I journeyed into myself, and I found the meaning of life. It started one night when someone offered me a ticket to what he claimed as 'one of the wildest rides of my life'. I took it after making him promise that he will always be there when I got lost.
It was like a rainbow fizz, only it didn't look like rainbows and wasn't fizzy. Or so I thought.
The first hour was uneventful. Everything moved along as usual. There was maybe a slight lift, but nothing as extraordinary as advertised.
"Maybe you need an extra jolt," he claimed. And we did just that.
About a half hour later, things started to happen. Everything started melting and warping around me. Straight lines were swirling. Faces filled with colors and were losing cohesion. Smiles got wider than I was comfortable with. But I kept reminding myself that this was the beginning of my journey into myself.
"Approach with curiosity, not resistance" I reminded myself, then dove deep into the music. As I closed my eyes, rainbow-coloured wavelengths danced all over me. Little bubbles floated around, each bordered by zapping neon streaks. There was an entire universe behind my eyelids.
He walked up to me and asked if it had begun. I said "yes. I could see the wavelengths of the music playing now." He laughed and called me overly dramatic. I didn't bother proving myself, because I know what I was looking at, and it was absolutely marvellous.
I opened my eyes and started interacting with others. I saw that neon wavelengths lined the curves of their faces and shoulders and arms. That got me to wonder if everything is made of wavelengths. Vibrations. Frequencies.
I closed my eyes again to enjoy the music, but this time I was brought to another place. A hyper-speed rewind was happening. From where I was, to the earlier days of humankind, to the land before time, to space, to darkness between planets and asteroids and comets and suns and moons, to....
A big explosion. Was that the big bang? Why was it called a BANG? Was it a representation of the first chord that was struck that created everything? A single droplet that hit an ocean of consciousness that birthed a ripple that expanded into infinity?
But wait. Did I really see the beginning of creation itself? Was it something I created from my understanding of everything? Or was this something everyone sees during this kind of journey into themselves?
If the third was the case, then was Georges Lemaître on the same journey that led him to 'discover' the Big Bang theory? Was he a fraud?
After what felt like an eternity exploring the connection between wavelengths and the birth of the cosmos, I decided I had to start interacting with people. But they somehow looked different now. Not the melting and neon faces like before. There was more. One person had a Prima Donna stature in him. I knew most of the people there, but not very well. This person's real face both looked and did not look like what I'm staring at right now. There was more to his appearance. It was as if I was looking at his persona, the real face behind the physical face.
Another came to me and started telling me about his experiences in these gatherings. I also overheard him sharing a story of his first time in a similar gathering. Plastered on his face was another persona, someone more caring and helpful. The Caretaker. He liked taking care of newbies and introducing them to other people, so they don't feel so awkward. There's another one of this person in another group of mine.
These personas I am seeing on the faces of people I know. They are showing me something I know but can't quite put my finger on. So I decided to take a seat at the corner of the room and examine everyone else.
I saw a person who liked cracking jokes all the time. He may not know it but he had the ability to calm any stressful conversation by using himself as a joke. The Wise Fool who sees more but pretends not to.
Then I noticed the person who hosted this evening's gathering. He was also the one who brought me on this ride. I could see what drives him: recognition. I mean, everyone wants recognition, but he wants to be the enabler for important events. He wants to be the one with the deeper pocket, the most resources, the one everyone reaches out to for support. I could almost see the shiny gold-waved cloak draped over his shoulders as he walked past me. The Ambitious.
He was also, evidently, The Elder. The person who knows the way of the land, and was my counsel and oracle during this journey.
All that observation led me to question my own persona. What am I? I was... the Leader. The person who knows how every piece of the puzzle fits into the bigger picture. The person who puts everything and everyone together into a giant well-oiled machine. I realised that as a leader, I did many things wrong during my 8 years as the head coach of the dragon boat team. I tried to be everything to everyone and have answers to every problem.
I knew now that it was the wrong approach. As the leader, I didn't need to have all the answers. I only needed to know who has answers to a specific area, and make everyone else support and work towards that.
It was during this time when I was caught by someone to dance with a small group in a circle. I felt the movement of energy flowing between all the members in this little revel. Someone was leading the flow, and others are following. If there was another person trying to lead, the energy flow will be thrown off balance. In order to maintain that balance, others must either follow that lead, or subtly introduce a better sync with the music that everyone else can agree with.
My job, was to support whoever I thought had the best idea at the time. I didn't need to have the answers. I only needed to support the one who did. That was my job as a leader.
My mind was taken away back into the cosmic realm. Every star, planet, moon, electron, neutron, and proton spinning and spiralling in perfect balance. Every birth is met with maintenance, decline, death, and rebirth. The pristine equilibrium that holds everything in this universe together.
This group has a Clown, a Healer, an Ambition-driven, a Dreamer, a Prime Donna, and every other persona in between. Perfect balance.
I realised then why I was always so alone and lonely, without any close friends who see me as an equal. The leader doesn't have many peers. He walks the land alone, often misunderstood for his actions. Because most do not see the burden he carries with every unpopular decision made.
But two people can see him for who he is. First is the one he often consults with. The Elder, who has walked this land and seen the future.
The second, is his Anchor. The one person who can stand next to him as an equal. Sometimes his totem that prevents him from being lost in the most chaotic worlds. When that realisation came to me, only one person's face appeared in my mind: him. I knew then that he was the one. Everyone else can only satisfy my curiosity and excitement. But he is who I will always return to. My Anchor, the eye of the storm, stabiliser of the tempestuous protagonist.
I knew at that point that he's the one. THE ONE. My partner in crime. I just had to extend my patience and allow him enough time to face his demons and shadows, so we can have a healthy relationship when it begins.
With these two, I can take on the most perilous journeys without losing my way.
Wait...
The Prima Donna: Brutus, Hamlet, King Lear, Prospero.
The Wise Fool: Feste, Falstaff, Touchstone, The Fool.
The Ambitious: Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Richard III
The Healer: Hermione, Portia
The Leader: Henry V, King Lear, Coriolanus, Prospero.
These are all names of characters in the most famous Shakespearean works. Did he create all these from his observations of the world, or did he also take the same journey as I did now?
As I slowly land from the 4-hour journey, I return with many answers and even more questions. If I could, in one night, see the same things the smartest minds in humanity created hundreds of years ago, were they all frauds? Did all scientific theories come out of psychedelics? Was I seeing the truth of the world and universe right now? Or was it just madness masked as awakening?
Was he really my anchor? Or was it something I wished he could be?
At the end of the journey, I felt so exhausted, like I've used up more of my brain capacity than usual. But I took away so much valuable thoughts that until today, 3 weeks after, I'm still unpacking.
I journeyed into myself one night, and I found so much secrets to the universe and my inner purpose. But those were all just visions. What I do with them is the real journey.
