I was writing an entire essay in fragments how I resonate with everything you said, from my personal experience while listening to this podcast, somehow this app restarted itself 😭 do you want me to write again?
I hope it could give some insights, maybe this whole podcast meant to reach me, a divine decreee and thank you for putting all the work you have done for this podcast,
I don’t believe in randomness. I don’t believe anything that happened was unintentional between us.
Love bound me to a version of myself I thought I lost when I was in this phase of self-sabotaging myself with drugs and numbing myself. I thought I'd never feel this whole ever again in my life. But I was religious then. I sort of lost myself. In other words, I stopped practicing. I hooked up with rave culture. Then came the drugs along the way. I thought I was freeing myself from the pain that I endured. As you said, defining love isn’t an easy task because people will always give their definition of trauma, how they perceive it, and how they overcome it. The pain of loss.
The emotional ROI for me was acceptance, validation, and someone who could see all the masks I have been wearing all this time and say, "I see you, and I am not afraid of what I am seeing." That was my ROI.
Is love spooked? Yes, it is spooky. For some, love must be Instagrammable. For some, sacred and divine. But for me and her, it was sacred and divine by the definition of religion (to me personally, yes). We tried to frame it as morally, ethically accepted by the community we live in. Family dynamics and social status were at play as obstacles. So instead of a reunion, we had to think of how to clear this mess.
I don’t want to name it as fantasy, but I was in love with the idea of the possibility of what we could become. If it's sacred and divine (I am a Muslim, according to Islam, it is).
The romantic industrial complex, for me, was realigning with my religion, becoming a decent Muslim who prays five times, who avoids drugs, nicotine, all sorts of self-harming stuff. I want to point this out because when I met her, she was a practicing Muslim, and I was nowhere near that. I had to become the right kind of man for myself and her. You said it's an identity, yes, and it is something I believe in too.
Her spirituality and my newfound purpose this time, she softened me, and she was my moral compass. So our political code was religion, and it matched; it worked. But we didn't work out her indecisiveness and the obstacles we were about to face. When I was in the talking stage, I was loving her or approaching her from, as you said, in the third person. To be honest, for this period, it was more like the dark night of the soul. I was trying to become someone desirable, but I was transitioning. I was not fully there, hoping I would become, and I became that version of myself.
After the breakup, I was self-analyzing, reflecting, and doing HR on my feelings. I don’t consider myself and her high value or low value. We are two separate individuals. I treated this affair as an Excel spreadsheet of personal development, and I outgrew some of the personas I had given power to. When I talk about personas here, what I am trying to say is that I lived like someone else. Someone bitter, unapologetic, self-centered. The masks I have been wearing in online communities to get accepted when I was rejected by the community I grew up in, because I hadn’t achieved anything that is socially accepted. So in online communities, I am someone. So you are right, a proxy for moral connection. Am I making sense?
So let's talk about her, a morally conscious, religiously devout woman who deeply values Islamic principles, especially when it comes to marriage, boundaries, and modesty. She holds herself to a high standard of spiritual accountability, often feeling guilt or fear when navigating emotionally intense or non-halal dynamics. Socially, she appears reserved and cautious, choosing silence or vague responses over confrontation, possibly due to a protective upbringing or strict parental influence, especially her father's role in shaping her decisions. Family approval is paramount to her, which creates an internal tug-of-war between her desires and her sense of duty. Her avoidant attachment shows in how she distances herself when emotionally overwhelmed, using ambiguity and withdrawal as coping tools. Beneath this, there are signs of past relational trauma, perhaps from a previous love or broken trust that fuels her need to stay guarded, even when her heart feels drawn.
So we both were a mess. I am a fucking wreck. We both mirrored our trauma. She often played with her contradictions. I owned my duality and religious contradictions. So I chased what I lacked. I chased her because I could. (Why am I doing Plato stuff in 2025?) So beloved, not the end but the ladder I tried to climb to prove myself to me and her. So this is where sacredness is at play and where my brain associates with fulfillment. So let's say I was a sinner, and my salvation was to become a practicing Muslim.
