Destroy Yourself

I’ve debated joining the club. I’m still in one. Still in many, in fact. Holding onto some sense of my ‘self’… the ‘runner’, the ‘writer’, the ‘teacher’, 'the ‘mindfulness guy’.

I feel a bit sick even reminding myself of ‘me’. The rules, the norms, that strong sense of being something.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating my misery a little bit. Well, I definitely am. I have a free and inventive life, creating, making, breaking and recreating. I have to remind myself sometimes how fortunate I am.

For a long time I dreamed of the life I have now. Now I want something else - to destroy myself again, and come back stronger, madder, wilder than ever.

I’m reminded of that Murakami quote: “everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come”.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly am! My own world, of course, not the tangible world we all share…

So what does it mean to ‘destroy yourself’ actually? For the world to end…

The end of a story? A new idea? The metaphorical ending of your existence as it was previously known?

Does it all sound a bit abstract and surreal so far? I can imagine it might…

So let’s try to quantify this mysterious destruction of ours:

• Dying whilst living - the death of one’s self identity whilst remaining physically alive, very much as before

• Creativity - creating something out of nothing / channeling another energy that was not yours to begin with and making something from it

• Awareness - coming in touch with reality, AS IT IS… meaning a certain indifference / detachment towards everything else

• Death - the ending of one’s physical body and the mental/emotional/spiritual components that came with it

• Play - deliberately dipping into any of the above experiences out of pure curiosity, without FEAR… this is perhaps the greatest experiment of all…

Does this help? I hope so.

By understanding ourselves and the various ways we might end/adjust/re-observe it, we might finally touch that most sacred of places, if only for a moment.

See if one of the above listed methods resonates with you at all. Get curious about it. Research. Make notes. Try something new.

Invite into your life a wonderful self-destruction… it is your nature after all…

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