Maybe it was too early.
Asking the big questions about life & reality in my early teens wasn’t ideal.
I opened up a portal of darkness before I was ready to handle it.
By the time I turned nineteen, an unrelenting cocktail of questions, frustrations, anger, and confusion had me walking on thin ice. I was lost in the jungle of life — in the jungle of my mind.
On the inside, I was totally detached from society, but on the outside I was being sucked deeper into the system. And within the inner conflict of rebellion, forced compliance, false bravado, and self pity, I fell into a black-hole of depression.
For the next 3 painful years, I masked everything by drowning in alcohol, drugs, and never ending work days — culminating in a dark 4-week period, when I made consecutive attempts to end my life.
Multiple failures on, I'd turned into a numb-soul. All had pretty much seemed lost when, in one of those prolonged hours of darkness, I screamed out, "HELP!"
It was a powerful moment, because in the subsequent silence I realized that everything I hated about the world, I was being towards myself. I also came to see that my rebellion was a reaction to the deep internal pain, not a response from a set of values understood by me.
I knew for the first time in my life there’s a way out of this dark space of hell, but this was no longer going to be an escape — it was to be a liberation.
I had to break the artificial mold.
This meant breaking-up with everything familiar until then. I cried, felt a tiny glimpse of hope, then cried some more, as fear paralyzed me deeply along this process. Eventually in a moment of madness, I found the hammer of courage and shattered this demon.
I had made the most difficult decision of my (then) young life, and for a few days I felt a sense of freedom like never before. But a sense of lostness quickly came upon me.
So how could I feel lost? Well, I had just killed what had been artificial, and I no longer had an identity to interface with the world.
And what about liberation? It only lasted briefly, and from the void of no identity, my fears made a swift return.
Although this time I didn't cave in — I felt the fear, recognized it for what it was, but despite it all I embraced what was to be my period of ultimate transition.
So one bright Sunday morning, around 16 years ago, I decided to give away all my material possessions, toxic associations, old sense of misery, and step into the unknown.
I began my journey of self discovery by unplugging from the matrix.
All I held onto was a $20 note, a backpack of clothes, and one last sandwich. Taking this step was absolute madness, but somehow it felt right.
It’s hard to try and express the feeling of lightness that came upon me, as I took my first steps out the door.
As I began walking down the street, 3 years of painful depression in an instant fell away. It felt like the entire burden of my past had been let go — in one single moment of madness.
This madness seemed like the perfect antidote for my previous kind of insanity.
I walked down the street feeling so completely present, in some strange way, everything seemed possible. It was such a weird feeling for someone who hadn’t known much else, apart from fear, pain, and confusion.
I smiled at pretty much everyone that day, while I sat in a bubble feeling the most incredibly sense of peace in the middle of a crowded city.
I was in such a unique place within myself, and even though I had nowhere to go, I was unfazed about where I'd be sleeping that night.
Just as I had this thought, a name spontaneously popped into my head. It was the name of someone I’d chatted to for all of 15 minutes, months ago, in some random bar. But in those few minutes, we had had a fantastic little conversation.
Beyond this, the only details I could remember were his first name, the far away town he lived in, and quite vaguely, his profession.
So my crazy feeling was to turn up at his house, which was 3-hours away, unannounced. I didn’t know if he’d even remember me, considering the man was pretty intoxicated the evening we met.
My rational side immediately shot back: ‘What, you fucking crazy?’
But I was in no mood to shake off my intuition. I made my way to the train station, only to find at the ticket booth that I was short of the required fare.
I was not disheartened though, and I decided to make myself feel even lighter. I put my backpack into a storage locker (it cost me 10 bucks), and headed down to the beach to relax. I knew there was going to be a way to make this trip happen.
As I made my way towards the beach, my attention was drawn to one of the taller buildings: the Casino, a place I had always feared to visit. I had survived all my life by keeping things tightly controlled, but on this day there was nothing to lose.
'Screw it', I said to myself. I walked into the building, exchanged my last 10 dollars for two shiny chips, and put $5 on number 29 on the first Roulette wheel I encountered.
Dealer called ‘no more bets’, spun the wheel, and a few seconds later, fate smiled on a first timer with a 175 dollar win! I felt something in this particular moment that’s hard to describe, but I knew I had unlocked something in life beyond just this win.
I also clearly knew what I had to do next. I exchanged my chips and left for the train station, so I could get to the ticket counter before it closed for the day.
I caught the evening coach, arrived at this sleepy little town around 8pm, and walked from the train station to the only main street I could find here.
It was made up of roughly 7 or 8 stores. The only thing open at that time of the evening was a tiny general store, which the lady was about to shut until the morrow.
For a moment I felt foolish, wondering if this was indeed a stretch too far? But I decided to take a seat on a wooden bench near the store and just chill out.
The lady from inside the store spotted me. She curiously popped her head out the door and asked: “You don’t seem from around here?”
I said: ‘No, ma'm. I’m here to surprise a friend, but I seem to have lost his number.’
She asked me his name? I said: ‘It’s Bob’.
“And what is Bob’s family name?”, she inquired.
‘I don’t know, but I do believe he’s a sculptor of some sort’.
“Ah, you must be looking for Bob Finn”, she said.
‘Sounds about right’, I concurred.
“He lives just across the bridge over there”, she pointed, “the little house with the flickering outdoor light.”
I thanked her, made my way to Bob's, and knocked on the door.
He opened it… and without the least bit of hesitation said: “Hey! Come on in!”
This moment changed my life for good.. as it validated once and for all the mysterious power of intuition.
