Sometimes the fact that i am a breathing living human hits me so hard that everything feels surreal and i forget how to walk and breathe? Usually it wears off after a few minutes but recently this feeling can keep going for about an hour. Its like i get freaked out of being alive and aware of every little movement and thought. I truly feel that i am here and completely conscious about everything around me at that point. Its like i have taken psychedelic drugs.

This can at times be a wonderful experience but lately it just freaks me the fuck out.

Any idea what this is?

Yes, totally. What you’re describing is a shift in consciousness from a mental state of identifying with your thoughts and emotions to a mental state of present moment awareness. Essentially, you’re being smacked upside the head with a rather aggressive and involuntary form of mindfulness.

It’s kind of awesome, actually. Most folks have to meditate their faces off to reach that mental state. You’re one of the people who just gets it dropped on them. Treat it like a gift. Don’t resist it. That’s why it’s freaking you out, because you’re trying to control it. Don’t do that. Just go with it. You can play with it a little, and by that I mean be playful, but it has to come from a place of peace and/or joy.

If you start to get freaked out, just let your breath anchor you. You can always fall back on a gentle awareness of your breath, and you will be fine.

I’ve just read your piece “On a beautiful mess” for the fourth, maybe fifth time since you posted it. It was the first time, however, that it brought me to tears. That girls’ words have resonated with me before, but never so strongly. I’m too tired to wait for an answer to arise inside me though. My therapist suggested I go on antidepressants a few months ago but I just can’t do it. If I start taking them, I won’t be ‘me’ anymore; my personality, my true identity will be covered and shaped by those pills. It feels like I’ve got no way out since I can’t live a normal life without them either. I don’t believe that a human life has any inherent value really, not more than any animal’s life, or that we’re here for a reason or that there’s anything ‘on the other side’ so why not end this? I’d rather kill myself than be a fraud, a ‘happy robot’… I guess my question is — is a life worth living if you know you’re not really yourself?

I’m very sorry that you’re suffering from depression, but do yourself a favor and quit being such an asshole. Taking antidepressants doesn’t make you a fraud. They don’t turn you into a “happy robot,” and you’re a fucking idiot for saying shit like that.

It’s perfectly fine if you want to be an existential nihilist, but it’s not okay to be a whiny little bitch about it. Sure, life is meaningless and death is likely to be an eternity of nothingness, but so fucking what? That doesn’t mean life is without inherent value. Life is incredibly valuable. Life is precious. Life is all we’ve fucking got, and the reason you’re such a gaping asshole is because you’ve been given an opportunity to vastly improve the quality of yours, and all you can do is whine about it. Fuck you.

Speaking of which, there is no such thing as “you.” There is no “true identity” that exists as some static, concrete artifact to be covered and shaped by antidepressants. That’s not how it works. That’s not how any of this works. Your fear of antidepressants is childish and ignorant, and the whole dumbfuck myth that you won’t be “you” anymore is insulting to the millions of people whose lives have literally been saved by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

Take the fucking pills. That’s not a suggestion. That’s an order. While you’re at it, quit “waiting” for the answer to arise inside of you. That’s such a lazy way to think, and with that kind of shitty attitude, you’re not gonna stumble onto any profound revelation.

Like I’ve said before, the answer does exist. It’s already inside you, and it really has been there all along, but you’re never going to find it as long as you keep clinging to this depressed, whiny version of yourself that you insist is your “true identity.” It’s not.

Seriously, get over yourself. Tell your therapist that you’re ready to try antidepressants, and take the fucking pills.

You said my question was stupid and I don’t have any information to claim otherwise. I know a little about the political landscape but not anywhere near enough. I’m worried I’m just parroting fear-mongering bullshit that I’ve heard on the news or in articles on the internet, but I also don’t want to invalidate everything I know (or think I know) about the world. Something about Hillary Clinton scares me, but I’m not sure if that’s just the propaganda working very well. The solution is to read more but I don’t want to internalize more trash. Where should I start?

First, read Ezra Klein’s Understanding Hillary. Then read Michael Arnovitz’s Thinking About Hillary — A Plea for Reason, and since she scares you for no particular reason, see if you can spot yourself in Michelle Golberg’s The Hillary Haters.

