I have to say, over the past couple of weeks I have been questioning things. Why are we here? What is Real? I have been depressed about the direction in which our society is heading as well as the fact that I don’t seem to have control over anything. The world looks like it is headed towards shit and it doesn’t seem like I can do anything about it. The more I look into it the worse it seems to get. In my life, school seems to be shit. The people running it seem to be focused only on how good you are at memorization and it just seems to be a waste of time. I can’t help but think I will forget most of this, so why bother? It all seems like bullshit to me. Why can’t everyone just learn things they are interested in, that provoke their minds and imagination? Or at least only learn things that will be useful to them in their occupation. I am in college studying to be a doctor, and am not really sure if I want to do that anymore. If I could be anything I would be a movie director but I can’t seem to come up with any really good ideas.

About a year ago I came to the conclusion that God (the one from the Bible) isn’t real. I have grown up in a Christian family and went to a Christian high school. Literally everyone I know is a Christian. After studying evolution, and seeing all of the contradictions of the Bible, I felt that everyone has been telling me this lie my entire life. It felt like my eyes were opened like in the Matrix, and I feel stupid for going along with it for so long. I have always had a problem with hell and other aspects of the Bible but I just went along with it because everyone I knew did so too. After a wonderful DMT trip that I had where I felt as if I became one with the universe, I now tend to think that we are all one consciousness, but I am not certain in this belief, only subscribe to it because it seems to me as more likely than anything else that I have heard and is fully compatible with science.

After the many wonderful DMT trips that I have had over the past few months, I finally had a terrible one. A few weeks ago I had a pretty bad pharmuasca trip and it was pure hell. I just couldn’t take it. I took way too much. The Syrian rue made me terribly sick and from there it was just downhill. It was the worst experience of my life. Since then I have been questioning everything even more so than usual. I just can’t get over the fact that there is pain and suffering in this world. Why couldn’t God just make a happy world where everything is good? I came up with all sorts of answers to this. At one point I got this idea that maybe God is evil and just wants to watch things suffer. That idea went away and others emerged. Some ideas were very scary.

I have been watching comedians over the past few months. Something Bill Hicks said just spoke to me today. I just got done watching the final episode of That 70s show. I have been watching a few episodes on and off since about January and just finished the entire series today. There were ups and downs in the relationships between the characters but at the end, that’s what made it special- the ups and downs. If it wasn’t for the bad times they wouldn’t be able to appreciate the good times. I thought, life is just like a movie, and was immediately reminded of Bill Hicks.

He said, “The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.”

I was then reminded of the day I had the terrible DMT trip. After the fear and the pain went away(after a few hours of hell), I probably had the best experience of my life. I was living the moment and I was having fun. I was trying to look at everything positive and was just having a good time. That wonderful experience couldn't have been as good if I had not just experienced hell. Looking at it now I think that life is just like a movie. There will be ups and downs. Not everything happens the way you would like and sometimes it just takes time to figure things out. Everyone has struggles and society as a whole sometimes struggles. But in the end, the different experiences you have (both good and bad) are what make your life special. The bad experiences in life just make the good ones that more special.

I’m not sure where my life will lead me from here, but I hope in the end I can look back and say it was worth living. I hope that when we die and if we live on, whether as a memory of the Universe(God, consciousness, etc.) or as a continuation of ourselves now, or whatever else that could happen, we can see the purpose of our existence and be amazed by the actual reality of the universe. Maybe we can’t fully grasp the amazement of the nature of the universe(God, ourselves, consciousness, etc.) until we have lived through the ups and downs and the genius and stupidity of this life. Maybe that is the purpose of our existence.

p.s. if anyone hasn't seen it, watch this Bill Hicks clip:
BIll hicks

thanks for reading, I love you all

A high point of my life came during an enormous breakdown. I'd been shown over and over the meaninglessness of existence and how insignificant I was in all of it, and I wasn't even sure what was "really real" anymore.

Finally, one night I lost hope completely and was too afraid to go on, but too afraid to commit suicide either. I sat down on my bed and basically said to the universe, "I give up, game over, you win." It was like I expected everything to just disappear, like the end of an arcade game or something. I closed my eyes and waited to be sucked out of my body or something. It was like the whole universe was holding its breath. I waited.

Nothing happened.

Suddenly, I got the joke. I started laughing and laughing and laughing, then crying, then laughing some more. I don't really know how to put it into words, but part of it is that this, life, existence, awareness, whatever you want to call it, could never be serious. Even taking it as seriously as you can isn't serious. Taking it seriously is to take it for granted, because it's so preposterous that anything is happening at all. It's like we don't want the boring old miracle of existence, we're so small-minded that we want the miracle-plus-everything-going-the-way-we-want-it.

I mean why am I writing in the English language? Why do I have eyes to see in the first place? Every little thing, every bruised shin, every angry neighbor, everything that seems like my personal, private life, all the most boring parts of living, are really the miracle too (the big bang banging, the whole enchilada, "god," however you want to put it). Even to be able to feel pain is amazing, because it exists to be felt at all!

Haha. It's so ridiculous and amazing.

The other part of the joke is that this isn't a word. See it for yourself. Look at a chair, picture the word "chair" in your head, and see if the word is what it's pointing to. Look from your mind's eye to the ______ in front of you. You can do that with anything and everything. It's all made up! Hahaha.

As an acquaintance of mine often says, "Meaningless doesn't mean anything."

Anyway, your post really struck me. Bill Hicks has always been a big influence of mine. When I discovered him as a young teenager, that was a turning point in my life where I abandoned my social conditioning.

Wow, thanks for sharing achamp!!

Achilles said "The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal. Because any moment might be our last. Everything’s more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again".

I wasn't raised in a religious setting, but I was still conditioned by the media etc. DMT has a way of peeling back all of those layers of bs and showing true reality! Just my opinion..

Don't give up on school. We need doctors to fight the good fight! Think of all the other doctors you could school on bedside manners etc. true empathy and compassion.

Beelzebozo, your story is very similar to mine, and I know exactly what you mean. For the past few weeks I've been wondering if this life is just a joke. It just doesn't seem real. (Especially after experiencing an amazing DMT trip where you no longer exist but at the same time you are everything at once) The only explanation I came up with is that this is all just a big joke we are playing on ourselves or someone else is playing on us. Similar to you, I even wondered if the universe as I know it would just cease when I acknowledged the joke. But now instead of as a joke, I like to look as life as a ride. This ride can take the form of a joke, or anything else our circumstances and experiences make it out to be. Like Bill Hicks said, its just a ride. I hope that once we are done riding it, after the thrills and chills, we can get off the ride and see how and why we got onto it.

RayTracer, thanks for the advice and encouragement. Yeah, I'm not planning on giving up on school I was just letting off steam about the way I felt about things right now. I have heavily thought about doing something else but in reality I would love to be a doctor and would love to help people, I just think that a lot of the aspects of getting there are unnecessary and a waste of time. The things that I actually need to learn about are hard enough without adding in material that I will never use and will forget in a few years. Maybe I will value the bullshit aspects of school in the future(I doubt it), but even if I don't, pushing through it will only make me better at persevering. And, if I actually become a doctor, it will make it that much sweeter.

Also, I agree with you that DMT is a waking call. It has opened my eyes to many things and I'm very grateful for it.

Thanks for the replies guys.