Totally liberating! And it was this grand emotional epiphany too.

So I had been an atheist and an evangelical christian, but have always suffered from all kinds of anxieties, sense of inadequacy, mild depression, (turns out) ADD, all the good stuff. Then when I was around 30, married and in love with a guy in a middle of his own unraveling, my dad was diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer. He took a year to die. Then my ex's mental health really went to shit, he became extra abusive and scary to the point where I was sleeping with my clothes on just in case I had to run. I moved out, but it took me over two years to disentangle myself from his life.

The only thing that I had to hold onto in all that was Buddhism. I never called myself a Buddhist and didn't believe any of the supernatural stuff, but I was really invested in the idea of liberation: that if you followed Buddhist practice you could train your mind to experience loss and pain, both physical and mental, without suffering. It's kinda splitting hairs, what's mental pain and what's suffering, but Buddhists have a very sophisticated psychological framework in which it all makes sense and I was satisfied with it.

The other thing about Buddhism is that it's all about being kind, compassionate, and loving. In contrast to Yahweh cults, where the point is obedience and following the rules regardless of how you feel, in Buddhism kindness is goodness. It really was kinda mind-blowing and also fit very well with forgiving and tolerating a messed up husband.

So I was all excited and emotionally invested in Buddhism, but it was just not working for me. My capacity to tolerate all my problems was not improving. I was binge-watching netflix, compulsively browsing reddit, not getting enough sleep, gaining weight. Pretty much feeling like I was losing my mind. I also could not pull the trigger on the divorce.

At one point I was really freaking out and instinctively decided that I needed to listen to something loud and with a lot of drums. Put in the only metal band I could think of into Pandora and just started listening. It took me a few months to figure out what I was into, but holy shit, I really like metal. And the type of thing I like is not exactly about love and compassion. But it actually helped me to get through the divorce.

But I was still super dysfunctional and still holding on to the idea of a Buddhist liberation. And then one day it was like a dam broke and I had my epiphany. And it was super dramatic: I was out in this park, wind blowing dark clouds across a bright blue sky, Electric Wizard's We Live playing on my car stereo, and I am sitting there with my laptop just furiously typing my repudiation of the Four Noble Truths along with all the conventional platitudes about relationships and progress. Sure, I am way too old for this and, I am sure, looked pretty nuts, but it was worth it.

There is no liberation. Pain and suffering are part of being human. As is harming other living beings. Dying is going to suck. Love and kindness are not superior to anger and malice and vice versa. There is no good and evil. Everything has a cost. Power is the defining attribute of social interactions. We are motivated by pleasure and pain and everything else is rationalization. But we also have a instinctive drive toward connection and fairness. We can understand the universe. We can communicate our thoughts. In the colorless and meaningless flux of matter and energy, we have the capacity to see beauty. How amazing is that!

Well, I am still messed up, and maybe I will get my shit together and maybe I won't, but at least all my dilemmas are resolved and know where I stand.