r/DeepThoughts

~ The Dream ~

After we are born, our beliefs, prejudices, and ideas are formed, as we learn about the self-centered world we are living in. We are taught success is making money, allowing us to buy material possessions, have a family, and enjoy the best things life offers. When we accept and believe all we are taught we remain asleep, dreaming our life is successful and worthwhile. Often, we never wake from our slumber, approaching death not even realizing we were ever asleep. Though we may have led a successful life, had wealth, fame, prestige, it was all an illusion, a dream, fabricated by the ego, our learned beliefs, to have us believe it was real; it never was.

Some may begin to awaken from their sleep, sensing the first messages from within. They start to wonder if there may be more to life than just what they learned. As they further awaken from their dream, they begin to realize their life will never be truly successful if they focus only on themselves.

The purpose of life is to completely wake from our slumber, end our illusionary dream, realizing the genuine reason we are alive is to help everyone, regardless of our differences, find success, purpose, and meaning in their life as well.

For a long time I thought growing up simply meant getting older, getting a degree, finding a job, getting married someday and following the same script everyone around me followed.

Now I see something different.

The biggest change in my life wasn't external. It was beginning to question.

Not questioning to argue. Questioning because I genuinely didn't know.

Why do we want status? Why do we chase identity? Why do we need constant validation? Why do we fear being alone with ourselves? Why do we need someone else's approval just to feel that we exist?

These questions slowly changed the direction of my life.

I also noticed something uncomfortable.

Many of the friendships I had in college weren't really based on love or understanding. They were based on similarity.

We liked the same movies. We complained about the same teachers. We gossiped about the same people. We wanted the same approval. We escaped ourselves together.

It felt like friendship.

Looking back honestly, it was mostly mutual psychological comfort.

As my questions changed, those friendships naturally became distant.

Not because anyone became bad.

Not because I became spiritually superior.

Simply because our conversations no longer moved in the same direction.

Today, if I genuinely wish to spend hours talking with someone, I don't want to discuss celebrities, careers, relationships, weddings, gossip or who bought what.

I want to discuss consciousness.

Why human beings suffer.

Why educated people can still be deeply superstitious.

Why women across cultures are trained to become "acceptable."

Why poverty survives despite technological progress.

Why domestic violence, child abuse and rape continue generation after generation.

Why animals are treated like products.

Why our identities feel so fragile.

Why we keep escaping silence.

Why intelligence without self-understanding becomes dangerous.

These are the conversations that make me feel alive.

There is another experience that I have never spoken about publicly.

Like many middle-class Indian children, I grew up sleeping in the same room, sometimes even the same bed, as my parents because there simply wasn't enough space.

Nobody considered it unusual.

Nobody thought about privacy.

Nobody thought about psychological boundaries.

One night I woke up because the bed was moving.

I heard whispers.

Kissing.

The sounds adults make during intimacy.

I pretended to be asleep.

I remember holding my urine because I didn't know what to do.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't speak.

I simply waited.

This happened more than once.

I don't hate my parents for it.

They weren't trying to traumatize me.

They were human beings.

Sex is biological.

Every one of us exists because two people had sex.

That isn't the issue.

The issue is that children have developing minds.

They may not understand what they witness, but their nervous system records it.

The body remembers what the child cannot explain.

In India we rarely discuss this because sex itself is treated like a forbidden subject.

There is almost no healthy sex education.

Silence replaces understanding.

Curiosity then finds pornography, movies and the internet instead of honest conversations.

I still haven't spoken to my parents about those memories.

Not because I blame them.

Because I honestly don't know whether such a conversation would heal anything.

The more I observe myself, the less interested I become in blaming society.

Society is made of people exactly like me.

Confused.

Conditioned.

Afraid.

Trying to protect an image.

Trying to appear happy while carrying silent suffering.

That includes me too.

I still catch myself wanting validation.

Still wanting certainty.

Still wanting to belong.

The difference now is that I notice it sooner.

Maybe real growth isn't becoming someone extraordinary.

Maybe it is becoming a little less dishonest every day.

Not with the world.

With yourself first.

The most uncomfortable mirror is not the one that shows my face.

It is the one that shows my motives.

