April 17th. The night stands motionless outside my window, and the silence in this room is so thick I can almost feel its weight upon my shoulders. Sometimes I wonder if silence is merely the absence of sound, or if it is the very space where the truths we have buried during the day finally find their voice. I sit here, bathed in the soft glow of the lamp, thinking about that strange, almost invisible rift between the person I try to be for the world and the one who breathes with difficulty inside my chest. We all walk paths we have charted ourselves, or paths thrust upon us by the expectations of others, yet we often forget to check if these roads have turned into narrow, airless corridors.
I notice lately how the faces of those around me—and my own in the mirror—carry a particular mark of exhaustion that cannot be cured by sleep. It is, rather, a metaphysical fatigue, the fruit of a constant, corrosive tension that forces us to seek salvation outside of ourselves. When the path we travel begins to press against us with such force that anxiety becomes our permanent companion, we inevitably begin to look for ways to dissolve, to vanish, to diffuse our own presence. I look at the glass of wine on the table, the cigarette smoke curling like a ghostly prayer toward the ceiling, and I realize these are not merely habits or vices in the conventional sense. They are compensatory mechanisms, the soul’s desperate attempts to find peace in a place where authenticity has been replaced by duty or fear.
From a psychoanalytical perspective, every addiction is a form of escape from the unbearable reality of the Ego. When the internal conflict between who we are and what we do becomes too sharp, our psyche activates defense mechanisms to dull the pain. We "soothe" ourselves through alcohol because, for a moment, it blurs the jagged edges of consciousness; we overeat to fill a void that is not physical, but spiritual; we reach for drugs to cross the boundaries of an existence that feels like a prison. But in this act of "diffusion," we actually lose our integrity. The sickening of the body and spirit is the soul’s final cry, trying to tell us that the direction is wrong. Illness is not a punishment; it is a symptom—a mirror showing us that we have strayed from our own truth.
I often catch myself justifying this state. It is easy to say that we live in difficult times, that we are victims of collective karma, of economic crises, or the misunderstandings of those around us. It is comfortable to hide behind the mask of the victim, believing the world is unjust and we are simply bearing its weight. But the truth is far harsher and, simultaneously, more liberating. If the road leads to self-destruction, if we require artificial stimulants or sedatives just to survive our daily lives, then this path is not the soul’s true path. The true path, even when difficult, carries a specific kind of light and lightness. It does not cause us to fall apart; it causes us to come together.
I remember the words of the ancient mystics: that God, or the Universe, speaks through silence, but we have become too noisy in our vices to hear that whisper. There is something deeply tragic about encountering the lie every day, smiling where one wishes to weep, and calling this "success" or "maturity." In reality, it is a slow dying. A person must have the courage to choose their health, which in its essence is the choice of truth. Health is not merely the absence of a diagnosis; it is the harmony between our inner longing and our outer manifestation. When we justify to ourselves that "we have no choice" or that "everyone does it," we only prolong the agony of our misalignment with the divine within us.
In the silence of this night, I realize that every cigarette, every bout of emotional eating, every recourse to alcohol is a prayer uttered backward. It is a cry for love, for meaning, for a touch of the eternal, but directed toward the wrong destination. We seek in matter that which only the spirit can provide. Psychoanalysis might call this "regression," an attempt to return to a state of bliss where our needs are met instantly. Но the soul does not seek comfort; it seeks transformation. It wants to pass through the fire of truth, even if that fire burns away everything false we have spent years building.
I ask myself: how many of us have the strength to stop in the middle of the road, look our addictions in the eye, and say: “This is not me. This is my pain trying to show me that I am lost.”? Choosing health is an act of radical honesty. It requires us to stop blaming collective fate and take responsibility for our own light. To admit that the lie we live in is more dangerous than any disease, for it erodes the very fabric of our being. The true path does not require us to be intoxicated to walk it. On the contrary, it demands total wakefulness, absolute presence in the current moment, even when that moment is painful.
There is a peculiar grace in admitting the defeat of one's ego. When you stop fighting the symptoms and begin to listen to what they are telling you, a healing silence ensues. In that silence, you understand that you are not a victim. You are a creator who has forgotten their instrument. You are a traveler who has taken someone else’s map. Falling ill is simply the "Stop" sign placed by the merciful hand of the Universe to prevent us from falling into the abyss of total self-oblivion.
Every night, as I close my eyes, I try to imagine what my life would look like if I didn't have to "compensate" for it. A life where joy is not the result of a chemical reaction, but the natural state of the spirit. A life where stress is not diffused, but transformed into action, into creativity, into prayer. This is the path of truth. It is steep, sometimes lonely, but it is the only one upon which we can meet ourselves without shame. We are not obligated to be part of the collective unhappiness. We have the right—and the duty—to be healthy, to be whole, to be real.
Sometimes I fear the void that would open if I let go of all my compensatory mechanisms. Who will remain if I remove the alcohol, the urge to overeat, the constant flight into noise? This fear is, in fact, the fear of meeting the Divine within ourselves. For in the silence, stripped of anesthesia, we are naked. But it is precisely in this nakedness that true strength is born. Where we no longer have excuses, our transfiguration begins. Truth is not a destination; it is the way we breathe. It is the refusal to turn our lives into a bargain with vice.
I watch the first rays of dawn begin to tear through the darkness on the horizon. Another day lies ahead—another opportunity to choose. I can continue to walk the well-trodden path of tension, justifying myself with circumstances, or I can stop and take one small, quiet step toward the health of my soul. The illness I feel sometimes, like a tightening in my throat or a heaviness in my stomach, no longer looks like an enemy. It is my most honest friend. It tells me: “This is not your home. Your home is in the truth.”
Let us lie to ourselves no longer. Let us not call our weakness "destiny." Each of us carries the spark of divine health within, and every time we choose not to numb ourselves, but to experience our pain in full consciousness, we nourish that spark. Life is too short to spend it in diffusion. It is time to return to our bodies, to our hearts, to our true path. And if that path requires us to change everything—our work, our relationships, our habits—then let us do it. For in the end, the only thing that truly belongs to us is the purity of our soul and the courage to remain faithful to its rhythm.
The night is fading, and with it, the weight of my thoughts. Only one quiet question remains, vibrating in the air: Are you ready to be healthy? Not just physically, but entirely, in the very core of your being? The answer is not in words, but in the next breath—one taken without the need for anesthesia, without the need for a lie. Just pure air, pure will, and a longing to return home. The choice is ours. Truth is here, waiting for us beneath the layers of our artificial comforts. It is time to embrace it.
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