The War We Can't See
2026-06-18
Today's post is part of the IndieWeb Carnival, with this month's theme being "No Way!?" and hosted by Alex Hsu.
I really like the theme for the carnival this month. Most of my life has been a series of "No way!?" moments, particularly due to my bipolar disorder and many forays into hallucinogenic drugs; not to mention, a past part of my life as a drug dealer, bartender, and bike messenger led to many surreal moments themselves. Then, of course, I have many stories of crazy dreams I have told y'all about—such as here, here, here, and here. Being on the influence of hallucinogens has made me see some particularly crazy things, and I could spend probably several thousand words alone on all the different stories I have. I'll try to be a bit more terse and keep it to a few key stories.
During my freshman year of college, I was really into the work of Terrence McKenna. A mycologist, McKenna was an extreme advocate for psilocybin mushrooms, and even went as far as coining the Stoned Ape Theory. Nowadays, I find those notions to be extremely stupid, but back when I was 18, they were profound. For dosing psilocybin, McKenna suggested what is called a "heroic dose:" ingest 5 grams and sit alone in a dark room for the duration of the trip, which usually lasts around six hours. I did just that, and what I experienced was nothing short of "No Way!?" After I peaked—around two and a half hours in—I underwent a process known as ego death. Essentially, I lost not only all sense of self, but as a result, my entire concept of sensory experience and the concepts surrounding it. I blacked out, and when I came back to, I had to spend the next hour completely rebuilding everything; I had to recall who I was, what I was like, how I felt about myself; then I had to rebuild certain basic concepts of the social contract like economics, ethics, and so on. And of course, I had to get all Camus on myself and ask the existential question: why should I be alive?
I was on the seventh floor of a large apartment complex. There was a balcony in the apartment.
I had to figure out why I shouldn't jump.
There was another time I took two tabs of LSD. I locked myself in my room for the duration of the trip. I spent all day in my room, my serotonin receptors canon-balling; there were a series of hallucinations I recall from that day of insane spiritual meandering: the most prescient of those were a series of translucent holographic men. They were me, dressed as Roman legionaries. There were six of them, and they all spoke to me in tandem. I was dealing with the increased anxiety and irritability that comes with jacked serotonin, and I asked them why I was being so anxious. They consoled me in a way only a Roman legionary could.
"Existence is war," they said in unison.
And of course they're right. Even if it's a mundane, peaceful life I live here insulated in America—there's always a battle taking place. Usually it's in my head, and figuring out the strategies to not drag myself to Hell every day is a constant struggle of great spiritual importance. But it's not a selfish pursuit; there will always be someone to live for; there will always be someone who loves me, even in the throes of the deception I face when depressed or psychotic. I live not just to make excuses to keep myself from jumping off a seventh-story balcony. The fight to live is just that: a battle for the salvation of my soul. Most people today don't have the metaphysical experience I do. More than anything, they want to stay in their sensory bubble; going out to the depths of the universe isn't for the fragile mind.
But of course, I've paid the price for those journeys. I've lost my mind so many times, forgot everything—just to recall the horrors of being trapped in my flesh every single day. More than that, the thoughts never stop—a constant barrage of stimuli, theories, and conclusions. Sometimes they loop. Sometimes they spiral upward. Sometimes they drop off into the depths of true nothingness: a black void where all I have is my soul, alone and wounded in a non-corporeal prison. It's a horror unlike anything one can ever see; gore and shattered innocence don't even begin to compare to the darkness of that void. It's somewhere I pray to never see again, else it would truly make me ask to be ripped away from the fabric of the cosmos.
But no, I'm here. I get to tell you these admonitions, and even if you don't believe or understand the things I've borne witness for you today, I'll still be here.
Find what matters. Remember it. Keep it close.
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