The upward spiral
By Leo thee Lemon
I need your help.
This is what I’m trying to build.
If you have the means, becoming a paid subscriber genuinely helps me keep writing like this consistently.
If you don’t, being here, reading, sharing, restacking still means more than you think.
If you want to support directly:
The upward spiral
By Leo thee Lemon
I really wonder about the difference between the material world and the spiritual one.
In the material world we have all this stuff.
Phones.
Cars.
Books.
Computers.
Homes.
Subscriptions quietly draining money from our bank accounts every month while we nod along like this is normal adult behaviour.
But in the spiritual world what do we actually have left?
Probably ourselves.
Which honestly feels less comforting the longer I think about it.
Our happiness.
Our anger.
Our jealousy.
Our love.
Our fears.
Our worries.
All the parts of our personality we spend most of our lives trying to distract ourselves from with glowing screens and little treats.
Whether we like those things about ourselves or not.
Those are probably the things we keep.
Jesus said “be not afraid.”
People hear that line and treat it like a decorative fridge magnet.
But fear controls an unbelievable amount of human behaviour.
Fear stops people from leaving jobs.
Leaving relationships.
Speaking honestly.
Starting things.
Ending things.
Making decisions.
Looking stupid.
Looking weak.
Being alive in any real way that cannot be optimized into a productivity podcast.
Fear is one of the biggest blocks in life.
Especially when things are uncertain.
And most things are uncertain.
That’s the irritating part.
“Be not afraid.”
That can become a personal mantra if you let it.
A reset button.
Like somebody standing backstage before speaking in front of a crowd.
Three.
Two.
One.
Go.
The fear doesn’t disappear.
You just move anyway.
I dislike my fear.
I really dislike my anger too.
But anger is useful sometimes.
That’s the uncomfortable truth people avoid because it sounds impolite.
If I’m hitting the punching bag at the boxing gym I’m not channeling happiness into it.
Nobody wraps their hands, smells the rubber matting and stale sweat in a boxing gym, then thinks:
“Time to process my gratitude.”
I use anger.
Directly.
I use anger when I write too.
But writing is flexible in a way fighting isn’t.
Technically martial arts is an art of overcoming yourself including your emotions.
But it sounds less poetic.
I can write angry.
Happy.
Jealous.
Restless.
Embarrassed.
Petty.
All of it changes the tone.
My writing follows my mood more than I probably admit.
What am I angry about today?
What irritated me enough to sit down and start typing?
But today I can’t really find that fire.
I’m in a good mood.
Which honestly makes writing harder sometimes.
I can’t fake outrage properly.
Not convincingly anyway.
The reader always knows.
People can smell performative emotion now the same way people smell microwaved fish in an office lunchroom.
I can write when my mind is an absolute mess of thoughts and emotions, like today.
But I digress.
If you strip away every material thing you own.
Every object.
Every purchase.
Every tiny status symbol we collect to reassure ourselves we’re doing okay.
What are you left with?
That’s probably closer to who you actually are.
I don’t think you carry fear of spiders into the spiritual world.
But fear itself?
Probably.
Fear works the same no matter the trigger.
Snakes.
Flying.
Failure.
Humiliation.
Loss.
The body reacts the same.
You freeze.
You panic.
You become irrational.
You run.
You fight.
You avoid.
Fight, flight, freeze.
Different costumes.
Same nervous system.
The more you work on your fears the easier they become to manage.
Not easy.
Manageable.
There’s a difference.
Imagine facing fear directly instead of constantly trying to numb it.
Not because someone comforted you.
Not because somebody told you everything would be okay.
But because you looked directly at it and survived anyway.
That feeling is fulfilling in a strange way.
I talked about fulfillment in my last post.
This is part of it too.
Overcoming fear feels good.
Real good.
Clean good.
I’m afraid of flying.
Especially turbulence.
When I fly I mentally prepare myself to die.
Not dramatically either.
Very practically.
Like a man quietly accepting that this aluminum tube vibrating over the Atlantic Ocean might become his final inconvenience.
The landing becomes my favourite part.
Not because we landed safely.
Because the anticipation finally stops.
That’s what really exhausts you.
The anticipation.
Your brain starts generating every possible outcome.
Every noise matters.
Every bump matters.
Every facial expression from the flight attendants suddenly becomes a government intelligence briefing.
Then you sit there gripping the armrest pretending you’re calm while the man beside you casually orders tomato juice like this is a city bus.
Yes.
I probably should be medicated while flying.
But maybe I shouldn’t.
There’s something strangely valuable about calming yourself down without escaping the feeling.
Not enjoyable.
Valuable.
The fulfillment afterward is intense.
The relief.
The calm.
The realization that your mind can survive more than it thinks it can.
It almost makes me enjoy flying afterward.
Almost.
Let’s not get carried away.
I used to knock on doors for charity.
That was frightening too.
You knock on a stranger’s door and have no idea what’s behind it.
A kind person.
A screaming person.
A giant dog.
A guy who immediately starts explaining cryptocurrency while standing barefoot in gym shorts.
Human unpredictability is exhausting.
One time a little girl answered the door and ran away without closing it.
Just disappeared into the house.
I stood there for a second not knowing what to do.
Then I slowly closed the door and walked away.