In Islam, sacred love requires obedience and surrender to Allah, where we submit ourselves through sincerity and prayers. We ought to expect the outcome according to fate, but we are not chasing the outcome, more like acceptance of the outcome, whether it favors us or not. Because that's the true submission and surrender to one God who knows better than us. We call it Qadr, which can only be redirected or changed through supplications (this is a broader subject).
The Enlightenment Part I loved this phase. For me, this whole experience is transformative. This is my POV on what happened between us and how your POV makes sense to me through all your analogies. In Muslim communities, if you are not married by the age of 30, people are asking what the fuck is wrong with you. The narrative I was telling myself is again the sacred and institutionalized beginning of a nuclear family, with faith and surrender to God.
In the 21st century, for her, that is something she said, “I am not healed. I still carry the wounds of my past relationship. I'll never be enough for you.” At this point, I have become someone unattainable and have become a good product. So now I think I have grown my delusional personality has become more holy, learning, improving, and growing. Now I am asking myself, all the effort I put into becoming a good person, was it performative or intentional? Am I selling myself a lie?
No, I wasn’t. The change I needed was not to win her, but to crack open something I believed in to align with my purpose. If I wanted to win her, I could have lied. But I didn’t. I worked for it. I made it intentional. I wasn’t performing to please her. Every prayer, every supplication was made with vulnerability and submission.
That was my origin story. I still love her, but I am not trying to prove my worth. I used her to repair something in myself. It sucked, but I loved what I am becoming. No strings attached. She reflected a self I wanted for myself, and I don’t see anything bad in it. So it wasn’t a misrecognition. Just someone who found hope to love again with depth.
I really appreciate the vulnerability you put into this. I think the power of Stirner's perspective is to keep focus on the thing that brings us authentic enjoyment. As authentic as possible. Because it seems that anything else only leads to more alienation from ourselves which affects the way we show up for others as well as our own reality. If that makes sense...so your self-reflection here is very welcomed and I am glad I created a space for that.
Wow thank you for sharing. Seriously. Im really glad the episode resonated so strongly. That is the whole point. I really appreciate this personal reflection. Is it okay with you if I share it on my social media?
I was writing an entire essay in fragments how I resonate with everything you said, from my personal experience while listening to this podcast, somehow this app restarted itself 😭 do you want me to write again?
I hope it could give some insights, maybe this whole podcast meant to reach me, a divine decreee and thank you for putting all the work you have done for this podcast,
Hey, I would love to read it. ❤️
I don’t believe in randomness. I don’t believe anything that happened was unintentional between us.
Love bound me to a version of myself I thought I lost when I was in this phase of self-sabotaging myself with drugs and numbing myself. I thought I'd never feel this whole ever again in my life. But I was religious then. I sort of lost myself. In other words, I stopped practicing. I hooked up with rave culture. Then came the drugs along the way. I thought I was freeing myself from the pain that I endured. As you said, defining love isn’t an easy task because people will always give their definition of trauma, how they perceive it, and how they overcome it. The pain of loss.
The emotional ROI for me was acceptance, validation, and someone who could see all the masks I have been wearing all this time and say, "I see you, and I am not afraid of what I am seeing." That was my ROI.
Is love spooked? Yes, it is spooky. For some, love must be Instagrammable. For some, sacred and divine. But for me and her, it was sacred and divine by the definition of religion (to me personally, yes). We tried to frame it as morally, ethically accepted by the community we live in. Family dynamics and social status were at play as obstacles. So instead of a reunion, we had to think of how to clear this mess.
I don’t want to name it as fantasy, but I was in love with the idea of the possibility of what we could become. If it's sacred and divine (I am a Muslim, according to Islam, it is).
The romantic industrial complex, for me, was realigning with my religion, becoming a decent Muslim who prays five times, who avoids drugs, nicotine, all sorts of self-harming stuff. I want to point this out because when I met her, she was a practicing Muslim, and I was nowhere near that. I had to become the right kind of man for myself and her. You said it's an identity, yes, and it is something I believe in too.
Her spirituality and my newfound purpose this time, she softened me, and she was my moral compass. So our political code was religion, and it matched; it worked. But we didn't work out her indecisiveness and the obstacles we were about to face. When I was in the talking stage, I was loving her or approaching her from, as you said, in the third person. To be honest, for this period, it was more like the dark night of the soul. I was trying to become someone desirable, but I was transitioning. I was not fully there, hoping I would become, and I became that version of myself.
