What are some of the most beautiful feelings in the world?
Maybe you have experience with this or maybe not. I wanted to talk about this real quick. This one goes back to my teenager years, back when I was 16 years old. I was somewhat awkward as a teenager and thought of myself as kind of a nobody and almost like nobody would love me for real. I guess the last one would be myself. This is an exaggaration but you might know what I was talking about. I was a kid and I spent most of my teenage years playing videogames and what not. I didn't yet have touched my inner knowledge of who I am that much.
So I didn't really know who I was and I was also unaware of not knowing it, so I didn't know there was this question of knowing what I am like as a person and what are my strengths.
I guess I had some vague ideas of what I was interested in but I didn't know them at all that specifically or anything like that. I really didn't know where I shine the most, let's say.
So I didn't really what is going on in my emotional life at all that much. I wasn't so aware of my own emotions or what they mean or what they are like or what is their innermost nature and so on. But I was there and I was doing my thing and it all became this incredible story that I want to share with you tonight.
So we were hanging out with a bunch of friends and we went into the summer cottage in the summer. It was a really bright sunny day and we intended to go to the sauna and go swimming and get high like we used to. A friend had brought some blotters of acid with him. I didn't have much experience with LSD back then but I had had positive experiences with cannabis and a small dose of magic mushrooms earlier. I hadn't been through a psychedelic breakthrough yet and I didn't really know what to expect anyway, being a young kid back then.
So we got there and we ingested the blotters. I really don't remember it all that much but I hadn't really noticed the sunshine yet at this point, even.
A hour passes by and the LSD starts to kick in. It's a weird feeling on the comeup when you're so anxiously waiting for the effects or to see if it's not going to work at all. So it's this weird 50-50 situation where you're waiting if the blotters are going to work or not.
One hour in the effects are coming there and we go outside to look at the trees and it's getting intense at this point. The LSD was doing it's job really strong and I was almost fearful of what was going on. It's almost as if I put on glasses that made my vision go from 720p to 4k resolution. I could see everything with a clear vision. The trees, the eyes of my friends who were also high now and so on. Looking a person in the eyes on LSD is a deep experience.
So we are tripping and kind of laughing at this point at the sillyness of it and we were shouting and screaming like we used to and joked around and we start to sip on some beers and smoke tobacco. Then I go into an introspective mood. I start to go through my life as if I were going through it like a film roll. Not quite as if it was flashing before my eyes, but almost.
I start to feel all kinds of emotions related to my life. I am this teenager who is now away from my parents house and already at this point in my life I had gone through some hard experiences too, not to even mention them. I start to feel this powerful mix of emotions coming up and the substance working on my mind and body, and I have to bring my full awareness to my body and what I am going through. I was almost nauseous and feeling it all physically and emotionally. We are now talking about our lives in a more honest way and more seriously, I guess, not just joking around constantly.
Then I just close my eyes and I feel it all and a massive epiphany hits me about my own emotions. It was not a thought, but a massive feeling in my emotional body. I felt this blissful feeling when feeling all my emotions.
I came to awareness about my own "negative emotions" basically. I became suddenly immensely aware of my negative feelings and all kinds of tough shit I had gone through and was finally feeling unendingly compassionate toward myself. It was a novel mood I was experiencing. I was getting sunkissed and I was really accepting myself as I am in a deep way and a mystical experience struck me in that moment. I was suddenly so aware of my negative emotions being really, really beautiful. I had never considered that negative emotions could be beautiful, but in that moment I became so holistically aware of them being so that it almost brought me to tears.
I had never considered either way, I just kind of accepted the cultural notion that emotions are to be hidden and men shouldn't cry or "be weak" ever and I was a young man. I also had never thought of myself as kind of an inventor or someone like Einstein that actually came up with this novel "scientific theory".
Which in my case is the notion of negative emotions being the most beautiful of them all. This is my theory and I have a lot of direct experience to support it. It is something that should be talked about in therapy, I think. These days the experience brings to mind some poetic stuff for myself when I go back and think of it. I want to write a poem about it, I have nothing else to say.
There was a boy who didn't like his things. But one day it dawned to him - he is majestic. He would go on to become everything that he wanted to be. He would be charismatic, attractive and suave and funny and humorous and beautiful and good looking and a great artist, he just didn't know it at that point yet.
Ultimately we ended driving back to our homes that summer night after tripping. We were tired but a friend took us home safely and it was an awesome ride.
Just thinking about it brings nostalgia to me. Those times are gone. They will never return. But I have so many warm memories from those times.
Like a friend from those days would say, Elämä on se matka - Life is the trip.
Best, Aapo