The Doughnut Hole Paradox: Part Un - Remastered 2024

“A Paradox, the doughnut hole.  Empty space, once, but now they've learned to market even that.  A minus quantity; nothing, rendered edible.  I wondered if they might be used — metaphorically, of course — to demonstrate the existence of God.  Does naming a sphere of nothingness transmute it into being?” ― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Here’s to 2023 2024

First and foremost, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and more than anything: a Happy Always. I originally wrote this first portion of The Doughnut Hole Paradox on my poetry site that is now dust in the wind (RIP). I wanted to take the opportunity for the new year to reimagine my counseling blog as a place of catharsis as my virtual office is for my clients. For the new year, I would like to remaster this creative pursuit of The Doughnut Hole Paradox and share with you some of my poetry related to mental health and psychedelia, which has heavily shaped my therapy practice. 

Introduction

I want this three-part series to be an eloquent re-imagining of one of my proudest works, but I am afraid that if I wait for this piece to be truly eloquent, it will never get written. So here it goes. This is Part Un - Remastered.

My senior year of undergrad in college was an extremely transformative time in my life. I spent many days of my college career sifting through religious and philosophical texts and wracking my brain over the meaning of life. “42” was just not enough for me. Sorry, Douglas Adams. I changed my religion like a chameleon changes the color of its skin. I wanted to convert to Judaism, then I took Philosophy 101. I morphed into a hardcore Atheist...then I took “Bible as Literature” and “Classics from Homer to Dante”, and suddenly, I was a reborn Christian. Then, I took...well...LSD, and then I was a little morsel of everything. 

Since childhood, I have struggled with abuse and mental illness, and I wasn't finding the overarching answer to life, the Universe, and everything in oceans of text, or in prayer. I was convinced that I would just have to write my own answer.
 

I am certainly no Terence McKenna, Aldous Huxley, or even a Timothy Leary (although I am an aspiring psychonaut, psychedelic researcher, as well as a licensed psychotherapist). I certainly do not claim that I know THE overarching answer to life's questions after a few psychedelic experiences...but what I do claim is that those psychedelic experiences got me a hell of a lot closer to an explanation than years of religious indoctrination ever did.  

The Doughnut Hole Paradox: A Brief Introduction

In this piece, I seek to give you a peek into my elementary philosophical musings.  My goal in writing this is to merely elucidate MY answer to the paradox of life, the Universe, and everything, and give my college philosophy professor a big middle finger. The latter being the most significant.
 I beg, please do not discount the paragraphs to come because of this honesty. I'll be completely transparent: Yes, psychedelic experimentation was just the beginning of my revelations, but I do not take the lessons I have learned from psychedelic substances lightly. 

Take this as a gentle but firm warning: The psychedelic experience is NOT for everyone. For some, it can exacerbate mental health issues and induce psychosis…but don’t let that scare you off completely. As a disclaimer, I do not condone the use of psychedelics, as they can be dangerous for some. However, it would be a failure on my part to omit the personal fact that the psychedelic experience can be curative, restorative, and life-changing with a little continued inner work and mental exploration. I argue that even though my experience was not tactile in a literal sense (other than the substances as a medium), for me, it was still a valid means of gaining a wealth of internal and external knowledge about myself and the Universe. 

The proof is in the pudding. I cried for days after my first psychedelic experience. I sobbed for the years I had lost to being mentally asleep. Was I even really living before now? I wept for the blissful euphoria of newfound knowledge.  Its messages and teachings were so blatantly obvious. Why did I not see it right before my very eyes until this moment? I was overcome with the sense that I had barely even scratched the surface. What's next?

To those wondering what I am babbling about, we'll get there. I encourage you to check out my poem "Woodwork", which will give you more background about my first experience with LSD.
Stay tuned for this post! 

My "Masterpiece"

In my final year of undergrad, after my first experiences with psychedelics (LSD and later, psilocybin mushrooms), I chose to enroll in a course called "21st Century Analytical Philosophy". Little did I know that this course would quickly become the bane of my existence. My professor was short, stout, and smug.  Kind of like Winnie the Pooh with a red beard and a wicked superiority complex (without the crop top and no pants). This professor acted like the end-all-be-all critic of traditional philosophical logic and was a notoriously hard grader. "21st Century Analytical Philosophy" was a cleverly deceptive course title that really meant "We’re going to ‘solve’ paradoxes.” A course goal that is now the pinnacle of hilarity. The entire semester was spent in round-table discussions attempting to do the impossible: solve paradoxes. (HAH!) 
My final philosophy paper of my undergraduate senior semester titled "A Defense of Unorthodox Dialetheism and Nihilism Relating to Russell's Paradox", was my masterpiece. My magnum opus. I had done it. I had "solved" the paradox once and for all. This paper was a gigantic scoff at the entire premise of the philosophy course. I spent night after night in my one-bedroom apartment two blocks from campus losing my hair over paradoxes. I lost track of how many cups of coffee I drank, how many pencils I broke, and how many erasers I obliterated during those all-nighters. 

On the brink of insanity, I rode my bike to campus in a sleep-deprived stupor, presented my final paper in my pajamas, and received the proudest grade have ever received: D. I have never been more elated to fail a final project because I am convinced that my professor knew I was onto something, and he didn't like it. Sorry to burst your bubble, my dude. Traditional philosophical logic be damned.
 I wish I still had a copy of my draft with my professor's critiques, but I am going to do the best I can with the resources at my disposal. This three-part series will revisit my solution to paradoxes and defend the idea that this solution can be applied, as a whole, to life, the Universe, and everything. Here, I will (sort of) pioneer the idea that paradoxes both are and are not total bull****. 


Join me in exploring:

THE DOUGHNUT HOLE PARADOX.

Stay curious until next time…

The Doughnut Hole Paradox: Part Deux…??/??/????

- Aims

"'Doughnut hole' is the most disgusting sounding thing that tastes the best to me. A doughnut hole is kind of interesting because the thing we call a doughnut hole is the thing we took out of the doughnut. And then the hole that was left, itself, the absence of the doughnut hole, is also a doughnut hole. It’s kind of a paradox. It’s like it is and is not at the same time. It’s impossible, the doughnut hole." ― Demetri Martin, The Overthinker