When Awakening Becomes a Call to Nothingness
One of the most widely circulated concepts of our time is that of awakening or being awake. This concept is often presented as the pinnacle of liberation, the highest degree of consciousness, and the point at which the human being attains the truth of existence. Yet the question that is rarely asked is: What happens after awakening? What project does it offer the human being after stripping away all of their illusions?
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The thesis I advance here may appear shocking, yet it proceeds from its own internal logic rather than from any desire for exaggeration: awakening, if carried to its logical conclusion, is not a call to life but a call to individual suicide; and collective awakening is a call to collective extinction.
This statement may seem harsh at first glance, yet it is not an emotional judgment. Rather, it is a conclusion imposed by the intellectual structure of the discourse of awakening itself.
For the person who is said to have "awakened" is not merely asked to reconsider some of their ideas; rather, they are asked to witness the unveiling of the coercive structure that governs existence in its entirety—to perceive the network of necessities that has driven the human being since birth, the destinies that weave the course of life, and the laws from which no escape is possible, until they become convinced that their will was never as independent as they had imagined.
Yet the question that no one answers is: What comes next?
If we assume that the human being has truly awakened and has seen everything that is claimed to be the complete truth, then what is the next step? What project should they begin? Toward what end should they direct themselves? And what new image of life can be constructed upon this awareness?
Curiously, the discourse of awakening offers no clear answer to this question.
It is highly skilled at demolishing illusions, yet incapable of constructing a new one. It excels at dismantling illusions, yet grants the human being no alternative for which to live. It severs the bond between the individual and everything that once provided the motivation to continue, then leaves them alone before the void.
For this reason, nowhere in the history of this discourse do we find a comprehensive project for life after awakening. Instead, we find an ongoing process of deconstruction and negation until the human being has lost every reason that once connected them to existence.
Thus, awakening, in its ultimate sense, becomes an entirely negative act.
Killing is the only phenomenon that requires no purpose beyond itself, for its end lies within itself. Once a human being is killed, the relationship ends, the act is complete, and no further project remains to be carried forward.
Accordingly, when awakening reaches its furthest consequences, it resembles killing in terms of its intellectual structure. It does not create a new world, nor does it establish another mode of existence. Rather, it concludes by removing everything that previously existed without placing in its stead an alternative capable of sustaining the human being.
It does not tell the individual, "Build another life." Rather, it says, indirectly: "Abandon everything for which you once lived."
It is here that the real danger begins.
For the human being who loses all purposes, all justifications for remaining alive, and every reason that once inspired the desire to continue is left with nothing but emptiness. And once emptiness becomes the only reality they perceive, awakening no longer constitutes a path toward life. Instead, according to its own internal logic, it becomes a path leading to the negation of life itself.
For this reason, whoever calls people to awaken is, in effect, calling them to demolish all of their projects. They do not open before them a gate toward life; rather, they open before them a gate toward nothingness, even if this is not their intention.
Hence, the real question is not:
How do we awaken?
Rather, it is:
How do we continue living after we have awakened?
Unless a genuine answer is offered to this question, awakening—regardless of the names by which it is called—will remain a project that culminates in the negation of the human being rather than in their reconstruction.
When Existence Itself Becomes the Object of Accusation
If the discourse of awakening ultimately dismantles all purposes without establishing a new purpose in their place, then the following question inevitably imposes itself: Why does the awakened individual arrive at this conclusion in the first place? What drives them toward such a radical stance regarding existence?
The matter does not concern a passing pessimism, nor a temporary psychological frustration. Rather, it concerns an intellectual structure that regards the problem as lying not in the details of life, but in its very origin.
According to this conception, the awakened individual does not believe that human beings live an incomplete life requiring reform. Rather, they see human existence itself as the primary predicament, and all subsequent attempts as nothing more than means of perpetuating that predicament.
Consequently, their objection is no longer directed toward a particular society, a political system, or a moral or religious order. Instead, their objection extends to the very roots that allow existence itself to continue.
From this point, a gradual separation arises between them and the world.
