the trance state

Everything personal is a trance state. Not the savory kind of trance, but the obtuse one. You're probably in it right now. I wish you weren't. You don't. You pay lip service to wishing you weren't, but that's usually another way to stay in it.

The trance state is tenacious. It protects itself brilliantly. It summons every defense. The best ones masquerade as anti-trance so you don't even see them for what they are. That's more trance on top of trance. It's almost airtight.

The only way out of the trance is to admit the core horror covered over by the trance. What's the one thing the trance least wants to accept? You have to figure that out and accept that thing anyway, despite the horror. I know you can do it.

Are you afraid to find out you're a failure? But you are one. I'm one too, but I like that. I failed at every intention cooked up during my trance. You will too. You have to. The things we come up with in the trance oppose reality and as a result they fail, if not on the surface, then underneath, where the real motivations operate.

Are you afraid to discover you're not very important at all, that you won't change the world or make any particular difference in the grand scheme of things? Of course you won't, not if you operate from there and convince yourself otherwise. Why not pull that useless thorn from your paw already and get over yourself?

Or would you rather persist in the trance? Most people would. They do it every day. They're doing it right now and they aren't letting up. That's the surest sign of trancing. You never have time to step back from it. You claim there's no choice.