How To Source Light From The Dark;

The Alchemy of Survival In a Mind Undressed

Developing the capacity to answer fear with curiosity altered the ecosystem of my mind irrevocably. It is the only viable and stable freedom from fear.

Fear, in my path, was literal death. It ran at the center of my mind. My mind was assembled around it. The threat is older than my first memory.

An inner voice I cannot tell the source of became more and more clear in my mind as my health spiraled again and again.

Fear is stealing your whole life from you.

First thought in the morning, last thought at night. Fear is stealing from me.

I eventually developed a practice for fear containment. Every evening after sunset, I set a timer and allowed the fear to run wild. The fear had full reign in that hour every day, and after a lot of practice, it left me alone between hour-long runs. I developed the capacity to put it on a leash, insisting it defend its presence

If I already had that fear’s information or message labeled and stored, I would rename it as a habit. Habits are real, but they are not valuable.

Asking fear questions, refusing to accept generalized anxiety as a problem I could solve, made it easier to put fear back in its place.

This process, over the years, became my primary operating mode. Ask the fear for its bottom line. What is the worst-case scenario? In my case, untimely death and a life thwarted at every turn. So what would that mean that justifies fear? It is a universal experience, an inevitable outcome slightly more common than birth. So what does it mean if it’s me? Why is that special to the universe? It can’t be.

The question unravels the Self.

The bottom line of that fear is not death, but meaninglessness. All success, all victory, all shame and fear and agony and love is lost in the sands of time. Out of the billions of humans who have ever lived, 0.2% are remembered, and even then, we have their name and some general characteristics as seen through the eyes of an ancient and specific historian.

Nations have come and gone with no trace. There is no glory that can outrun time. If being remembered is taken off the table, what are we to do with the meaninglessness?

For me, the result was an odd and deeply ingrained humility. Me accomplishing what I wanted for myself in an imagined future that has never been real, no matter what that was, will ultimately be forgotten and turned to dust.

Why does that make our chests tighten? Can we turn that existential fear into a radical method of connection to those we love?

The answer is yes. People become anxious about meaninglessness. I feel anxious just thinking about it. It can still affect me several times a day. However, during my hours of fear in my room, as I searched my mind for any truth that could withstand the indifferent gaze of death, I discovered that meaninglessness—the realization that in true objectivity, no specific belief is absolute—made every decision I made significantly more important. Undeniably personal.

If I am but a mammal on a rock in space being hurled into a literal void, what matters? Actually, everything. Every choice I make—to choose fear, to coddle resentment, to shrink in the face of opposition and shame—can no longer be blamed on outside forces. If there is meaninglessness, none of the stories or justifications for my contempt, my anger, my deep and months-long retreats into self could be justified.

The story I wrote as my life played out became meaningless. I am not a victim. I am not a hero. I am not a fictional character. I am not a tragedy. I am not a coward. I am not insane. That is all story. Every time I don’t choose kindness, it’s a choice without rationale.

It is a choice. Full stop. That is a large truth to hold onto as I’m hurled through the random cataclysms that shape a life. It’s the only true choice

As I adopted this truth, I found fear gives way only to love, and love beats it every time. There is no contest

The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. Unquestioned fear. Uninterrogated fear. Undisciplined fear chipping away at our capacity for love and kindness day in and day out.

When fear is forced to defend itself, it usually collapses. It has no native ground.

What we fear can always be boiled down to the same mortifyingly simple statement: I’m not sure what is going to happen next. That is the essence of every human’s life story.

That statement is hollow, brittle, and collapses into dust when looked at plainly, just as much as our bodies do after death. What it leaves is an enormous empty aquifer of space for the soul, and that soul can choose love. In every moment.

If you can choose love while looking at the utterly disinterested face of death, there is nothing else that can stop you.

If I live small, which is 100% allowed, it doesn’t mean I lost. It doesn’t mean I was beaten. It means I panned out so far that I saw clear as day that there are no objective rights and wrongs. There are harms and kindnesses that can play out in any belief system, and every single choice matters more. Without the story, they are all voluntary. There is no such thing as a hand being forced. When I choose unkindness, when I choose to allow moral fog to avoid decisions, when I turn away, it is completely on me.

I am not part of a sweeping story of humankind. I am a book-ended soul, wedged between a birth and a death, and my choices are mine alone.

Most major religions address this frequently. The messages are similar. Love those around you, and do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.

Your choices do not mean bad or good, success or failure.

Building your house where you lay your spirit from only love does not equate to weakness. Love can be a world-altering fire as much as a cooling stream. Sometimes love, with all fear removed, is absolutely ruthless.

Love has laid me out. Many, many, many times. And every time, wiping tears as I reach into the earth, my soul knows what to say, and it is always thank you.

That Grace is not from me. It moves through me, source unknown.

Grace is the true ecosystem of love, and you can find it trickling in at the same rate fear falls away. It brings me to tears every time. Tears of gratitude. Tears of communion. Even alone and on my knees, those tears evoke love for every human I’ve ever encountered. Only mercy. To my bottomless well of surprise and delight.

When I seek surprise and delight instead of a story about certainty and security, my love for life rushes back in and resets my heart to the start position. That feeling is why I stay.

Surprise and delight is compelling beyond compare and is the unique joy of sentient beings that die.

We can’t reach our spiritual potential without death.

I somehow ended up grateful for what death has taken. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything, and certainly not security and control

Certainty and control are fear responses, but we pave the road between Fear and Love with curiosity. Curiosity is a portal for the soul, and it has direct and immediate access to Love. It’s the native alchemy of a human mind.

It reveals a well of information about self that can bring you to your knees every day, and it somehow becomes so beautiful that you are grateful to it.