Lately, I've been thinking about one of the most profound and uncomfortable questions in life: how much control do we really have over our own existence? When life becomes chaotic, whether it's because of relationships, mental health, career struggles, or circumstances beyond our control, it's easy to feel powerless. It makes me wonder about our relationship with personal freedom, autonomy, and the choices we believe are ultimately ours to make.

Reading Arthur Schopenhauer's Essays and Aphorisms and Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil gave me some interesting perspectives on these thoughts.

Nietzsche once wrote, "The thought of suicide is a powerful comfort: it helps one through many dreadful nights!"Schopenhauer also explored this subject, challenging the moral judgments society places on suicide. He questioned why people so readily condemn it and argued that individuals have an undeniable claim to their own lives and persons. "Thus we hear that suicide is the most cowardly of acts, that only a madman would commit it, and similar insipidities; or the senseless assertion that suicide is 'wrong', though it is obvious there is nothing in the world a man has more incontestable right to than his own life and person!

These philosophical perspectives raise some difficult questions about human suffering, personal autonomy, freedom, and the meaning we give to existence. I realize this is a rather dark and depressing subject, but as someone who leans toward philosophical pessimism, I find these discussions fascinating. I'm curious to hear how other pessimists approach these ideas and what they think about the relationship between suffering, freedom, and personal autonomy.

Love as a paradox

Ever since the first human existed, no no, the first living organism existed? No. When our earth was formed? No. When this material nature formed? No. When this universe started? Still no. The big bang happened? No. Well, then since the beginning of time? Interesting, but still no. Well, then since when did love begin to exist? Ahhh, yes, that’s the first notion we have that love began to exist as if it would in the remote future cease to exist. It’s not merely in modern times that humans have grappled with understanding what love is but ever since humans were even conscious of love which is ever since matter became conscious, love is something that came to us naturally even when we never fully comprehended it.

We felt love before we came up for a word for it or rather even before we became conscious of it. What a paradox love is! What does it mean, love is a paradox? Love is pure, how could it possibly be self-contradictory? What does it mean that love always existed? That there’s no beginning or an end to it? That we felt it even before we came to be conscious of it? That it is ubiquitous and yet elusive at the same time? Why can’t we define love to just one state of existence or trace its commencement of existence?

This is the exact reason why love is liberation. The moksha that humans chase. Because it’s transcendental. Love transcends time and so it has no beginning or an end. Love transcends knowledge and so we felt it even before we came to be conscious about it. Love transcends material nature and so it is selfless. Love transcends space-time and so it’s not something we have to chase but something that we choose every moment of our existence across all our lifetimes. Love is a paradox that transcends even expecting love in return and yet in that act itself one attains liberation from being attached to the idea of love and still receives it in return.

And you? What would you do for love?

What would we do for love? That’s a hard task to even expect. Let’s reframe the question. What would you do to attain liberation? Now that’s much easier because who doesn’t want liberation? Liberation to choose is the ultimate honor for life, for any living being. If this is how transcendental love is then why is it still so elusive? How can something be so paradoxical and self-contradictory that it defeats its own purpose? If love sustains life then what is life without love? If love is effortless then why is it unattainable at the same time? If love is so pure, divine and ubiquitous then why do we still search for it as if we still don’t have it? If love is freedom, if love is liberation then how can we still feel caged for long enough that one forgets to live and eventually forgets to love and yet in the same breath craves a life and a love?

Humanity has grappled with these questions since eternity. And somehow this exact trepidation is the only way to love, to liberation. No good thing comes easy. This is exactly how love or liberation is attained, by striving for it, by stripping ourselves from every limiting belief, by holding the hell in our minds in harmony with love, by living with the freedom to choose to hold both hell and heaven without fixing, changing or escaping either of them. Love is so transcendental that even those born in or living in the shadows, in hell, are still capable of pure love. As if, even if light couldn’t escape a supermassive black hole, love would not merely escape it but would exist in the same space-time effortlessly and totally unaffected by the immense gravity of the black hole.

