Black Sun Apex

Jungian psychology interprets Nigredo as a period of deep introspection, where individuals confront their shadows, release attachments, and experience a “dark night of the soul,” leading to a potential for spiritual awakening and self-realization.

I awoke suddenly. I couldn’t catch my breath. Did my heart just stop beating? Should I call an ambulance? The thoughts raced faster than the drum in my chest.

Under extreme physical or emotional fatigue, I become prone to panic attacks. When I first started getting them, I had no idea what was happening. I felt like I was physically dying. 

They were unpredictable and would come on without warning, often when I was sleeping. The episode would last about an hour, where my heart would punch through my throat, and my mind would dissolve through my fingers. I would lose all sense of who I was.

The first few attacks were the most intense.

I would go for days feeling completely disconnected from who I was. Shaken, and contemplating every facet of my being, the very foundations of my self-awareness were thrown into the vaccum of space. Where it tumbled. Endlessly. Without direction.

During this eclipse, I would have mood swings that took me to the most glorious heights of euphoria, a feeling where I could burst into tears at any moment. I would also have depressing lows & spikes of rage that became proportional to the euphoria. Some days I was a hair trigger from violently launching in either direction.

The cause? I realised the world is a joke run by clowns.

I was stuck in a job that valued obedience over merit. Where the extra mile was expected, and work-life balance was biased towards work. I was surrounded by yes men who didn’t have the ability, or confidence, to speak up. I was adrift in an ocean of wasted human potential. The concensus was that this was normal.

How can mediocrity and exploitation be accepted as normal in society? We give the best hours of our days, and the best years of our life, to get an inadequate salary and meagre pension. It didn’t make sense. I knew I was capable of more than being a cog.

I needed leadership, but there were no leaders I could emulate.

I needed empathy, but there was no one who would listen.

I needed therapy, but I was too disconnected from myself to see it.

I had no leaders to inspire, no shoulder to cry on, and no understanding of what I was feeling – Except existential dread, endless self-doubt and a ball of anxiety in my chest.

If you’re reading this then the chances are we are the same; You recognise greatness within you and you don’t want your life laid out for you. People around you seem asleep to the awe of life and are happy to blindly consume. Understand this, there is nothing wrong with a life of blind consumerism. All throughout history the human population has followed, lead by a self-actualised few.

You and I are cut from the same cloth. We live on a emotional spectrum that is far deeper & wider than the average man. To experience such drastic swings of human experience, to see the world for what it is, is a gift from the gods. It may feel like a curse, but I assure you, it is a boon.

I need you to recognise life isn’t predetermined. We can build the future we dream of, but it comes with a cost. To forge the life we want, we need to suffer. Greatness is born in discomfort. Briliance & insanity are two sides of the same coin.

We live in a world where it appears talent is gifted at birth to a few, and the rest of us will fade into obscurity. World leaders, innovators, pioneers, and explorers. However, everyone who was anyone had a touch of brilliance & insanity.

The reality is, you need brilliance & insanity if you want to:

• Chase down your vision. Where others see a pipe dream, you see a future you can grasp.
• Blaze your own trail. Why would anyone want to walk the path of most resistance?
• Refuse to take the safe, well lit and secure path in life. It’s been walked by millions of souls before, why do you feel the need to go your own way?

One of my favourite quotes is by Frederic Neiche;

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

To some this serves as a warning. To me it’s an invitation. What does Frederic mean by monster?

A monster is any creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is often hideous and may produce fear or physical harm by its appearance or its actions. The word “monster” derives from Latin monstrum, meaning an aberrant occurrence, usually biological, that was taken as a sign that something was wrong within the natural order.

The root of monstrum is monere—which does not only mean to warn but also to instruct, and forms the basis of the modern English demonstrate. Thus, the monster is also a sign or instruction. This benign interpretation was proposed by Saint Augustine, who did not see the monster as inherently evil, but as part of the natural design of the world, a kind-of deliberate category error.

Then surely, by the cloth we are cut, we are technically monsters. We are the anomaly. That makes us a glitch in the programming of the matrix. If the natural order is obedience and conformity, then anything that doesnt follow that order is disruption.

As a rule, society fears that which it does not understand. It will shy away from discomfort and try to maintain homeostasis. Herein lies your power, Brother.

To be exceptional and to live exceptionally doesn’t actually mean to be phenomenal. It doesn’t actually mean to be a genius, or a prodigy.

In our society, to be exceptional is to be above average.

This is liberating.

If a monster, by it’s purest definition, is one who operates outside the status quo.. then what about the abyss?

“This doctrine is extremely difficult to explain; but it corresponds more or less to the gap in thought between the Real, which is ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual. In the Abyss all things exist, indeed, at least in posse, but are without any possible meaning; for they lack the substratum of spiritual Reality. They are appearances without Law. They are thus Insane Delusions.

Now the Abyss being thus the great storehouse of Phenomena, it is the source of all impressions.“

It was the void before the birth of the universe. It is the mindhole that opens up when we’re alone, at our lowest point, lost and questioning our existence. When a girl says no; when a job rejects us, the abyss appears.

Here’s the secret no social media influencer will tell you.

If you want to change your life, you need to embrace the discomfort of the abyss.

Let it envelope you. What happens if you place two mirrors infront of each other? Endless reflection. The abyss stares into you and you stare into the abyss. The abyss becomes you, you become the abyss. If you gaze into the abyss, you gaze into yourself.

The abyss is the uncomfortable darkness from which all potentiality emerges.

Brother,

The abyss is the uncomfortable darkness from which all your potentiality will manifest.

Look upon the unknown with lust & wonder. Welcome the darkness like an old friend. Become comfortable with insanity, dread & fear. Become a monster, a glitch. The one the weak will fear, marvel, and admire. 

If you become comfortable with physical and mental discomfort, you will become unstoppable.

The abyss is the crucible from which both insanity & brilliance reveals itself, but to open it, you need to be uncomfotable. It makes and breaks who we are. It is the spawn of all ethereal seeds that gestate into world changing innovation.

Do not fear yourself or the abyss; Embrace it.