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What Piece Of This Fecking Puzzle Am I....
ThailandTom
Veteran
A lot of you know me via the internet, some of you vaguely and some more so.
I have been through college and university, in fact I left university 5 months before my course finished due to social anxiety and displeasure with the culture and country I lived in.
Since the age of 14 I have dabbled with many substances including weed, LSD, ecstasy, ketamine, valium to name a few, and the more prominent. I am now 22 and have been interested in and TRIED to follow the dharma for over 2 years, yet I am unfulfilled. I spoke to my mother who is a teacher in England, she said everyone she knows is unfulfilled. I have great talents in graphic design and music production but seem to push myself nowhere. I moved to Thailand 13 months ago and yet I am happier, I am still unfulfilled. I am warming more towards becoming a monk as it makes so much sense to me from the teachings and insights I have gained, but I cannot yet make this giant leap. I am 22 years old.
I feel as if I fit in nowhere, as if my talents are all to waste, that I am worthless and cast aside from all societies.
Can anybody confined in what I speak of, or provide advise... I fell I fit in nowhere as a human being, yet I am aware of the notion of 'non self' ...
I have been through college and university, in fact I left university 5 months before my course finished due to social anxiety and displeasure with the culture and country I lived in.
Since the age of 14 I have dabbled with many substances including weed, LSD, ecstasy, ketamine, valium to name a few, and the more prominent. I am now 22 and have been interested in and TRIED to follow the dharma for over 2 years, yet I am unfulfilled. I spoke to my mother who is a teacher in England, she said everyone she knows is unfulfilled. I have great talents in graphic design and music production but seem to push myself nowhere. I moved to Thailand 13 months ago and yet I am happier, I am still unfulfilled. I am warming more towards becoming a monk as it makes so much sense to me from the teachings and insights I have gained, but I cannot yet make this giant leap. I am 22 years old.
I feel as if I fit in nowhere, as if my talents are all to waste, that I am worthless and cast aside from all societies.
Can anybody confined in what I speak of, or provide advise... I fell I fit in nowhere as a human being, yet I am aware of the notion of 'non self' ...
0
Comments
i am 22 and i am just about to graduate college. i also have an interest in graphic design. keep meditating brother and people can wake up to their true nature. don't listen to anyone else. it's possible. it's not unachievable like we think.
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB
Yet, I still find myself sitting in nowhere, I want to use my talents, but I do not have the resources
It's awesome you know what your talents are. I'm 24 and have no clue (you could say I'm good at nothing since I have no skills). Don't EVER stress about "wasting" yourself, because in the end, you know it's just a reaction to how our society interprets success in life. Do you really think you are worthless, or is simply you comparing your mundane "achievements" to those of other people. You're probably better off that I am in that department, for sure
As far as fulfillment is concerned, it's all pretty simple in my book. Friends are the most important thing in life. It doesn't mean you hang out with them all the time, it doesn't mean you go in great adventures with them...it just means they exist, they love you and you feel loved and appreciated as a person.
Freedom (personal, financial, social etc) is also very important. And examining your life. I just shared Epicurus' (the greek philosopher's) 3-part recipe for happiness with you
Seriously, the rest is merely following your interests. Where buddhism can help you is with mindfulness. It sure makes the boring become more interesting, and just makes you slow down and enjoy more peace, without the constant need for EXCITEMENT (that's why drugs get old after a while).
Suffered massive social anxiety most of my life.
I've experimented with DMT, LSD, pot, shrooms, pretty much anything that helped me explore consciousness.
I'm just starting to wake up... but perhaps that puts me in a really unique position to help.
Everything in this iteration of reality is one thing. It doesn't matter what you call that one thing, but I'm going to call it energy. Your body is energy, your thoughts are energy, trees, rocks, animals, air, chemicals, etc. etc.
On this plane of existence you are nothing and you are everything, all energy is one.
Trace the stream back to the source, going through different realities, dreamless sleep, dream world, etc. Go all the way back to the very top, the very beginning and there is pure emptiness, pure power of creation, undisturbed being. There are no words to describe it. I don't like using the word god, but it is fairly accurate.... think of combining the words "god" and "self" into one and that is even more accurate.
I'm in an extremely vulnerable place right now because of this knowledge, but at least I finally have the truth. No more illusions.
It is no wonder you are so dissatisfied looking for something like that! When we focus our energies on trying to "find our place" or "deal with the world" then we are looking for an object where there is none, a self where there is none, and the resultant is suffering.
Consider instead to get back into your meditation practice, and look for ways to use your time for the benefit of others. Find a charitable organization, a place to volunteer your time, a cause that makes sense to you. You'll be so busy that this "who am I" dilemma will naturally resolve. You'll just not think about it, and naturally regain your sense of buoyancy.
Get up! Get out! Help others!
