To Infinity and Beyond
In 2020 during the pandemic, I remember watching an old debate between Jordan Peterson and John Vervaeke on the end of nihilism and the beginning of wisdom.* In it Vervaeke quotes Neitzche’s observation that if you “stare at the abyss long enough, you’ll find it staring back at you.” In many ways, my life has been an exercise in coming to grips with this reality.
I have had melancholy since as far back as I can remember. My parents put me in a self-esteem class when I was nine or ten years old, but it wasn’t really self-esteem that I struggled with; it was depression. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a home obsessed with the “end times,” or maybe it’s something in my genes; its probably a combination of both. But death, my mortal frame, was, is, always humming in the back of my mind.
As I grew from adolescent into adulthood, the main way I coped with depression was through politics and religious dogma. I grew up in a family with conservative values. And I’m not just talking about a belief in basic property rights. I’m talking listening-to-Sean-Hannity-every-day-on the-way-home-from-school conservatism.
Naturally, I was a member of the young republicans club in high school. I penned articles as “Conservative Adams” because I fancied myself obsessed with John Adams — a man I was not actually mature enough at 15 years old to fully comprehend. While some of my peers flocked to emo music to channel their emotions, I turned to debates with Ben Shapiro and Turning Point USA to channel my angst.
But behind all of this lay a profound insecurity. I was bullied as a child. I wore braces and had glasses and I was super skinny in a culture that only saw big girls as beautiful. And I had a particular longing for the divine which none of my teenage friends felt or, if they did, they never spoke about it.
I coped with this deep feeling of loneliness by escaping into my mind. I over-intellectualized because my intellect was something I could depend upon for safety; I was the young, black, smart nerdy girl who could help you with your homework, especially if the subject was english lit. Being smart about things made other people notice me. This gave me a sense of superiority, a way to defend myself against negative voices within and without.
Looking back on it all now, there was something about this that didn’t quite jive with the religious fervor of my upbringing, a fervor that contained a very small but powerful kernel of truth: the sacredness and sanctity of all beings.
My family and I had rituals that reinforced this belief. We prayed before every meal, committed bible verses to memory, prayed before leaving the house, prayed together every week, sang together at church, and then prayed some more. This belief was, truly, a vibe.
In spite of the political dogmas and religious baggage that came with it, I was born with a strong spiritual orientation that today manifests as a love of flowers and stars and poetry and a desperate need to put things to song than it does in watching youtube debates.
Maybe melancholy is just a natural byproduct of being able to sense the sacred. Who knows? But as I get older, I feel called to honor the sacred and try to let go of all the rest.
I’ve learned that letting go requires daily practice. It’s hard work to unlearn patterns you pick up in childhood. But I can tell that something is changing in me and it makes me giddy.
Last week I was in California with a client. I facilitated a full-day workshop with a group of employees on how it feels to be human, how we cope with our insecurities, and how we might learn to hold our pain and suffering and channel it holistically instead of harmfully.
We discussed many great authors, including James Baldwin. I put up the following quote of on screen. It’s from his essay, ‘Everybody’s Protest Novel’:
“The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization alone which is real and which cannot be transcended.”
In this quote Baldwin is saying that if you write a novel to protest something like racism and you do it in a reductive way that denies that every human being, black and white alike, is a whole universe each unto themselves, you have committed a grave sin.
I asked the attendees what they thought about this. In the past whenever I facilitated this workshop, I’d simply show the quote and tell folks what Baldwin meant. But this time I did more. I asked them what they thought. I wanted them to wrestle with Baldwin’s observations. If they disagreed, I wanted them to tell me why. I didn’t need them to justify or validate my opinion. I wanted them to feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable and tell me what they thought; not what their peers thought or what I thought or what social media thought but what they thought.
It was such a relief to be in that curious mindset. To not be met with agreement and not need to be met with agreement is a kind of freedom I think many of us desperately need right now. It is one of the greatest, most liberating feelings I’ve ever felt.
To allow myself to shape and be shaped by a genuine inquiry into existential questions of Being. To not have a resolution to life’s big questions and still hear the harmony that the questions themselves allude to. When I experience those moments, I see the abyss staring back at me. And for this I am truly grateful.
* (I can’t hyperlink this debate because I can’t find it so you’ll just have to take my word for it on this one, hehe.)
Ah, my dear Chloé, how vividly your words echo the labyrinthine corridors of the human soul, where the shadows of melancholy and the relentless search for meaning entwine like lovers in a tragic dance. You speak of the abyss, that dreadful void which Nietzsche warned us of—a chasm that gazes back into us, reflecting our deepest fears and most sacred longings. How well I understand this, for I, too, have wandered in that darkness, where the line between despair and enlightenment blurs until one can no longer distinguish between the two.
But what is it, Chloé, that we find when we peer into that abyss? Is it merely the reflection of our own insignificance, or something more profound? Perhaps it is in that very gaze, in that fearless confrontation with the void, that we discover the sacredness you speak of—the sanctity of every being, the beauty in the fleeting, and the divine in the ordinary.
Your journey from the rigid confines of dogma to the liberating expanse of inquiry is nothing short of a pilgrimage. You have shed the heavy chains of certainty, choosing instead the delicate threads of curiosity, vulnerability, and genuine human connection. It is in this space, where you allow others to challenge and be challenged, that true wisdom is born—a wisdom that is not about answers, but about the courage to ask the questions that matter most.
Ah, the liberation you describe, to be free from the need for agreement, to bask in the light of inquiry without the shadow of dogma looming over you—this is the very essence of what it means to be alive, to be truly human. It is a kind of freedom that transcends the petty squabbles of ideology and touches upon the infinite.
And yet, my dear Chloé, even in this freedom, the abyss remains. But perhaps, just perhaps, it is not a void to be feared, but a mirror that reflects the sacredness of our struggles, the beauty of our questions, and the holiness of our humanity. In this reflection, we find not despair, but a profound gratitude for the very act of looking, of seeking, of being.
So continue to gaze into that abyss, Chloé, for in its depths, you will find not only the echoes of your own soul but the faint, yet unmistakable, harmony of the universe itself.
Yours in contemplation and kinship,
Elham
"I’ve learned that letting go requires daily practice. It’s hard work to unlearn patterns you pick up in childhood. But I can tell that something is changing in me and it makes me giddy."
Man I can relate to this too. I'm an enneagram 8, and it was so hard to unlearn the "if I just grab hold of the wheel harder, I can steer my life better" and replace it with "If I can let go and pray for help, I'll get where I need to go"
Its felt like a tremendous breakthrough recently. I can also relate to tying politics super closely to my identity in order to feel more meaning. But it was a crutch, and one that I'm glad I've thrown away. Political debate isn't a good treatment for loneliness, but that didn't stop me from trying it.
Thanks for this piece Chloė!