And once you begin seeing your motives clearly, life quietly starts changing on its own.

Not because someone gave you a new identity.

But because the borrowed one slowly begins to fall apart.

Lately, I've been wondering if our expectations about life are the problem.

Everyone wants life to be like a garden full of beautiful flowers. But no real garden has only flowers. It also has weeds, insects, diseases, storms, and changing seasons.

We spend so much time looking for pesticides, money, status, comfort, and distractions to protect what we have. But how long can we keep spraying? Eventually, the bottle runs out, flowers wilt, and seasons change anyway.

Maybe the goal isn't to create a perfect garden.

Maybe it's to learn how to grow one that survives every season.

The interesting part is that even when a flower dies, it leaves behind seeds. Those seeds are what allow the garden to bloom again.

Sometimes our biggest failures become the seeds for our next beginning.

What do you think? Is life about protecting the flowers, or learning how to keep growing them?

“You have to do more. You are not there yet. There’s something you haven’t fully understood yet. This will never end.”

If someone said this to you face-to-face ...

Would you feel safe?

Probably not.

Yet, there’s a constant neurological cycle running within everyone …

Draining up to 60% of your brain's available energy daily.

The cycle is between the limbic system …

And the brainstem.

The limbic system is sending those statements above.

They seem harmless …

But are actually a protection …

That was once desperately needed.

Nobody fired that doorkeeper though.

As your limbic system …

Is firing those warnings …

That are implicitly saying “we are not safe yet” …

It releases adrenaline into your bloodstream …

To prepare you for the perceived danger.

There is no danger …

But it’s operating under “better safe than dead”.

It increases your heart rate …

lowers your gut activity …

And puts you in a “ready for fight or flight” position.

You are ready now.

Let the danger come.

The problem?

No danger is coming.

Your brainstem though …

Located below the limbic system …

Is scanning your body and your environment …

Every single split second.

The information?

“Danger! All machines are running! Threat imminent!”

It braces your muscles …

To support the limbic system.

Suddenly simple and harmless statements …

Like the once in the opening …

Turned into absolute truths …

With your body reacting with panic and shame and urgency …

Making the thoughts look even more real …

Believing you are facing a literal deadline for your survival …

Locking you into a fight-or-flight feedback loop.

You might rightfully think now:

“No problem! I can interrupt the cycle. I'll simply meditate and learn more about mindfulness.”

Well … no.

Your limbic system has no interest in those games.

Your brainstem neither.

Your limbic system protects your life against real and imagined threats.

Your brainstem checks for safety and danger signals.

Now what happens …

When you start using your prefrontal cortex …

to collect information?

You will get some dopamine from new information …

And the feel of “doing something” …

Which DECREASES emotional processing and somatic experiencing …

PRECISELY what would create the safety signals your brainstem is waiting for.

So the next time your limbic system tells you …

That you have to do more …

Or understand more …

Or get more information …

To solve a problem …

You simply see limbic thoughts as what they are:

An echo you don’t need anymore.

This will give your brainstem an entirely different feedback:

“There is no danger. All good. Lower the armor.”

Your limbic system doesn’t drain up to 60% of your daily available energy …

Because it is waiting for you to do something.

It drains your energy …

Because you treat your limbic thoughts …

As an active and dangerous command …

Rather than a biological echo.

I’m in my mid 30ies and I’m realizing that the few persons I have loved in romantic contexts so far, are people that never had my esteem as human beings. It’s particularly sad to accept also because I loved so few, thus I have to realize that my radar for finding untrustworthy individuals is great and that I‘m really flawed.
Rationally, I would never say that love without respect for someone could be possible. In reality, instead, it happened to me. And it happened all the time.
People who have intentionally harmed me in various ways, who have stolen a lot of money from me, and I could go on but it’s already clear I think…

I would never have esteem for someone who intentionally hurts someone else and Never gives a thought to his deed ever again, if we’re talking about not minor matters but significative ones. How could I have respect for these persons? I don’t. But I loved them. Eventually I stopped loving them, but it remained a sense of sad compassion, as if it was such a big pity and they could have been much more.

I don’t find superior or better, I feel alone. Alone and doomed to not understand when someone is so committed to behave badly and has no conscience.