I spent about a week in this little town. I ate good food, drank good beer, had incredible conversations, and when I was quite satisfied, I decided it was time to make my way back.
I now had about 50 dollars left in my pocket after paying for my train fare. I arrived back into the city, and once again, I put my backpack into the locker. I decided to head down to the beach, so I could figure out my next port of call.
My wish, however, was to have freedom for a whole month; to have a nice little place to live in so I could do some self-reflection, and maybe write some poetry.
As I walked towards the beach, once again, I saw the casino building on my left.
'Fuck it', I said to myself, and went in.
It took 3–4 spins this time around, but I won again!
I had no strategy here, I was simply having fun exploring a new way of being in my life. I kept betting on random numbers I observed on other Roulette tables in my vicinity.
Somehow, I kept winning.
But my analytical mind had to kick in at some point, and after a couple of hundred spins, I began recognizing some relevant patterns of play. Long story short: Combining a calm mind, awoken instinct, and the ability to recognize interesting patterns, I walked away with just over a 1000 dollars.
I was now set-up for a month, exactly like I had wished for. I took the cash and headed to a part of town I’d never been to before.
Strolling down the eclectic main street of a new neighborhood, I came across a little sign on the window of a weird looking store. It said 'room available in house above the shop'.
The rent amount was perfect to last me just over a month. The owner was an eccentric Jewish guy with 9 kids, and as I found out in this conversation, the entire street was mainly a Jewish community.
I’m not Jewish, but for some reason I have crossed paths with this community more than others over a period of time. Haven’t quite been able to put my finger on why this has been so, even though there's a part of me that knows there is an incredible irony in this.
I enjoyed a beautiful night’s sleep at my new home that night. I woke up the next morning to be greeted by a lovely European couple in the kitchen: They were travelers who’d arrived an hour before.
We shared pleasantries over breakfast when, out of the blue, they asked me, "Do you know where the local Casino is?"
I had to pinch myself; this was strange indeed. How often do people ask you about Casinos in your first conversation? I wasn't planning on telling anyone about my recent adventure there, but I let them know of its location.
I also had no intentions of going back there in a hurry — definitely not out of greed. I was respectful of what had transpired so brilliantly over the last week in my life. But then, unexpectedly, they followed up by asking, "Can you take us there tonight?"
It was a quandary, but they were such a friendly couple, and I was in such a free flow with life that I said, "Sure."
We headed down to the Casino in the evening. When we got there I asked them what game they wanted to play? To my surprise, they said Roulette — they had no idea about my previous wins at this point.
I recommended that they try the personalized Roulette screens. The section was set up in a manner where the wheel and the Dealer were in the center, and individual betting screens circled around the person.
I decided to let my new friends play for a bit, while I watched; it turned out they were horrible at the game! After they’d lost about 80 dollars, I said to them: ‘I’ll sit on a screen opposite you guys, and prompt you to the numbers I’ll be betting on.’
With a wry smile, I said: ‘Trust me.’
They smiled back, realizing I might know something they don’t.
Over the next couple of hours, I seamlessly moved from 100 dollars to a 1000 dollars. I was betting in denominations of 2 and 5 dollars straight on single numbers, giving myself the best chance of getting the highest return.
My European friends, however, were conservatively betting 50 cents on each of these numbers. They were just happy to be winning, instead of losing their cash — seemingly amazed.
Then the inevitable happened: Greed arrived. I lost some focus, started losing money, and quickly fell from 1000 to about 150.
Having arrived at the casino with only100 dollars (to limit potential losses), I decided that I’d be happy to go back home with the same amount of money.
The moment I made this decision, I felt something change within: I knew with a strange amount of certainty, what the next number was going to be.
I asked my friends to put 10 dollars on zero. They said, “No way!”
I insisted: ‘Put 10 dollars on zero. If you lose it, I’ll compensate you 20 dollars for your loss.’
So we all bet on zero.
Despite my offer, they only bet 5 dollars, but I bet 50 dollars straight.
And then… zero!
I was now up by 1,850 dollars.
No sooner did this happen, my inner state went to a different level. I was sharp, clear and focused, while everything around me had slowed down.
If you’ve watched the movie Limitless then here I was Eddie Mora on nzt. Feeling in the zone, I started betting 100 dollars straight on numbers I deemed to be good bets.
It’s a pity the Casino had limited the maximum bets on these screens to a 100 dollars for single numbers; if not, I'd have walked away with an insane amount of money that night.
But even with the maximum limits, I was still up by 15,000 dollars in just a few hours, and had acquired a full year of living costs for myself.
My friends' jet lag, however, had caught up with them, and I was getting a bit tired too. Unable to focus anymore, we decided to call it a night.
Needless to say, my friends ended up winning more than they ever had at European casinos before. We all got back home pretty damn satisfied with ourselves.
Following this, things only kept getting better in my world. One amazing experience after another kept coming my way, and it ended up as one of the best years of my life.
In some ways, I didn’t even do much. The state of being that I was in allowed amazing people to be drawn into my world, and the conversations that came about were just extraordinarily soulful.
All of this ran its course for about ten or eleven months, before finally for the first time that year I sat down and consciously thought about what I had managed to attract into my life.
No sooner did I have this moment of reflection, it started to happen... Everything started to collapse around me, almost as if it had never existed.
It seems, my journey of self discovery had only just begun.
Little did I know that I was destined to spend the next decade of my life in darkness: Exploring it, understanding it, battling it, integrating it, and most importantly, transmuting it.
Man, it has been some journey.