They do not separate themselves from other human beings because those people have wronged them, nor because they disagree with them in opinion. Rather, they begin to perceive that all of them are merely parts of the same mechanism that reproduces existence over and over again.
In this sense, awakening becomes a state of comprehensive alienation: alienation from society, from values, from institutions, and even from nature itself.
The awakened individual no longer feels that they belong to the world, because they no longer perceive anything within this world that is worthy of belonging.
For this reason, they may appear to possess a hostile disposition toward life. Yet, according to the internal logic of their position, the matter is not so much hatred toward individuals as it is a rejection of the source that brought them all into existence.
They seek to destroy existence because they regard the continuation of existence as the continuation of tragedy.
If existence as a whole has become devoid of meaning, then the distinction between whether something continues to exist or disappears gradually loses its significance.
It is here that the most dangerous consequence of this conception emerges.
Ultimately, the awakened individual does not seek to eliminate particular persons. Rather, they seek a total negation of everything that allows life to continue, such that their position may be understood as though they were planning a project of collective annihilation.
They oppose motivations, desires, hopes, dreams, and everything that leads the human being to accept the beginning of a new day.
For this reason, the true discourse of awakening is not occupied with projects of construction, formation, or the establishment of a new civilization. Instead, it is preoccupied with dismantling the very foundations upon which civilization itself is built.
It does not participate in shaping a different future, because it sees in the future nothing but an extension of the very same problem.
Accordingly, when awakening reaches its highest degree, it becomes a process of self-destruction.
It is not merely a reconsideration of ideas, but a comprehensive reorientation of consciousness against everything that grants the human being the capacity to continue.
At this point, it becomes difficult to reconcile complete awakening with possessing a mission, a project, or a dream.
For the individual who still carries a cause to defend, a goal to pursue, or a hope whose fulfillment they await has not yet departed from the sphere of movement upon which life itself depends.
But once all purposes collapse at once, consciousness finds nothing before it except the void.
Hence, it may be said that every human project is, from the perspective of this conception, a sign that its bearer remains asleep within some dream. For it is the dream alone that grants movement its meaning and enables the human being to continue walking toward an end they believe to be worth attaining.
And when the dream disappears, nothing remains before consciousness except to witness the emptiness of the road and to behold life after it has lost every justification that once rendered it capable of continuing.
Hope as a Mechanism for the Continuation of Existence
If the awakened person sees that the problem lies in the very origin of existence rather than in its details, then their attitude toward hope becomes a natural consequence of this conception.
In their view, hope is not a discovery of truth; rather, it is a means that enables human beings to endure the continuation of life. It is not a promise of the future, but a psychological mechanism that preserves the continuity of the being within the cycle of existence.
For this reason, the awakened person does not regard dreams as windows opening onto new possibilities. Instead, they see them as an extension of the very system that produced bondage in the first place.
Human beings dream of freedom because they experience imprisonment; they aspire to salvation because they live in deficiency; and they cling to a better image of the future because they are incapable of being satisfied with the present.
The paradox, according to this line of reasoning, is that the prison itself is what constructs the image of freedom.
Had constraints not existed, the very idea of liberation would never have come into being. Had deprivation not existed, the desire for fullness would never have arisen. Thus, dreams, however bright they may appear, become part of the system that guarantees the continuation of movement rather than a genuine path out of it.
From this perspective, the awakened person holds that human beings pursue images that have already been fashioned for them, believing that they choose them of their own free will, while in reality they are products of the very structure that compels them to continue.
Whenever they draw near to one dream, another dream appears before them. Whenever they attain one goal, a new goal unfolds ahead of them, as though existence never grants completion but continually provides renewed reasons to keep moving forward.
Accordingly, this conception maintains that human beings cannot live without a certain measure of illusion.
The illusion referred to here is not simple deception, but rather the narrative through which individuals convince themselves that tomorrow holds something worth waiting for, that the end differs from the beginning, and that the journey will ultimately grant them what they failed to find at its outset.