Friendship is humanity's most comforting illusion. People believe that calling someone a "friend" creates loyalty, obligation, or permanence. It does not. Nature recognizes no friendships only interests. People meet because their paths align, help each other because circumstances demand it, and stay together only while there is value in the relationship. Remove the need, and most connections quietly disappear. Betrayal is not the failure of friendship; it is the failure of expectation. You imagined a moral contract where none existed, then blamed reality for refusing to honor it. The wise do not chase friendship. They offer respect without attachment, trust actions over titles, and understand that most people remain only while your existence serves a purpose. In the end, the world is not governed by friendship it is governed by necessity.

The Burden of Being the Cosmos' Eyes

If we are alone, or even just the first to make it this far, it means the universe itself is mostly a vast, dark, unconscious machine. It is full of burning stars, colliding galaxies, and beautiful nebulae, but without intelligent life, none of it actually matters. A sunset on an empty planet isn't beautiful, it’s just physics

We aren't just random bystanders living on a rock in space; we are a part of the universe that has developed the ability to think, feel, and look back at itself. We are the universe achieving consciousness.

If the Great Filter is ahead of us, our petty wars, greed, and divisions aren't just human tragedies, they are a cosmic crime. We aren't just risking our own survival; we are risking the extinction of the universe's only chance to know that it exists.

If we wipe ourselves out, the cosmos goes blind again.

Does looking at it that way make our existence feel more like a precious responsibility, or just an even heavier weight to carry?

I've been reflecting on what it means to like someone more specifically, on the feeling itself. As a man who has gone through some difficult experiences, feelings like this have always been complicated for me, especially now that I tend to analyze my emotions rather than simply experience them.

Over the years, I've known women who have dated all kinds of men. I'm not talking about one or two relationships, but many. I constantly heard people say that a man has to be a certain way, possess certain traits, or behave in specific ways to be attractive. But in reality, those rules never seemed as decisive as they were made out to be. What truly mattered was how they felt. Even when the men they fell for had obvious flaws, they still loved them. They simply did.

Because I naturally analyze emotions, I spent a long time trying to understand why this happens. I looked into Freud, Behavior Analysis, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, concepts like the Oedipus complex, reinforcement theory, childhood development, environmental influences, and many other psychological perspectives. They all have value. They explain how our experiences, personality, upbringing, and environment shape the way we relate to others and even influence the kinds of people we're likely to be attracted to.

The more I learned, however, the more I realized that these theories seem to explain the conditions that make love possible far better than they explain love itself. They help us understand the influences, patterns, and processes surrounding a feeling, but they don't fully explain why, among countless possibilities, one person simply comes to love another.

That realization also changed the way I think about human connection. I've come to believe that many things can encourage a bond to develop: shared experiences, compatibility, chemistry, timing, kindness, mutual understanding, and the way two people naturally interact. All of these can create the conditions in which love might grow. But none of them seem capable of creating the feeling itself.

You can have chemistry without romance. You can care deeply about someone without being in love. Two people can be highly compatible without feeling romantic attraction. And at the same time, people who seem completely incompatible sometimes fall in love anyway. The more I observe these situations, the more it seems that all these factors explain the possibilities surrounding love, but never love itself.

That's when I began to see love differently. The feeling itself seems incredibly simple. When it's there, it's simply there. It doesn't feel like the result of a conscious decision, the perfect gesture, or a carefully executed strategy. Yet everything that contributes to its existence is extraordinarily complex. Personality, childhood, upbringing, life experiences, behavioral conditioning, culture, environment, values, perception, and even the unique way two lives happen to intersect all become intertwined in ways that are impossible to separate completely.

Maybe that's why love is so difficult to explain. The feeling itself may be simple, but everything surrounding it is not. Every factor influences the others, forming a network so intricate that no single theory can fully account for it. Not because those theories are wrong, but because each one illuminates only a different part of a much larger phenomenon.

Today, I've come to believe that love may be one of the few human experiences that is both profoundly simple and extraordinarily complex at the same time. It's simple in what we feel, yet incredibly complex in everything that makes that feeling possible. Perhaps that's why there's no formula for making someone love you. We can create opportunities, build meaningful connections, spend time together, show kindness, and nurture relationships but we can't manufacture love itself. We can only create the conditions in which it may emerge.

