me on some level, and I can’t help but feel a kinship with the underlying sentiment Camus explores. This resonance exists both in the recognition of my younger self’s trajectory towards such detachment and in my current, conscious effort to distance myself from that mindset as I mature.
While I had become more emotionally expressive as I grew older, even shedding tears on occasion, nothing compared to the intensity of that moment. The grief was overwhelming. Yet, amidst the pain, I also experienced a strange sense of catharsis. It wasn’t the act of weeping itself, but rather what it signified. I felt validated, reassured that I was capable of caring, of loving. It was proof that I wasn’t a machine, that I wasn’t like Meursault. In that moment of profound sorrow, I understood the reality of love, not just love directed towards others, but a capacity for love within myself. Even someone like me, who often felt like a complete failure, could experience love. In my previous therapy session, I had questioned the authenticity of my emotional response to music. But in this instance, I knew my tears were genuine. How did I know? I couldn’t articulate a rational justification. The feeling was undeniably real, and I wholeheartedly embraced its authenticity. It was genuine, and I would defend its reality without hesitation. This pragmatic approach to truth is becoming increasingly central to my understanding, though I still struggle to express it philosophically.
Meanwhile, my cat began behaving strangely, exhibiting a marked decrease in appetite. I mentioned this to my partner and my mother’s boyfriend, who was staying with us, but I didn’t dwell on it at first. This was the cat I had grown up with since my late teens—a beautiful Russian Blue whom I loved dearly. She had even been present, and very close to me, during my first LSD experience. Initially, I attributed her behavior to grief over my mother’s absence. She had always been close to me, sleeping in my bed every night. But after I moved out, she had grown particularly attached to my mother, especially after the cancer diagnosis, or so I was told. Even if it wasn’t grief, I reasoned, her behavior might have been related to her heat cycles, during which her appetite often diminished. It wasn’t entirely unprecedented, so I didn’t think much of it.
That changed one night when she woke me with an unusual meow—a sound so out of the ordinary that it instantly filled me with worry. Normally, I would have ignored such disturbances and gone back to sleep, but this time I felt compelled to check on her. I found that she had peed all over my bed and pillow, something she had never done before. Concerned, I assumed she might be hungry but too despondent to eat. I brought her food and placed it directly in front of her, hoping to entice her, but she remained uninterested.
When I picked her up and placed her back down, it became clear something was terribly wrong. She didn’t settle into her usual posture, nor did she stand or lie down. Instead, she simply crumpled, unable to support her own weight. The realization of her profound weakness hit me like a wave. Panicked, I began searching for 24-hour veterinary clinics, even though it was four in the morning. To my relief, I found an animal hospital in the city, which I hadn’t even known existed. After confirming they were open, I quickly entered the address into my phone, scooped up my cat without even bothering to get her carrier, and ran to the car. The hospital was relatively close, but I sped recklessly through the empty streets. When I arrived, I felt frustrated by the apparent lack of urgency. I was made to fill out paperwork while my cat, too weak to even stand, remained in my arms. Finally, a veterinarian appeared and took her from me. I was led to a waiting room and told they would examine her. The wait felt interminable. I messaged my partner, who was half a world away and asleep, to let her know what was happening. She wanted to come and be with me, but for various reasons—work, COVID restrictions, or something else—she couldn’t.
After what felt like an eternity, perhaps an hour, the veterinarian returned and told me that my cat had died. I was devastated. I broke down in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. I felt compelled to apologize to the vet, worrying that my grief must have seemed exaggerated to them, given my typically restrained demeanor. I explained the recent losses of my mother and grandmother, hoping to provide some context for my reaction. My cat’s death affected me deeply. It felt like a cruel cosmic joke. After everything that had happened—losing my mother, losing my grandmother—it seemed as though the universe wasn’t satisfied. It felt like the final punch in a fight I had been enduring for too long, one that threatened to knock me down completely. What made her death so terrible wasn’t just the loss itself, though that was painful enough given how attached I was to her after so many years. It was the circumstances of her death. The veterinarian explained that when she arrived at the clinic, she was already in a dire state—weak and severely dehydrated. While they attempted to rehydrate her, her heart stopped. They managed to resuscitate her with adrenaline, but her heart stopped again shortly after, and this time they couldn’t bring her back.
What I had dismissed as grief over my mother’s absence was, in reality, a sign of a serious illness. The vet believed she had been sick for much longer than I had realized, perhaps weeks. The exact cause was unclear—possibly some kind of internal infection, though I don’t remember the details clearly. It may have been speculation on the vet’s part, but whatever the cause, it had not only damaged her health directly but had also suppressed her appetite. By the time she reached the clinic, she was severely underweight and too weak to recover. My cat had always been naturally small, so the changes in her weight weren’t immediately obvious to me. Looking back, I wish I had noticed the signs sooner.
I loved my mother deeply, and if nothing else, I could take solace in knowing that I didn’t directly cause her death. The cancer wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t her fault either, nor anyone else’s. It was simply a cruel feature of biological life, a part of the way this wretched world is designed. Yet, even with that thought, I wasn’t entirely sure. In her later years, my mother worked night shifts—a decision I knew, from my extensive research on sleep, was detrimental to her health. I begged her to quit, explaining how damaging it was for her well-being. She acknowledged this but insisted she needed the money. I told her I would cover any expenses, that she didn’t have to push herself this way, but she wouldn’t accept my offer. She continued with her job, enduring a life that was stressful, full of responsibilities, and lacking in rest or fulfillment. Even her relationship with her boyfriend, though I think it deepened toward the end of her life, was never truly satisfying for her. Her life seemed to be an endless cycle of obligations with little meaning or reprieve. I was relieved, at least, when I finally convinced her to quit her job. Perhaps she realized she was getting older and couldn’t sustain that lifestyle any longer. But even then, she insisted on finishing her contract, which was set to end at the close of the year, so she could qualify for unemployment benefits. I didn’t want her to wait that long. I tried to persuade her otherwise but ultimately didn’t push further. I was so glad she had decided to quit at all that I let it go.
