In Japan a rōnin (which literally translates to a “person of the waves’ or “unrestrained) was a type of samurai who had no lord or master and in some cases, had also severed all links with his family or clan. 

This personified my way. 

I never belonged. 

I never felt safe.

I never felt like I mattered.

I felt it.

Like a fucking outcast, even though I had lots of friends and connections.

However these connections werent formed in anything real. They were formed in wild, destructive and self abusive behaviour. 

No one had my back. I didnt even have my own back. 

We connected through our trauma. 

Our desire to escape. 

Our desire to numb the internal void of existence. 

Aimless.

Wandering. 

Lost.

And not in the “not all who wander are lost’ romantic kind of musing. 

Directionless because of the lack of healthy and able role models to exemplify what it meant to be seen, to be held, to be loved and nurtured and cared for. 

Directionless because of a broken generation of World War 2 survivors unable to lead the way as healthy masculine role models while they were picking up the pieces of themselves they didnt even know were fractured. 

Yep, I was a product of this. 

How could I find anything but trouble in the world when chaos was the model I grew up in?

 It wasn’t my parents fault, they were just a product of a broken chain.

So I aspired to be more, to break out of it. 

How? 

By starting businesses and making tons of cash to appear more attractive and wanted.

But what I realised was the drive for the shiny thing was directly correlated to the size of the abyss of inadequacy within.

Yes society designs us this way.

A bunch of unconscious programs programming unconscious programs. 

*What could possibly go wrong*

Something felt wrong about it. It never landed.

I have it all, I said. 

Yet I am more aimless than ever.

This aint it.

I had to figure this shit out. 

If traditonal therpay was so effective, why are more people more fucked than ever? 

Our world is more broken than ever. 

So begins the journey. 

When i get committed to something, nothing can stop me.

I uncovered a deep exploration and desire to figure this shit out. This shit being my so called ‘trauma’ or childhood.

After a period of intense self analysation it started to dawn on me the why..

Why the fuck am i like this. 

*Tick*

*A sigh of relief. Probably smug*

*Hold up bro - you aint done*

Then it went to HOW did this happen, and how do I fix it.. Or more importantly how the fuck do I bury my old self in the cold ground never for him to emerge? 

Once I got through that little warm hug of destruction came the real shit:

WHO AM I..

or rather…

WHO AM I NOT?

This is where the game became real: the universe bitch slapped me awake. 

Yes awake. Not WOKE. Awake. 

“Why do my eyes hurt”

“Because you've never used them before”

And boy did they fucking hurt. My eyes hurt, My heart hurt, my world hurt. 

As I started to bring the jigsaw puzzle of WHO I was NOT into form, I could see something.

The pattern started to form.

The connection points started to emerge.

Everything was related. EVERYTHING.

It was a web.

Words. Language. Events. Memories. People. Places. Feelings. Smells. Vibrations. 

Like a slideshow in my mind they all started to coalesce like a movie I was watching.

The observer and the observed. 

The slight delay between experience and experiencer is what I saw as the cause for why the who feels it is separate.

Nicely played ego, you crafty little fucker. 

From here I started to pull the pieces together in a more intricate way and then it struck me.

The Lightning Rod Of Awareness™ had struck like Oppenheimer. 

Everything that had ever happened was divinely leading me to my discoveries, and the ego had formed my personality and identity to keep me away from discovering it. 

The magnitude of this discovery still sends shock waves like an atomic bomb through my being.

So what's next?

To dismantle my false self and get an accurate map of the world I live within.

Watch out Columbus a new explorer of the world is coming.

The inner terrain is the world we live in, the external merely forms the territory and the map, compass, street names, mountain ranges, rivers, creeks, weather conditions, everything you can think of.

Literally NOTHING is external. 

EVERYTHING is internal..

So its with this I stand here with the gift I give you. 

My world and my knowledge of it all.

I have the answers for you.

The ones you’ve been searching for.

You know something is wrong. You can feel it.

Like a splinter in your mind.,

Because if I could free myself and overcome my overwhelming history, then you can too.