Growing older, it’s so easy to sink into slumber The sofa groove; the spiritual chamber The suppressed desires and unspoken words It’s so easy to accept the weight of the adult world And let those slumped shoulders form As you stand with the others on the assembly line.
But do the radical thing And nurture the parts inside yourself In whatever way that keeps those eyes shining And letting that mouth speak words of meaning As you continue on your truest path Shaking off the forces that want you To become another background character Bitterly beeping in life’s traffic jam.
Do the radical thing. And love yourself unashamedly Don’t submit to mindless drudgery Nor let the bottle or the pills Numb you to a conditioned reality.
Let the sanctity of solitude Remind you who you are; Let the rhythm of happiness Flutter in your heart.
Be someone that your child self Would look up to and delight in And nurture a life in which you live naturally A life in which you live with integrity,
I see normal people Normal people with normal heads Normal heads full of normal thoughts Thinking about their wives and jobs Or what they have to do when they get home The next time they’ll visit their family Or what show they’re going to watch Before going to bed.
Those normal people I know if they took one look inside this head It would be like watching some foreign film Without subtitles.
How is it even possible I ended up this way So far removed from the rest That I have to train my tongue To act out a performance just to get by.
I’m honestly so tired of this I’m so tired of this script I’m so tired of this performance And these predictable people.
I think it’s time to loosen this tongue And let the normal people see Just what’s inside my head Even if it’s just insanity Or irrationality Or a deranged poem From a deranged mind
On the eve of my 32nd birthday, I sit here at my laptop, a beer by my side, wondering what awaits me in the coming year as a strong winter wind blows outside. I’ve sent out another load of job applications today. At this point, with the current job market, it feels like half-heartedly throwing a fishing line into polluted waters to try and catch something fresh. I know I’m not going to yield any tasty results, but I find myself just doing it for the hell of it (perhaps to fight off the insanity that comes from sitting around doing nothing). For the first time in my life, I feel like actually getting a stable, regular job; something to give me some routine and a bit of needed structure. It’s a bleak time to have such a basic wish though. Most of my applications aren’t even viewed, no doubt filtered out by AI systems and keyword searches. And even if they are viewed, it’s a lottery to even hear back from them given the absurd competition (a recent minimum wage warehouse job I applied for has received 1265 applications). I’ve also lately heard that a lot of job adverts are ‘ghost’ adverts – just there to harvest the data of applicants and sell to advertising companies. Yes, the UK in 2024 is not a great country to live in – a failing economy, a dramatically rising cost of living, continuous shit weather, no longer in the EU, and just seemingly going further and further down the drain each year. What chance does any young person have today if not born into wealth? For me, I don’t even ask for a lot; I just want a simple and modest life, living in a one-bedroom apartment, working an introvert-friendly job while writing my books in my spare time. Such a life seems to be increasingly further away as the days of destitution and desperation go by.
Call me a pessimist, but I am of the opinion that the total collapse of our current system is not far away at all. I have watched the cracks in society widen these last years as the gap between the rich and poor grows at an unprecedented rate, leaving hard-working people unable to heat their homes or stock their fridges or fuel their cars. Worker rights are being continually eroded and, for the first time, each generation is poorer than the previous one. On top of this, jobs begin to disappear because of AI and many of the few that do appear are poorly-paid with zero-hour contracts. Meanwhile the cost of rent and groceries skyrockets while wages stagnant. Whatever is happening is certainly not sustainable, and the increasing number of homeless people on the streets only serves as a grim introduction of the post-capitalism wasteland that awaits us. And that’s not even to mention the climate crisis which sits waiting for us as well, ready to well and truly turn this society into something from a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel.
So, at the age of 32, what is a guy like me to do but drink this beer and type these words and throw more job applications into the void while contemplating the coming downfall of civilisation? Thankfully, I am lucky enough to have a space on a medical research trial starting in two weeks’ time. I will go into a clinic for 20 days and take an experimental medicine and have tests run on me. In return, I will receive over £5000 tax-free cash. I can’t complain, I guess. Medical trials are a great gig that has funded my life the last ten years, but I am getting to the age where I recognise I can’t always rely on testing pharmaceutical drugs for money. But for now it’s enough to keep me from those cold streets and that howling wind – and even afford me a holiday away from this sinking ship of a country.