With warmth,
Matt
@ Mintyfresh0, that is quite the coincidence of what transpired in our lives. Anyway, you appear to have had some major realisations or insights, did this come directly from a trip or was this during a sober period? I have not been around hallucinogens for nearly 3 years now, and I don't intend on taking them again really. Not because I had a bad trip or anything, firstly because it violates one of the precepts, and secondly I am aware that when consuming something like LSD, your need to be mentally stable and I have not been for a while. I would like to take Ayahuasca with a shaman if the opportunity ever arouse.
Everything is one, yes this is something I have come to realise. Everything is also energy, vibrating matter all interconnected, from your finger nail to a star that is 200 million light years away. However, I fail to see how this affects my life or how to use it in a buddhist manner.
@Mountains. At the start I did not expect to be fulfilled, I was merely a curious atheist. Maybe after I delved into the bigger picture a little, then I wanted to become fulfilled, free from suffering and attachment. I understand now that to strive at something will ultimately just induce suffering.
@Epicurus, The 3 notions to becoming happy are plausible, but the one concerning friends is a slight problem for me as I live in a foreign country as the only foreigner I know. I have a gf, I speak to some people now again in thai and in english, but as far as friends go, they are left behind back in the UK. Is it essential to have friends in life?? Can one not be alone and become enlightened...
@aMatt, I would love to go out and be in a charity or an organization, but my hindrance is still having a case of social anxiety. I do not know how to battle this demon that has been with or so long. Before it was a form of anxiety that plagued me from the age of 12-19 known as hypochondria, then it changed and manifested itself into social anxiety. It is not as bad today but it still remains. I daily consume valium and drink most days, it is an endless cycle.
To add a few things on the tail of this long winded reply, as I have mentioned before on this board I am aware of the dharma at more of a basic level, yet I act against my knowledge of it in some departments. I am a non violent person and try to help others when I can, I understand that there are many things in life we cannot control and that everything is transient, this has helped actually. But most of the other concepts and teachings I am mindful of, I choose to ignore and go about my life as an ignorant being constantly suffering, why I do not know. The notion of non self and emptiness is something I would like to have a firm understanding of, and I would LOVE to be able to go outside and not be anxious, not care of what opinions people may have upon me, to help others and be the most compassionate person, I truly do.
I understand that the western world builds us up from a very early age to think we must 'fit in' and conform to a role, I have tried to explain to my own mother that this is just the modern society and it is not essentially the correct way to life ones life.
I guess I shall get back to meditating, I am getting closer and closer to actually walking over to the monastery in the hills and being ordained.
Thank you again for all of your words, they have helped a lot and it has helped a little to merely express somethings here in fact. A good day to you all..
Find a place with western monks.
You wont regret it.
You will get to know yourself much better.
You will understand why you feel unfulfilled.
I understand that the western world builds us up from a very early age to think we must 'fit in' and conform to a role, I have tried to explain to my own mother that this is just the modern society and it is not essentially the correct way to life ones life."
Tom I think writing something about your anxiety will get you thinking about your understanding of your place. When people say you have a place that includes a lot of emotions and mental hindrances. It doesn't mean you literaly have a forced place I don't think. But its like a stance. You have some substance to your life and that includes all the substances and beliefs. When you think you need one or many of these thiungs sit with that and wonder what it would be like. Is there some underlying need. Meditation is definitely a good practice and I would recommend noticing what the stinky things that come up. Not really analyzing but just noting and moving on. And then in post meditation with the 'something' that happens in meditation perhaps some answers? Or hunches.
I wish you well Tom. Remember taht most people have compassion and own issues.
Around your age it is very common for people to go through such experiences. When one has recently left -or is about to leave- education one starts thinking: What the hell do I want with my life? What's my aim, my goal? To answer this question is not easy. In fact, it is the hardest thing to do. It may be a quarter-life crisis
If you haven't meditated for a long time I personally would not advice becoming a monk straight away, because it will probably be hard meditating a lot (they do it all day long
You can be happy everywhere. Being a monk or a graphics designer or whatever.. you will be able to be happy. Don't forget to meditate, though
I wish you well,
Sabre
The monastery I went to said I could stay there for a week or so and told me their daily routine. At this specific place they wake up at 5am and eat at 7am and then again at 11am. They meditate at 5pm for one hour and I do not know what they do for the rest of the time. They were very accepting but I never took up the offer for some reason. But yea, they don't meditate a whole lot, I spoke to one monk who had been there for 2 years, he was about 23 years old and said he didn't like meditation so much as he normally falls asleep. They are all thai by the way.
Thanks for the input though you guys, maybe I am having a quarter life crisis, or the way I am living at the moment a midlife crisis.
I shall get down to some meditation I think, it has been long over due, but it is fairly difficult whilst under the influence of valium
lol, im 21. feeling like that right now. constantly questioning life, why people do certain things etc.
You will get it right eventually.
Same with life. If you don't like life, you get depressed. If you get depressed, you don't like life.. Remember how much fun it can be!