Being Human

Two-faced.

After tossing and turning for hours, I fell asleep at 4, only to wake up at 6. It is now 7:48 AM here in Singapore, and I’ve decided to write this substack because I simply cannot fall asleep.

I just broke up with my first-time girlfriend of 2 years and 6 months, and it’s honestly the most painful thing I’ve experienced. The absolute excruciating and grotesque pain clutching at my heart, refusing to let go. I couldn’t find a way out, so I decided to psychoanalyze what I was going through. And my findings inspired me to write this, so here I am.

Now I know some of you may think I’m super weird for doing this, and I can’t say I disagree. It’s just who I am, and I’m going through a difficult time, so you’ll have to cut me a break. What I want to share is the deconstruction of my experience, and how I’ve come to admire the beauty of the human experience.

First: The warping of reality. I find it incredible that physically, nothing has changed. Yet everything seems darker than usual, as though I’m wearing sunglasses. I cannot see anything but the pit that I’m in, and how deep it is. But what surprises me is how similar I find it to how I felt during the crypto collapse. The dimness of life, and how everything seemed to have lost its colour. I guess emotional drawdowns go to the same lows even in different scenarios, and that’s interesting to me.

Second: The emotional pain. It’s amazing that only in these moments does my mind suddenly feel the need to think about the things that could have been, the things that I did wrong, the things that I could have done, and much more. I don’t know why, but I guess such is the human psyche. We only have such clarity after the event passes, and by then it’s too late.

Third: The ability to think that you will never recover from this. For some reason, I am heavily clouded by the thought that I will “never find someone that is as good as her”. And it’s such a farcical thought because when I look back and objectively measure everyone that I’ve come to meet in my wonderful life, I feel like the same traits I admired in her can be found in other people as well.

But all this is just part of the human condition. As the Buddha once said, life is suffering. But people get too caught up in the negative aspect of it. The truth is, this is the price we pay for, with lack of a better word, our human virtues.

With endless power to tear the fabric of reality, comes the capacity for atmospheric highs. When we’re down, it feels like we’re in a pitch-black hole 100 feet in the ground. But when we’re up, it’s crazy how euphoric we feel. I find this to be absolutely fascinating.

With endless despair comes the capacity for endless compassion. I used to be quite emotionally closed-off, yet now I find myself actually being able to root for someone’s success and be happy on their behalf. It’s an amazing feeling, and nothing really comes close. The ability to partake in someone else’s experience, to be able to really share that moment with them - it’s poetic.

With endless rumination comes the capacity for boundless objectivity. Our analytical skills have brought us to where we are today, yet it’s a double-edged sword. Its master is our selves, and when we are lost, we use it to break down “what could have been”. Yet, in the right hands, this capacity for analysis and problem-solving is what forced society forward.

Ultimately, I have come to realise that pain is part and parcel of being human. We fall down, and the downs become valleys. Yet in our best moments, we’re unstoppable, and the world is in our hands.

Hate the human condition all you want, it is who we are. I know that it is out of my control, so I just do my best to accept it, and view it in a positive light. Now, it is my turn to crawl out of this dark bit.

From me - the person writing this.

To you - the person reading this.

P.S. In the off-chance that she finds this article, I just want to say - thanks for everything. It was amazing.