Why You Should Visit The Underworld 🔦

Published about 1 month ago • 3 min read

LIFE ON URTH - Episode 098

Surprising Darkness

The time after my board exam, which I passed a month ago, was surprisingly dark. I had not felt that bad in a long time.

At first, this seemed absurd to me: I had passed the final exam, withstood the final boss of medical training, climbed a few more rungs on the great ladder — and yet, instead of triumph, I suddenly found myself surrounded by a deep darkness.

Looking back, it seems less mysterious. Sometimes you have to change mountains in order to keep climbing, and that transition leads through a valley.

And it was not just darkness. It was also breathlessness, uncertainty, and the feeling of losing my orientation. With some distance, I understand that it was not only the strain of the exam itself, but also the new lack of footing that came with the sudden increase of responsibility.

Some jumps on the map are so large that you first have to learn how to find your way in the new terrain.

Valleys > Peaks

Inner valleys are unpleasant, of course, but often still preferable to inner peaks. Unlike the ancient, rocky mountain ranges of the material world, our inner landscape is in constant motion.

Everyday life is full of moments in which our mood suddenly changes in order to reflect our interpretation of the world.

Sometimes you notice the ground beneath you giving way: the peak melts, and every possible path forward first leads downward. Rock turns to sand. What just gave support slips through your fingers.

And yet, a visit to the underworld is often not only unavoidable, but even desirable. Only there can treasures be won from dragons and demons. And in the end, even on the peaks, we possess only what we have brought back up from the depths.

Inside = Outside

Often, you can sense in advance when the rock beneath you is becoming porous. The precondition for that, however, is honesty with oneself.

Inner honesty and outward honesty are in close interaction. In fact, if I am honest, there is no real difference between the two.

When I look closely, my world consists of only one substance: consciousness.

Within it, inside and outside are not truly separate. Both are energetic patterns, deeply rooted in our nature and essential for our survival — but they are not the substance itself.

Inside, outside, I, we, they: all just waves on the same ocean.

In this ocean, attention is the greatest force I have immediate access to. To take responsibility means not to surrender that power to its blind automatisms.

That is why I try not to flee when I find myself breathless in the darkness of a valley, but to use my attention like a flashlight, in order to get to know the new terrain. With enough courage, a path upward will eventually appear. So far, it always has.

✒️ Quote of the Week: “Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.” -José Saramago

Approaching the center of existence through language and concepts is doomed to fail because it already cuts pieces out of the original space of being. Wholeness can only be found in silence and emptiness.

🍿 Video of the week: THE PATCHWRIGHT | Cyberpunk Short Film

Is this the future of filmmaking? I for sure find it inspiring.

🎧 Song of the Week:Skeler - Pale Light

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All the best,

Adrian / Urth

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