After the breakup, I was self-analyzing, reflecting, and doing HR on my feelings. I don’t consider myself and her high value or low value. We are two separate individuals. I treated this affair as an Excel spreadsheet of personal development, and I outgrew some of the personas I had given power to. When I talk about personas here, what I am trying to say is that I lived like someone else. Someone bitter, unapologetic, self-centered. The masks I have been wearing in online communities to get accepted when I was rejected by the community I grew up in, because I hadn’t achieved anything that is socially accepted. So in online communities, I am someone. So you are right, a proxy for moral connection. Am I making sense?
So let's talk about her, a morally conscious, religiously devout woman who deeply values Islamic principles, especially when it comes to marriage, boundaries, and modesty. She holds herself to a high standard of spiritual accountability, often feeling guilt or fear when navigating emotionally intense or non-halal dynamics. Socially, she appears reserved and cautious, choosing silence or vague responses over confrontation, possibly due to a protective upbringing or strict parental influence, especially her father's role in shaping her decisions. Family approval is paramount to her, which creates an internal tug-of-war between her desires and her sense of duty. Her avoidant attachment shows in how she distances herself when emotionally overwhelmed, using ambiguity and withdrawal as coping tools. Beneath this, there are signs of past relational trauma, perhaps from a previous love or broken trust that fuels her need to stay guarded, even when her heart feels drawn.
So we both were a mess. I am a fucking wreck. We both mirrored our trauma. She often played with her contradictions. I owned my duality and religious contradictions. So I chased what I lacked. I chased her because I could. (Why am I doing Plato stuff in 2025?) So beloved, not the end but the ladder I tried to climb to prove myself to me and her. So this is where sacredness is at play and where my brain associates with fulfillment. So let's say I was a sinner, and my salvation was to become a practicing Muslim.
In Islam, sacred love requires obedience and surrender to Allah, where we submit ourselves through sincerity and prayers. We ought to expect the outcome according to fate, but we are not chasing the outcome, more like acceptance of the outcome, whether it favors us or not. Because that's the true submission and surrender to one God who knows better than us. We call it Qadr, which can only be redirected or changed through supplications (this is a broader subject).
The Enlightenment Part I loved this phase. For me, this whole experience is transformative. This is my POV on what happened between us and how your POV makes sense to me through all your analogies. In Muslim communities, if you are not married by the age of 30, people are asking what the fuck is wrong with you. The narrative I was telling myself is again the sacred and institutionalized beginning of a nuclear family, with faith and surrender to God.
In the 21st century, for her, that is something she said, “I am not healed. I still carry the wounds of my past relationship. I'll never be enough for you.” At this point, I have become someone unattainable and have become a good product. So now I think I have grown my delusional personality has become more holy, learning, improving, and growing. Now I am asking myself, all the effort I put into becoming a good person, was it performative or intentional? Am I selling myself a lie?
No, I wasn’t. The change I needed was not to win her, but to crack open something I believed in to align with my purpose. If I wanted to win her, I could have lied. But I didn’t. I worked for it. I made it intentional. I wasn’t performing to please her. Every prayer, every supplication was made with vulnerability and submission.
That was my origin story. I still love her, but I am not trying to prove my worth. I used her to repair something in myself. It sucked, but I loved what I am becoming. No strings attached. She reflected a self I wanted for myself, and I don’t see anything bad in it. So it wasn’t a misrecognition. Just someone who found hope to love again with depth.
I really appreciate the vulnerability you put into this. I think the power of Stirner's perspective is to keep focus on the thing that brings us authentic enjoyment. As authentic as possible. Because it seems that anything else only leads to more alienation from ourselves which affects the way we show up for others as well as our own reality. If that makes sense...so your self-reflection here is very welcomed and I am glad I created a space for that.
Wow thank you for sharing. Seriously. Im really glad the episode resonated so strongly. That is the whole point. I really appreciate this personal reflection. Is it okay with you if I share it on my social media?
Sure no problem, and I am gonna keep an eye on your podcasts,