The Opposite of Suicide.

Great depth in simple prose…

...I’ve experienced a weird, innocuous overlap between tech startups, medicine retreats, creating experiences, and client work: I must explain what I do...

Putting ‘what I do’ into words has always been… interesting. Oftentimes aggravating. Like most poetic attempts at capturing reality, I’m left feeling like something is missing.

My work with someone is never laid out from the beginning. It's responsive; it responds to what arises from the depths.

I am excellent at container design; I call it experience architecture. Clinical psychedelic therapy protocols, entheogenic rites-of-passage, multi-month discipline challenges. Fair game.

I create sacred structure for the courageous to step into… and we wait.

We wait for the body-mind to unclench. To be broken open by voluntary surrender or overwhelming force… and we see what happens. We see what the deepest wisdom of their highest self has decided it is time to work on, here and now. When it surfaces, we run with it.

That’s the blessing and the curse of my curiosity and my work: you can’t pigeon-hole it.

We can run bloodwork panels as happily as we can go into people-pleasing Mr. Nice Guy emotional trauma responses, or abstract wrestling with nonduality and the nature of reality. It’s all on the table.

But this… this is good...

The Opposite of Suicide.

Yes… Yes? Yes. Yes! YES! 

That was my reaction reading that—and now that I look at it again—it's also the process someone goes through when doing this return-to-life. From yes…… to YES! Simple as.

A single, profound, total decision to fucking LIVE. To be ALIVE. To choose with every fibre of your being your entire experience and existence. To make the single decision that makes all the difference.

... but it’s an uncomfortable truth for most, isn’t it? 

Most people—I will argue here, the vast majority of everyone you have ever met—have never sat down and explicitly decided to live.

Most people’s lives reflect some version of this story: 

“…well, I didn’t decide to be here, my parents wanted a child for themselves and by some cosmic fluke I'm here. I didn’t ask for this, and honestly, I’m not sure I like it. Let’s try to make it not-so-bad until I die.”

This is the seed of the Cult of Comfort we live in. 'Not-so-bad'.

Very, very few (a % of the population likely close to those who actually ‘complete’ suicide) have made the opposite decision: the great decision to CHECK THE FUCK IN. 

Statistics (okay, AI) seem to say ~0.014% of the US population commits suicide in any given year. Sounds about right. Equally, about 0.014% of people in any given year make the holy embrace of life.

I believe French existentialist Albert Camus’ canonical book ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ opens with this bombshell:

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental questions of philosophy.”

Allow me to speak candidly, this is important:

You (& everyone else) are not a prisoner of life. If you don’t like it, you can leave. But if you’re not going to leave, stop complaining. This is your choice. 

Recognize that you are choosing every moment, every day, all of life. The door to leave is always open. Stay connected to the reason(s) why you stay. Embrace it with the greatest soul force you have in you.

Choose it deliberately, intentionally, always. 

"Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others.” – Miyamoto Musashi, the 'Sword Saint of Japan', Dokkodo

Be here. Do the thing. Play the infinite game. Choose the orientation that says this is all worthwhile. Give the total life-affirming YES. 

What a gift, no? What a gift to give a joyous welcome to any and every possible experience. What is more freeing than that? All of life, equally welcome.

This is what I want to do with people.

We bulldoze every and any obstacle standing in the way of the full lion’s roar. The sacred stance of the dragon riders. The FULL FUCK YES.

Zen is also interesting here... all the obstacles & disagreements to life are mental fabrications. Your body and ancient being have no issue being here. It's all in your head! Zen—and its Taoist roots—bring the mind into harmony and—*poof*—obstacles vanish.

Yes to the pain, the passion, the foolishness, the awkwardness, the suffering, the ecstasy, the mystery, the madness. Yes to the evildoers, the Kings, the mothers, daughters, and wayward fathers. To our animal brethren and the plant kingdom. The mundane and the mystical. From the Orient to the Occident. 

YES.

This is the opposite of suicide. 

This is the Art of LIVING. The sacred spirit of WAKING UP.

No time to waste,
EB.