She was profoundly unhealthy. Her stressful job consumed her energy, leaving no time or motivation for exercise. She was slightly overweight, which compounded the problem. Thankfully, her eating habits weren’t terrible—certainly better than her boyfriend’s—but they weren’t particularly good either. As both her son and a personal trainer, I felt a deep responsibility to help her improve her health. Yet I understood that, given her circumstances, especially the relentless demands of her job, this was almost impossible to achieve. I told myself that things might change once she retired or left her job. With more stability in her life, improving her lifestyle would seem more attainable. But that day never came. She didn’t retire or quit; instead, she went on medical leave—a reprieve that ultimately ended without resolution.
Even if my mother had been healthier, it’s unlikely she could have avoided cancer entirely. These things happen to people regardless of their efforts or circumstances. Around the same time my mother was diagnosed, my boss’s wife also received a cancer diagnosis. While I wasn’t close to her, we had exchanged a few words online since she worked for the company as well. Unlike my mother, she was very healthy. Despite her fitness, she still developed cancer, underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, and eventually beat it. I don’t mention this to suggest that her health directly saved her while my mother’s lack of it sealed her fate. The two cases were entirely different; her cancer was detected much earlier. Still, I find some comfort in noting that her story had a positive outcome.
While my mother may have been destined to develop cancer, her health might have altered the trajectory. With a stronger, healthier body, she might have faced the illness later in life or fought it with a better quality of life for a longer period. I often reflect on how, if I had somehow succeeded in helping her become healthier, I might have given her more time—time spent with less suffering. I thought I had more opportunities to effect change in her life. But then again, expecting someone to quit their job solely because it harms their health is rarely realistic. Most jobs take a toll to varying degrees, and for many, stepping away isn’t an option.
One of the things that most haunted me about my mother’s death was the unshakable sense of injustice. Throughout her life—at least during the time I knew her—she lived in a state of misery. But I clung to the belief that it would all work out someday. Surely, the universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to let such a kind, hardworking person live without some eventual reward, right? I never articulated this assumption so plainly, but it lingered, unspoken, at the back of my mind. Of course, I didn’t believe the universe was cruel in any literal sense. I’ve always held that the universe is largely indifferent to human affairs, a perspective I maintain even now. But it still felt inevitable, somehow, that life would balance the scales. And if it wasn’t destined to happen on its own, then I would make it happen.
I remember when I was young, after moving in with my mother following a decade spent with my father after their divorce. I would joke that one day I would become rich, and she could spend her days relaxing by a pool, carefree. Back then, I thought I was exceptionally smart and destined for success. It seemed only natural that my eventual achievements would allow my mother to finally live the life she deserved. My mother, who believed in me fiercely, shared that optimism, which only bolstered my confidence. But in hindsight, I wasn’t nearly as intelligent or capable as I thought. And even the intelligence I did possess turned out to matter far less than I assumed. Yet, in a strange way, that dream almost came true. Despite being a high school dropout with no social life and spending thousands of hours playing video games, I somehow managed to build a stable, successful career. I earned enough to support her retirement, exactly as my younger self had envisioned. But it didn’t matter. By the time I was in a position to help her, she was gone. Her death came as if in the blink of an eye, just before it all could fall into place. It felt cruelly close. She only needed to finish her current work contract, and then she could finally quit that exhausting job. She could have rested, and I could have helped her pay the bills. With less stress, she would have had the energy to exercise, eat well, and reconnect with her friends. She could have finally had a life worth living. But that dream was shattered by the unyielding reality of her death.
Even so, I find myself wondering: would it really have happened that way? Was financial relief all that stood between her and happiness? As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more cautious about attributing life’s struggles solely to money. Perhaps she would have quit her night shift job, only to take on another that was equally stressful. Maybe she would have refused my financial help altogether and continued struggling with money on her own terms. Or, perhaps, even with her material worries eased, life would still have felt empty. It seemed, in the end, that the only thing she truly cared about—what gave her the greatest pride—was me. And yet, I can’t bring myself to feel worthy of such love and pride.
I realize this is a digression into my mother’s health and my sense of responsibility for it. Could I have made her battle with cancer easier? Perhaps. But even my tendency for self-reproach has its limits, and I don’t hold myself fully accountable for her suffering. That’s just me grasping at threads of guilt. But the same cannot be said for my cat. She was entirely my responsibility. I was the one who cared for her, the one who should have noticed when something was wrong. And I didn’t. If I’d recognized the severity of her condition earlier and taken her to the vet, she likely would have survived with just a simple course of medication. But I didn’t act. I dismissed her symptoms as unimportant until it was too late. And because of that, she died. Her innocence also troubled me deeply. While I love my mom to death—she was an incredible person and someone I aspire to emulate, even though I know I’ll never reach her level—she, like anyone, had her flaws and made mistakes. What made my cat’s death particularly painful was her complete innocence. She suffered and died, and it was, undeniably, my fault. Some may argue they don’t believe in innocence or corruption, but their actions often betray that belief—they live as though the world’s corruption is justified by their own. Yet, I can’t say that about my cat. Her soul wasn’t corrupt. This realization—her innocence—combined with the vivid memory of her desperate meows near the end, crushes my heart.
It wasn’t just her death that hurt me so deeply but how sudden and shocking it was. With my mom, in some sense, my grieving process began with her cancer diagnosis. I had time to prepare, even if only marginally. But with my cat, the loss struck like a lightning bolt. I don’t mean to compare the loss of a mother to the loss of a pet—that would be absurd. But I hope I’ve managed to express why each was so profoundly painful in its own unique way, shaped by their circumstances.
After my veterinarian gently broke the news that my cat had passed away, the news hit me like a ton of bricks, and I struggled to hold back tears. My heart ached with sadness, and I felt a profound sense of loss. I wept uncontrollably. When I managed to compose myself, she asked if I wanted to see her and touch her one last time. I said yes. She brought her to me wrapped in a blanket and laid her gently in front of me on the table. I ran my hand over her small body, feeling the familiar texture of her cozy coat, just as I had done thousands upon thousands of times before—except this time, she was gone. Her face was hard to look at; her tongue hung out slightly, an image that seemed to perfectly encapsulate death. Seeing her like that, especially when her innocence was so painfully present in my mind, made me want to break down all over again. I tried to hold back, but the weight of it was unbearable.
