Last night I put a 1917 Smith & Wesson .45 revolver in my mouth, to feel the metal against the vulnerable roof of my mouth. It wasn’t necessarily a new thing for me, but the last time it happened I was blackout drunk. The weapon was not loaded this time. The depression I find more common these days is resigned, totally detached; I don’t care enough to do much of anything, including finding the conviction to actually go through with the act knowing what I would leave behind.

Ironically, I was very sober last night, it having been day two of not smoking weed after about two years of steadily increasing usage (daily and frequently, recently). I’m compelled to quit in anticipation of a drug test for a new job I’ll be starting in about a month and a half, closer to home in Florida.

I grew up in a small-ish rural town in Florida, Plant City, in the central part of the state between Tampa and Orlando. I had what most people would probably consider protective, sheltering parents — my Dad was intermittently troubled by the edginess of The Simpsons — determined to protect their youngest from the ravages of the secular world. Children of the 60s, my parents were, like me, raised amid (even more) socially conservative southern Christianity. After a period of being hippy libertines (always tangentially described so as to avoid suggestion), my parents experienced dramatic returns to their faith in my very early childhood. The general style of my upbringing was paternalistic, authoritarian, but genuinely loving. I remember my Dad always making a point to tell me he loved me after a spanking — which were frequent, matching my near-constant testing of boundaries, class clowning, etc. I lived at home until my senior year at the University of South Florida, and in May 2007 received my commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the USAF.

Growing up I had never expressed an interest in joining the military—I chased butterflies and picked flowers in the outfield in my Little League days. My older brother was always the macho, competitive type. I ended up following his lead; I administered his Oath of Office a week after I took mine.

My entire life to that point had been constructing an identity very closely intertwined with spirituality, family/fellowship, conservative Christian theology, order, and authority. By the time I was making the decision to enter ROTC, I had already on my own jettisoned the conviction of the more stringent and supernatural tenets of my childhood faith. A popular meme in the conservative Christian world is the idea of Universities and liberal education as corruptors. Ironically, I’d already done all the intellectual “heavy lifting” of deconstructing conservative Christianity on my own, in my mid-to-late teens — the church does a wonderful job of poking holes in its own contradictory dogma. The little I did pick up from my political theory classes simply fleshed out ideas that had been swimming nebulously in my head for years. Even a child can generally sense when he’s being lied to, when things don’t add up.

Maybe if I’d made better career choices my life would have turned out differently, but I was always scared away from the artistic pursuits that truly interested me (drawing, architecture, reading and writing) by the persistent and pervasive linkage of personal value with economic attainment. I’m not so sure that’s the case:

And so, as I deconstructed the spiritual framework of my upbringing, military and, more generally, secular “culture” filled the void. Which is to say, nothing at all filled the void.

For all the scorn liberals, progressives, atheists, humanists, etc. heap on the conservative Christianity that is closely tied to the geographic/cultural American South, my parents were not wrong to be fearful for my “soul” even though I don’t necessarily believe in the idea of a literal, transcendent soul; much of the concepts contained within Christianity are timelessly applicable to the human struggle. We’re so obsessed by “facts” that we can’t see the forest for the trees.

Conservatives are fond of calling Evolution “just a theory”, as if that cheapens it somehow. Similarly, strident secular culture is fond of calling religion myth and invoking the idea of the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause. Hell, the most recent book on Christianity I’ve read, Blue Like Jazz (fyi, awful), frequently uses these tropes to key in on the author’s angst re: his super silly belief system. Yet, similar to how a scientific theory is a framework that ties individual facts into a larger, more accurate picture of the world, myth is a framework that uses (fantastical) elements to tell a story about human nature that transcends simple “facts”. There is a reason these myths persist; I remember being obsessed with Edith Hamilton’s Mythology in high school AP English. We’ve abandoned myth and spirituality because our rational, scientific minds are convinced they conflict with “reality”, with science.

But, if there’s one thing I’ve become convinced of at this point in my life, it is the critical importance of spirituality to the human experience. Our very existence, our consciousness, even matter itself, are fundamentally mysterious — and as science delves deeper into the mysteries of the universe, it doesn’t seem to me like we’re really finding hard, “scientific” answers. Quantum physics/gravity, string theory, multiple dimensions, the nature of space-time, consciousness, etc. all sound very metaphysical even at the sophomoric level I’ve read about them. For a good while I defined myself almost primarily by my lack of belief in God and opposition to religion; I now see everyone has a God — spiritual, economic, or otherwise. Funny how tired cliches can take on their full meaning after a little life experience.