And perhaps that's the true nature of love: not that it is mysterious because it cannot be explained, but that it emerges from such an extraordinarily complex reality while revealing itself in the simplest way imaginable.

I have reached a point where I’ve completely forgotten what it’s like to approach a stranger and feel fear. About six months ago, I started meeting new people online quite often. Around that same time, I kept coming across YouTube videos of pranksters approaching strangers on the street. I started thinking about how many failed takes they must have to go through to capture that one perfect moment, since people don't always react the way you want them to. That’s when it hit me: strangers are a bit like Tinder in real life — it’s just a simple 'yes' or 'no.'
I decided to test this theory. I started approaching people, making small talk or giving compliments, viewing every interaction as a real life Tinder swipe. Eventually, something changed: I stopped feeling any emotional weight in these moments. Whether I was paying a compliment to a stranger, chatting with a cashier, or being yelled at by a random grandmother because I didn't let her cut in line I felt nothing. In that moment with the grandmother, I actually stopped for five seconds, struck by a strange realization: 'Wait, am I really not feeling anything at all?'
I also noticed that I stopped feeling any difference in status based on age. Whether someone is 20 or 40, I treat them as equals. In short, I only invest my emotions in someone after we’ve actually formed a connection, not before.
I am an emotional person by nature, but I’ve learned to stop spending that energy on strangers. I’ve started viewing everyone as equals, simply as fellow human beings. I don’t treat new people as tools I see them as individuals whose lives run parallel to mine, but who likely won't impact my own journey. I’m not being immoral or cold; I’m just practicing a form of emotional conservation.

This is an idea I think is worth sharing. And it’s an idea that once it’s understood, will be accepted as true. It’s something that is so simple that it can actually be difficult to understand. The simplicity of it is what makes it easy to miss.

The idea comes from early Buddhist texts, and it speaks about suffering. Suffering specifically in the sense of dissatisfaction.

The thought goes like this.

If you want something that you will NEVER obtain, then you are suffering. And when I say never, I truly mean never. If you want something that you will never get, you’re suffering. That’s the suffering I’m talking about.

What it is you want that you will never get can vary tremendously. But let’s not overcomplicate things. If you want something that you will never get (apply your own want), then you are suffering.

Now, if you want to eliminate your suffering, then it’s simple. Don’t want the things you will never obtain.

But it’s natural for people to want more. At least a little more than what they currently have. Wanting more for ourselves is often the very thing that pushes us forward into obtaining things we never thought were possible.

But the principle I mentioned earlier still holds true.

If we obtain something, then it wasn’t something that was NEVER obtainable.

So the problem is that our wants and desires do not come with perfect “gauges” of what we will obtain. We don’t always know where that line is. And that’s where suffering arises.

When the gauge of our wants overshoots into what will NEVER be obtained, that overshoot is the precise amount of suffering we experience.

Again, the principle still holds.

If you want more than what you will EVER obtain, then you’ll suffer that overshoot.

If you’re still following the logic, stay with me, because this is where it gets very interesting. This is where Buddha had an enlightening experience surrounding suffering. He set out to solve suffering, if it was even possible to.

And I think we can all benefit from the fruit of that labor.

Whether you know it or not, it will not save you from death. It will not end your grief. But something important does change.

So when we want to end our suffering, when we want to be enlightened, when we want to be at peace, we must pay close attention to that “gauge” and how much we are overshooting what will never be obtained.

Because when you set out to end your suffering, that too is a gauge.

There is a certain part of your suffering that you will NEVER be able to end. And so long as you constantly overshoot, you will remain in suffering.

So this forces you to stop overshooting.

Meaning, to accept what suffering is actually present. To accept the suffering that you cannot resolve and will not EVER be able to.

And it’s precisely at that point that suffering ends.

That’s it.

That’s the entirety of the thought process. It runs deep, and there may be better ways to explain it, but that’s the concept.

And if you apply it to your particular suffering, no matter who you are or what it is, the principle applies.

Which is what made Buddha who he was and Buddhism what it is today.

