Not so long ago, I was just like you. Well, maybe not as tall or intelligent or athletic, but closer than chimpanzee DNA. Now... well, now I’m not. I like to think I’ve evolved, but getting here was a long, dark, lonely trip that, more often than not, felt like death creeping up my raw nerves to the center of my limping heart. Or my amygdala. Wherever it is we keep those emotional memories. But, hey. It’s lighter now. I’m lighter now. Everything is lighter now because I finally saw the light.

No, I’m not talking about some god or gods or Nirvanic epiphany. I’m talking about staring into the maw of eternity when you’ve collapsed, empty, at the bottom of the Void.

Where exactly might that be? Do voids even have a bottom? Hell if I know. I do know you can’t get much more Nothing than that. So you either die there, a lame and meaningless phrase, or you articulate your way back into the Land of the Living.

Whether you belong there or not.

I had help. I sat with a therapist for a while. He meant well. But all I learned from him was that each of us is on a journey nobody else can take. We’re lucky to understand the least important thing about anybody else, much less anything important about ourselves.