It is this narrative that gives them the capacity to endure the passing of days, and it is this narrative that postpones the moment of confrontation with the void.
If, however, this narrative collapses and all justifications fall away at once, human beings find themselves confronted with a question to which they possess no answer: Why should I continue?
At this point, the danger becomes greater than pain itself, for pain can be endured if it leads toward an end or purpose. Once that purpose is lost, however, pain is transformed into a burden that finds no justification.
For this reason, it is often said that, in order to continue living, human beings sometimes need to avert their gaze from certain truths, or allow a measure of illusion to remain alive within them.
Not every illusion is a defect in thinking; rather, from the perspective of this discourse, illusions may constitute the very means that prevent consciousness from turning against its own bearer.
Accordingly, anyone who calls upon people to strip away all their illusions at once, without offering them an alternative capable of sustaining their existence, merely drives them into confronting a void that the human psyche cannot endure.
From this standpoint, the awakened person maintains that most human beings do not continue because they have discovered a final meaning to life, but because they are still capable of believing the stories that render life bearable.
Once these stories cease, or lose their power to persuade, nothing remains except the existential void.
Therefore, within this conception, hope is not evidence of the truth of the future. Rather, it is the force that enables human beings to postpone acknowledging their uncertainty and to continue moving forward even though the road never reveals its end.
In this sense, hope becomes part of the structure that preserves the continuation of existence, rather than proof that existence has attained its ultimate purpose.
Purpose and Mission: Does Human Beings Need a Goal to Continue Living?
If hope is the fuel that ensures the continuation of movement, then purpose is the direction that grants this movement its meaning. Thus, the question of purpose becomes an existential question par excellence, for it concerns not merely what human beings do, but why they continue acting in the first place.
According to this conception, as long as human beings carry a project, defend a mission, or await the fulfillment of a dream, they have not yet departed from the structure upon which life itself rests. The existence of a purpose means that the future is still capable of calling them forward, and that time has not yet lost its authority over them.
From this perspective, dreams are not evidence of liberation but rather signs of an ongoing attachment to the world. Human beings seek only what they believe they lack, and they pursue only what they imagine will grant them a deferred sense of completion.
But what if this image were to collapse?
What if human beings discovered that every purpose, no matter how great, leads only to another purpose, and that the end of every road is nothing more than the beginning of a new one?
At that point, the very meaning of achievement undergoes a transformation.
Success, according to this perspective, does not resolve the existential dilemma; it merely postpones it. As soon as individuals attain what they once dreamed of, they find themselves confronted by a new void demanding that they invent another dream.
Thus, goals cease to be ultimate solutions and instead become mechanisms that defer the confrontation with the most difficult question of all: What comes next?
In this view, human beings do not live because they have found meaning, but because they postpone the moment of acknowledging its absence.
For this reason, the fulfillment of dreams may not always mark the culmination of happiness; it may instead inaugurate a harsher confrontation with the self. As long as the dream remains distant, it nourishes movement. Once it is realized, however, it may reveal that the fulfillment promised to human beings was nothing more than an imagined construct.
Hence, it is said that some people fear success no less than failure, for success may deprive them of the last justification for which they had been living.
Purpose is therefore not merely a destination; it is an inner source of fuel. Once that fuel is exhausted, movement comes to a halt, and the void that movement had concealed begins to emerge.
A person may possess wealth, fame, power, or love, only to discover that the question from which they had long been fleeing still remains exactly where it was—untouched by achievements and unsilenced by victories.
Accordingly, this discourse maintains that those who possess great ambitions are not necessarily more aware; rather, they may simply be more capable of postponing their confrontation with the void.
Consciousness, however, when it reaches its furthest limit, does not merely question the means; it extends its inquiry to the purposes themselves.
It no longer asks, "How do I achieve my goal?"
Instead, it asks, "Why should I have a goal in the first place?"
This question is the most radical one posed by this perspective, because it does not merely dismantle a particular project; it dismantles the very idea of projects themselves.