For the overwhelming majority of people, regardless of political or religious convictions, that God is economic. I don’t mean that everyone is a Donald Drumpf wannabe, but that in capitalist societies, money is a stand-in for value, security and comfort. It’s the easy way — exchange a piece of paper for X, and everything’s for sale, right?

Except that everything isn’t for sale — Tosh’s joke about it being impossible to frown while riding a waverunner notwithstanding — money does not buy happiness, how could it possibly? To be sure, there’s something to be said for not having to worry about where your next meal’s going to come from, to not have to juggle bills because your bank account balance is always hovering near zero.

That new job I’m starting in April comes on the heels of a year-long stint at an international corporate general contracting firm. It was, benefits-wise, a great setup — I wasn’t going to get rich quick, but I had money (and the willpower) to put in savings, the option to own stock in a 100% employee-owned company, good healthcare. Essentially, a unicorn job for a millennial with State college education(s) and low “hustle”. I felt like I’d done what I was “supposed” to do, but I was still deeply miserable with my life. I told myself I’d be happy once I had a place I didn’t have to share with roommates, or when my monetary troubles were straightened out, or when I spotted some other ubiquitous greener grass.

But after a year in Corporate America, I think I’ve started to finally connect the dots, to see the source of my depression and dissatisfaction with living on this planet. It’s called capitalism; more specifically, alienation, commodification, reification. Our dogged, blind pursuit of more for its own sake is raping our planet, raping our psyches by commodifying everything and everyone for the private enrichment of an ever-shrinking elite. And while it’s easy to demonize that elite, really they’re acting in the way that most every human being on the planet would if put in a similar situation — maximize personal (and maybe proximate familial) circumstances as much as possible. And if the Drumpf fiasco has taught me anything it’s that nobody’s at the helm, there are no smoke-filled rooms. Just humans doing what humans have always done.

What strikes me the most is how universal this realization is, regardless of political or ideological convictions. A generalized despair over the bankrupt nature of modern Western culture shows up all around us if you look for it, yet the nature and origin of those forces is almost always sloughed off onto a scapegoat. Laments like this have wound through our discourse for decades:

“It’s tragic to think that heroic man’s great destiny is to become economic man, that men will be reduced to craven creatures who crawl across the globe competing for money, who spend their nights dreaming up new ways to swindle each other. That’s the path we’re on now.”

I read those words with surprise in Milo Yiannopoulos’ March 2016 Brietbart article explaining the alt-right to establishment conservatives. The words aren’t Milo’s — they belong to Jack Donovan, another gay alt-right figure. I find even the looniest reactionaries are correctly (though with varying degrees of clarity) identifying the source of their alienation — “ultimately empty consumer-oriented monoculture that is, in my opinion, the product of global commercialism”. Even elements of Alex Jones’ unhinged rants touch on these feelings of hopelessness and anxiety over a nebulous oppressor — I can’t help but equate the alt-right’s anxiety over “globalism” and “monoculture” with capitalism’s slow march towards uniformity, total commodification and alienation. A few months back righteous anger exploded on Left Twitter — I’m sure she was roundly mocked in (all) other circles as well—surrounding the case of Catherine Elizabeth Clennan of Laramie, WY. Clennan started a GoFundMe asking for $5 Million (later $12M), for no other purpose than to fund her desired lavish lifestyle in Southern California. It’s hard to put her in an ideological box like the alt-right characters, but there is definitely a strain of anti-capitalism in her comments, a realization that we’re chasing something in America that leads down a road we don’t want to travel:

Our inherent value as human beings is based on the fact that every individual is irreplaceable. There will never be another one of you in the universe and you were put on this planet for a very specific purpose that we each knew once as children, but where [sic] forced to forget when we were told by our superiors to “shape up”, “behave”, “keep quite” [sic], “listen”, and “respect” others before respecting ourselves.