Maybe screaming down left wing voters for “having reservations” about Hilary is exactly the problem. Because that’s the entire Democratic Party approach in a nutshell, and it’s not working very well so far hey. Maybe, just maybe, some of these reservations are actually fucking legit and worth talking about. Maybe, this is time to talk about how a two horse race is a fundamentally flawed example of democracy.

The “Democratic” party expectation (and it is an expectation) that; —“If you are left-wing leaning you MUST vote for this person, no question about it, OR else YOU are responsible for fucking the world up with the Trump monster”—- is so incredibly far out of touch it’s condescending. Not to mention ironic. But I guess it does illustrate a fairly typical American view of ‘democracy’.

The truth is, Hilary Clinton neglected the core “Democratic” constituency long ago. Hilary Clinton will continue bombing the Middle East , funded by the banks, and we will continue on with the neo-liberal status quo, with rising global inequality and environmental destruction.

Maybe people don’t want that future. Maybe the conversation shouldn’t be about Clinton v Trump. Maybe the conversation should be creating a better system, for the long term.

But that’s hard, I know. Especially when screaming VOTE HILARY over all the (often valid) reservations is so easy.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe you should quit acting like party unity is a fucking disease. Maybe you should recognize that creating a better system is a painfully slow process measured in decades rather than election years. Maybe it should occur to you that in this particular election, your left wing reservations are more dangerous than right wing ignorance. Maybe I should just tell you to go fuck yourself.

Listen, kid. You need to grow a thicker skin, because you damn well know what it is I do here. You love the way I write when you agree with me, but now that we’ve got some minor political differences, suddenly I’m condescending? Get the fuck out of here.

And you know what? As long as you’re voting for Hillary, we can sit around all day and talk shit about her centrism, her hawkishness, or her shitty position on Palestine. It’s a bit of a stretch for you to define truth on behalf of the core Democratic constituency, but hey, we can ramble on about global inequality and environmental destruction and the faults of a two party system for as long as you like, as long as you’re voting for Hillary.

I promise, kid. Screaming you down for having reservations is not the fucking problem. People like you deciding to stay home on election day is the fucking problem, because if Hillary loses, all those other problems that you care so much about won’t mean dick in an administration run by a narcissistic demagogue.

Your frustration with the system is justified. Truly, it is, and I totally understand your desire to make the conversation about something else, but you’re a childish asshole if you think you actually can. The conversation is about Clinton vs. Trump. You don’t get to change that.

Have all the reservations you want. Hold your fucking nose in the voting booth if you must. Resent the shit out of me for telling you this, I really don’t give a fuck, but goddamnit vote for Hillary.

I fucking love my boyfriend, but I’m running out of arguments against his libertarianism. He is truly team Gary Johnson 2016. Help me find the right words to express why I think libertarianism is insidious and not the whole picture?

(To be fair, he always listens to what I have to say and we’ve come to the uneasy agreement that, while we hold most of the same beliefs, he simply has more faith in “individual choice” than I do.)

Libertarianism is for selfish children. Your boyfriend is a selfish child. Worse than that, he’s an self-aggrandizing sanctimonious asshole who’d rather use his vote to make an empty, ego-gratifying statement about “individual choice” instead of eagerly voting for Hillary Clinton in light of a grotesque clown like Donald Trump being the Republican Nominee.

I detest people who vote for third party presidential candidates. Some of you are probably too young to remember, but Ralph Nader’s Green Party candidacy cost Al Gore the 2000 election. Contemptible fuck-puppets like your boyfriend are the reason we got George W. Bush.

I will never forgive the Green Party for their role in the 2000 election, and if a Gary Johnson/Jill Stein circle jerk gets in the way of Hillary Clinton winning the presidency, I will hate the Libertarian and Green Parties even more than I already do now.

I know you want me to give you the magic words that will remove your boyfriend’s head from his ass, but there aren’t any. He’s gonna sit up there on his insipid pile of half-assed libertarian principles and pretend he’s on moral high-ground, and there’s not a god damn thing you can do to stop him.

He knows Gary Johnson will never be President, and he knows there’s a real risk of Donald Trump winning, but he doesn’t care. He’s such a selfish piece of shit that he would rather stroke his own smug-fuck male ego than do his civic duty to prevent a narcissistic garbage monster from having the nuclear launch codes.

Your boyfriend can go fuck himself, and you can tell him I said that.