With the collapse of purpose, the human perception of time is likewise transformed. The future ceases to be a promise, the past no longer serves as consolation, and the present becomes a suspended space between a continuation that finds no justification and a cessation that its bearer neither possesses the courage nor the ability to embrace.
For this reason, this discourse argues that human beings sometimes continue living not because they are convinced of life itself, but because the momentum of their previous movement still propels them forward, just as a body continues moving by virtue of its momentum even after the force that initiated its motion has disappeared.
It is a state of continuation through inertia rather than conviction; of persistence sustained by previous momentum rather than by the existence of a new purpose.
At this point, the existential question becomes more urgent than ever: If all goals collapse and every dream is extinguished, what remains to keep human beings on their path?
This is the question that leads the discourse to another concept, regarded as the direct consequence of the collapse of purpose: what it calls existential dysfunction—the condition in which human beings lose every inner motive, so that continuation itself becomes an act devoid of meaning.
Existential Dysfunction: When Human Beings Break Down and Every Project Comes to an End
If the collapse of purpose gives rise to the void of meaning, then the next stage—in this conception—is what may be termed existential dysfunction.
The dysfunction referred to here is not merely fatigue or psychological exhaustion. Rather, it is a more comprehensive condition in which human beings lose the capacity to find any internal reason that justifies the continuation of their movement. They do not become incapable of acting because they are weak; rather, they become incapable because action itself no longer possesses any value that would justify the effort it requires.
Accordingly, continuation comes to resemble the motion of a body that has lost the force that once propelled it, yet continues moving by virtue of inertia.
Here, an analogy from physics is invoked, namely Newton's First Law of Motion: a body that has acquired motion continues moving unless acted upon by a force that changes its direction or brings it to rest.
Likewise, human beings may continue living not because they still believe in the purpose of life, but because the momentum that carried them for many years has not yet been exhausted.
They wake up, work, speak, and repeat their daily routines—not because life has regained its meaning, but because the momentum of their previous movement continues to propel them forward.
Yet this momentum is not eternal.
If human beings fail to discover a new force that provides them with a reason to continue, movement gradually becomes nothing more than habit, then a burden, and finally a heavy question that relentlessly pursues them.
For this reason, this discourse maintains that the awakened person does not suffer from a lack of means, but from the absence of the purpose that gives those means their meaning.
What value does movement have if it no longer leads anywhere? What significance does achievement possess if it no longer alters anything in the very essence of existence?
At this point, the meaning of "dysfunction" itself changes.
It is no longer the loss of the capacity to work, but the loss of the capacity to believe in the value of work.
Accordingly, this conception rejects interpreting such a condition as mere laziness or weakness of will, for the problem, in its view, is far deeper than that.
Human beings may possess health, intellect, skill, and the ability to accomplish great things, yet still feel that all these capacities have lost their function—not because they have diminished, but because they no longer point toward a purpose worthy of being pursued.
Thus, dysfunction transcends its psychological dimension to become an existential dysfunction.
It affects the relationship between human beings and the world, between human beings and themselves, and between human beings and time.
Time is no longer a promise, work is no longer a mission, and achievement is no longer salvation. Instead, they all become movements revolving within a closed circle.
For this reason, the daily question becomes harsher than any abstract philosophical question:
What Compels Me to Continue Today?
It is a question that recurs every morning, not because human beings are searching for a theoretical answer, but because they are trying to find a simple force that enables them to make it through one more day.
They may find this force in work, a relationship, a habit, a responsibility, or even in the mere desire to postpone confronting the void.
Yet this discourse maintains that such motivations are not ultimate solutions, but merely palliatives that defer the moment of collision with the truth that, in its view, has already been realized.
They grant human beings the capacity to continue, yet they do not provide them, from this perspective, with a final reason for continuing.
Accordingly, the awakened person describes themselves as living upon temporary motivations—motivations that constantly change and quickly lose their effectiveness.
What was capable of moving them yesterday may today become entirely ineffective, and what filled them with enthusiasm in the morning may lose its meaning by evening.
Thus, they find themselves in a perpetual search for a new force capable of postponing the collapse of movement.
