I descend because I have to. I have had no other choice.
What I now call “descent” began early in my life as resistance. Resistance to adopting social norms. Resistance to doing what I was told. Resistance to embracing values, tastes, and aspirations that were not truly mine. Resistance to being agreeable. Resistance to celebrating or idolizing other people. Resistance to going along to get along. Resistance to settling for something that did not give me what I wanted.
I came to loathe modern society and its fixation on meaningless consumption. I was endlessly curious about other people and cultures with rituals and beliefs I did not have. I felt “unmoored”, like I was missing the entire point, and I often looked at others with different cultures as having that something. While I eventually came to embrace American aspirationalism, I knew there was something deeper and more meaningful than a materialistic life.
For the first half of my life, I did not connect the dots between all these behaviors, preferences, and tendencies. But once I was out of high school, and I had the freedom for the first time to do whatever I wanted, they began to coalesce into a strong reorientation away from the life I was expected to lead.
In fairly rapid succession I announced a lifestyle change that would effectively end any chance of having children. I committed to a partner-free life, and began trying to “escape” my life by moving away. I eventually succeeded when I flew to Asia, ending or permanently stunting virtually all relationships I had ever built.
Only now, as everything comes together and I have a name for it, can I see what I was doing. I was “descending” — I was choosing death over life. Had I read the words I write now, I surely would have embraced it for they would have spoken to me. But I had to spend a lifetime searching for the words of the voice within.
Why descend? For me now, I do not need an answer. It would be like asking a rock thrown into the air why it must fall back to the ground. It is my nature. But I did not always have that confidence and insight as I hurtling upward, toward an uncertain future. To that earlier me, these are the reasons to descend:
Certainty. Descent gives certainty. When I ascend, I am always climbing up a mountain without a summit. Descent gives me real certainty about where I am going and why.
Answers. Descentism shows me how to remember that I know everything. Questions of the mind, heart, and body are painful; my omniscience alleviates the anxiety, restlessness, and despair of not knowing.
Pain Relief. Descent brings to close the endless cycle of searching for the thing I have lost. I know what I want, and I do not need to struggle any longer.
Self-Sovereignty. Descentism helps me reclaim authority over my existence. It frees me from the clutches of outside counsel and guidance, which inevitably bends me to a will that is not my own. I alone know everything; I am the first and last authority on all matters.
Peace. When I know where I am going, I am freed of the vicissitudes of the second place.
Before descentism, I had never experienced a lasting contentment, satisfaction, or happiness. I was stuck in a hamster wheel of searching for the things, places, community, and beliefs that would give me the meaning I sought. But whatever I wanted was always far away. And whatever I found, failed to deliver the contentment I sought.
Descent gives me what I seek right now. I need not chase it. Descentism is the realization and acceptance that what I am searching for is not out here. I do not want to be here, alive in this world I wake up into every day. Then, what do I do with that information: how do I lead the rest of my life? Descentism provides that certainty.
Why descend? Because that is my nature. I descend, because in embracing my nature, I am.
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