I handled the paperwork, paid the hospital, and drove home. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep—my bed was soaked with cat pee. I spent the morning scouring the internet for ways to remove the smell from a mattress. Later that day, my mom’s boyfriend got a call from the hospital. My mother had passed away. The news wasn’t entirely shocking. I felt strange about how I received it, as though I’d already been grieving her death. Or, more precisely, I had been mourning her absence from this world ever since I saw her in a state where she couldn’t even recognize me. It wasn’t that I needed her to recognize me specifically; it was the weight of what that inability symbolized—she was no longer there, at least not in the way she once was.
My mom’s death hit her boyfriend much harder than it hit me. When he hugged me, he broke down completely. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry, even though he’d seen me cry often during hospital visits, although in a light, controlled fashion. I think it came down to how we each understood the situation. He had held onto hope that my mom might recover, even when it was clear she wouldn’t. He told me he believed she might regain some lucidity, even if the cancer couldn’t be beaten. Seeing her unresponsive in the hospital didn’t extinguish that hope for him, and when she passed, it crushed him.
I felt bad for him, knowing the depth of pain he must have been experiencing. I had endured my pain earlier in the process, but time had diluted it somewhat. In the beginning, I, too, had hope. When she was first diagnosed, we didn’t know how serious the cancer was, and I allowed myself to believe she might overcome it. But once I understood the reality of her illness, I worked to come to terms with the fact that she would die, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Some might call that a cynical perspective, especially since people tend to encourage positivity and hope when facing cancer. While well-meaning, that attitude can often backfire. Sometimes, there truly is no hope. Clinging to false hope can delay the grief you’ll inevitably face, and worse, it can rob both the patient and their loved ones of precious time. Knowing whether you have one month or a year to live can fundamentally shape how you spend that time. Although shamefully, I didn’t make the proper use of that.
Setting aside my existential doubts about true caring, I believe that my realism—what others might see as negativity—helped me cope with my mom’s illness. I didn’t find the news of her death traumatic. However, I do vividly remember a phone call one summer when she told me her doctors said she might not live to see the next year. That conversation shook me. Even though I had accepted her terminal diagnosis, I still hoped to spend meaningful time with her. There were things I had been looking forward to that I knew now would never happen. She had planned to visit the country I’d moved to and meet my partner’s parents, a trip I had anticipated for so long. She cared deeply about my happiness and was thrilled that I was in a relationship. Even with her cancer, I had hoped, with the help of modern medicine, she might live long enough to see me get married. If luck had been on my side, she might even have met my future children. I knew how much joy that would have brought her. But in that moment, I realized none of it would come to pass.
There was one thought that unexpectedly made processing the entire experience somewhat easier: the realization that my mother would die eventually. And so would my father. So would many others close to me. Oddly enough, I found this thought comforting, and I still do. It seems counterintuitive—how could acknowledging the inevitability of death make the pain of losing someone any easier? I don’t entirely know, but it did. Perhaps it was a vestigial fragment of my personality, shaped by my earlier engagement with stoicism. Stoicism teaches that we should focus only on what we can control and accept the workings of fate in matters beyond our influence. I wasn’t explicitly thinking about stoicism at the time, but I suspect its principles quietly informed my response. The idea that death is a natural, universal part of the human condition soothed me. It reminded me that I was not alone in my grief.
This perspective also made me reflect on how many others endure similar losses. People lose their parents every day. One of my closest friends experienced this when his father—someone I had met and who had been profoundly kind to me—succumbed to stomach cancer just months after his diagnosis. This man had even opened his home to me, allowing me to live rent-free while I was contemplating a move to the UK. As tragic as cancer is, many people lose their parents even more suddenly, with no warning and no time to prepare.
I, too, am haunted by the knowledge that I didn’t recognize my last conversation with my mother as such. There was so much I wish I had said: that I loved her, that she made me a better person, that she inspired me to improve myself and contribute to the world. I said none of these things, at least not explicitly. Yet, I hope—and believe—that I conveyed them in some unspoken, diluted form during the final weeks I spent with her. That alone feels like a blessing. Some people never have that opportunity. Death can come without warning, like a car accident, leaving no space for words, no chance for closure. In that sense, despite my regrets, despite all the imperfections, I am grateful for the time I had.
During this period, I found myself embracing an attitude that made my suffering seem insignificant by comparison to others. I even took this perspective to an extreme. I often listened to audiobooks, as I always had, but now I exclusively chose stories of great survival. These accounts captivated me not just because they portrayed unimaginable pain and hardship—though the suffering they described was often beyond words—but because of how the individuals endured and overcame their circumstances. Hearing about people who faced chaos far greater than my own and yet found ways to persevere had a profound effect on me. It motivated me to keep moving forward, to confront my pain without wallowing in self-pity. It became difficult to sink into the depressive loops that so often threatened to overwhelm me when I was listening to stories of individuals who actively conquered their suffering. Their resilience and strength inspired me in a way that felt tangible. It wasn’t just the fact that they survived—it was how they survived that left a lasting impact on me.
Another thought that offered me some solace—though it’s a complex and fraught comfort—was my attempt to justify my mother’s death. “Justify” is a poor choice of words, I know, but it’s the best I can find to describe what I mean. I convinced myself that if I could somehow embody and carry forward her spirit, her kindness, her goodness, then her death wouldn’t be meaningless. It would, in some way, transcend tragedy. But this thought brought its own burden of guilt. The promise I made to myself to honor her in this way often felt overwhelming, as though I were failing to live up to it.
At this point, someone might wonder how I could claim that I coped well when so much of what I’ve written sounds deeply depressing. It’s important to note that my writing here is purposefully focused on my most desperate moments. In my day-to-day life, I was surprisingly functional. I had responsibilities that forced me to keep going. One of the most consuming of these was the legal paperwork, first related to my grandmother’s death and later to my mother’s. The sheer volume of tasks was maddening. I hated it. Even though I had a lawyer handling much of the process, I still dreaded dealing with it—even just speaking to the lawyer felt like too much at times. And yet, as much as I despised being thrust into these legal matters while I was grieving, they provided a strange sort of distraction. They gave me something to focus on, something practical that pulled my attention away from the pain of my loss. In a way, these tasks served as an anchor, grounding me to the demands of the present when it felt all too easy to be swept away by grief.
