Joe's story

This is an article by Joe, a young artist who I met at a London Buddhist Centre retreat last month, and whose story I drew on for my latest blog-post, Re-finding Your Joy. He told me his story on the retreat and I asked if I could interview him. He preferred to write his own account. Big thanks to Joe for being so open, generous and cool. I hope you also find his story moving and useful. The picture on the left is by him.

I moved to London when I was 18 to study art. To pursue a passion. It was an incredible time and as most youngsters leaving the nest I was becoming aware of the waves of change. After five years the big wave had finally come. The laser focus marathon of three different courses and an internship came to a close. Four and a half years spent in love with a beautiful kind-hearted woman were pushed into turmoil by the legal pressures of borders and visas. Then my bounce back, the plan of travelling the world on my bike also ended when I unexpectedly started ejaculating blood. They were all obstacles that could  have been overcome sensibly but I lacked the wisdom to step back from it all. I was caught up in the maelstrom. The illusion of structure I had built up around me came tumbling down as I realised I was but a panicked young man walking along a tight rope. I did what little boys do and ran home to my Mommy with my tail between my legs. It was impeccable timing. She was due to have a hip replacement so I looked after her while working a minimum wage job. The love me and my Mom shared was wonderful, but everything else unfulfilling. I felt wasted.

I was pulled back to London after a few months. My creativity was rather accidentally channeled into working for a fledgling start-up. It started off as a small group of hard working youngsters in a shed and grew to 80 people in three offices across the world. I went from being a designer to being the creative push behind an exciting new project. I had a lot to be grateful for in life but seeing things crumble so easily had given me a devil may care attitude. I didn't know what gods to worship anymore so I filled that emptiness with whatever came my way. Work and play. When I say "play" I mean messing about. I had always had a naughty streak but I was being irresponsible and completely unaware. Getting fucked up in public spaces. Not sleeping. Thinking a lot of myself but not actually caring for myself. The thing is I could always taste the bitter aftertaste of everything I did. I knew that even if I saw no bad consequences  yet, following this path would eventually lead me to them. My knowledge of this and my willingness  to continue down this path made it all the  worse. I am just glad that I was aware, which I think most people are, otherwise I don't think I'd ever have  been able to step out. The repercussions hadn't shown their face yet. But they soon would.

One night, I went to a house party and took acid. I gathered friends around me thinking I was a little God. I took them all into a circle and told them that this night would change our lives forever. The grandest quest ever known was about to begin. Not long after this a woman entered into the room. She shone with the brightest light and it was if a thunderbolt of energy cracked through time  and space. At the time I knew that she was an angel and was the new most important thing in my life.

In hindsight I think this flash may have just signified a moment of great importance. One that would teach me the most important lesson of my life thus far. I'd got what I wished for. One with a heady mix of positive and negative consequences for myself and others, but a turning point nonetheless.

Uninhibited we dived into an intense relationship. It had beautiful moments but there was so much clinging too. Life became a roller coaster of ups and downs so intense that I perpetually felt sick. Sleeping and eating evaded me. I would cry over a  smudge on a bus window. There were things that happened in that time which I shall not address here and that I deeply regret. This is when I finally became aware that my actions were having dire consequences.

I do not want to dwell on the intensity of this time but I will give you a glimpse into it. After a few weeks of being in the relationship I was due to fly to the other side of the world for a holiday with two of my best friends. My girlfriend drove me to the airport, crashing the car on the way there. I left her crying on the hard shoulder as I called an Uber to get my  flight. When I got there I embarked on a convoluted blur of a few days. I drank more than I thought possible. I spent the last hour of 2016 and the first hour of 2017 throwing up with my head wedged between a toilet bowl and seat, in a yacht in a storm as fireworks went off. I hoped this would be my rebirth through fire. That this was as bad as it would get and I'd rise like a phoenix from the flames. How naive.

It was my first holiday in a year since working at the start up. I had a very intense but creatively rewarding job, a relationship with such a pull that it put all art I had experienced to shame. The most supportive and loving family. A group of loyal, exciting, communicative friends. On paper my life was ideal. Yet I wanted more and I wanted less. I craved both at the same time, more extremity, and an end to the intensity. It made no logical sense. Only the experience of it made sense.

When I could convince my friends to momentarily end the madness i did step out of it all and forgot who I was. A coach journey along coastal hills, a walk in the mountains, a glimpse of a golden statue of the Buddha. These were the moments that had weight to them. Sublime. A flavour that I could taste and feel nourishment from.

I got back, and everything was horrible. Work was insane – I was working 8am to 10pm every day. The relationship with my girlfriend wasn’t working out. I had acted quite simply, despicably and we were arguing a lot. And I was completely exhausted – I’d got food poisoning in Hong Kong, then I was passing out because of low blood sugar. I went to have an operation on my nose, because I wasn’t breathing properly, and was told to rest completely for two weeks. But the day after the operation my work rang up and said ‘when are you coming back?’

The relationship was in tatters. I wanted to quit my job. I'd physical destroyed myself, repeatedly ending up in Hospital. I got to a point where I thought ‘fuck all this’. I thought how do I stop it all. Not just conceptually, but practically. I was at home by myself and I thought the best thing would be to find some form of rope, hanging myself. Then my sister’s boyfriend walked in to the house, which pulled me out of my thought pattern and I had this moment of insight. Another voice stepped in from somewhere else. A domino effect of sensations tumbled from me in that moment to a long distant past.

