Escaping Black Holes

People are born stars, naturally giving off light and warmth.
Through negative circumstances, some collapse in on themselves and become black holes.

With the recent first ever photograph of a black hole, this is an exciting time to be alive. We are making progress unraveling the mysteries of the creative and destructive forces that make up our universe, and also, our minds.

The story of good versus evil is as old as mankind itself, but instead of “good” versus “bad,” I find it useful to view these as creative and destructive forces. Creation is what we consider good: love, light, the spark that produces things of value, birthing new life and art. Destructive forces we see as the evil antagonist to this: that which ends life, monsters that lurk in the shadows waiting to devour us, our fear of the unknown, psychopaths, and those that harm themselves or others.

For the last year, I’ve had my personal struggles with these destructive forces. I have not been able to create much, but not for lack of trying. I have been riddled with mental traps put in place from years of schooled conditioning… but now I am finally free.

I share my journey with hopes that others may escape the black holes of their darker natures so that they can feed their light of creation.

The Light is Within

I open with a poem:

Growing up, I was the “smart” kid. The one with straight-A’s, in gifted programs, and by all accounts, going places. These labels became a part of my identity, and I became so dependent on authority approval and guidance, that it led to my professional manipulation.

The school routine hijacked my intrinstic motivations to do work, with extrinsic ones. Rather than doing work because of the fulfillment it gave me, I pursued work based on the opinions of others. Easy enough when you have one authority to please, a single teacher, but upon entering the real world, who is your master?

Rather than love guiding my way, fear led me to dark places. Fear is a compelling reason to get schoolwork done, but let’s be honest, schoolwork isn’t meaningful work. The real world doesn’t value memorization and reguritation of information, the skill that I had largely been trained to do. Once I entered the real world,the only things I produced that people valued were creative works that only poured out of me once I released the resistance and fear getting in my way.

Talking to Yourself

In the six years since graduating school I have cycled through periods self-hate where I would beat myself up for not being “good enough,” with occasional periods where I finally let go, embrace self-love, and as a result, my creative works would effortlessly flow out of me.

But no matter how many positive affirmations I told myself, the sessions of repeating “I am good enough” in the mirror, the destructive force was always in the background, gaining strength, until it would once again knock me down like a tidal wave.

I was so sick of these thoughts that I just wanted to kill their source, and perhaps that was why they kept coming back. I remembered the lesson that insanity is doing the same things over and over again but expecting different results, so I tried something else. I stopped trying to kill this destructive voice and instead gave it a name: Brutus.

Brutus, who had been the source of so much pain in my adult life, to my surprise, actually had the purpose of protecting me. This is surprising: What possible benefit could come from being so hard on yourself? But all habits, even the destructive ones, have some kind of positive benefit. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do them.

I let Brutus express his purpose, and I finally understood. He was born as a way for me cope with my anxiety about my place in the world, my fear of abandonment, and as a way to reinstate my “brilliant kid” status. According to Brutus, while I had been “brilliant” in school, in the real world, I no longer was, and regaining this label was the key to my survival.

The only problem? The stress of this would make me so exhausted that my mind would entertain suicidal thoughts as a form of self-relief… because at least when I’m dead I don’t have to struggle to become “brilliant” anymore…

It sounds dark and overdramatic, but these are not the thoughts of my present rational self. Brutus, I discovered, was a fractured past self in need of reintegration.

Later, I realized how I couldn’t have chosen a better name. In ancient Rome, Brutus was one of the leaders of the rebellion that assasinated Julius Caesar. Brutus, in stabbing his friend in the back, thought that he was doing what was the best for Rome, but those actions would lead to it’s undoing. The government was thrusted into a civil war, and the Roman Republic soon was no more.

My own personal Brutus similarly thought that the key to my future survival was in present suffering, but you can’t beat me into the ground and raise me up at the same time. I am relieved to have finally put an end to this civil war within my mind.

Black Hole Questions

My negative thoughts centered around not feeling good enough, having disappointed others, and of being a failure. No amount of combating these thoughts with positive affirmations worked. The problem was not in the answers being positive or negative, but the fact that I was asking these questions in the first place.

Questions like:

• Am I good enough?
• What do others think of me?
• Where should my skills and career be at this age? Am I behind?
• Is my art, my work, good enough?

The problem with these questions is that their answers are irrelevant. Even if there was an authority on these matters (the notion of such a person sounds ridiculous), so what if they thought that you’re not good enough, your art sucks, and you’re way behind and too old to do your work. You have your answers, now what?

So what if you aren’t good enough. You exist. There is no governing authority determining your worthiness to have life. What do you want to do?

So what if your art isn’t good enough. Do you want to make art anyways?

So what if you’re too old. Do you want to get started anyways?

The answers to these questions, positive or negative, are irrelevant because these are questions that are black holes that will do nothing but suck your energy and give nothing back.

I remember when I was an emo pre-teen, in the throws of angst, I would often ask myself, “What’s the point?” I would ask this to the point of depression. Eventually, I got fed up, and realized that this question amounted to nothing but the desire to self-destruct. It was a black hole that when fed with my attention, would grow in power to the point of threathening my life.

Entertaining these kinds of questions are as toxic as drinking bleach. If you value your life, if you value the creative force in the world, then treat yourself as a ball of energy, radiating light. Your thoughts can either feed or dim your light. The people who resort to destructive actions are those who have collapsed in on themselves, but that doesn’t mean they are lost. Protect your light and the light of others.

If life gets you down, look inward. Find the spark within yourself and know that everything that you want can only be found within. Enjoy your existence, your free will, and do whatever the hell makes you happy.

You are the star guiding your path.