Transcendance Without Tears
Author’s note:- This is a previous essay, remastered for the coming Apocalypse.
There’s something strangely merciful about the way the human mind works. We’re simply not built to process everything. Our attention narrows. We simplify. We shut things out. And for the most part, that’s what keeps us functioning. If we didmanage to correlate all the data—history, politics, power, the environment, what we’re doing to each other, what’s coming next—we’d probably freeze. Or collapse. Or start laughing at the absurdity of it all.
We live in the dark. On purpose. And mostly, we pretend we’re not.
But sometimes—just sometimes—there’s a crack. A flash of something bigger. A glimpse of the systems running underneath it all. Some people push it away. Some spiritualise it. Others fall apart. But the real work is to stay with it. To stare into the chaos and not flinch. To stand in the mess of it all and choose to act anyway.
That’s what this is about. Not transcendence as bliss. Not as enlightenment. Just a kind of grounded, gritty clarity. A way of staying awake.
I used to think the Necronomicon was a horror trope. A cursed book, full of madness and secrets. But now I think it’s a perfect metaphor for what happens when you actually start paying attention. When you stop numbing out. When you stop looking away. There are truths that live just beyond the edges of polite conversation—things we’re not meant to notice. Trauma. Power. Shame. The raw, unfiltered reality of being human.
You start to see the machinery. And it’s not pretty.
Magic, for me, isn’t about rituals or symbols. It’s about being able to look directly at that machinery and not get crushed by it. To see the forces at play—inside you, around you—and learn to work with them. To transmute them. Or at least not be ruled by them.
There’s a reason spiritual traditions talk about “the poisons.” In Buddhism, they name five: anger, pride, craving, envy, and ignorance. Not as sins, but as energies. Left unconscious, they run your life. But when you can hold them in awareness, they shift. They become fuel. You don’t get rid of your rage—you learn to use it. You don’t deny your pride—you harness it. These things are part of you. Better to learn to carry them than to pretend they’re not there.
The alternative is letting them control you from the shadows.
Peter Carroll’s Esotericon, one of the cornerstones of chaos magic, puts it simply: belief is a tool. You don’t have to believe in anything forever. You can pick up a system, use it, and drop it when it stops serving you. That’s freedom. But there’s a danger too: once you realise everything is a construct, you can fall into the void. You can start to feel like nothing means anything. That’s the real horror—not tentacled gods or cursed grimoires, but the moment you stop believing in anything.
We live in a world where that kind of emptiness is everywhere. It’s not cosmic—it’s mundane. It’s in the scrolling. The performative outrage. The hollow dopamine loops. Horror doesn’t hide anymore. It’s streamed directly into your life, disguised as entertainment.
When I was a teenager, there was a VHS tape that circulated among kids—Faces of Death. Real footage. Executions. Murders. People passed it around like a secret. I refused to watch it. They said I was being sensitive. I said I didn’t want that kind of thing in my mind. Now, it’s not even a question. You open your phone, and it’s there. War, violence, suicide—all shoved into your consciousness before you can process what you’ve seen. The line between horror and daily life has evaporated.
And the worst part? Most people don’t even notice.
We’re being flooded with imagery that burns out our capacity for empathy. We’ve adapted to horror. Not in a noble way—but in a numbed-out, dissociative way. The algorithm doesn’t care if it’s showing you joy or terror—it just wants your attention. And that’s the game we’re all trapped in.
Grant Morrison nailed this in The Invisibles with the character of the King of All Tears. A being who mourns the end of the world he built—a world of control, of sleepwalking, of consumption. And even as it collapses, he weeps, because it’s all he knows. That’s the energy we’re surrounded by now. Institutions breaking down. Systems failing. People clinging to what’s familiar, even as it poisons them.
But here’s the thing: you don’t have to collapse with it.
Right now, I’m sitting by a river, drinking coffee. The air is clean. There’s birdsong in the background. It’s all still here. Still real. Beneath the noise, the horror, the overload—there’s still something solid. Your life. Your body. Your breath. The six inches in front of your face.
That’s where the work happens.
So here’s a framework. A handful of questions and answers. Not doctrine. Not dogma. Just a tool for seeing clearly again.
Q: What is transcendence?
A: It’s when you stop mistaking your thoughts for reality. When you stop repeating the same old story about your pain and realise you can set it down. It’s nothing mystical. It’s just now.
Q: What is affliction?
A: When you believe your ideas about life more than you believe your direct experience of it. It’s the gap between what you expected and what actually is.
Q: Why do we miss transcendence?
A: Because we think it’s supposed to feel profound. But it’s actually quiet. Ordinary. It feels like being home in your own skin, even just for a moment.
Q: Who am I?
A: The one asking. That’s enough.
Q: How do I improve my life?
A: Count the minutes of your day where you feel joy, or peace, or anything real. That’s your metric. Not your bank account, not your to-do list. Time spent present.
Q: What is fear, and how can I use it?
A: Fear is often a lie your body believes. Learn to listen without obeying. Feel it—but look around. Most of the time, you’re okay. Act from that place.
Q: How do I stop caring what others think?
A: Everyone’s busy with their own chaos. You’re not the main character in their story. Do what matters to you. Let the rest go.
Q: Is it really a choice?
A: Yes. The script you’re living isn’t fixed. You can write a new one. But you have to start. Nobody’s going to do it for you.
There’s always more to say about what I call The Nothing—that slow erosion of meaning. The way people stop creating. Stop caring. Start clinging to nostalgia instead of risking anything real. But that’s for another time.
For now, start here:
breathe.
Notice what’s real.
Stop performing.
Feel what it’s like to be you, right now.
That’s transcendence.
No tears required.