Protesilaos

Independence, symbiosis, and trance music

This is an excerpt from my journal.

People who visit me make the same kind of remark: “quiet, huh?”. Their ears are used to a different environment. Their first impression is informed by their prior conditioning and is true given that state of affairs. Though the mountain is not silent. Nature never rests. All that is present, is dancing.

There is ambient music all around, yet you cannot notice it right away. You must first slow down and adapt to your surroundings. Only then do you begin to hear the melody of the wind blowing against the leaves, of crickets and frogs singing in concert until the early morning hours, of birds flying right above you during the day and of owls heralding another nightfall. Stand next to the canes where aromatic roses grow and the honeybee busily prepares for wintertime. There by the creek, where the water flows while gentle breeze touches your face, close your eyes and let the outside become the inside. You shall begin to walk along the coast, listening to the waves, as you remain still in these mountainous hinterlands.

You do not have to travel far to experience the world. A small slice of it is enough, provided you examine it attentively. What I describe applies to my specific locus. It also is true metaphorically for how one comes to terms with who they are. Even if you travel to the furthest edges of the universe, all you can ever find is that which is present right where you are now. It is always there, yet you cannot discern it because you are not paying attention. Just as there is no running away from your shadow, there is nothing else to be had than what you have.

In our inexperience, we seek to connect with that which we call great or transcendent or true by searching for it somewhere else. We underestimate what is here and believe it cannot possibly be special in its banality. “Maybe I should visit the Parthenon and the Pyramids and all the great monuments of civilisation to understand how people reached their pinnacle” is how we might go about it. “If only I do this spiritual practice long enough, then I will ascend”. This is the mind of the idolater in action: it grows attached to tokens, appearances, allegories, and believes that the divine consists in the vainglory of grandeur or shininess or that it is limited to representations and customs.

And, indeed, there is nothing wrong with proceeding thus as you cannot go anywhere that is not already here: the idolater can still find that which is beyond the idols. Though turn your attention to the ground and observe this little flower. Do it with your full focus. Forget about the works of empire and the deeds of humankind: can you create a single flower? Have you contemplated what it takes for there to exist a flower?

Once you understand that the flower is because the world is and the world is because the flower is, you are ready to travel without moving. There is no single way to arrive at this realisation. You might do it by savouring every taste to be savoured. Or by paying attention to the small and the humble in your milieu. The path does not matter. The destination is the same: to exclaim “you are, thus I am; I am, thus you are”.

If you want to know how to go from Paris to Berlin, you might be tempted to think that there is one or a few possible routes: there are infinite. You can go directly by plane. You can do it by train with a connection through Brussels. You may travel by bicycle or even on foot. You can go by way of first touring the planet. It is not even limited to the planet: you can orbit the moon and then visit Berlin. And so on. For as long as you insist that there is only one true way, you are not willing to experience the consistency of the world and thus that which is ever present in your midst.

Even before we are born, we subsist in an immediate symbiotic relationship with our mother. Once we are born, we continue to subsist symbiotically by being fully dependent on others. As we grow, we develop faculties that empower us to act independently. The transition to adulthood is experienced as the shift from symbiosis to independence. And for a while we might think this is indeed the case and that we actually are independent. Though we are misled by the appearances into thinking that we ever become as much. Our presence is always symbiotic. For a single presence to exist, the entirety exists.

One becomes a philosopher by studying philosophy but also by not studying philosophy. This is because of the consistency of the world. We can go to different places, seeking unrelated things, only to discover exactly the same. One way to appreciate this is by reconsidering what I mentioned about the mountain ambience. When you notice the silence, you are effectively admitting that there was and is something beside you. And when you discover that silence is not actually the absence of presence, you again admit that there is a world. Everyone knows this, though not everyone remembers.

Here is an example from when I was a child. I always worked with music in the background. It helped me immerse myself in the project I was committed to. Music effectively insulate me from the rest of the world. This practice started when I was around ten years old. At the time, I discovered trance music, which is about the most niche genre you could get in Greece, at least in those pre-Internet times. Here are a couple of examples, which I consider masterpieces:

Listening to trance music can feel unsettling. There are no lyrics and no easy way to catch the tunes. The patterns are abstract and the possibilities seem endless. Most people will not enjoy the openendedness. They prefer clear-cut instructions that reduce their discretion to the point where they do not have to think at all. Trance invites you to have situational awareness while relinquishing the want for control that comes from your fears. It teaches you to be there, where the melody is as it happens, and to adapt to its transitions. As such, trance music is one way to both insulate yourself from your surroundings and become one with your surroundings through the engrossing experience.

I eventually stopped listening to music while working. I only play it when I have the mental space to give it my undivided attention. What I have achieved with this change is essentially nothing. Behind every rationality there is an emotion. I simply chose to blend in with a different environment, which is my mountain. I have more words now, which gives the impression that I have achieved something greater than my younger self, but that is a mistake. I still consist in symbiosis and have not gone anywhere else in the meantime.

Couched in those terms, consider what I wrote last week in criticism and the Internet friend (2026-08-16):

One time I was having a chat with someone who shared with me their experience with psychedelics. I have never done psychedelics because I never felt the need to. Though I am not against them in principle and am always eager to give my undivided attention to any topic. What I am against is abuse and recklessness: the freedom to ruin yourself is a freedom I have no respect for. I am, if you will, opposed to “heroin-ising the LSD in your ignorance” as Nikolas Asimos correctly points out in one of his songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW6ucfl36m4.

As we were talking, I expounded on some of my thoughts about the interconnectedness of the world. The person eventually exclaimed how “I feel I am tripping right now”. This is what you get when you let me connect the dots from the most practical consideration to the greatest abstractions. I probably never felt the need to do psychedelics because I am like Obelix: I fell in the cauldron of Kykeon as a child, so I have that perspective built into me ever since.

I do not do psychedelics because I have taken a different path to the same destination. Whether by your own means or assisted by substances, you cannot go elsewhere. You will travel far or dig deep to ultimately discover what children experience as immanent spirit and inexhaustible wonder. Your adventure is the discovery of self through others, else the initial overcoming of self through its dissolution into the communion of selves, which becomes the aggrandising of self. In the process, you might realise that even inanimate objects have something to tell you. Hit a piece of wood and you quickly realise it is endowed with musicality: it is not just the birds that sing.

When I publish something, I am effectively recognising as well as seeking the others. The article is a note in a bottle that I toss to the waves. I will probably never talk to the recipient of this message, let alone meet them face-to-face, yet I still want to tell them that I too was there to experience companionship in solitude and loneliness in company, and that no matter where you go you tread beaten paths.

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