So yeah, it could be worse I remind myself. That seems to be the way to cheer myself up in the dying hours of the 31st year of my life. It’s been a pretty tough one in all honesty, with terrible periods of insomnia ravaging my mental health throughout the year. But what else is there to do but pick yourself up and go again? Tomorrow I will wake up, do my morning meditation, strap on my running shoes, do some exercise, spend another hour job searching, and then go see my lovely girlfriend for a delicious meal with wine. Though things aren’t the best overall, I will be grateful of the joys in my life, including the simple fact of actually having one. As one man said to me: “Any day above ground is a good day.” Well, thirty-two years into it, I’m still well and truly above ground, and ready to keep on running into that wind, no matter how strong it gets. Cheers to that.
Another night of laying there unable to sleep. Another night of watching the hours go by as dawn approached, knowing I’d face the world even more sleep-deprived than the day before. Such a situation was nothing new to me. Insomnia had been ravaging my life for years by the time I was in my thirties. It came and went, but at its worst I’d get just a couple of hours of disturbed sleep a night. Sometimes I’d get none. Slowly it would snowball out of control until my mental state was dark, depressed, and delirious. At my very worst, I would even slip into psychosis and begin to have auditory and visual hallucinations. I would be totally exhausted and broken – a pitiful wretch – and all I needed was to simply sleep to fix myself, but I would lay there each night undergoing psychological torture, totally unable to switch off and get the thing my soul was screaming for. One time I got so frustrated I started banging my head against a wall in a desperate attempt to knock myself out. That’s when I realised the severity of the disorder that was violently destroying my life.
It’s now the start of 2024 as I begin this year in this all-too-familiar way. I partly have myself to blame for it, having gone on a weekend bender in Dublin three weeks before. Whenever my routine is disturbed by drinking and late nights, I usually end up spiralling into a state of sleep-deprivation. I guess I should have accepted by now that my partying days are behind me with this paralysing condition, but it’s been hard to let go of all the fun things that filled my youth. So, here I am three weeks on, battling a disease of the mind that no one else can see and only a few can understand. Still, the start of a new year presents the opportunity to start fresh and mark out some targets. Maybe I’ll quit drinking, I say to myself. Maybe I’ll finally get this condition under control. Strict sleeping times and healthy practices. No more partying until dawn. It’s a nice idea that I commit myself to with a sense of vigour and hope. A man can always use the concept of a new year to try and start afresh; even if it’s just a temporary delusion, sometimes that’s what one needs in order to keep marching into another year of existence.
For now though I lay in my room, hiding from the outside world which seemed far too unbearable when one hadn’t slept properly in weeks. I guess it was a good place to be considering that storms had been battering the country for weeks. I couldn’t help but listen to that heavy wind and rain like I was listening to a representation of my turbulent mental state. The nearby river continued to rise as I felt a growing gloom about my life, as if a sprawling swamp surrounded me with sinister creatures lurking somewhere in the shadows. Each year life got considerably harder and I was left wondering how I’ve even made it this far without drowning altogether. I took refuge in the fact that there was obviously some sort of strength inside of me that had kept me fighting off my demons throughout the years – whether that be depression, anxiety, alienation, insomnia, or general madness. However, I didn’t feel as strong and brave as I once did, and things were only getting harder as that river continued to rise and the current got stronger. I could feel my insides shaking; my nervous system vibrating with anxiety. I wondered how the hell I was ever going to get by in this world with my mental health problems and unemployability and the rising cost of living and everything that just seemed to make being a human-being a stupidly difficult and unrealistic task.
I couldn’t let myself get bogged down in a million worries at once, so I set a step by step guide to get out of the darkness first. The first thing I needed was sleep so I focused on fixing that by staying away from booze, meditating, and having set bedtimes. It took a few days but I eventually felt able to head out and face the world. I ran alongside the flooded river; I breathed in the air; I went shopping in the supermarket for healthy foods. Slowly I started to feel somewhat like a human-being again. The next step involved the ever-present necessity of money. I needed a job after my last one decided to let me go a few weeks before Christmas. I started searching and sending out applications. As always, I looked for the most straightforward jobs possible – menial factory or warehouse roles that required you to do just a couple of repetitive tasks. That’s about all I could manage at this point. Perhaps that was my ceiling. I was an autistic daydreamer after all, and my limited capacity for work was hard to ignore when reflecting on my job history.
