Of Molecules and Mortality: How Wikipedia Sent Me Into a Death Spiral and Ripped The Still-Beating Childhood Right Out of My Chest.

It is a universal truth that the greatest revelations in life come to us when we're crumpled in a sobbing heap on a dingy dorm room carpet at 3:00 in the morning.

I think. I have only my own experience to go on here.

I remember it like it was yesterday; the dusty smell of low-pile rug and the taste of tears, the feel of the tiny clumps of hair I'd torn out in what was to be the first in a grand tradition of anxiety attacks. It was in those terrible moments, by the dull glow of a laptop and the song of crickets outside, that the realization came to me:

I had become a man.

And all of this over a casual google search. Over chemistry homework, for god's sake! How the hell did I get there?

Let me back up for a moment.

When many tell their coming-of-age stories, there is a grand inflection point; some delicious trauma that lifts the scales from their eyes: The Dog Dies, their First and Only Love leaves them, Dad never comes back with the Milk. Their youthful worlds are so shaken by the experience that they must learn to see the world with older and wiser eyes.

Not so for me. I made it to the ripe old age of nineteen never having learned a damned thing. I had a pleasant childhood, a successful high school career, and no greater brush with truly adult cares than having to flush Fred the goldfish when I was eight. I floated through life with the normal aches and pains, not really taking the time to consider my place in the universe.

Then came freshman year of college. The great tribulation. The time of troubles.

A degree in performance theater is not the most academically rigorous piece of education in existence, but it is extremely demanding of your time and energy. It provides anyone who's awake enough to listen with a surface-level overview of the human condition. For me, it was my first glimpse into ways of thinking I hadn't even known existed. My first year of college (as I'm sure it does for many who are lucky enough to have the privilege) showed me that there was more in heaven and earth than was dreamt of in my philosophy. In some cosmic joke, however, the universe decided that the theme of the party that year would be existentialism.

Existentialism, the mega-super-happy-fun-time branch of philosophy.

For some godforsaken reason, it was everywhere during my first year on campus. Special exhibits on the topic came to roost in the library, the humanities building, the theater building, every place I had the great misfortune to frequent that year. We studied existentialism in the works of Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee, we did scenes from No Exit, we even managed to scrounge up some soul-crushing "All is dust and the universe doesn't care about you" from Tennessee-freaking-Williams. Huge banners bearing the cheery faces of the great existentialist philosophers were everywhere; few places on campus were free from the grim reminder that nothing really matters but you keep on living anyway.

It was depressing, to say the least, but like all philosophy it was nothing but theory. A bunch of sad people getting together to take black and white photos of themselves looking grim and telling you that everything is meaningless garbage. I was eating a double-decker nihilism sandwich during my primary coursework, but I could still take solace in those blessed hours when I was studying chemistry. Chemistry was the real deal: actual observable facts that followed consistent laws. It was data, cause and effect, action and reaction, governed by immutable laws of charge and polarity and energy states. There was no place for the maudlin contemplation of one's non-place in the order of things during an acid-base titration. It was my single sanctuary from the relentless tide of sad-sack rhetoric and navel-gazing that had made up the rest of the year.

Until the night before our second mid-term. That's when it all came crashing down.

I was, like all my fellows, feverishly trawling the internet for formulas and shortcuts to use on the looming test. I may have enjoyed the peace chemistry brought me, but I was by no means good at it. I hadn't studied enough by half, and I was rushing to find some deus ex machina to save my grade. A friend of mine had joked that evening that in order to better study chemistry, I should engage in some self-experimentation and load up on DMT before the test. To this day, I'm not sure whether I should bless or curse him for the off-handed comment that would change my life forever. You see, I was a naïve and innocent young lad at the time, and I hadn't even heard of DMT before that moment. Given that I was cramming a semester's worth of information into my brain in an evening, I didn't think much of it when the comment was made.

But then three in the morning rolled around. My brain was shot, along with my nerves. I had downed a few Red Bulls at the beginning of the night, but they had well and truly worn off by the time I reached the witching hour. I was crashing hard, loopy from fatigue and panic and in no fit state to do anything but pass out. So I decided, "Screw it, I'll have a laugh and look up whatever it was my friend was talking about." And so I did.

Like a fool, I did.

For the uninitiated, DMT or Dimethyltryptamine is a naturally occurring hallucinogen that has been used in religious rituals for thousands of years. It produces a wide range of effects, from mild perceptual changes to euphoria to complete subjective detachment from reality. People under the effects of DMT report contact with higher beings, super-intelligences, and presences from beyond our everyday earthly existence. "Neat!" I thought. "Perhaps I can find a spirit guardian that will whisper chemistry answers in my ear!" It was all fine and dandy until I scrolled a little further, where I found a small section (now grown defunct with the passage of time) concerning DMT and near-death experiences. It was suggested that this funny little molecule might be the cause of the euphoric and transformative experiences that people have when they skate the razor's edge between life and death, the last chemical gasps of a consciousness facing its own extinction.

I read that section three times before the thread holding me above the gaping pit of adulthood finally snapped.

It was all there on the page, the final confirmation of all the depressing messages that had been thrown at me over the course of a year. Even as I write this now, my hands shake a little at the memory of it. Because a part of me, the childish part that was soon to be consumed in the raging heat of a firestorm of panic, had held on to the idea that no matter what, there would always be mysteries about our experience that couldn't be explained away. That despite mountains of evidence, there was still a thin line of the mystical that separated us from the vicissitudes of an uncaring universe. But there on that damnable page was the proof that those dour philosophers with their unbearable message were right.

There was no great mystery behind it all. You could experience the divine for fifty bucks at an EDM rave.

(I failed the mid-term, obviously. I was too busy having a dark night of the soul to do any more studying.)

Everything I had ever believed about the world was destroyed. I was never particularly religious, but there was always a secret core of belief that underpinned my worldview. I had always lived my life with the belief that if I were a generally decent person, I would be rewarded for it in the end. That if I lived my life the "right" way, I'd get goodies in whatever reincarnation or hereafter awaited beyond the veil. I was a child doing my chores in the hope that I'd earn my allowance, playing nice with the other kids so that Teacher wouldn't put me in time out. That night, for the first time in my life, I had to really look at myself. I had to grapple with the idea that it's just me in here, and no one was coming to save me.

Nineteen was the worst year I have ever had on this planet. Being forced to contemplate mortality day in and day out was my own personal hell, but it also served as the dividing line between my life asleep and my life awake. The struggle to find something to live for in a universe that doesn't give a shit has made me the person I am today, the adult that believes kindness should be for kindness' sake, that you should do the right thing because it eases the suffering of others and not in expectation of some reward, that struggling with the impossible questions of life brings more spiritual growth than a thousand hours in church.

In a real way, I wish I could go back. It was easier, more comfortable to live in a world where I wasn't ultimately responsible for my own life. But coming of age was not like stepping over a threshold. It was a metamorphosis, and not a fun one. It is a little known fact that in the course of turning into a butterfly, the caterpillar must first digest itself, rendering its flesh into a liquid before rebuilding its body molecule by molecule.

I'm not sure if I came out a butterfly or a dung beetle, but the change that single night on Wikipedia wrought has been just as profound. I emerged from that year with a new perspective and a new appreciation for the joy of being alive. I would not wish my journey on my worst enemy, but looking back on it now, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Coming of age was the most unpleasant experience I have ever had.

But now I've grown my wings.