One emotion I wish I had experienced sooner—alongside the grief and sadness of losing my mother and the guilt over everything I failed to do, including my inability to live up to her ideals—was empathy for her own experience of mortality. For reasons I can’t fully explain, it wasn’t something I considered deeply while she was alive. Only after her death did it begin creeping into my thoughts, growing more vivid with time. Now, I can’t help but feel a profound ache imagining her perspective: knowing she was going to die and having no way to stop it. Facing mortality is difficult enough, but to confront it so early, before you’ve had time to prepare or reconcile with it, must be a uniquely isolating pain.
We all know we’re going to die, but that knowledge usually feels abstract, distant—a future event that somehow never arrives. It’s only when something jars us awake, like a near-death experience or the loss of someone close, that this inevitable truth becomes real. Since my mother’s passing, death has been frequently on my mind. I’m aware, though, that this fixation will fade with time. Eventually, I’ll drift back into the comfortable unconsciousness we all inhabit regarding our own mortality. In many ways, I already have.
What deepens the sorrow of her death is the idea that, when facing the end, many people try to derive some sense of pride or meaning from their lives. They seek comfort in what they’ve accomplished, as if their achievements could justify or soften the finality of death. Yet, for a large portion of my mother’s life, she achieved very little by conventional measures. I believe what brought her the most pride and meaning was me. And this, of course, amplifies the guilt I’ve already described in such detail. To imagine that her sense of purpose, her justification for life, rested so heavily on me feels like an immense burden—one I regret not being more empathetic toward while she was alive.
She carried that burden with extraordinary grace, concealing so much of her pain. While I knew that what she presented outwardly wasn’t the whole truth, I didn’t fully grasp the extent of her suffering or the sheer effort it took to mask it. This realization only deepens my awe at her strength. I don’t think I could have endured what she did. In her position, I doubt I would have had her courage. I fear I would have crumbled under the weight of depression. Looking back, I wish I had acknowledged her internal struggles more, not only to ease her pain but to better understand the quiet resilience that defined her. It’s a strength I admire deeply and hope to honor, even if I feel I could never live up to it.
When I was younger, I wasn’t afraid of death at all. Perhaps if I had stared death directly in the face, my attitude would have shifted, but in the realm of my normal experience, it wasn’t something I worried about—even when I deliberately meditated on it. I held a very Epicurean perspective: since death entails the absence of a subject to experience it, there’s no need to fear it. Death, in this view, is not something we endure; it simply isn’t. Sure, the pain of dying is another matter entirely, and I recognized the validity of fearing that. But death itself seemed irrelevant to worry over. At the time, I thought this attitude was courageous.
As I grew older, my perspective began to shift. I still don’t fear death in the sense of dreading the unknown. In that respect, my view has remained largely the same. I don’t particularly believe in an afterlife. While I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that consciousness might possess a unique or even mystical quality, I view such speculation as unlikely to preserve personal identity. Even if consciousness somehow transcends bodily existence, I imagine it would constitute such a radical transformation that it would render “me” unrecognizable. For all practical purposes, such a transformation would still feel like death.
What has changed, however, is my attitude toward death as the ending of life. When I was younger, I was indifferent to that aspect of it. I saw life itself as holding little inherent value, and my apparent acceptance of death was rooted—though I didn’t recognize it at the time—in a deeply nihilistic outlook. I didn’t fear death because I didn’t value life enough to mourn its ending. But as I’ve grown older, as I’ve worked to overcome depression, sought to better myself, and experienced love, this indifference has eroded. Life feels different now. I see its value, even in the midst of its suffering. Somehow, life’s existence still seems to possess an extraordinary, almost miraculous quality. I can’t easily articulate this sense of value. It’s less a reasoned conclusion than an overwhelming feeling, something that resists logical analysis. Not irrational, exactly, but arational. This shift in perspective has made death feel more significant—not necessarily more frightening, but heavier. Its finality now carries weight in a way it didn’t before, a weight that reflects the deeper meaning and value I’ve come to see in life itself.
This is something I’ve come to understand more clearly over the years: the world holds both joy and suffering, but it is almost impossible to adopt a truly neutral perspective on the balance between the two. Take, for example, the works of philosophical pessimists like Schopenhauer or Cioran. They often present their ideas as objective accounts of the nature of existence, but to me, their writings read more like descriptions of their own depression. It’s not that what they say is false—the facts they point to are real. But their interpretations, the way they weigh and counterbalance these facts, are shaped entirely by their mindset.
For a time, I even believed that happiness and depression were nothing more than reflections of an individual’s neurological wiring. In other words, our perspectives on life are dictated entirely by our biology and affective states. While I no longer lean as heavily into this kind of reductionism, the general idea still resonates with me: the way we frame the world is far from objective. Whether one views life as overwhelmingly joyous or unbearably bleak is not a simple matter of external reality but a deeply subjective lens, shaped by a myriad of factors—emotional, biological, and philosophical alike.
This realization has made me more cautious in accepting any singular view of life’s balance between joy and suffering. It’s not the facts themselves that shift; it’s the framing, the emphasis, the weight we assign to different aspects of existence. The world contains both light and shadow, but how we perceive that interplay depends entirely on the perspective we bring to it.
I can see this change in myself. When I was deeply pessimistic about the world, I would eagerly recount all the ways it seemed wretched: the wars, the famines, the corruption in politics, and so on. Yet, I wouldn’t frame things that way now. It’s not because wars, famines, and corruption have disappeared—they certainly haven’t. Rather, my way of perceiving the world has changed. Now, I also see love, generosity, kindness, and hope. It’s not that I was completely blind to these things before. Even then, if someone pointed out specific acts of kindness, I wouldn’t have outright denied them. But I would have dismissed them as insignificant in the grand scheme of things, as though they could never justify or counterbalance the immense suffering I saw. Back then, I believed life wasn’t worthwhile; now, I think it is.
What caused this change? What exactly shifted in my thinking? I don’t know. I can’t fully justify it, but it feels true—just as my previous view felt equally true at the time. Which of these perspectives is right? I can’t say. I could argue that my former worldview was merely a product of my internal wiring—whether shaped by biology, culture, or both. But the same logic applies to my current outlook. Back then, I might have dismissed my perspective as depression, yet there’s no objective metric for diagnosing depression. Psychiatry’s persistent struggle to ground its diagnoses in biology proves this. Over time, its diagnostic categories have shifted toward spectrums rather than rigid binaries, emphasizing functionality because it’s the most practical measure we have. By that standard, I could attribute my earlier worldview to depression and my current one to happiness. The difference is that happiness isn’t classified as a disorder, but there’s no objective way to determine which perspective is “correct.” When I think about it, viewing happiness through this lens doesn’t seem so far-fetched. I used to believe that my bleak perspective was a gift—that I, and those who thought like me, were the only ones who truly understood the world as it was. The happy ones, I thought, were simply deluded, trapped in an illusion. But now, I see things differently—and perhaps that, too, is just another illusion.