Although jobless, I was at least getting some income being on government unemployment benefits. It required me to attend meetings with a work coach to tell them the steps I was taking in seeking employment. My last one was at the height of my insomnia when my anxiety was through the roof, and I was unfortunate to be met with a guy who grilled me and got me to apply for terrible call centre roles in which I wouldn’t last more than a few days. This time I was better prepared and lucky enough to be met with a woman who clearly didn’t care as much about her job as the previous guy. Perhaps she too knew what a joke it all was. I sat there describing some jobs I’d applied for, as well as some vague future employment goals. She typed some things into a computer and nodded her head as I accepted my place as a misfit and liability in this society. The tedious process plodded on and eventually came to a merciful end.
I then headed back out into the streets of Nottingham city centre. I walked around and saw them all surrounding me again: the normal, civilised faces of humanity. Presentable people with careers and cars and credit scores and shoe collections. People ready to continue on along the treadmill of a normal, sane life – mortgages and marriages; security and stability. The separation from everyone else all was as strong as ever. It was a new year, but it seemed it was the same old me – wandering the world like some sort of alien that had been cast away on planet earth. Still, I reminded myself that I had a beautiful girlfriend; that I was consistently looking for work; that I was twenty hours into learning to drive. Perhaps this year would be different. Perhaps this year I’d finally smoothen and straighten out. I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that the ‘new year, new me’ optimistic delusion was taking effect once again.
I continued walking towards home until I reached the river. I stopped and sat down on a bench beside it. The water levels had dropped back down to normal and the winter sunshine twinkled upon the surface. I let myself breathe and observed the pleasant scene before me, watching a flock of birds fly along the river and happy dogs stroll along the pathway. It was a place I had experienced great peace before and, after a few minutes, I noticed that peace there in my soul once again. I felt my inner anxiety being alleviated – all the thunder inside being replaced by a loving, radiant light that had filled me before. Despite my current troubles, I knew that it was a beautiful world, and that I really did belong to it – even if I felt out of place in society. Slowly I began to accept myself and where I was in life. Slowly I began to accept that yes – it was a new year, and in reality would never really be a new me, but the best thing I could do was to nurture the part of myself that had guided me to peace and happiness before. At that moment, I made a decision to look after myself a bit better, starting by resisting an offer to go out for drinks that evening. Something inside of me said the way forward this year was as simple as that. My plan wasn’t to conquer the world, or run a marathon, or some specific goal or resolution like that – but to just treat myself with some basic kindness and gentleness. Starting from there, who knew what it would lead to. For when the storm has passed and the destruction has been cast, it seemed the best and only real thing you could do was dust yourself off, pick up the pieces, and let yourself move forward in the direction of the calming and healing light.
Hear this heart sing Though you try to silence it And wish me to get in line Suppressing my spirit I shall continue to refuse For I know that sanity of yours Is slowly killing you Your tired eyes tell it all Your soul is screaming for music And I do not wish to kill my song too No conformity or career Will put an end to this As this grey world continues You’ll find me dancing within Where my song plays loud Shaking the walls and windows Keeping me thoroughly alive And no amount of knocking at the door Will cause this precious symphony To stop soaring.
It’s a Saturday evening and I’m home alone Trying to write a poem I’m listening to ambient music Looking at pretty pictures of sunsets Hoping that inspiration will strike As the words come flooding onto the page.
It’s a strange process that is hard to explain But doing this, instead of being at the bar, Well it gives me the sort of joy That one only gets when they are in touch With something spiritual and sacred.
For some reason I decided to be a writer I’ve been doing it for over ten years now Nothing has really made much sense to me Except when I’m organising words together.
School didn’t come naturally Jobs didn’t come naturally Social life didn’t come naturally But for some reason this did.
And that’s why I’m here tonight Still giving it all that I’ve got Sailing out on the sea of creative thought Lowering my net into the depths And trying to catch a big juicy 200 pound poem to take home And display on my wall.
For now it appears I’ve only caught this one Which, admittedly, isn’t my best But hey, I’m having fun Typing these words Jamming out alone On a Saturday evening.
I’ll think I’ll even crack open a beer As I keep on sailing on this sea Doing the thing which puts everything in the right place Which makes me feel like I’m on that dancefloor Busting my moves and celebrating life In all its strange joy.
I guess I was always a little wild A little rebellious, a little reckless From a young age, I walked my own path Following the signposts of the soul Rather than the signposts of society I trusted the authority of my intuition Rather than any government or institution I still feel this way; each person must find Their own path through this wilderness If they are to find out who they truly are And get the most out of this life.
