This is not about suicide.

This is about leaving the current world you inhabit and going to another, completely different one, where you can be yourself and find your true path.

This transition, this awakening—whatever you want to call it—comes with a high price.

Luckily, the price is proportional. The choice is yours, and yours alone.

Consider where you are now. This applies to a specific type of person, though it encompasses the vast majority. I’m talking about your daughter, your lover, your son, wife, husband, co-worker, friend, or even the stranger you sit next to on the bus, or in a local bakery.

And I’m also talking about you.

When was the last time you felt bored? I mean, truly bored, with time to kill?

I’m guessing it was when you were in line for the bus, trapped in traffic, or waiting for your boss to arrive at a meeting he scheduled.

And what did you do with that time?

Did you check your phone for notifications? Open your email for the thousandth time, searching for that really important message? Or maybe you opened WhatsApp, only to find it empty?

Well?

If I were a betting person, I’d wager that what you didn’t do was look around and pay attention.

I mean, really pay attention.

Did you notice the temperature around you? How gravity affects your body? The cacophony of sounds your surroundings pump into your head? Or even the smell of the person sitting next to you?

No, probably not.

All these subtleties are with you every day, all the time, yet you choose to ignore them.

They are generally not important—unless in very specific cases—but what they bring to your existence, your being, is.

They bring you space, dimension, a shift in perception. Not specifically the color of the sky, or the annoying noise of a co-worker's voice, but the mindset you need to observe all these things submerged in the sea of your autopilot brain.

I’m not talking about mindfulness.

I’m talking about a space where mindfulness exists—and so do many other things.

Once you are bored and resolve not to reach for a distraction, once you choose not to continue rotting your brain with mindless time-killing devices, that’s when it hits you.

At first, it’s hard—hard to focus on all these details around you.

How could it not be difficult? Your attention span has atrophied, and your brain is desensitized due to constant stimuli.

What you are offering your brain right now, in this idle moment, is something new, something uncomfortable, hard, and effortful—with no immediate reward.

Brains hate hard work. It burns too many calories, and dopamine doesn’t come quickly, if it comes at all.

Give it time and continue to evaluate your surroundings.

Depending on your level of thought rumination, after a while—not too long—the wave of noise hits you.

Internal noise—relentless thoughts coming one after another.

If you don’t supply your brain with external, high-intensity stimuli, it gains space to think, you see?

You think about everything. Some thoughts are embarrassing, others exciting, some are deep secrets that will die with you.

Keep away from your phone.

Suddenly, you notice you’re feeling anxious, nervous, or annoyed. Have you been feeling this throughout the day? Since the beginning of the week?

Haven’t you noticed when and why it started?

Did you not notice when an internal feeling overtook you? Are you that numb?

This is the actual world you sleep in. You don’t live in it; you sleep in it. A world with no time to pay attention to yourself, or to the ones you love. A fast-paced world that is mostly empty and void of meaning.

And then, there’s the other world, the one that exists only after unplugging (and I don’t mean just from technology).

There is a world of thought and action, where propaganda doesn’t take hold, where there’s time to think and re-center yourself, where you become human again, not a machine of selfies, trends imposed by others, and mindless behavior.

This is the world some of us exist in and spend a lot of time in.

Now, under ordinary circumstances, you cannot fully leave your current reality. You have to work, and depending on your social status and the life you’ve built, you may get into trouble if you disconnect completely.

But you don’t have to. Just like you don’t have to stay fully connected either.

Once you start to realize and understand the nature of the alternate reality—more real than the one you currently know—you will gain a sobering perspective. You’ll see that the human race is imprisoning itself further in a distorted existence.

And then, you will have to stop and breathe.

Some individuals have made the transition from the illusion most people live in to real life.

These are the ones who notice the small details, who think deeply, who are outsiders. They don’t fit in with the masses, but they walk among them, like freshly awakened people among sleepwalkers.

And no, I am not talking about the pathetic "woke culture," which is anything but awake.

History is filled with such individuals, and in this case, it works backwards—the further back in history we go, the more we find them.

In antiquity, when the world wasn’t so fast-paced and mindless, mental space existed and was available for all to enjoy. People were born into it.

In the past, people did more, were more resilient and focused, because they didn’t have the overstimulation and constant, powerful distractions we face today. Those were the days of art, philosophy, critical thinking, great projects, and great minds. From the ancient Greeks to the Victorians, people spoke to each other, debated ideas, explored concepts, and questioned the world around them.

They moved with focus, commitment, and sheer will—rare commodities these days.

Pay attention, I’m not trying to say the past was perfect, a bed of roses, or a pure white sheet without stains.

Far from it.

There were awful living conditions, violence, short life spans, and knowledge wasn’t available to everyone. But there was more space to think and focus on the essential things that give true meaning to our existence and minds.

Haven’t you noticed that when you spend several hours passively staring at a screen, you enter a state of numbness, a kind of hypnosis? And afterward, you feel lethargic, more susceptible to irritation, and can’t really hear yourself think, as if your brain has been filled with garbage and your thoughts can’t flow freely?

There is only one other thing that creates the level of noise we encounter in everyday life: war.

You are being distracted by all of this, distancing yourself from your true self.

I leave you with an invitation.

Cross over. Leave the world you currently live in and set yourself free. Return to it only to work, and reshape your life to guarantee your freedom.

Read, meditate, develop critical thinking, create, write, and pay attention.

Pay attention.

You will find new delights, real delights, and you will start thinking for yourself. And then you will notice how messed up and distorted all the noise you used to pay attention to really is.

The invitation has been made.

The rest is up to you.