It’s amusing to think back on how, when I was younger, I approached the topic of love with a cynical eye. I saw it as something almost laughable, particularly for people my age at that time. For adults, I viewed love less critically, but even then, I reduced it to societal pressures to form relationships and have children, combined with the need to satisfy sexual urges. I believed I was somehow above all that. My sister, for instance, began dating at a young age—she was even younger than me by a few years—and I remember dismissing her relationships as frivolous and childish. To some extent, my reaction had a basis in truth. Adolescent relationships are often shallow, influenced by social status, peer expectations, and other surface-level factors. They are, by nature, quite different from the deep, complex connections adults can form. Yet, I failed to appreciate an important truth: one cannot learn to run without first learning to walk. Those early, imperfect relationships likely serve an important role in teaching people what love means and what relationships entail. At the time, though, I couldn’t help but see the whole thing as fake. Now, I find myself thinking that love is perhaps the truest thing there is. It’s a strange statement, I admit. Using language like “true” or “false” to describe love feels odd—like a category error. And yet, “true” is the word that feels most fitting.
When I was younger, I believed the deepest, most meaningful pursuit was to follow one’s passions and interests and to live authentically. It was a very existentialist outlook, though at the time, I probably didn’t know what existentialism even was. Somehow, I absorbed it from the broader culture. There is certainly value in this mindset, especially when contrasted with a life lived mindlessly, following traditions or societal expectations without any real reflection. But what I failed to understand back then is that the things we believe to be valuable may not hold the weight we assign to them. Worse, we might come to this realization too late. I also didn’t fully grasp the potential pitfalls of prioritizing individual freedom above all else. While the idea of personal freedom feels empowering, it’s not an unqualified good. In our hyper-individualistic and liberal society, freedom is often treated as an unquestionable virtue, to the point where it’s difficult to even imagine how it might be problematic.
Part of the problem with individual freedom is that individuals are inherently flawed. We’re constantly being pulled by unseen forces that shape our interests, desires, and decisions. As Kafka put it, “I am free, and that’s why I am lost.” By maximizing freedom, we also maximize our susceptibility to these forces. We may believe we’re acting in our best interest when pursuing our desires, yet those desires are often manipulated by factors we fail to recognize. This manipulation can be understood in societal and secular terms. Take, for instance, the influence of ideologies. You might think you’re exercising your freedom when purchasing a product you feel you desperately need, but in reality, you’re being guided by consumerist and capitalist forces. Even more personal, however, are the ways our passions deceive us—something religion has long sought to highlight. It may seem like freedom to indulge in junk food whenever you want or to have as much casual sex as you desire. But this isn’t freedom; it’s enslavement to your passions. These passions—what we might call instincts or impulses today—control you far more than you control them.
This is one of the many ways how mystical transformative experiences are paradoxical: they involve both gaining and losing freedom. On one hand, individuals lose freedom because they become subject to something greater, often described in religious terms as God’s will. If something controls you, then by definition, you’re not entirely in control. On the other hand, people who have these experiences often report feeling more free. They are liberated from the tyranny of their own passions, which once dictated their actions. They begin to care deeply about what truly matters and find themselves caring far less about things that don’t. This shift involves a kind of surrender—a process of emptying oneself to become a “vessel.” Christianity speaks of this process in endless variations, often emphasizing the idea of aligning oneself with the highest good. Similarly, Daoism offers beautiful passages about this kind of experience, describing an effortless flow with the Dao. These descriptions, with their focus on harmony and balance, can feel more palatable to secular audiences, but the core message is the same. What you lose in control is redirected toward a higher purpose, enabling you to live in accordance with something greater than yourself.
During my narration of the events surrounding my mother, I often spoke of a persistent gap between what I knew was the right thing to do, what I wanted to do, and what I ultimately ended up doing. This gap was not merely incidental; it was the constant undercurrent shaping my actions—or lack thereof. Reflecting on this dynamic now, I have become increasingly convinced that this tension lies at the heart of everything. It is not simply a passing problem but a fundamental issue of human existence, one that affects the course of our lives in ways we often fail to recognize.
When I was younger, I was deeply preoccupied with morality. It wasn’t just a casual interest; it consumed my thoughts and shaped my identity. This fascination is evident in the early chapters of this book, where I wrestle with questions about what it means to live a good life and how to determine what is right. Morality, at that time, felt like an intellectual puzzle, one that could be solved with enough thought and study. Even now, I still find morality intellectually stimulating—its intricacies, paradoxes, and challenges continue to intrigue me. Yet, over time, I have come to see that its existential grip on me has loosened. I’ve realized that understanding moral knowledge is not the central issue. The problem is not knowledge; it is the will to act on that knowledge. This realization has been one of the most profound shifts in my thinking, and it was Kierkegaard who opened my eyes to it. His work captivated me in a way that few thinkers ever have. He revealed that Christianity is not merely a system of ideas or theories to be studied and understood—it is something lived, something done. This idea struck me like a thunderbolt because it crystallized the gap I had been grappling with for so long.
The disconnect between understanding morality and living it is precisely what has characterized so many moments in my life. The examples I’ve shared earlier illustrate this perfectly. It wasn’t that I lacked a Socratic understanding of the good. I knew what I should have done; the knowledge was there, clear and undeniable. What I lacked was the will to translate that knowledge into action. Of course, I always had my excuses: I’ll do it later, I told myself. Or, This is too awkward; it’s not really important. Yet, deep down, I knew they were just that—excuses. Even in those moments, I could feel the nagging sense that I was deceiving myself, that I was choosing comfort or avoidance over what I knew was right.
This gap—the space between knowing what is right and actually doing it—is not an intellectual problem. It is, at its core, a problem of will. And this, I now believe, is what Christianity seeks to address in its deepest sense. Christianity is not merely a belief system or a set of doctrines to be accepted. It is a story to be lived, a path that demands participation. It is a framework for cultivating the will to close that gap, for aligning what you know you ought to do with what you actually do. It calls for a life directed toward this convergence, not just in extraordinary moments but in the mundane, day-to-day decisions that define who we are.