Self-direction is the way And I will never stop thinking for myself Nor settle down into some sofa Turning on a TV and turning off my mind I shall follow this internal compass to whatever end For without it, I would not have found The joy that I now store in my soul The fire that burns in my heart And the truth that runs through My words.
To write these things I must certainly be a fool. To invest so much of myself into this manic muse of mine. And not just time and effort; I’m talking about scraping the very bottom of my soul, scooping out the contents and placing them onto a page no matter how drained it leaves me. I think of all the other things I could have been doing whilst I’ve been committed to this strange and solitary endeavour. Perhaps I could have been developing some sort of career, building wealth, learning to fix cars, speak another language, or some other thing which I’m pretty sure every other person on this street would see as favourable to torturing oneself to write a pretty sentence. Are these sentences even pretty? Is this collection of words worth everything I have put myself through? I guess when I think about it, through the last ten years, it seemed like I didn’t even have a choice. I was simply possessed, or insane, or just blindly committed to a fool’s errand. I still remember being in a hostel bar in Guatemala with a blonde German girl I had been travelling with. She listened to me describe my need to write – a need which caused me to forsake everything else in the pursuit of becoming a great writer. She sat and stared at me with concerned eyes. I could tell I was a creature that she hadn’t laid eyes on before. Even hailing from Berlin – where I knew there was a wealth of starving artist types roaming the bohemian streets – I was still a foreign thing. She just looked at me and, after a moment of silence, said: “don’t you realise how crazy that actually is? That you would fuck yourself up just in order to write a good sentence?”
At the time I took it as a compliment; her reaction simply reaffirmed my belief that I was someone going to the ultimate effort of becoming what he desired deepest. It didn’t matter if I went crazy, or destitute, or scared away everyone close to me – all that mattered was getting that sentence down in a way that would show me I was a true writer, just like my literary idols – the other madmen: Thompson, Bukowski, Miller, London, Kerouac, Celine et al… all those fellow fools who bled themselves dry in order just to be great practitioners of the craft. None of their lives were pleasant, but they were ferociously alive and could put down immortal words that could put fire in a person’s heart. In my young and idealistic mind, that was the greatest achievement of a man: To create art. To stir souls. To understand the human condition and tap into a sacred place that was out of bounds to those who stayed on the safe path of life. I imagined society as a herd of animals; the majority of the people stayed huddled in the herd for safety and belonging. They had those things, but they were also restricted, held in place by others, and could only see an obscured view of their surroundings. The animals who drifted away from the herd, sure, they were more exposed and vulnerable to the beasts of loneliness and madness; but they also could move freely and see the world with greater vision and clarity. They had a wide screen view of the herd and their place in the environment that was simply unavailable to those within it. I explained this metaphor to her but she just continued to look at me like I was some sort of ranting lunatic.
I quite liked that young German girl. Despite her concerns, we even got close to romance, sharing beds and kissing when drunk. But her block up against me was too strong and we eventually parted ways. I was an unsettling creature and I couldn’t blame her for wanting to see the back of me. She was yet another one scared off by my madness, only to be recounted here in some random story I’m strumming out at 10.42am on a September morning over four years later. I wonder if she ever anticipated that she’d feature in my writings? I guess she wouldn’t have cared.
Anyway, after all this time, I’m perhaps not totally as idealistic as I was then when I was scaring off pretty young German girls. I’ve since self-published four books, selling somewhere around 2000 copies, making almost no money when I take into account the few adverts I’ve done on social media here and there. All of this effort and sacrifice for this. Naturally, you wonder if it’s all worth it. You only seem to get poorer and crazier as the years go on as a writer. Sure, there is the odd success story, but the 20th century is long behind us, and the writers who make any form of living as writers seem to be 1 in 47,897 or something like that. Naturally, you think about packing it all in and becoming a respectable human-being. Maybe you can still write the odd poem here and there, but it just doesn’t seem to make any sense to devote so much of yourself into something that takes you nowhere, other than the realm of your own satisfactory delusion that you’re a great and noble writer – an undiscovered genius strumming his keyboard in his garden at 10.47am on a September morning, as the rest of the world toils in their jobs and responsibilities.
