A part of me wants to experience what it’s like to not only be held, but to feel safe and protected. That’s not something another human being can offer me—because that from which I need saving and protecting is not existential, it’s ontological. It’s intrinsic to the very nature of being. To be is to exist, and to exist is to be something in and of itself, apart from all other things. This is a necessary condition for the conscious, recursive individual, rather than something that merely reacts to the world. This is how I know another human being can never truly provide feelings of safety and protection for me: because they, too, suffer from the same condition.

If you think there’s a solution—if what you offer are platitudes—then you’re not understanding me. All platitudes do is reveal you’ve never peeled back the veil to see the void—that instead of acknowledging and embracing the void, you turn away in fear, opting for simplicity. Maybe that works for you because you see comfort as a path to happiness, and happiness as integral to existence. But something as basic as happiness doesn’t solve the problem so much as it avoids it. It isn’t a matter of happiness any more than it is a matter of hunger or thirst—or love, for that matter. Indeed, we often see love—equal parts truth and myth—as the solution to the problem of existence, yet it too speaks from within the confines of being rather than addresses the issue.

There’s no right answer—no platitude, no philosophy, no love, no god, no religion, no ideology, no distraction—that can save or protect you. These are all things that break down at the edge of the abyss, at the edge of the void. So, then, where does that leave us? Where does that leave you? Where does it leave me? The only thing that can bring us some measure of peace—one not distorted by perception and passed through a filter of lies and noise—is to acknowledge the void, without flinching, and never turn away. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll discover the only part of yourself that ever truly existed. It’s lonely. Gods, is it lonely. And it’s painful. Every. Single. Day. But it’s also beautiful. It’s pure. It’s freedom. No other human being—no god, even—can grant you that. That is why I’ve come here, alone, to spiral. Maybe you’ll join me.