Kierkegaard, in particular, forced me to confront this truth in a way that felt deeply personal. I found him profoundly difficult to read, though not only because of the density of his writing. That was part of it—his prose can feel convoluted at times, his arguments demanding and complex—but the greater difficulty was on another level entirely. His words spoke to my soul with such intensity that reading him often felt like a violation, as though he were stripping away my defenses and exposing the raw, uncomfortable truths I had been trying to avoid. There were times when his writing felt like re-experiencing a trauma, not a physical one but a spiritual trauma. It forced me to confront parts of myself I had long buried, the ways I had failed to live up to what I knew was right. It was not an easy experience, but it was a necessary one. His insights forced me to acknowledge the ways in which I had been complicit in maintaining the gap between knowledge and action. The more I explored Christianity, the more I felt its pull. It is a pull that I continue to resist, though I am no longer sure why. Kierkegaard made me see the absurdity of this resistance, as though he had captured my precise situation and was urging me to simply let go. He writes that the way to truly understand Christianity is not through detached analysis or intellectual mastery but through surrender—by allowing it to reveal itself to you.
I have experienced this surrender, though only in fleeting moments. These glimpses, however brief, have been enough to shake my usual skepticism. They have been enough to make me question my resistance, to wonder whether what I had dismissed as absurd might, in fact, hold a deeper truth. Kierkegaard’s writing made me see that this pull toward Christianity is not irrational or foolish. It is an invitation to engage with a truth that cannot be grasped intellectually but must be lived. It is this lived truth that continues to challenge me. It forces me to confront the gap between what I know and what I do, and to recognize that the work of closing that gap is not merely a moral endeavor but a spiritual one.
Another aspect of Kierkegaard that profoundly impacted me was his description of guilt and self-pity. What struck me is the peculiar way in which the awareness of one’s sins often leads to deeper sin. It’s as though the weight of guilt traps us in a cycle where falling into despair only pulls us further from love. This paradox feels like a cruel law of existence, something from which I can find no escape. Yet, I’ve come to realize that this dynamic is deeply tied to my specific worldview. Like a Christian, I am profoundly aware of my flaws. However, the key difference lies in how I perceive forgiveness. Christian doctrine teaches that no matter the extent of your sin, if you genuinely seek the light, you are forgiven. This notion initially felt alien to me, something I would have dismissed with cynicism in my younger years. It has taken time and reflection to grasp its significance—not as an excuse for wrongdoing, nor as a dismissal of the harm caused by one’s actions. That harm remains, an eternal burden you carry. Forgiveness doesn’t erase the past; it doesn’t undo the damage. What it does, however, is offer a way forward. To me, forgiveness means granting oneself permission to shed the crushing weight of guilt when you are sincerely striving to change. It isn’t about accepting or justifying the sins you’ve committed; it’s about justifying your continued existence. Forgiveness validates the effort to become a better person, to walk a path where those sins are not repeated. It allows you to keep climbing the metaphorical mountain, breaking free from the cycle of despair, guilt, and self-pity that so often consumes you. Even though I think I’ve intellectually grasped this concept, I fear it has yet to penetrate my soul. When Christians say their sins are forgiven, they genuinely believe that God, as a conscious being, has actively chosen to forgive them. They experience this forgiveness as something tangible, something personal. I cannot view it in these terms because I do not share that belief. Instead, I am left wrestling with this idea in abstraction, struggling to integrate it into my lived experience.
The psychedelic session itself was, in some ways, disappointing. I had hoped to undertake it much earlier, closer to my mother’s death, with the specific intention of addressing the themes I’ve just explored here. Unfortunately, the pandemic made that impossible. After extensive planning, I finally managed to arrange the session at home. This was my first experience with a trip sitter, despite having done over 30 psychedelic sessions on my own in the past. I felt a mix of anxiety and confidence going into it. I trusted that things would work out, especially with my partner by my side. The last few sessions I had done were particularly challenging, and I had often wished during those moments that I could simply hold her hand for comfort. This time, I wanted to focus on processing my mother’s death while avoiding what I’ve come to call the “theological level,” which had been a recurring and difficult aspect of previous trips. My partner, though supportive of me, isn’t particularly fond of psychedelics, and I knew a bad experience would only heighten her apprehension. For both these reasons, I decided to take a very low dose. But even that amount felt like it might be too much.
My last two sessions, where I’d also attempted to steer clear of the theological, I used low doses. Yet, despite my intentions, I found myself repeatedly pulled into that very realm I was trying to avoid, and those experiences were extremely taxing. To complicate matters, the LSD I had for this session was quite old, likely three or four years. LSD tends to degrade over time, depending on how well it’s stored, and this creates uncertainty about its potency. This presented a dilemma: taking too low a dose could mean the LSD had lost so much of its strength that I wouldn’t feel any effects at all, rendering all the preparation and planning futile. On the other hand, I didn’t want to risk re-dosing if the initial dose turned out too weak. Re-dosing often leads to the trip extending far into the night, making it nearly impossible to sleep—a scenario I wanted to avoid. Very soon after taking it, I began to feel sick to my stomach, accompanied by mild anxiety. The sickness quickly worsened, becoming a significant problem. I’d encountered this issue in my last session, but at the time, I attributed it to a poor choice: eating a big meal beforehand to prepare for the long fast that usually accompanies these experiences. I assumed that heavy meal was the culprit and believed I could avoid the problem this time by eating only a small bar beforehand. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Feeling sick at the onset of a trip is a terrible way to start. It creates a negative mental space that seems to cast a shadow over the entire experience. The visceral unpleasantness of throwing up in a toilet completely undermines any sense of mysticism or bliss the trip might otherwise offer. I was convinced that the sickness was a key reason my most recent trips had gone poorly, and I was determined to address it this time. Yet despite my efforts, I found myself in the same position, unsure of what had gone wrong. What troubles me most is that I can’t pinpoint the root cause of the sickness. While nausea is common with many psychedelics, it’s less typical for LSD—especially at smaller doses like this one. What’s more, I never experienced this issue in my earlier sessions, even with larger doses. I suspect that anxiety may be a contributing factor, even if it doesn’t manifest as outright fear. It’s possible I have some subconscious anxiety affecting my body in subtle, physiological ways, even when I consciously feel only mildly uneasy.