I think again of utilising this energy for something else. Age 31, I still haven’t learned to drive, and I’ve recently committed myself to trying to obtain my licence again. I could be spending this time learning the theory like I promised myself I’d do this morning. I could also be researching jobs which I also promised myself I’d do seeing as I’m currently getting by on a zero-hour contract job with inconsistent work. But yet, here I am again: all these years on, still totally committed to the same manic muse that has consumed me now throughout the whole part of early adulthood. I can just about imagine that same German girl sitting opposite me now, still with those confused and concerned eyes, wondering why I am still fucking myself up just to write this nonsense that probably only a handful of people will read and forget about. It reminds me of a story I recently read online about a man who took ten years writing his novel and two years promoting it, only to receive no sales. When his family found out, they disowned him. He ended up depressed, moved to another city, and then started work on his second novel…
I guess it comes back to it: a person’s own purpose. We frame human purpose in a positive light; that generally one is meant to find what it is that they’re good at, serves others, and makes them a fulfilled human-being. But we never stop to consider that someone’s purpose can also drive them to the edge – to become fucked up, tortured, isolated, misunderstood, destitute, deserted, and even dead. I think again of Kafka and Van Gogh and Plath and all the others who only ended in darkness while pursuing their innate calling. Once again at the crossroads, I consider packing this laptop away and learning to drive. I consider searching for that job, tidying my room, ironing myself out, and becoming a respectable member of the human race. I hear the German girl urging me on. “Finally stop this madness. You have four books now. You’ve given it a go. You’ve done more than most people and it’s time to give yourself a break. Put down the pen and get yourself in order.”
But alas, the words just keep on coming, and if you’re still here listening to this self-indulgent, introspective, stream-of-the-consciousness crap, then well, I guess maybe you share a similar type of madness. There are so many other productive things one could be doing, but then again, what is the point. What is the point as I now watch two butterflies dance with each other in the morning sun; as I watch a ginger cat strutting elegantly down the path; as I watch a squirrel run along the fence and listen to the birds singing somewhere in the nearby trees. I guess nature doesn’t concern itself with what it ‘should’ do rather than what it is doing. And that in doing so, it is far more graceful than us with our clumsy and clunky lives. Perhaps I was simply born to the wrong species. Humanity was never the intended destination of a soul like mine. I was better off being a cat, or a squirrel, or a butterfly fluttering in the early morning sun. I know the second I stop this story and start studying my driving theory and searching for jobs, I’ll be longer in tune with the great harmony of nature. But this seems to be the requirement for surviving in society and stopping the pretty girls from thinking you’re crazy and wanting to sleep with you. That is an awfully nice thing, I must confess, so now I consider packing it away again. And it seems to me that if I do that, I’ll no longer be considered a fool by others, but I’ll know inside that I am a fool. To neglect this holy feeling I must certainly be mad, and now it’s time to choose: to be mad by my own reckoning, or by theirs. There is no easy way and I guess maybe I’m just too far gone as I decide I’ll be adding this piece of writing to my fifth book: Daft Daydreamer Delusions. I’m choosing to be mad in their eyes again. This one is for you, pretty German girl. I hope your life of sanity and sensibility is as fulfilling as this is. If you read this, get back to me and we can have a chat again. If you’re not too scared, that is.
It was a bad dream, I think I was standing in some strange place And all my friends had faded away All the feelings had faded away Time had shipped out much of my joy And I was left standing in an empty port Of an abandoned town Wondering what to do next With my ragged life.
I wandered back out into the wilderness And felt the nakedness of myself Totally alone with no path to follow Only one to forge to somewhere else That might harbour me and my madness.
The way led me through harsh lands I knew not what would become of me And as night came the stars shone bright I gazed up to them with weary eyes Confused and trapped in some world Whose origin was unknown.
Nowhere seemed to be the place Where I set down my bags for good And I drifted onward in my journey Carrying a great sadness in my heart Wondering what the point was To this strange story.
At times, I thought that I had missed my boat Perhaps I was supposed to join the others And follow their ships to a new world Instead I chose to follow the voice out there Calling me into this barren wilderness That had left me bedraggled and bewildered With no chance of finally finding my way As the wolves howl and vultures circle above As a cold wind blows and the earth begins to shake….
Then suddenly I wake up But the dream isn’t over I stare into the mirror I’m one day older Carrying more hardship in my heart Going to a job I don’t want to do Surrounded by people I can’t relate to And I realise that the wilderness in my dreams Is no different to the one I wander in now Perhaps there are more people around And I am slightly more static But I am a lone wanderer in this life Passing through doorways; shaking hands Attending to the tasks required of me But still, all the while, I’m out there In some great unknown Drifting, searching Caught in some dream And I think it’s a bad one.