Yet this search, in their view, is not intended to discover a new meaning, but merely to find temporary fuel sufficient to continue moving forward.
They recognize that movement still persists, but they are no longer convinced that it is directed toward any genuine destination.
In this way, existence becomes a succession of temporary motivations that postpone cessation without ever eliminating it.
Accordingly, existential dysfunction, in this conception, does not mean that human beings are dead; rather, it means that they have lost the principle that once gave their lives direction. They continue living through the remaining momentum, waiting either for it to be exhausted or for a new meaning to emerge that is capable of restoring movement once again.
Value and Function: Does Human Beings Lose Meaning Upon Leaving the System?
Having discussed existential dysfunction, this conception proceeds to a deeper idea: the relationship between value and function.
The question is no longer, "Why do human beings continue?"
It becomes, instead, "What makes human beings valuable in the first place?"
This discourse argues that most common conceptions of human value are not as independent as they appear. Rather, they arise within the structures to which individuals belong. A person is described as useful, successful, influential, or virtuous because they perform a particular function within a social, economic, cultural, or symbolic system.
In this sense, value becomes inseparable from utility.
A thing acquires significance because it performs a role, and it is granted its status because it contributes to the continuation of the system that contains it. Consequently, the language of "value," "utility," "productivity," and "function" is not, within this conception, a neutral language. Rather, it is the language of the system that measures beings according to the roles they perform.
Here, the concept of the Matrix emerges as a metaphor for the comprehensive system that grants things their meanings and assigns every element its place and function.
As long as human beings perform a role within this system, they experience themselves as valuable because they remain part of the network of relationships that grants them recognition and purpose.
Once they leave this network, however, or lose faith in it, their sense of value begins to erode.
This is not because they have become less capable or less intelligent, but because they no longer perceive themselves as possessing any function capable of giving them meaning.
Accordingly, this discourse maintains that the awakened person does not feel so much that they have been liberated from the system as that they have stepped outside the sphere of utility.
In their own eyes, they have become a being that performs no function, from whom nothing is expected, and who themselves no longer perceive any reason to assume a role.
From this arises the feeling that personal value has vanished.
Yet this conception advances one step further, toward a more radical conclusion.
If human beings come to regard themselves as valueless, they will soon begin to regard others in the same way.
For how can they attribute meaning to others when they no longer believe in the existence of meaning itself?
And how can they regard others' roles as genuine when they consider those roles to be nothing more than functions within a system whose legitimacy they no longer acknowledge?
Thus, the loss of value ceases to be merely an individual experience and becomes a comprehensive vision of the world.
The physician, the teacher, the worker, the politician, the artist, and even the philosopher no longer appear here as bearers of independent missions, but rather as components performing specific functions within a structure greater than themselves.
Once that structure loses its legitimacy in the eyes of human beings, the roles that depend upon it lose their legitimacy as well.
At this point, even the notion of meaning itself becomes subject to question.
According to this conception, human beings do not discover a ready-made meaning in the world; rather, the world grants them meaning insofar as they participate in its mechanisms.
Once they cease participating, or are no longer capable of believing in those mechanisms, the bond that once connected them to the very idea of value is severed.
Accordingly, the awakened person believes that leaving the Matrix did not elevate them to a higher status, as some narratives claim. Instead, it stripped them of every sense of status altogether.
They did not leave the system to become its master; they left only to discover that they could no longer find a place for themselves within it.
From here emerges a profound paradox.
While some portray awakening as the path to self-discovery, this conception argues that it may lead to precisely the opposite conclusion: human beings become incapable of finding any stable definition of themselves because they have lost the language through which they once understood who they were.
They had understood themselves through their roles, their relationships, their goals, and their place among others.
Once all of these collapsed, nothing remained except the naked question:
Who am I if I no longer perform any function?
According to this discourse, this question is not merely a philosophical reflection; it marks the beginning of a profound existential crisis. Human beings may endure the loss of success, status, or wealth, yet they find it exceedingly difficult to endure the feeling that they have become detached from every framework that once gave them meaning.