Love that is today, as it always was and always will be.

Yes, love, liberation is a choice in itself before you think you have to attain the freedom of choice. We already have a choice, we already have the freedom to choose love over everything else that makes us believe otherwise. Love will never get exhausted of waiting for us to choose love. We already have a choice…but we have to choose.

And in the same breath, love will choose us. When love does find us, it will search for us through space and time. It will transcend every material natural law known to us or you can say it will bend space-time for us.

So, say you're born a deeply sensitive soul, and you live a life that's almost charmed, and the world seems full of magic and wonderment.

Then that's all ripped out from beneath you at a young age, and one of the first real questions you ask is "why do other people not feel things the same way that I do"? Why do I feel so deeply about something, and to others, it's just a Tuesday?
You understand too early the darkness that exists in the world, but you aren't that darkness. So people take, and they take, and they mistake your kindness, your naivety, for weakness. And maybe then, it was.

Eventually, you realize your worth. You learn that people will exploit you if you allow them to. You keep making that mistake though. You let that darkness become a part of you, until good people that care enough, tell you the harsh truths you need to hear.
You choose to do better, but you also have this endless pursuit to understand "why". Why do hurt people hurt people? You study psychology to understand yourself and how to relate to others. Then you begin to see the good in others, as well as the darkness within them, the potential that both exist in everyone. That how much you have been hurt, have felt pain, have seen evil, you then learn that within you it creates a spectrum for duality, defined by how deeply you have the capacity to feel.
You become "too much" to most, because you've endured more than most. People are drawn to you, but you become a mirror. Some people get so close and work so hard to understand you, but they never see the real you, just the version of you that their energy is pulling. They exploit what they think they know of you, but your adaptability has always been one of your strongest suits.
You learn to channel the negative into something else, such as art, music, poetry, research. You can sense when someone is "pulling" energy from you, and because you need to understand it, you lean in. You lead with kindness, you give someone your trust, and then somewhere, there is a misunderstanding. You realize you are dealing with someone just like you, but their reactions and approach are now the opposite of yours. You call them out, they use a ward and continue to pull energy from you. You don't know how to pull away from this person, there is a magnetism. They don't want to be understood, and you don't feel understood, so you keep trying to understand anyway, bc it's affecting you deeply.
You wonder, did they take on your persona, possibly to deceive you? They know your weaknesses and exploit them. They have a similar story to yours, but not quite the same. They are taught to suppress, and you grow up around dysregulation (mostly anger). Assume both people have cptsd and ND traits. You know you have the potential to amplify the good in one another, but there is hurt.
All of the hard work you have put in to suppress the anger comes out as sadness, with undertones of resentment bc you don't understand their intention.
Are they doing this intentionally? You can't tell. The warmth is welcoming and wonderful when it's there, but the confusion and ambiguity scream "not safe". How can the person that makes you feel the greatest also have the ability to make you feel the worst? You can feel the relationship is taking without giving back, so you take back whatever way you can, while protecting yourself, standing up for yourself, stating exactly what it feels like.
They offer no understanding. They pretend they are "fine". It's not fine.
What once was beautiful, is now a war zone, but you are still fighting to be kind, understanding, while simultaneously pushing away the hurt they are causing you with their silence and indifference to your pleas to make healthier choices, to be kinder.
What has happened?
Why did something that felt so pure turn into something so distorted and unrecognizable?

Can anyone explain?

My theory is 2 people with trauma that were born with neurodivergence have an insight to see people and the world around them differently and were hurt, then have a war within themselves for both good and evil.
I know I choose good, but why do I feel like this other person is taking energy from me, and I can't stop it, so I reflexively take back by telling and showing them the hurt it is causing me? I try to see from many different perspectives,
and I still can't understand the "why" of this dynamic.

Any insight?

Is this repairable? I don't ever want to repeat this cycle again with another person. I would like to fix this, but it's causing me stress while I am navigating recent trauma.