“I don’t know Ryan,” he said. “I really don’t know. I’m just so disappointed with my species. I give up on them. There is just so much potential for humanity, yet here we are wasting our lives in trivial routine, going through the motions, following outdated traditions, chasing materialistic things which don’t really make us happy. The way people treat each other is so bad. And even the way people treat themselves. People are their own worst enemies; they slowly build their own cages bar by bar – out of fear, comfortability, security, and conformity. Anything just to fit in and not think independently. Why Ryan, why? Life is such a glorious opportunity but we throw it away so willfully with these ridiculous lives we live.”
I could see my good friend Bryan had finally reached the point in his life where he had simply given up on the world. Idealism had given way to nihilism and I watched as he downed the rest of his beer before throwing it onto the pile of empty bottles which had been gradually accumulating since my arrival. I was visiting him in his holiday home in The Netherlands. It was a small cabin in a holiday park which he had recently bought for ten thousand euros. You were only supposed to use it for vacations, but Bryan had decided to live there full-time. He was working as an urban planner in Rotterdam, but only had to be in the office two times a week which allowed him to ‘work’ from his cabin the other days. He was supposed to be engaged in his employment activities right this moment, but here he was drinking beers in his garden while putting the world to rights with me. I asked if he wanted another beer to which he reminded me it was time to take some psychedelic drugs.
“Don’t you have any work to do today?” I asked.
“What’s the point, honestly, I don’t care about this bullshit job. It’s so badly managed, I can do what I want. And if I get fired, then so be it. Like you said, the collapse of civilisation is coming anyway.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s go and get high and enjoy the day then.”
We headed back inside to get the magic mushroom truffles from the fridge and began preparing them. Pretty soon we had taken our doses and then hopped on our bikes to cycle to a nearby nature reserve. We rode in the summer sunshine through rural lands and villages while waiting for the first effects to hit. Bryan was a seasoned veteran when it came to psychedelics, regularly doing mushroom and acid trips on his own; I, however, had only taken them a couple of times before – and not at the dose level I had just consumed. The feeling of excitement was mixed in with some apprehension, and I even began to start feeling a bit sick in the stomach, which was not too unusual for a short while after eating magic mushroom truffles, especially when you were also hungover from the night before.
We carried on cycling towards the nature reserve as the landscape became forested. Lush green trees surrounded us as we ventured closer to our destination. Pretty soon we pulled up in the car park and locked our bikes up. It was then that the first little waves of effects began to make themselves known; in particular, tree branches around me looked wavy and the light through the canopy began to have a heavenly quality.
We then made our way through a pathway in the woods that eventually gave way to a vast open expanse of sand dunes. It was a surreal looking landscape; not the type one would envisage when thinking of The Netherlands. There was an otherworldly vibe to it – small scrubs lay across the sandy ground with networks of cobwebs between them; that same lush green forest circled the wide open area before us; dead tree branches lay like skeletons of carcasses in the hot sun. We walked barefoot across that strange land as Bryan played some ambient music from his speaker and I imagined us as two neanderthals roaming the plains of the outback tens of thousands of years ago.
The effects were soon getting stronger as I looked at the ripple lines of the sand beneath my feet. All of it was swaying and swooning in a playful manner. With each step, my feet were swallowed by this sea of sand, before soaring out of its surface again like two dolphins skipping through the water. The sun still stood above us and its searing heat led us to decide to search for some shade. A small way in the distance was a large dune with a few trees that seemed to be the spot the universe was guiding us towards. It was there that we agreed to seek shelter as the effects of the mushrooms started coming on even stronger.
We threw our stuff down and sat down beside a tree trunk. We stared out at the surrounding area of sand dunes which was now looking like some sort of dreamscape, especially with the dust devils that were blowing around us. We were far away from the city life and we may as well have been marooned on another planet. The forest that circled the desert-like expanse we were in was now dancing, taking on that kaleidoscopic pattern which I had only seen representations of in posters and psychedelic artwork. Now it was happening before my eyes as the whole world looked like some sort of fantastical phantasmagoria. When I focused a little more, each tree began to look like a mushroom itself, almost on fire like the landscapes that featured in some of Van Gogh paintings. The world was more vivid and fascinating than ever – some sort of entrancing work of art that I was happily trapped within.
