A Hero's Regression - Visions of Ahriman

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1. [18:03]Maybe I should keep working on the company and get enough money to be free. Then I can focus on my writing. Yet, who is to tell when and if the money comes? And if it comes, would I be proud of how I earned the money? Would I look in the mirror and think: "You're a man now." ?

Two voices are at odds with each other, deflecting arguments, clanging and banging like hammers, sending sparks through the darkness behind my obviously dead eyelids. One of cold reason, the other of burning passion.

Nor in my sleep, nor during my waking days, does the battle cease. Hours long conversations with friends and family continued through even longer journaling sessions. To no avail. No matter how strong their arguments, something within me screams to not listen. Who are you to counsel in the matters of god in a godless world? Who can grasp the meaning of true adventure from the comfort of his duvet? How could a gluttonous man understand the purpose of fasting? Scouring through the thoughts of dead people, I look for advice.

Part 1: Perspective - Passion

Money. Power. Freedom. Status. Comfort. Money ... Money ... Money. How tight a grip can a single word exude? Death anxiety. Defense against death anxiety. Defense against death anxiety anxiety. Am I the crazy one for having fear of obtaining it, or are you crazy for being crazed by it?

Yearning to perceive god's voice, then wishing I hadn't heard it. How much sacrifice is necessary? All of it. A desperate desire of the heart to walk its true path, restrained by the desperate desire of everything else to remain unbound. The freedom of one on the account of the other. Mater saeva cupidinum. Whip's lash. A wisp's sash.

Who is whipping and who is being whipped? A wolf wearing a lambs costume under a wolves costume. How many layers can you peel?

"A sudden horror and mistrust of what it loved, a flash of contempt for its so-called "duty," a rebellious wilful, volcanically impelling desire for travel, strangeness, estrangement, coldness, disillusion, glaciation; a hatred of love, perhaps a sacrilegious grasp and glance backwards to everything it had worshipped and loved till then, perhaps a blush of shame over what it has just done and at the same time an exultation over having done it, an intoxicating inner thrill of joy which signalizes victory– victory over what? over whom? an enigmatic, doubtful, questioning victory, but the first victory nonetheless." - Friedrich Nietzsche

When I read this, I can't help but think of my bachelor's in mycology and the words "If I have to do this my whole life, I'll kill myself." Like Ahriman, I craved the destruction of order and structure, the abdication of responsibility and emancipation from the chains of hardship and duty. My pursuit of publishing and the wish for a quick ticket to countries where the sun burns most fiercely. To let loose, dance, party, travel, have sex and chill.

Now, when success is so nigh and I've had my fair share of freedom, all of it deteriorates before my eyes. A strange buzz in my ears, flies swarming a pile of dung. How could such freedom be anything but bad for me? And if I don't need this freedom, why do I need the money? For money's sake?

Within the frames of such unbound freedom, I begin to crave the mountains again. A need to return to my true duty and bear a heavy cross beseeches me. My true duty, this time. After numerous deaths and rebirths, I dare say, I can hear the voice of my soul, and it is this voice, paradoxically, which revolts against my doings.

One could ask: Can't you just make the money, then go bear your cross? How can one bear a cross across the desert while tempted by the sight of an oasis with naked women soaking in wine?

One could counter again: Isn't it weakness to intentionally isolate yourself from such temptations? No. It's wisdom.

Isn't it real strength to bear the cross and resist the temptations? Temptations will arise regardless, and I am resisting them already by isolating myself. That's the point of sacrifice.

Money is power. You could use it wisely. Why deny it? To obtain power for power's sake is not the truest and highest aim. Strength of character and competence beats money any day. Not every rich man is commendable, nor is every commendable man rich.

Won't you need money later on, anyway? For some bigger projects, for a family? Yes, but by that time I will have transformed into a person competent enough to earn and deserve it, but also to resist its temptations. I will have understood the value of honest work, mastered my craft with devotion, patience and discipline. My name will be renowned and will bear weight.

My heart does not waste a single beat on the affairs of my company. Every inch that I take is sheer effort. Second-rate work done on account of hedonistic desires. It does not surprise me that my soul abandoned me and I found myself in a regression. How can I accept a big paycheck for an average product which not only do I not enjoy making, but detest?

"Even if you strive diligently on your chosen path day after day, if your heart is not in accord with it, then even if you think you are on a good path, from the point of view of the straight and true, this is not a genuine path. If you do not pursue a genuine path to its consummation, then a little bit of crookedness in the mind will later turn into a major warp. Reflect on this." - Miyamoto Musashi

"What binds it most tightly? What ties are the most unbreakable? For men of a superior and select type it is the ties of duty– Their highest moments are those which bind them most firmly. The most enduring obligations. Emancipation, a disease that can easily kill a man." Friedrich Nietzsche.

