Fake it then you make it

Fake it then you make it

24/05/12

Lately I've been thinking why we are on earth. What's the purpose? Nothing new, it’s been thought by many, including me, before. But this time my answer is different. And it scares me.

5 months ago, I had my very first general anaesthetics at the age of 25. The experience was so much more different than what I expected it would be. It is all so vague to me but as far as I remember, I, or my soul, went to a different space. It wasn't earth. Or it wasn't a universe for that matter. It wasn't a place. I'm calling it a space because my mind -and possibly yours too- cannot go beyond the boundaries of logic. If you are there it has to be somewhere right? Our mind could possibly not deal with the idea of nowhere, now that would be nonsense, wouldn't it? So, I call it space.

In this space, I believe I felt bliss. I felt like everything made sense and I knew what and why and how. I belonged to the space. And I wasn't alone. There were others. I want to call them angels. I know you now have a picture of an angel in your mind and think I'm crazy. Remember, this is all in my mind so anything is possible (including me being crazy) but these people were angels not because how they looked but because how they made me feel when I was with them. They were the bliss themselves.

Then, suddenly, I heard the anaesthetist’s voice: "Beril, Beril, wake up, the surgery is over." And just like that I was torn away from that space, was forced to land back on earth. Before even opening my eyes, the first words that I uttered were: "how come?" At the time I thought this meant that I couldn't believe it all went so quick and that the surgery was over. A logical explanation. But when I look back at the whole experience and how I feel now, I feel as though it meant more. How come I was sent back to earth? What had gone wrong? Why couldn't I stay there?

When I opened my eyes, I was on a table moving towards my room. My mom was walking beside me. I burst into tears. "Mommy, I don't want to wake up!" My mom started crying too. "Sweetheart, why are you crying?" "Mommy, I don't want to wake up."

As a scientist, I  always thought babies cried because the first air they inhaled was opening up their lung tissue for the first time and it was painful. When I woke up, yes I had a sore throat because of the irritaion/pain caused by the endotracheal tube, but I realized pain wasn't the only reason why we cried. Babies - and I- cried because they knew it meant a life on earth. They knew they weren't in their comfort zone, the space, anymore and it meant a lifelong suffering. And don't get me wrong, I only call it suffering because compared to what they/we feel in the space, this is suffering.

This got me into thinking. Why do we leave the space and come on to earth? Was the story of Adam and Eve right all along? Was this a punishment? Or was this something even more? More like having to learn and to earn to be happy in a world where we are supposed to suffer or where we actually ARE suffering? Could this learning process be a step in getting closer to be divine? What does divine mean anyway? Filling that -all so experienced by many- void? The feeling of completeness? The understanding of existence?

Whatever the answer is, I am convinced that we are on earth to suffer, besides many things. It is up to us to minimize that suffering but happiness is overrated. There is no happiness. There is less suffering which we call it happiness. Happiness doesn't exist on earth, at least not to the level that it exists in space. Happiness on earth is less suffering: something that we need to learn and create. It comes more natural to us as babies or children to be happy because we just landed on earth and we are connected to the space. With time and experience we forget it. We lose happiness that we brought with us. It is our duty to learn and to create it again; to be happy; to force ourselves to be happy; to suffer less.

It feels spurious to force oneself to be happy. But I once was told: "Fake it then you make it". I can say I am not happy but I try to minimize the suffering of myself and of others every day. I fake my happiness and I don't think I lose anything by doing so. You wouldn't either, so just fake it. Maybe one day we'll make it, huh?

Human mind is complicated.

17/09/13

Or all that I have said is nonsense. It was the side effect of the drugs I was given and purely my vivid imagination. I don’t even know what kind of sedatives or anaesthetics I had but I am familiar with hallucinogenic effects of some. It is quite possible they allowed me to dive deep into my subconscious and to combine my beliefs and dreams with my imagination to craft “the space”.

And maybe not everyone has to suffer. True happiness exists but is hidden in moments. Catching the moments is the goal of our lives. Happiness comes hand in hand with suffering just because we need a reminder to understand its true meaning and appreciate its worth. Suffering only exists for the gist of happiness and not the other way around. And “the space” is only a place of our imagination; it is a merely a creation of our desire for the everlasting, the ultimate happy ending.

There is no right or wrong; it is only our perception of what is right or wrong. And that can change day to day. What we believed in one day might not even make any sense another day. We change our minds constantly and quite frequently.

Humankind is surprising.  

Beril