We both carried on enjoying the captivating visual effects while discussing life. Me and Bryan had been friends for eight years at that point after having met while travelling in New Zealand. My closest friend from the past decade of my travels, we were two people who were incredibly similar at our cores – hell, even our names only had one letter difference. Aside from that, our lives just seemed to mirror each other constantly in the things we were experiencing. We both often felt out of place and misunderstood in this society, and deep down we longed for a life of free-spirited adventure instead of the one which the majority of people our age strived for. We were men with similar stories and struggles and I guess we provided some sort of sanity to each other by just knowing our thoughts weren’t completely alien. I knew Bryan was currently more at odds with the world than me though, having expressed ever-growing dissatisfaction since returning home from his last world trip. He was growing increasingly jaded, drifting towards self-destructive and reckless behaviour. Drink driving, skipping work, an increasing detachment from pretty much everything – he truly was a man who was teetering on the edge of sanity and society.
He shared some more thoughts on this as he expressed how unfulfilling his current job was, how traditional middle-aged life was so uninspiring, and how much he missed working in the Tasmanian outback building hiking trails. This led to our frustrations with the system and popular culture as we discussed the possibility of what the world would be like if people regularly took psychedelic substances. “I mean, just look at what these mushrooms can do for people. There’s a natural substance that opens people’s minds to more perspectives, insights and growth? And what is the response of most governments? BAN AND CRIMINALISE IT!!” There was then a short silence before he proclaimed “honestly, what a complete joke.” At that moment, we both burst out into a fit of laughter. Just the authority with which the sentence was said struck deeply at some profound and fundamental level, like a divine truth being uttered. I mean, it was a big joke when I really thought about it. Society was one big madhouse, especially at the moment – PC culture, covid lockdowns, inflation, social media, consumerism, the climate crisis, and the general state in which late stage capitalism had left full-time workers barely able to heat their homes – it was quickly going down the drain and it was only a matter of time before the system collapsed completely. All the while, people voted for their own demise and busied themselves with the consumption of vapid TikTok videos. It was truly something to despair at, but the next thing to do was to laugh. This seemed the logical response for the sake of one’s sanity: just to laugh at the world and at yourself, to see the ridiculousness and absurdity of it all in plain, comic sight – it was a medicine for the soul and at that moment we dosed ourselves with that medicine as we howled atop that hill like two crazed apes.
Once the laughter had died down, a quiet period began and I started to get more introspective. Reflecting more on the feeling that the end times would soon be upon us in society, I couldn’t escape this feeling that my life was also destined to be some tragedy – that a great disintegration was coming of myself too. I simply seemed to face great hardship in life and at times I wondered how much longer I could get by living the way I had been. Now I was at a time in my life when I was acknowledging that I was probably autistic to some degree, and could probably get diagnosed with a few other things which would explain why I felt like I was constantly living my life on hard mode. My life had been a grand adventure but it had also been an immensely difficult ride, and I knew I was at risk of madness or homelessness with my outright inability to fit into this society. At the moment I had no job, no career, and no real talent or trade. I was in a strange place in my life and I no doubt needed to confront some things if I was to make it through another few decades without some sort of disaster occurring.
Deep realisations were hitting me as I sat tripping in the sand, but I was also seeing how beautiful the whole experience of just being alive was as the mushrooms continued to do their work upon my brain. I closed my eyes and saw the most insanely complex patterns unfolding before my eyes. I found it hard to process that my brain was automatically creating this rich tapestry of colours with an indescribable beauty, as great as any work of art I had ever laid eyes upon. Pretty soon after this Bryan put his hand on a nearby tree branch and we could see the tree breathing in and out as the veins in his arm flowed into the veins on the tree. At that moment I saw how we were all a part of some sort of mysterious, singular organism, and that no matter how absurd or ridiculous we felt the world was becoming, everything was going to be okay in some weird, fundamental way.
Eventually we decided we had spent enough time atop our little hill. We continued roaming the nature reserve for another hour as the sun began to drop lower in the sky. Though five hours had passed since dosing, the effects of the mushrooms did not waver and I wondered when, if ever, I was going to return to my ‘normal’ state of mind. It seemed not any time soon as I passed a group of people entering the park who appeared all to have distorted faces, like that of deformed creatures. I questioned whether they were actually deformed, but then another group of people went past looking the same, at which point I concluded it was some weird, trippy effect from the truffles. I was going through a bad part of the trip, but I soon felt better by focusing again on that sunlight still bursting through the tree canopy in a divine and heavenly way.