Honestly that bothered me more than getting yelled at ever did.
I felt terrible afterward.
She was probably hiding somewhere terrified while I awkwardly backed out of the situation like a burglar with social anxiety.
Getting yelled at is easier.
At least once somebody yells the anticipation is over.
The nervous system settles down afterward.
And those door-to-door workers become very good at handling rejection.
They have to.
There is nobody pushier than a person whose rent depends on commission.
They learn every sales tactic imaginable.
Urgency.
Scarcity.
Emotional leverage.
Eye contact that lasts slightly too long.
All while holding a tablet in freezing rain.
I digress again.
I started this talking about the material world versus the spiritual one.
I haven’t seen the spiritual world.
So this is speculation.
But it feels like reasonable speculation.
“Blessed are the poor.”
That line always stays with me.
Greed feels like one of the ugliest things people carry.
And the material world constantly rewards it.
That’s the confusing part.
Sometimes it honestly feels like life is one long behavioural test.
Just watching what people become once money, status, comfort, and power enter the room.
And I’m guilty too.
Obviously.
We all compete.
Compare.
Accumulate.
Protect what’s ours.
Pretend we’re more evolved than we are.
Most people are still good though.
I believe that.
Most people would feed someone hungry.
Most people would help if the situation was directly in front of them and impossible to scroll past.
Buying somebody bread feels good.
Buying someone coffee feels good.
Helping without needing applause afterward feels good.
That fulfillment matters.
Those are probably the kinds of things you carry with you.
Not your furniture.
Not your car payments.
Not your phone upgrade schedule.
I don’t get out into the world enough myself.
I spend too much time on this app.
Way too much.
I’m probably missing experiences I’ll regret missing later.
I already feel that sometimes.
What will I regret not doing once it’s too late?
That question bothers me more the older I get.
I’ve always wanted to go rock climbing.
Climb a mountain.
Face my fear of heights directly instead of intellectualizing it into another paragraph.
I want to help more people too.
Actually help them.
Not just talk about kindness online while sitting indoors drinking expensive tea and reorganizing playlists.
I want to hand out coffees.
Buy bread for people.
Offer my time.
Look people in the eye properly.
Treat them like human beings instead of background scenery moving around me in grocery stores.
Those are the things I think I’ll regret not doing.
Food used to bring me a lot of joy.
Now it mostly feels functional.
I went to culinary school.
I learned French cooking techniques.
Complex sauces.
Intricate dishes.
The whole performance.
The irony is I react badly to dairy.
Casein destroys me.
So now there’s no béchamel.
No lasagna.
No pizza.
No ricotta.
No feta.
No little restaurant moments where everybody moans dramatically over melted cheese like they’re filming a commercial for emotional collapse.
The foods I eat now are basic.
Very basic.
And honestly I barely care anymore.
I don’t get much joy from food these days.
I get joy from food not making me sick.
That’s different.
Older.
Less exciting.
Probably healthier.
I’ve been sick for the last few weeks too.
Not severely.
Just lingering enough to become annoying.
The kind of sickness that sits in your body like an unpaid bill.
I hate being sick.
And if I don’t eat properly it feels like I never fully recover.
So my life became smaller in certain ways.
More controlled.
More careful.
I cut out a lot of things that no longer felt valuable.
Video games.
Mobile games.
Instagram.
Most social media.
The dopamine pellets stopped hitting the same.
I don’t even think I enjoyed those things.
I enjoyed the stimulation.
There’s a difference.
Now I feel strangely dopamine-less sometimes.
Flat.
Restless.
So now I obsess over different things.
Groceries are a big one lately.
Olives specifically.
I love olives.
The black wrinkled ones from the Turkish grocery store.
The bright green Sicilian ones.
The salty oily smell when the container opens.
The little snap when you bite into them.
I go down rabbit holes about kale.
Spinach.
Supplements.
Meditation.
Healthy habits.
Sleep quality.
Sunlight.
Minerals.
Things people become obsessed with once they realize their body is not a machine but a needy biological animal that becomes furious when neglected.
I’ve been listening to Alan Watts talks.
Meditating after prayer.
Three times a day lately.
Spiritually I become obsessive very quickly.
That’s probably obvious by now.
I keep wondering where this all leads.
When do you stop adding more?
When do you stop searching?
When do you finally become peaceful with what already exists?
I still want things.
That’s the truth.
Even when I try not to want.
I still want.
And even trying not to want becomes another form of wanting.
That’s the part that hurts my brain.
This becomes a spiral.
I think I should stop here before I mentally fold myself into a lawn chair trying to solve existence through overthinking.
I want to figure this all out logically.
Even when I know I probably can’t.
And honestly.
That’s okay too.
Keep scrolling for the Afterthought.
The main articles stay free. That matters to me.
I don’t want the important stuff locked behind paywalls and “community access” that just means a credit card and a login.
But I do need a space to go deeper. Less polished. Less filtered. More honest.
So the main piece will always be free.
What’s below is optional.
An extra layer for people who want the behind-the-scenes thinking, the psychological undercurrents, and the parts that don’t fit cleanly in the public version without breaking it open completely.
Think of it as director’s commentary for the emotionally overcaffeinated.
Afterthought