By the time we reach adulthood, after 18 years of being subliminally taught that we are somehow ‘deficient’, ‘wrong’, ‘handicapped’ and must rely on other’s opinions and approval in order to keep a roof over our heads, that childhood dream is lost as we grow old into a state of social dependency for our own identity. We are then left to fall in line to be used and abused by the system as adults.

To read Clennan’s comments in full gives the impression she’s a sneeze away from a mental breakdown, but the words above pretty accurately describe my own feelings about modern culture. But these critiques will never correctly identify the source of alienation as the hegemony of global capital over material human needs as capitalism; instead the narrative of an idealized culture (Leave It To Beaver America for Boomers; generalized Western/European Romantic culture for a newer crop a la Richard Spencer) being stolen from us by “Others” is used. In Clennan’s case, though she’s repulsed by the laser focus on economics she sees everywhere around her that debases actual human life, she still clings to money as a way to obtain personal fulfilment. This makes sense if, again, you keep in mind that for most people personal worth is intimately tied up with economic status. They will never sacrifice the system that they believe will (one day) bring them all the things they want in life — love/relationships, security, stability, happiness.

Tara Isabella Burton describes the alt-right as a phenomenon that’s sprung up in response to this alienation:

Kierkegaard’s ironist came of age in the an era of increasing technological production, urbanization, secularization, and — ultimately — alienation. Shitposters have come of age in an era no less turbulent. They too live in a time of economic uncertainty and spiritual apathy in which foundational myths about the self and its role in the cosmos seem to have been rendered obsolete.

I figured once I had a “big-boy job” with opportunity for career advancement that I’d feel grounded enough to ditch the near-constant existential angst that’s followed me, well, always. And if I were a different person, or had different experiences, maybe it would have gone down like that. But my recent foray through Corporate America showed me that our economy is essentially a casino/con game, driven in large part by speculation — not creating value or meeting human needs. The house always wins, indeed.

There’s also the perverse critical voice telling me that really I don’t have anything to complain about. I’ve got a decent car that’s paid off, a nice apartment with nice things, a new bed to sleep in, books to read, I live in a relatively great state, country and world with endless things to do and see. Privilege abounds. I’m reminded of Louis CK’s bit about boredom:

“‘I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing…”

I, and I believe most others, feel this sense of boredom and despair because the institutions, cultural mores, traditions, and rituals that used to give our life deep meaning have been replaced by cheap, commodified (or State) versions of the same, or have been exorcised by modern nihilism and secular capitalist society completely.

That nihilism has almost killed me multiple times now — I happened to see Louis live about a month ago, and one of the bits I laughed hardest at had to do with how he enjoyed the thought of always having suicide as an option, like when his kids are particularly pissing him off he just takes pleasure in the knowledge that he could if he wanted. *Poof*, no more bullshit. His delivery was better, but who hasn’t thought that at some point in their life?

If there’s one thing I realize when I’ve toyed with loaded deadly weapons while feeling particularly down, it’s that I don’t actually want to do it. Yes, existence is pain. It would be easy to just hit the “off” button. But the key to higher happiness is realizing that you must embrace suffering to transcend it; a bit of Buddhist and other philosophy has taught me that. Also, I have a lingering fear that reincarnation is real and if I killed myself I’d violate some cosmic law and start over as Donald Drumpf’s combover.

If I feel empty at this point because I’ve deconstructed every framework in my life that lended it value (Christian religion/culture; military culture; secular scientific culture; “normie” 9–5 culture; political/progressive “SJW” culture), then my task now is to build something back up. Part of that is being present, abstaining from using drugs as a way to paper over deeply entrenched emotional and psychological problems. That’s been my go-to for about 10 years now — take a drug to turn off the part of my brain that’s running 24/7, telling me how shitty everything is. Alcohol had devastating consequences with virtually zero upside — even the rationalization that drinking was my social outlet meant that I was just getting drunk with other assholes. Great.

Quitting booze was the best decision I ever made, it’s amazing it took me as long as it did. My experience with Marijuana has been more nuanced; I really do believe it has changed my worldview for the better. Entheogens alone and combined with introspection can be a powerful tool for self-realization as well as for experiencing deeply spiritual feelings of connection and transcendence. Yet, I still used it as a safety blanket, as a way to further disconnect from a disconnected world.

How do we connect again? I’ve got some ideas. Meditation, spirituality, home community, and writing — for myself.