We finally jumped on our bikes and cycled back to his cabin in the sunset, the last rays of light illuminating the world with a dreamy, serene glaze as psychedelic rock music played from Bryan’s speaker. I couldn’t even feel my legs working as some higher force made it feel like I was gliding along on some sort of hovercraft. Though blissful, it was all a bit too much at some point, and I was happy when we arrived home and the effects finally started to fade. Some points of the trip had simply been too intense for me and I was eager to grab a few beers from the fridge and take the edge off with the comfort and familiarity of being drunk. I sat there drinking a beer in his garden while still appreciating the beauty of the world with fresh eyes, watching little helicopter seeds float down gracefully from a nearby tree, marvelling at my surroundings like a new-born baby.
The next few days I carried on experiencing that afterglow, but some negative effects made themselves known too. Something had triggered in my mind and left it in a restless place it had been before in recent years. I had struggled with insomnia for a while now and it was one of the reasons I now had lost interest in travelling the world like I once had. Simply put, my body needed a routine in which for me to sleep, and as soon as my circadian rhythm was disturbed, then I quickly spiralled into an insomniac state. Now the new environment – coupled with the drinking and the drugs and the heat – had set my brain off once again. It appeared sleep just wasn’t going to happen to any decent degree for the rest of the trip. There were just a few days left so I just accepted what was and sought to make the most of the rare occasion me and Bryan got to hang out together.
The searing summer heat continued as we cycled around, chilled out by lakes, went to bars, ate pizza, played ping pong, and generally had fun like guys fifteen years younger than we were. We spent a day in Amsterdam enjoying the bars and parks and sights of that famous city. Drinking and debates on life was the general vibe as we sought to make the most of the opportunity of having conversations we simply couldn’t have in our normal day-to-day life. To be with someone so similar to you was a strange and cathartic experience, and naturally there was an electric energy in the air. Every time we met this energy invariably led to us partying and causing mischief, and this time was no different as we sipped back those strong Belgian beers and drifted from bar to bar. At one point we cycled drunk to the nearest town, then cycled back blind drunk, leaving me crashing into some ditch at the side of the road, leaving Bryan once again laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Monday morning soon came around following a final night of drinking in Rotterdam. The fun was over and there I was at the end of my trip, in one of the most sleep-deprived and burnt out states I had ever been in. I had just spent five days in the sun, drinking heavily, eating badly, barely sleeping at all, and having the biggest psychedelic trip I’d ever had in my life. I’d been in some depleted states before, but I deemed this to be the most extreme one yet, and I truly felt close to that great collapse that I had envisaged on top of that hill at the nature reserve. I was bordering on being in a state of psychosis, experiencing some auditory and peripheral vision hallucinations, making me wonder if the dose of mushrooms had permanently messed up my mind.
This state wasn’t helped by a day that seemed set out to test me. This day included a delayed flight, sitting in an aeroplane on the runway for an hour in 30 degree heat next to a screaming baby, a delayed bus from the airport in London, waiting for that bus in a thunderstorm that proceeded to follow me up the motorway to Nottingham, and then finally arriving home thirteen hours later to find my landlady’s son trying to hang himself in the garden. The next morning I awoke after another night of bad sleep to hear that there had been a murder rampage in the city centre. Bad vibes were following me all around and the post-partying anxiety was at an all time high.
I didn’t know what to do with myself and I just sat in my garden staring at the noose the landlady’s son had poorly constructed the evening before. I thought of how mentally ill he was, and how messed up the man who had just went on a murder rampage was. I then thought of Bryan’s growing nihilism, the troubles in society, and my growing sense of impending doom upon myself. Maybe the collapse was coming; it certainly seemed like it at that moment in time as I sat in a hole and reflected on the sad state of the world. A great sorrow filled my soul for moments, but then I looked out at my garden and saw the beauty of nature again that had been so prominent while high on those magic mushroom truffles. I saw the chirping birds bobbing from branch to branch. I saw the sunlight again bursting through the trees. I saw the butterflies and the flowers and the artistry of nature in the peak of summer. Maybe there was death, decay, and destruction in this universe – maybe the collapse of civilisation and myself was coming – but I felt once again ultimately everything was going to be okay in some strange way. This universe would keep on weaving its magic, and I would be forever cocooned in some indescribable cosmic blanket of infinity. The fact that I was a part of this great work of art that had been revealed to me on the truffle trip was enough for me to keep on keeping on for now. That was enough to accept the darkness of the world as well as the light. That was enough to pick myself up out of that hole and keep on marching through the tempestuous plains of life, transfixed by the strange wonder of simply being alive.
~ A Voice From The Wild ~ 