Accordingly, the awakened person no longer seeks the recognition of others, nor strives to affirm themselves, because the problem, in their view, no longer lies in the degree of recognition they receive, but in the collapse of the very foundation that once made recognition itself meaningful.
Thus, at the existential level, the loss of function becomes the loss of meaning, and the loss of meaning, in turn, becomes the feeling that, whatever human beings may do, they are no longer capable of finding a genuine place for themselves within the world.
Between the Promise of Salvation and the Construction of Illusion: A Critique of the Discourse of Spiritual Self-Development
If this conception ultimately concludes that human beings lose their sense of meaning when their purposes collapse, then it naturally proceeds to question the discourses that promise to restore that meaning.
Among the most prominent of these are the contemporary discourses of self-development, spiritual awakening, positive energy, inner liberation, the law of attraction, and the various promises that present themselves as shortcuts to inner peace or fulfillment.
The objection advanced by this discourse is directed less toward the methods proposed by these schools than toward the fundamental assumption upon which they are built.
They proceed from the premise that human beings suffer from a defect that can be repaired, that the problem lies in their patterns of thought, their emotions, or their relationship with themselves, and that by reorganizing these elements they can regain balance and attain a fuller life.
This conception, however, maintains that the problem is deeper than all of that.
If the very foundation of existence is itself the source of the problem, then improving the experience within existence does nothing to alter the nature of that problem.
Accordingly, calls for "positive thinking," "raising one's vibration," "discovering latent energy," or "creating reality through thought" become attempts to beautify the structure without questioning its foundation.
In the view of this discourse, such approaches treat symptoms rather than causes. They merely rearrange the decorations within the house while leaving the question of the house itself unanswered.
For this reason, this discourse argues that many of these promises differ little, in their underlying structure, from the other illusions upon which human beings rely in order to continue living.
They do not eliminate the need for illusion; they merely provide it with a new language.
In the past, human beings clung to one particular image of salvation. Today, they may cling to another, more modern image, yet it continues to serve the very same function: postponing the confrontation with questions for which they possess no answer.
Accordingly, this conception regards with skepticism every discourse that promises human beings complete peace, permanent happiness, or ultimate liberation.
Every promise of fulfillment appears, from its perspective, to be an extension of the ancient desire to escape deficiency rather than a genuine discovery of the truth of existence.
Thus, any discourse that promises to make human beings more successful, more capable of attracting opportunities, or more able to control their destiny is not, according to this perspective, an escape from the Matrix, but rather its reproduction in a different language.
It does not dismantle the system; instead, it grants it a gentler face and makes human beings more willing to integrate themselves within it while believing that they have been liberated from it.
This is why the discourse approaches with irony many of the slogans that promise human beings that changing their daily habits, practicing particular rituals, or repeating specific affirmations will lead them to a comprehensive existential transformation.
In the view of this discourse, the problem does not lie in adopting one habit or abandoning another, but in believing that such methods are capable of resolving a question that transcends them all.
Human beings may indeed experience temporary relief, their psychological condition may improve, and their anxiety may diminish. All of this is entirely possible. Yet none of it means that the existential question has found its answer.
There is a profound difference between alleviating pain and removing its cause,
and between giving human beings a greater capacity to endure and demonstrating that existence itself has become intelligible.
For this reason, this conception distinguishes between a palliative and a solution.
A palliative may be beneficial and, at times, even necessary, but it should not be presented as the end of the crisis.
It postpones the confrontation; it does not eliminate it.
Accordingly, the problem, from the perspective of this discourse, is not that human beings seek means that help them live, but that they confuse what enables them to continue with what explains existence.
Continuation is one thing; understanding is another.
Human beings may succeed in the former while the latter remains indefinitely open.
Thus, this critique ultimately arrives at a single conclusion: the discourses that promise human beings complete salvation may offer temporary consolation, but they do not provide, according to this perspective, a definitive answer to the question from which everything began:
Why do human beings exist in the first place, and what is it that gives purpose to their continued existence?
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