This Writing Life

I traveled to another place. But that place was a feeling. It was a feeling of peace. Absolute peace. Universal peace. God's? peace. Afterwards, my head felt light and empty or liberated and my feet heavy and rooted to the ground. Gently pulled in both directions. I was completely empty, like I've never been before. There were no thoughts. Just a sense, feeling. But before this I had to descend into hell. My own hell. It was certainly around the right temperature. In a sweat lodge you are huddled within a dome tent with a group of other travelers seated and sprawled, prostrated and supplicated, around a dug out pit in the ground that gradually gets filled with red hot molten rocks over the course of four sessions. It gets crazy hot in there. Extreme heat for around two hours. With a few short breaks. And it’s as dark and black as pure nothingness in there. Not even the slightest sliver of light can creep in. The prolonged heat does something to you, to your b...

I used to fantasise about being a hermit. All of my problems would be solved, I thought, if I could just be left alone — by people and the world. For, all of my ailments and stress were caused by others...obviously! Family, friends, strangers, social conventions, conventional morality, government...and most probably you too. It made perfect sense, to my mind. It was scientific even. Like when two inert substances are brought together, such as bicarb soda and vinegar, you get an acidic, frothing, bubbling over reaction. My life was a continual series of these kinds of chemical reactions. But, if you keep the substances apart...peace and serenity… Genius! Nobel Peace Prize please… However, as a friend of mine would annoyingly point out whenever I bemoaned my inability to extract myself from society and enter the serene utopia of Thoreau’s ‘Walden’, “If you really wanted to be living that life, you’d be doing it”. Damn him and his beautiful logic! I may not have accepted it at f...