Overarching principles of suffering. Not God, not the afterlife, not religious doctrine. Just a discussion on the truths of suffering, how we can understand it, and ways that we might be able to end it.

If these thoughts or ideas were new to you and helped at all, or even just gave you something to think about, please share your initial thoughts. I’d like to hear them.

Have a good one.

There is a lot of talk about how we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives. And if anything bad happens in our life, it's our responsibility and we shouldn't blame others.

To a certain extent, that is correct. A lot of things that happen in our lives are the consequences of choices we make. The thing is that in today's individualistic society, many humans are made to bear the entire weight of their failures. Whereas in the past where communities were more closely knit, collectivistic cohesion worked as sort of a cushion to help you land softly.

Did you get bullied in school? You had family and community behind you. Are you depressed? The people in some form of community gathering would lift you up. And you yourself would also get to experience the fulfillment of helping someone in need or dire straits.

If you're someone like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, then yeah, you have the ability to control not just your destiny, but profoundly affect the entire world as well. But the thing is, the vast majority of people on earth are not Steve Jobs or any other successful entrepreneur.

So when an individual has repeated setbacks in life, it takes a mental toll, and not all people are strong enough to grab themselves by the bootstraps and be a badass like John Wayne or Eastwood.

People in modern societies are isolated islands, we have to bear the entire weight of our choices by ourselves. It's incredibly difficult to find a friend to bond with in adulthood, and family cohesion is not as strong as it was in the past. I just feel that it's difficult to keep yourself motivated when you lack a strong support system.

This is why humans are social beings. For us to cooperate, and share burdens. To pick one other up when they fall. But we don't have that anymore, especially in highly developed societies like Scandinavia or Japan. This is why there is so much depression and mental health problems.

~ The End of Life ~

After we have lived our lives, as we approach death, it is common to reexamine how our life went. Did we live a successful life? The end of life offers a unique opportunity to do this, because at this time, the ego, our learned self-centered beliefs, loosens its influence on us, and the spirit becomes our predominant reviewer.

At this point in the cycle of life, it no longer matters how much money we made, the size of the house we lived in, the job we had, or anything else associated with success, as dictated in the world by the ego. We are all finally equal now and we judge our success through a different prism: that of the spirit. When we review our lives, what we had thought was success often holds a different meaning now.

It is at this time, especially during the last few days of our life, we come to the realization what we thought was important, really was not. All the material things we accumulated, friends we had, places we visited, jobs we worked, amount of money we made, or any other comparison you can think of, which belongs in the world in which we had lived, becomes meaningless.

It is at that moment, the moment where the ego has minimal control over our actions and decisions, the true meaning of life finally becomes evident. It is then, despite how strongly the ego may have influenced our life before, the opportunity to view our life in a different way presents itself. At this time in our life, primarily viewing our lives through the eyes of our spirit, we may find we have many regrets.

We begin to understand the selfish pleasures in the world we had sought were not very important. As death becomes evident, we finally realize none of that matters. When we die, unless our culture is like that of the ancient Egyptians, our body will be buried or cremated, and nothing we accumulated during our lifetime will accompany us. Our body will then be placed in a coffin or urn, just like every other person who dies, regardless of their stature or their lifetime accomplishments.

At that moment, just before we die, we finally understand we truly are all equal. No one was ever better than another. Race, money, prestige, no longer matter. As we get closer to our death, it becomes evident the self- centered path the ego had us follow to find success and happiness may have not been the right path after all. The fear, hatred, and prejudice we once felt are no longer important to us, not because we are going to die, but because it never did matter.

If I leave things exactly as they are, it bothers me, so I live today aiming for just a tiny bit "better than nothing."

​A small drop of "less worse" is far better than one giant leap. If you greedily ask for too much, you won't last.

​"Hey, things are a little bit more bearable now." If I can honestly feel that way, today was a massive success.