The voice of a young Joe. Perhaps 4 or 5 appeared within me. He was hurt and crying, big eyes glistening as tears spilled down his cheeks, arms wrapped around his torso and snot dribbling from his nose. Despite this his voice was clear and confident like only children seem to be. "What has happened Joe? What is this? Depression? Suicide? Do you not remember? You would never comprehend such thoughts. Why would people ever do this. It makes no sense. I don't understand. Do you not remember. You used to have so much joy."

And then I believed him. At that moment I knew two things. Despite having these suicidal blinkers on, Little Joe had given me the faintest memory of a dream like sense of innocent joy. Free from the pain soaked indulgences I had been swimming in as of late. Firstly, I should make a valiant effort at trying to explore that more. Secondly, even if exploring that wasn't fruitful, I still had value. I could help people with the skills I had and the knowledge of feeling this way.

My new purpose was to always be there for others if I could. I saw this as part of my work. I believed the project I was working on should help others. It went further than this though. The experience made me see everyone in a new light. Every one was surrounded by this aura of pain. The emotions I had experienced they had, were or probably would feel. This sounds morbid but it was the total opposite. My heart went out to everyone. For a while everyone felt like my newborn sibling.

There was a work friend who was younger than me and he had just gone through a divorce. I saw etched into  his face, the exact feelings I had  been through. I went over to him and said: ‘I see how you are right now, and I think I can understand, at least somewhat. If you ever need to talk to someone, or just hang out. Please just call me up and I will be there’. I could empathize with his pain. He called two weeks later on a weekend and we met up. He was upset but we sunbathed, played frisby and went to the cinema. A month later he moved into my flat and we spend time together almost every day. He is one of my best friends now and we love each other.

My quest for finding Little Joe had also begun. I made a list of all the things in my past that made me happy and I experimented with them. I stopped using all public transport and only ever cycled. I did something every night after work. Without fail. Dance lessons. Life Drawing. Handstand lessons. Singing. Avoiding romantic relationships and paying real attention to friendships. Snippets of that child like sense of wonder were flashing in. I could not control them, but they were coming. Even in my hedonistic times I achieved these same joys occasionally. But by following my two new purposes there was a sense of them growing.

There were also two specific things I had open in two tabs on my internet browser. One was meditation. The other a love and sex addict group. Both on at the same time the next night. I was honest with myself and asked why did I really want to go to that love and sex addict group? Needless to say I went to the London Buddhist Centre.

Meditation felt like such a stark contrast to what I had been experiencing. It brought a bliss that was so very different to everything before. The Metta Bhavana, a meditation on loving kindness, helped me develop the feelings of compassion for people that I was already feeling. The mindfulness of breathing helped me regulate the roller-coaster of ups and downs and allowed me to step back from the impulses and the instant reactions. I became more aware and in touch with my experience. I have been going every week since, have attended and helped out on retreats and made some really lovely friends.

I went on a ten day spring retreat in April. Over a year had passed since little Joe had talked to me. I hadn't seen him since. I really embraced my little walks. I was able to truly appreciate nature emerging when I really slowed down. The trees were blossoming, the pond was full of newts. I used to love newts when I was a kid. I realized I’d lost that child-like curiosity, because I’d been in sprint mode this whole time.

One day I sat on the ground, back propped up by a sappy wooden lampost as it whirred away. Bugs nonchalantly wondered over my bright yellow trousers as clouds glided by overhead. Out of nowhere that innocent joy washed over me. I was fully submerged. Little Joe said "Look. I'm here. I've always been here. You just needed to slow down and take a look around."

When I went back into the shrine room that evening I sat for a whole hour meditating and crying. A sense of gratitude not just for that joy, but for everything that was, came over me. Everything. Everyone.

This year and a half has seen a lot of outward changes growing from the inner. I went vegan. Stopped drink, drugs, social media, romantic relationships. There was no effort involved with any of these. When my mind had changed it was easy.

I knew for a while that my job was one of the biggest obstacle but that's not something you can drop with the click of your fingers. They preached Collaboration, dignity, empathy, creativity, but in actuality they were becoming the antithesis of this. Decimating the passion and intent that used to be felt by a core group of us. Some of the people there pursued goals did not align with my own. Despite their great successes in certain fields, they were not what I  would call role models. There were two very distinct paths before me. I knew I wanted to truly help people, face the repercussion of my actions, and continue working on my list full-time. My job was detrimental to that journey. I decided to leave.

I've left London, am working on a writing and illustrating a children’s book, and I’d like to use my artistic skills to help tell Buddhist stories. I may work in a start-up again, but this time I’d like to work with people whose values I share.

I don't know where this will lead me. But I know the past year and a half I've been making a kind of progress that has been far more challenging and rewarding than anything I've known before.

Someone once showed me a thing called a happy-graph. You fill in your day with the different moments and how it makes you feel. When I filled it out it was clear I used to be strapped into a rollercoaster that would plunge up and down between the depths and the heights. Screaming and gasping for breath. I think I probably still have the depths and the heights but it isn't feeling so much that way any more. Maybe it's because I can see myself on the rollercoaster for now. But it feels like I'm on a nice stable ride through the tree canopy with friends and I'm able to get a good look around.