I'm looking at my treasure, yet I am afraid to take it. A voice screams and bangs on my chest from within, my outstretched arms shaking.

"Don't!"

"But why? I've worked so hard to get here? Why wouldn't I take it? Are you crazy? Are you sabotaging me?"

"Do it, but at the cost of your own soul."

"Wh– what?"

"You were destined for things much bigger than this, which you may never see if you're unwilling to make this sacrifice."

No matter how many more times I ask, the answers are the same.

Part 2 - Perspective - Reason

If you are to slay dragons, you better have a solid weapon and armor. A shield, maybe? How about some healing potions? A crew?

In the hands of the right person, money can buy much more than a ticket to a faraway country. It can decrease your cortisol levels, increase your energy levels, better your odds, bring about opportunities, heal the sick, feed the hungry and support the struggling—Are these things not good?

Some say: "If I am to cry, I'd rather cry in my tesla than in the rain."

This part came awfully short, maybe because of the lack of passion, hehe. But, regardless, it does not lack weight.

Part 3 - Questions to consider

Does the pursuit of money go against god?

Matthew 19:24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

What good is a poor idealist?

"Blessed be moderate poverty." Friedrich Nietzsche.

"Whenever some great work is to be accomplished, before which a man recoils, doubtful of his strength, his libido streams back to the fountainhead—and that is the dangerous moment when the issue hangs between annihilation and new life." Carl Jung - Symbols of Transformation

Is the "great work" that I am to accomplish the company, or the other path that is calling out to me?

Am I gaslighting myself into hating my product and company, to avoid the work? To throw myself into a romantic ideology, devoid of reason? To be devoured by the serpents waiting in its pit? (Ahriman)

Am I avoiding the "great work" by wanting to make the company and get an easy out? (Childish fantasy)

Is a life change necessary for me to make money the hard way? To be of use to society? To "bear my cross?" (Do both?)

Can I continue working on my company, yet feel aligned with my true path? Is the company in discrepancy with this bearing? Why would it be?

"Life calls us forth to independence, and anyone who does not heed this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened with neurosis. And once this has broken out, it becomes an increasingly valid reason for running away from life and remaining forever in the morally poisonous atmosphere of infancy." Carl Jung

Part 4 - The Regression - Closing

The mess of questions and unsatisfying answers, which you've painfully read above, are a great representation of what a regression, in the psychological sense, looks like. It is the setting sun swallowed by the ocean. This issue had me flat on my back for at least two weeks. Where a mere glass of water felt miles away and unreachable.

Here other passages of Jung's book. You can't expect me to conjure up shit like this on my own.

The demands of the unconscious act at first like a paralysing poison on a man’s energy and resourcefulness, so that it may well be compared to the bite of a poisonous snake. (Cf. fig. 30.) page 299 →Apparently it is a hostile demon who robs him of energy, but in actual fact it is his own unconscious whose alien tendencies are beginning to check the forward striving of the conscious mind. The cause of this process is often extremely obscure, the more so as it is complicated by all kinds of external factors and subsidiary causes, such as difficulties in work, disappointments, failures, reduced efficiency due to age, depressing family problems, and so on and so forth.

This beautifully depicts the confusion, the loss of energy, the sense of impossible, pitiful striving and the complexity of the situation brought forth by external factors.

"in the morning of life the son tears himself loose from the mother, from the domestic hearth, to rise through battle to his destined heights. Always he imagines his worst enemy in front of him, yet he carries the enemy within himself—a deadly longing for the abyss, a longing to drown in his own source, to be sucked down to the realm of the Mothers. His life is a constant struggle against extinction, a violent yet fleeting deliverance from ever-lurking night. This page 356 →death is no external enemy, it is his own inner longing for the stillness and profound peace of all-knowing non-existence, for all-seeing sleep in the ocean of coming-to-be and passing away. Even in his highest strivings for harmony and balance, for the profundities of philosophy and the raptures of the artist, he seeks death, immobility, satiety, rest." - yes, you know who it is.

Yet this, brings forth the sense of impending doom and a potential "end" to my hero's journey. People say you can always start over, but I do not think so. I think one can lose his way and never find it again. One well-crafted lie is all it takes.

I have not found my answers, despite having written this painful satyrical litany.

I hope to find answers to many of my questions. Soon, hopefully. I'll be posting if I do. If I don't, send your prayers.

If you've read so far, thanks.