(This began as an email to my girlfriend but I decided to not send it and instead turned it into the intro of this book. In fact this whole book ended up as a bunch of unsent letters to people I know. I was too afraid to send them but considered my writing to have merit from a literary point of view. It can be a useful tool and it certainly was for me).
Do you have a moment?
I need to connect with someone. My thoughts are suffocating me. So I decided to write you.
I am feeling really broken. The reality of my situation has just hit me full force. I never really escaped it but just found a way to distract myself. Travel, walking the camino, micro-dosing lsd, reading, meeting new people, you, alcohol, music.
It is all a distraction in one form or another. But sometimes distraction might be the only thing keeping us alive and away from crossing that line of madness where only death awaits.
It’s probably a good thing to realise all this but I’m not sure I have the inner/outer resources to deal with this as a grown up would. I dont know if i can handle this. It is too much for me. I am still a little boy who is too fragile for this world. Like glass. I want to cry but i cant. A real man? I think i may have fooled you too.
There are so many opportunities and possibilities. But my body and mind want to be still and silent. Even food feels repulsive when I get like this. Another kind of hunger takes over. Every movement of my body feels like a marathon.
Death is calling for me. It is somehow the only thing that makes any sense. But i dont want to die either. Thinking about dying makes me feel sad. So much wasted effort if I was to suddenly give up. Suicide is for losers. I don’t wanna be a loser.
I want love and kindness and sunshine and peace. I want happiness and family and connection and stability. You awakened something in me. I want it with you. I want it all.
But i am scared that I am not strong enough for you, that i will get so depressed that this darkness will swallow me and i want to protect you from that. It will destroy everything like it always has. Do i hide it or show it? Am i now killing our relationship by writing you this bullshit? I dont know what is the right way.
I just cannot live like this anymore. This constant struggle and back and forth with some bullshit fake me and then the one that falls and fails and feels fake and hopeless.
I pretend to be this great musician. I perform and impress people with my skills and songs. But the sacrifice is not worth it. And i always end up sabotaging everything.
Music has brought me nothing but pain and suffering. The joys have been like those of a junkie who plunges a needle into his arm. The kind of joy that never lasts and gets less and less as the years go by. And maybe this music drug has kept me alive longer than i should have been.
Sometimes i feel like i am already dead. A hungry ghost living in a world of wounded lions.
I am writing you because I feel it would be dishonest to hide this. But i also dont want to be a burden. I feel deep shame that i am so fucking weak right now and that i am not rich and successful and mr sunshine like everyone thinks i am.
You say none of that matters but of course it does. Money is power in this world. Or at least having the power to get money. Right now i feel powerless.
I know this is a story i choose to live. I am a victim of my own lies and games. I know all that. I have read the psychology, spirituality, self help books. I know what this is. I have been to therapy and done the meds and tried all kinds of methods and diets and all kinds of weird shit.
Nothing works.
I want to suffer. I want this to get even worse. I want death and destruction. I want humanity to end the struggle. I want ultimate freedom and absolute truth realization for all. No more lies. Just pure love. I want to be crucified like Jesus. i want time restarted for me. like Jesus. How do you top that? Jesus jealousy kicking in.
No wait. I dont want that either. I dont want anything. Except money. I want so much money that i can give it all away and impress people with how giving i am.
I want to be your savior. I want all your friends to know how safe you will be with me. It’s a nice idea. Maybe it can be possible one day. I dont know. Maybe I am the most dangerous human to ever have lived. and the greatest threat to your future sanity.
My wants and needs are colliding. There is a war in my being. Blood and guts are flying everywhere in my mind. This is insanity. I am crossing the line. There is a wild killer in my head. He is thirsty for more brutality. He is the hatechild of Hitler and Stalin.
But i am also writing you because i am selfish. I am sitting here trying to figure it all out. I have been emailing my mother also but she does not understand me at all. She has said the same thing for the last 15 years. Go study. Get a job. Come back to Finland.
But i have tried all of these and it is no solution. I tell her i am an artist and an entrepreneur. But that is another lie. I am not anyone or anything.
I am a guy who wakes up in the morning and survives. Sometimes they (my parents) give me money when they know what it might cost if they dont. This is the way I use people. It makes me feel ashamed and pathetic that I am 35, broke, depressed and with the work ethic of a alcoholic donkey. So what does that really say about me?
I have no answers. Just feelings and thoughts, coming and going. my realizations temporary at best. I know this is all part of the process. Emotions are just energy currents and clusters that flow in the body. Like weather patterns. Sometimes it is hurricane season within.
I do not want to go to Holland. I dont care about my stuff or the stupid show. But i cannot stay here when I am like this. Maybe Plum village? I dont want to go there either. I dont want to go anywhere. I dont want to breathe. But i am still breathing so even that is a lie.
We are always going somewhere and wanting something. That is how life works.
Turn left. Turn right. Keep going. Go back. Crawl into the sewers. I want to be warm and clean. I want to be in a state of pure bliss. And worshipped so I can worship you.
I want happiness. I want freedom. What the hell do those words even mean?
I will write this god damned book if it is the last thing I do. I need to find out who I am. I need to mark my territory.
So yeah. Welcome to my world.
This might be a terrible idea.
(This began as an email to my girlfriend but I decided to not send it and instead turned it into the intro of this book).
Markus
October 29th, 2018
Cologne, Germany