I Wana be straight up. i don’t look good. I look weird according to people and everyone makes fun of me for that. But why do people do that? Well the real answer is mainly social media and all of these products just to make a mask of yourself in public. Social media is showing how everyone should be perfect. People post on how they made millions because of investing at 18, people flexing their body and wealth, and even more. This makes people insecure about themselves. You don’t have to be perfect. Be your true self no matter your looks. I wanted to make this post because my friend always got bullied for his looks, then took his life a few weeks ago just for his natural self. If anyone has any disagreements with me please tell me :)

The universe is a strict, uncompromising system governed by fundamental physical laws and absolute cause-and-effect, completely ruling out the existence of randomness or so-called absolute free will. Every human action, every decision made, every flash of emotion, or train of thought is not a manifestation of chaotic choice, but the inevitable and only possible outcome shaped by the intersection of biological factors, genetic code, accumulated life experience, and external circumstances. Attempts to explain human behavior through something irrational or spontaneous are merely the result of ignorance regarding all the variables in this complex equation, for if any action is broken down into its elements, it will always prove to be the logical consequence of prior events. Such hard determinism strips thinking of illusions and subjective fog, forcing one to view the world through the prism of pure rationalism. When you realize that reality functions as a gigantic, cast-iron mechanism where the past unequivocally determines the present and the future, the need for empty emotional assessments vanishes. Social interactions, human motives, and intellectual competitions become transparent, predictable objects for analysis, transforming life's chaos into a clear mathematical structure that can be calculated, understood, and mastered by a sharp analytical mind.

Yesterday I had a bad day! Let’s not get into that day just to say…
Having that day made me realise "Anyone having the same day as me cannot have the same day as me"

And this is not likely to be same for anyone! If two persons are having the exact same day, same struggle, same rush, same pressure and same judgement still cannot have the same day! Cause nobody is feeling the situation like I am, nobody has the perception of the experience like I have, nobody has the expectation of the situation like I have, nobody has the thought process like I have, nobody has the same trauma like I do so they would not grasp the same situation/ same sentence like I do.

Do not get me wrong, I am not saying I am superior cause I feel more, I am saying that nobody can have the same day even if they have the same day like you. It can be lighter for them or worse for them, can be many more different versions but cannot be the SAME as you!

I just had déjà vu, and it made me think about something.

Whenever people describe déjà vu, they usually say it feels like they've experienced the exact moment before. But when I have it, I can't remember where I experienced it. If it was a normal memory, I'd be able to place it somewhere in my life. Instead, it feels familiar without having a real-life source.

That got me thinking... what if the source isn't real life at all?

My theory is that we sometimes dream small, random segments of our future. We forget almost all of our dreams when we wake up, so the memory disappears. Then, when that exact moment eventually happens in real life, it acts as a cue that partially reactivates the forgotten dream. That reactivation is what we experience as déjà vu.

For example, imagine you dream about seeing a red balloon floating across the sky. You wake up and completely forget the dream. A few days later, you actually see a red balloon floating across the sky. Suddenly you get that weird feeling of, "I've seen this before," but you can't remember where.

The idea in one line is:

Dream → forgotten → real-life event acts as a cue → forgotten dream is reactivated → déjà vu.

I know there's no scientific proof that dreams predict the future, so I'm not claiming this is a fact. I just think it explains why déjà vu feels more like remembering something hidden than remembering an actual event from real life.

Has anyone else had this same thought, or experienced déjà vu that genuinely felt like you were remembering a forgotten dream rather than a normal memory?

Humans aren't civilized. We're just well fed animals pretending to be.

Take away food for three days and watch civilization dissolve. Take away law for three hours and watch neighbors become enemies. Human nature isn't cooperative. It's competitive, violent, and selfish.

Society is little more than a collective agreement to suppress those instincts. That agreement is fragile, held together not by goodwill but by consequences. Without government, police, courts, and prisons, we'd quickly see what people are capable of when there is nothing stopping them.

The natural state of humanity is conflict. Everyone competing against everyone else. Life becomes nasty, brutish, and short. Civilization isn't the default condition. It's an artificial one, maintained through structure, authority, and enforcement.

Many people believe humans are inherently good and that corrupt systems make them bad. The opposite may be closer to the truth. Humans are inherently dangerous, and systems exist to keep those dangers in check. Remove the restraints and the beast reappears.