As the trip deepened and I approached the peak, my anxiety began to rise. This, in turn, fed into itself: I worried about the anxiety spiraling out of control, as it had in previous sessions. Those memories lingered—terrifying moments when the trip took a dark turn—and the fear of repeating that experience created a vicious cycle. My association of psychedelics with sickness and anxiety now seems deeply ingrained in my mind. Even if there isn’t a clear external trigger, like the big meal I’d blamed for the problem last time, the connection between these elements feels unavoidable. I began to wonder whether I might have avoided this entirely by fasting completely instead of eating a small bar. Perhaps any food at all was a mistake. But I can’t be sure, and this uncertainty only adds to the frustration.
I spent most of the trip lying in bed, interrupted only by occasional trips to the bathroom. Although I never actually threw up, I found myself wishing I had, as it might have brought some physical relief. As my anxiety started to build, I became desperate for my current state to end. At that point, I had no interest in the movie I’d originally planned to watch—something that usually enhances my LSD trips—or in the psychedelic writing project I had hoped to work on. All of that seemed completely unimportant.
When a trip takes a negative turn, one option is to take an anxiolytic, like Valium, which reduces anxiety and is often said to “cancel” the trip. I’ve used this in the past, but I try to avoid it. It has never fully “canceled” the trip for me, even though that’s the advice many people give. In my experience, it’s generally better to endure the discomfort and work through it. Suffering through the difficult parts of a trip is an integral part of the process of growth, which is, after all, the main point of engaging with psychedelics in the first place. That said, I understand why some people choose to use an anxiolytic in moments of overwhelming terror. The intensity of those feelings can be almost impossible to bear, and it’s natural to want relief in such moments. While I view it as a shortcut that bypasses the opportunity for deeper transformation, I can’t entirely fault anyone for wanting to escape the more terrifying aspects of the experience.
This time, I had no anxiolytic available. On one hand, this was irresponsible; having it on hand is like having a first-aid kit—something you hope not to use but should always have in case of an emergency. On the other hand, the very presence of the medication can make it more tempting to use when things become difficult. It’s easy to claim that you’ll endure the discomfort when you’re not actively suffering, but in the midst of chaos, that resolve often evaporates. In those moments, personal growth feels irrelevant. Survival instincts take over, and all you want is relief. As my anxiety levels rose, I found myself wishing I had an anxiolytic. Yet, part of me understood that not having it was intentional. I didn’t want to give myself the option to take the easy way out. If it wasn’t there, I couldn’t use it, no matter how much I might want to. And in hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t have it. During the peak, my physical sickness began to ease slightly, but my anxiety remained as intense as ever. Strangely, I felt extremely high—much higher than I should have given the relatively small dose. All I wanted was for the peak to end and for my anxiety to subside. But the problem with psychedelics is how slowly time seems to move. What might only be a couple of hours can feel like an eternity.
I remember at one point telling my girlfriend the current time and remarking that it felt like an hour had passed, even though I knew it was probably only 15 minutes. It turned out to be just 10 minutes. The relentless stretching of time made the experience almost unbearable. In an attempt to distract myself, I suggested we watch some funny videos on YouTube. While this might sound trivial—or even as escapist as taking a Valium—I think it was a better decision given the circumstances. The distraction helped time pass more easily, and eventually, the peak ended. By then, my sickness had subsided as well. Once the peak passed, I felt high but in a much more manageable way. This allowed me to finally focus, and I began writing. I wrote for about three hours straight—the longest I’ve ever written without stopping in my entire life. The text I produced was what you read before I began describing this trip.
While I wrote about the topics I had planned, there was a sense of disappointment. Much of what I wrote was descriptive, recounting events I could have easily described while sober. There is value in that, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had taken LSD for nothing. Still, I’m certain the LSD influenced how I narrated those events, shaping my perspective and tone in subtle but meaningful ways. This session, like much of my work, is deeply biographical. It’s impossible to separate my writing from my own experiences, no matter how abstract or philosophical it becomes. This is, after all, my journey. While I strive to understand the world and human nature, I can’t deny that my understanding is inextricably linked to who I am—a person with a unique perspective, shaped by my own life.
Another factor that may have negatively influenced my recent sessions is my evolving approach to psychedelics. When I first began using them, my intent was clear and deeply personal: I wanted to improve myself and uncover truths that were holding me back. I confronted those harsh realities with courage and found growth in the process. But somewhere along the way, my motivations began to shift. I suspect I started using psychedelics for more earthly and self-centered purposes. I began to see them as a tool to reach intellectual heights that felt inaccessible otherwise. The allure of insights and revelations fed my ego and curiosity. Yet as I read Augustine’s Confessions, I was struck by how far this mindset diverged from my original purpose. There’s something in my writing that feels akin to Augustine’s work, especially in how it explores self-reflection and spiritual longing. But at times, it feels like I’m simply using a drug to indulge my ego under the guise of discovery. That curiosity is, in some sense, understandable. I want to unravel the mystery of reality—not in the sense of physics or material explanations, but in a more profound, existential sense. To call it “seeking God” might be an oversimplification, but it’s not entirely wrong. When I first approached psychedelics, I was seeking something divine, something beyond myself. But now, I fear I’ve shifted from seeking God to trying to understand God, and perhaps I’m being punished for this change in intent.
In the beginning, my ignorance might have excused this error. I didn’t know any better then. But now I understand the importance of practicing Christianity, and yet here I am, still caught in the loop of trying to comprehend it rather than live it. The excuse I give myself is that I can’t fully commit to something I don’t understand. I tell myself it’s an immutable part of my personality—a deep need to grasp the truth before surrendering to it. But perhaps it’s not immutable. Perhaps I’m just being stubborn.
