The absolute aloneness.

I love the Big City. I feel its pulse beat in synchrony with mine and we, the City and I, are alive together. The life never stops here. The light is always there to illuminate the incessant activity, accompanied by endless stream of sounds. There is never absolute darkness or complete silence. I may be lonely, but I am never alone. Someone is awake, infusing life into the City, sharing our common heart beat. The thought of existing in a quieter, darker place, where life stills, has always seemed inconceivable to me, almost terrifying.

I stepped into the Sahara desert. I walked in the middle of the night, far away from the camp, until the lights and sounds of it could no longer reach me. I was alone.

The almost full moon illuminated the endless sand dunes with eerie calmness. The bright stars in the clear dark sky surrounded me, enfolded me into the infinite universe. No movement or sound, not even my own breathing, disrupted the tranquility of the moment. The space and the time stood still. Sense of utter peace permeated into my entire being. There was no joy or sadness. Fear, guilt, regrets, yearning had all disappeared. I lost myself to find myself.

The absolute aloneness.

The collapse of the reality.

The moments that torture the soul – bleak, gloomy, emotionally devastating. In those moments it feels like all the pressure of my reality collapses on me. Nothing is right and everything is wrong. All my past and present failures, hurt, guilt, are hunting me. A seemingly endless string of chaotic thoughts is racing through my brain. My mind leaps from one tumultuous event to another. The overwhelming sense of despair, self-doubt, emptiness, hopelessness engulfs me and for a fraction of time there seems no way out.

At the end, I find myself and remember the entities that define me. The reality starts to expand again.

The soul of the city.

The city has a soul that connects with mine, it matches my rhythm, it resonates with my emotions. I spent days walking around, feeling the buildings, the streets, the parks…and the people.

I came here looking for something, not knowing what that something was. Emotions. Experiences. Answers, I thought instinctively. However, I did not even have the questions. I was trying to find my stable quantum self, to achieve comprehension and equipoise. An exit from the existential black hole.

I found a paradox. Ecstatic times of exultation. Quiet times of soul searching. Sensual times of physical and emotional connections. The reflection of myself in someone else. Being and feeling, without words. For one moment, I was free from the black hole. And then it was back. Had I really been free? The paradox - I imagined him, I wished him...But he was not real.

A parallel universe that will never be.