Every disaster offers a glimpse of this reality. Looting, violence, tribalism, and opportunism emerge the moment order weakens. These aren't signs that civilization has broken down. They're reminders that civilization is a thin layer covering impulses that never disappeared in the first place.

I think this is not an original thought. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who came up with this, so pardon me if you've already heard it before.

Here's my thought: life needs very specific conditions to keep existing. It's like a huge machine that needs resources to keep moving and if it doesn't get them, it just stops because reality doesn't allow it to move. If the failure is critical enough, it's unable to restart the engines and every single process inside the living being halts forever and then the "living being dies". This is a rule that every single life form on this planet follows: animal, plant, fungi, bacteria, etc.

And the thing is: these resources are being consumed all the time because the machine can't stop so we have to keep refueling and maintaining it. Every time we eat, drink water, sleep, it's like we are buying time. We are delaying our death clocks by a few hours, making the machine work just a little bit more and then a little bit more and then little bit more.

I keep thinking that's both terrifying and amazing. It's terrifying because death feels a lot more close, like this state we are repeatedly falling into and getting away. But it's amazing that sometimes this process goes for a long time. For humans, that could be 80+ years, and in this whole time, the machine never stops, not even when we sleep. That's kind of amazing, you know, that it's possbile for such a process to be "delayed" hours by hours until it reaches so many years.

​

For a long time, I did not even know that suffering was a subject worth inquiring into. I only knew one instruction: Be happy. Stay positive. Be successful. Live comfortably. Nobody ever said, "Understand why you suffer."

Now I notice something strange. The moment someone honestly says, "I am suffering," people become uncomfortable. They immediately want to repair the situation. They suggest entertainment, holidays, shopping, therapy, positive thinking, motivation, or spirituality as an escape. Very few stop and ask, "What exactly is this suffering?"

I also see that earlier I behaved in exactly the same way. Whenever I felt restless, lonely, disappointed or empty, I never stayed with the fact. I escaped. Sometimes through movies, sometimes through songs, sometimes through endless conversations, sometimes through dreams about the future. The suffering was never investigated. It was only postponed.

Now I can see that pain and suffering are not identical. Pain belongs to life. The body can become ill, relationships can end, expectations can collapse. But suffering begins when the mind starts manufacturing psychological stories around the fact. The event finishes, but the story continues.

The ego keeps repeating, "Why did this happen to me? What will others think? My future is ruined. I deserved better." The story becomes heavier than the fact itself.

I also notice another movement within myself. Whenever my mother speaks with relatives on the phone, I sometimes feel an urge to go and listen. It is not because the conversation is meaningful. Most of it is gossip, comparison, complaints or emotional drama. Yet something inside wants to know.

Looking carefully, I see that this urge is not curiosity born out of intelligence. It is conditioning. Since childhood, attention has been trained to move outward. The mind feels uncomfortable with silence, so it looks for stimulation. Gossip simply becomes another form of entertainment. It gives the ego fresh material to think about so that it does not have to look at itself.

The same mechanism operated in my friendships. I used to think I genuinely cared for my friends. Today I see more honestly that most of those relationships were built upon mutual psychological needs. We wanted company because we feared loneliness. We wanted agreement because disagreement threatened our self-image. We wanted belonging because we had never learned to stand alone. What I called friendship was often an exchange of comfort, distraction and validation.

If someone like Buddha, Krishna or any teacher had entered that circle and questioned our way of living, I would probably have resisted them. Not because they were wrong, but because the ego does not want to be exposed. It prefers companions who strengthen its illusions rather than someone who quietly reveals them.

I also understand why society dislikes the admission of suffering. If people honestly acknowledged, "I am not at peace," many of the identities they carry would immediately become questionable.

The image of being successful, happy, positive or spiritually evolved would begin to crack. Therefore, saying "I am fine" often becomes less about truth and more about protecting an image.

I do not want to reject suffering or glorify it. I only want to stop escaping from it. Every moment of suffering is pointing towards something I am still holding as "me" or "mine." Instead of asking how to become happy again, I want to ask, What exactly is being protected? Which image, expectation, desire or identity is producing this suffering?

Perhaps suffering is not the enemy. Unexamined suffering is.

And perhaps peace does not begin when suffering disappears. Peace begins the moment escape stops.