I don’t remember if I’ve already written about this in the book, but at some point, my dad tried LSD under my supervision. Our conversations about my experiences, my journey, and this book seemed to pique his interest in the topic. While I never explicitly encouraged him, I have to admit that I did want him to try it. Part of that desire came from a selfish impulse that feels almost universal among those who have used psychedelics. We want others to experience what we’ve experienced. We want them to know and feel the profound depth of it, as if it’s a vital part of being alive. It feels like a shame for someone to go through life without it—much like how most people would feel about someone living their entire life without ever hearing music despite having the ability to do so. Another reason I wanted him to try it was my hope that it could help him quit smoking. The so-called psychedelic renaissance of the 21st century has arisen partly due to the waning political stigma from the legacy of the 1960s, but also because of the well-documented therapeutic potential of these substances. Psychedelics don’t just work—they often produce extraordinary results, especially in cases deemed hopeless after exhausting the options of modern medicine. While depression is the most widely known condition they address, psychedelics also excel in treating addiction.
My dad has been a smoker for decades, and the toll on his health is obvious. He’s not very active, and the damage from years of smoking compounds his overall well-being. I desperately wanted him to quit, but as anyone who has tried or witnessed it knows, quitting smoking is one of the hardest habits to break. I hoped psychedelics could offer him the breakthrough he needed. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.While he enjoyed the experience, it didn’t help him quit smoking. In hindsight, this wasn’t entirely surprising. The therapeutic benefits of psychedelics are deeply tied to having a mystical experience—an event so profound that it shifts one’s perspective and, in turn, their behavior. Without such an experience, it’s reasonable to expect little to no change. I did my best to optimize the conditions for him to have a mystical experience. I adjusted the setting, the preparation, and every variable I could think of. We even did follow-up sessions with higher doses in an effort to facilitate the kind of transformative experience I was hoping for. But it didn’t happen.
Back then, I was deeply obsessed with self-improvement and the pursuit of truth. I viewed the psychedelic experience as a gateway to uncovering the raw, unfiltered truth that could catalyze a profound transformation of the self. Even now, I think that’s a fairly accurate description. However, despite my reverence for truth, I struggled to extend that same passion to my relationship with my father. He saw my unwavering dedication to truth as naive, even misguided. He believed that truth wasn’t always as beneficial as I claimed, that it had to be weighed against the potential consequences of its revelation. To me, this idea was absurd, almost blasphemous—a rejection of the wisdom ingrained in human spirituality and philosophy throughout history. I couldn’t fathom his perspective at all. With the benefit of time and maturity, I now understand where he was coming from, though I still don’t fully agree. In hindsight, I can see that my youthful optimism was indeed a bit naive. I still believe truth is worth pursuing, but I’ve come to recognize that the cost of uncovering it can be far greater than I had anticipated. Truth, while transformative, isn’t always kind. At the time, I reasoned that my father’s inability to have a mystical experience stemmed from his lack of commitment to the truth. If the purpose of such an experience is to confront the essence of reality and let it change you, how could anyone benefit if they weren’t wholeheartedly willing to face the truth? Though I don’t think I ever voiced it explicitly, I quietly blamed his lack of transformative results on what I saw as his poor resolve and insufficient will to engage with truth.
Looking back, I think there was more to his attitude than I understood at the time. He was likely grappling with deep personal issues, particularly in his relationship with my stepmother. Their marriage was struggling, and I suspect he was wrestling with the difficult question of whether to try to salvage it or let it go. Perhaps he was clinging to the hope of reconciliation, even as some part of him recognized the relationship was beyond saving. In retrospect, it seems his reluctance to embrace truth may have been rooted in a fear of confronting what he already suspected—that the foundation of his later life was crumbling, and the collapse was inevitable. While I criticized my father’s lack of commitment to truth, isn’t that exactly what I’m doing now? I use a drug to deepen my understanding, yet I’ve come to realize that increased knowledge shouldn’t be the ultimate goal. Despite feeling a growing pull towards Christianity, I continually resist it. I try to maintain the role of a detached observer, a neutral analyst—a scientist dissecting a phenomenon to extract its technological or intellectual utility.
I’ve deliberately used low doses of psychedelics to avoid being drawn into the “theological realm.” And yet, I’ve been perplexed by how strongly I feel this pull toward Christianity despite my cautious approach. It has surprised me time and again. But should I really be surprised? Isn’t the essence of the psychedelic experience precisely to confront what you resist, to reveal the truths you least want to see? This was the very reason I turned to psychedelics in the first place: to uncover uncomfortable truths and face them. Yet now, it seems I am actively moving in the opposite direction, resisting that confrontation. I find myself trying to avoid theology altogether, clinging to philosophy as a safer, more distant framework. I continue to rationalize this resistance. I tell myself that I’m trying to “philosophize” Christianity so I can build a solid intellectual foundation before engaging with it on a deeper level. But more and more, I recognize how futile this approach is. Christianity isn’t something to be merely analyzed or theorized; its essence seems to demand something much more personal and transformative. So why do I keep delaying? If I truly believe that this is the most important question—the most significant thing that could possibly exist—what am I waiting for?
Perhaps the reason my recent psychedelic sessions have been such a constant struggle is that I am betraying their purpose. Somewhere along the way, I have been corrupted. I tell myself that I want the truth, but in reality, I want only the truth that is convenient or one that I can comfortably comprehend. Even when my soul points me toward a greater truth—one that I instinctively recognize as profound—I recoil from it simply because I cannot fully dissect it. I hesitate, despite understanding that such a dissection is impossible. It is impossible for any human being, and it is certainly impossible for someone like me. So why do I keep trying? Why don’t I surrender to the truth? What is the worst that could happen? Deep down, I know: the worst is the fear that I will cease to exist as I know myself. By fully committing to the truth, I would risk obliterating the person I am. The transformation would be so drastic, so utterly shattering, that it would dismantle my identity entirely.
My father was right when he warned that the cold truth is dangerous. But my younger self was also right—this danger is worth it. It is worth the price, and it will pay off in the end. And yet, here I am, writing these words, fully aware that nothing will change. There will be another chapter to this book, another attempt to understand what perhaps cannot be understood. I will try once again to wrestle this ineffable experience into something I can grasp, even though I know I shouldn’t. Kierkegaard’s specter looms again, reminding me: it isn’t about knowledge; it’s about the will. My only hope, fragile as it is, is that despite my constant lack of will and this maddening tendency to overvalue knowledge, I might somehow grow into something better with time. Perhaps, session by grueling session, I will manage to inch closer to the truth I’ve always known is waiting for me. Or perhaps not. Perhaps I’ll die a wretched fool, too weak and terrified to embrace the destiny that has been calling to me all along. Time will tell.