Why Plan B Always Succeeds While the Main Plan Fails: Guilt and LSD
Why do we dream of bold, challenging things, only to settle into lifestyles that take us miles away from those very dreams?
Image from Artificial Intelligence, Prompt by the author.
Why do we dream of bold, challenging things, only to settle into lifestyles that take us miles away from those very dreams?
Why does Plan B always seem to work, while the original dream crumbles quietly in the background?
I began my journey wanting to be a screenwriter.
I ended up translating novels from distant cultures.
Many of my friends share a similar journey. We begin with a fire in our hearts, chasing meaning, freedom, and maybe even a touch of greatness.
But somewhere along the way, we slow down. We choose stillness over struggle, intimacy over ambition, simplicity over spectacle.
When we embrace genuine experiences, such as meditation, quiet dinners, and laughter without reason, we often hear a nagging voice: You should be doing more.
So we return to the climb. We build, we push, we win.
But then comes the quiet question we often ignore: Was the goal worth all the sacrifice and effort?
Dreamers come home for the holidays, enjoy the emotional warmth of family and friends, and experience an almost quiet ache: something lost.
We call this "growth." But maybe, deep down, it’s just a more palatable word for drift—away from who we once were, or thought we’d be.
The Hidden Mechanism
I watch people closely.
Some don’t exercise, yet consume fitness reels religiously.
Others devour meditation content while feeling more anxious than ever.
They start.
They stop.
They start again.
They stop—again.
And then comes the shame. The fatigue. The inner scolding.
This cycle is not only personal; it is also cultural.
And for those who study it, or work with others creatively or professionally, it holds the key to influence.
Behind every drop of self-sabotage is an emotion we rarely question:
Guilt.
Guilt strengthens the authority of influencers, coaches, and even spiritual leaders. They speak with such confidence because many of us have never fully trusted our own inner voice. When we finally dream of breaking free and starting a revolution within ourselves, guilt resurfaces—not to stop us overtly, but to quietly draw us back into the same familiar loops.
Cultural Guilt and Personal Collapse
In my late teens, I was a moralist: disciplined, focused, and almost militant in my lifestyle. I lectured others, believing people admired me— or so I thought.
But one day, something cracked.
I understood that I wasn't strong; I was fragile. My discipline was a shield, and my virtue was a cage.
So I stepped away from the preaching stand.
And the crowd?
Gone.
Even now, my father sometimes reminisces: Where did the wise, pious young man go?
Truth?
They didn’t love me.
They loved the guilt I made them feel.
Aleister Crowley and the War Inside
The most haunting thing I’ve read about guilt came from Aleister Crowley in his book Meditation.
He compares the Mosaic Law to the Hindu Yama.
In Abrahamic tradition: "Do not kill." "Do not covet your neighbor’s wife."
Simple commands.
However, behind them lies a war—an endless fight with the self.
A war against desire.
Against impulse.
Against the body’s natural rhythm.
Crowley called this war the great weakness of modern man.
Because when you’re constantly fighting yourself, you have no strength left to change the world.
I once translated Crowley’s thought into Arabic in my journal:
“Nothing is easier for an anarchist than killing the king. He just needs a rifle. But despite their numbers, anarchists remain quiet in their rage.”
Why?
Guilt neutralizes rebellion.
It turns fire into fog.
Al-Hallaj and the Guiltless Spirit
Before the 20th century, one Arab mystic dared to unhook the mind from guilt.
His name was Al-Hallaj.
During the Islamic golden age, before cinema or Twitter, imagination was reality. Words shaped existence. And fear shaped obedience.
Hell was vivid. Judgment was intimate. And guilt? It was everything.
Then came the Sufis.
They sang of love over fear, of ecstasy over obedience.
Al-Hallaj went too far.
He was arrested in Baghdad, publicly crucified, cut into pieces, and thrown into the Tigris River.
Why?
Because he tried to awaken joy in a world addicted to shame.
Even now, his death stirs something deep.
A discomfort.
That discomfort... is guilt.
The Substance That Ended My War
For me, it wasn’t therapy or philosophy that dissolved guilt. It was LSD.
During a magical ritual, something unexpected happened: The tight knot of inner war didn’t just loosen—it disappeared.
I saw guilt for what it is: a silent contract, the belief that love must be earned, and the suspicion that joy is suspicious unless it comes after pain.
When that belief vanished, something else became clear: Guilt is a social currency. It keeps us connected, not through truth but through obligation.
And once you stop paying in guilt, some relationships end. The polite ones. The perfect ones. The ones that never saw the real you.
They fade because you’re no longer helpful in how they’re used to. You’ve stepped out of the unspoken economy.
And for the first time, you're alone—but free.
Sex, Shame, and Shrinking Souls
I’ve always loved sex.
But the moment I dropped guilt, I realized how rare it was to find a partner who had done the same.
Without guilt, sex becomes something else entirely.
It becomes present. Play. Pure awareness.
But most people are still playing some invisible game of performance, shame, and unconscious obedience to stories they inherited.
And as we age, we don’t grow wise—we shrink.
We become more miniature versions of who we could have been, trapped not by limitations, but by unresolved guilt.
Look around.
See how older generations now behave like confused teenagers—chasing youth, fleeing silence, denying age.
It’s not because they fear death.
It’s because they never made peace with their own guilt.
Why We Need Meditation and Magic?
Because guilt isn’t just an emotion. It’s a program. It scripts our dreams. It picks our partners. It defines what feels possible.
And unless we rewrite it, we’ll keep mistaking compromise for “growth”… and settling for Plan B while calling it “maturity.” We will live lives that seem practical, but feel nothing like our original dream.
What makes this worse is that even the books, therapists, and personal development coaches who are supposed to help us use the exact tired words. Words like “transformation,” “self-love,” and “alignment” are everywhere, so diluted by repetition and fake gurus that they’ve lost their edge. They no longer stir the soul.
But there’s another language—one that hasn’t been hijacked. The language of dreams, rituals, and altered states. In those spaces, language is raw, personal, and untouchable. It bypasses logic and rewires belief at the roots.
Because Plan A doesn’t die because it’s unrealistic. It dies because guilt convinces us we’re not worthy of it.