The Most Dangerous Question

The truth about inner work, the gunk under your refrigerator and why rats are my most faithful companions

“Shiv, there’s a lot in the mainstream about trauma therapy, inner child work, healing the mother wound, shadow work, integration work, meditation practice, energy work etc. Btw I’ve done it all and frankly it’s exhausting. Is there an end point to all of this? When can we say we are “done”?”

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Oh man, thank you for that! I needed a good laugh today.

I was just in the midst of eating my breakfast cereal when I read your question and nearly sprayed my computer screen with granola and oat milk.

“Done”

Isn’t that just the most fucked up word in the English dictionary?

Look around you.

Observe Nature. Observe the Universe.

Is there anything that is ever truly done?

‘Done’ is an arbitrary point we have invented as human beings to break reality into finite and digestible pieces.

For example, we might say “the day is done” - but ‘a day’ is the creation of the human mind based upon the rotation of the Earth with respect to the sun. Each day is followed by another day and another after that. The “day” is never really done.

One might say “this marriage is done” - but ‘marriage" is only a certain format for the relationship between two people based on specific social expectations. The relationship still continues in another form. Even if all communication ceases, one remains forever related to the other through their shared history, if nothing else.

You talk about “done” as if you know what that means. Yet, if you were to truly observe reality you would find that no such thing exists. Nothing is ever done. There is only endless transformation. And so, while one might use this word in a relative sense to compare one phenomenon to another (for example, ‘this morning is done and now it is afternoon’) all this communicates to anyone are the arbitrary social rules and symbols we use to interpret reality via language. It says nothing meaningful whatsoever about reality itself.

Your question is - is there an endpoint to all the inner work you can do on yourself?

My question to you is - is there an endpoint to how you define yourself?

Because here’s another fucked up little nugget of inconvenient wisdom, I’m going to present to you:

The more ‘work’ you do on yourself, the more your own understanding and definition of who you are shifts and expands.

The more you tug at that thread, the more you realize that the ball of yarn you thought you were, is actually connected to hundreds of interconnected balls of yarn, within a basket which is likewise connected to thousands of other baskets also containing balls of yarn, in a shipping container similarly connected to millions of other shipping containers each containing baskets containing balls of yarn…you get the idea.

“When can we say we are done?” is the most dangerous question in the world. I beg you not to ask it. But if you are compelled to ask it anyways, against your own better judgement (like I was), then buckle up.

Here’s how I would describe the process of ‘inner work’ as you call it. I call it the ‘gunk under the refrigerator’ analogy.

I want you to imagine the following:

One day you notice a funky smell in the kitchen. You’re not sure what it is or where it’s coming from. You open the windows and air the room out, hoping the smell will just leave. But it doesn’t.

You check if any food has gone bad, but it hasn’t. You check if your dog secretly pooped in some hidden corner of the room, but he didn’t. You simply cannot figure out where the smell is coming from. Over the ensuing days, the smell preoccupies your mind and makes you miserable. You can’t think about anything else but that stench in your kitchen.

So, finally one day you decide to shift some things around. As you are moving the refrigerator, you notice a damp green gunky residue beneath it. “Aha!” you exclaim, believing you have found the culprit. You clean up the gunk under the refrigerator, move the fridge back into place and congratulate yourself on a job well done.

The smell goes away. But then a week later it returns. Incredulous, you pull the fridge out of its spot once again and, lo and behold, there is that damp gunky green residue again.

WTF?

So, you clean it up more thoroughly, figuring you might have missed a part before and move the fridge back into place. But a week later, the stench returns. Now you realize that the problem likely runs deeper than you had previously imagined. You check the refrigerator for leaks, but don’t find any. You then begin to take out some of the cabinets adjacent to the fridge and are alarmed to find the green gunk beneath them as well. You trace the path of the gunk all the way to the kitchen sink which appears to have a barely noticeable leak in the pipes.

“Aha!” you exclaim. What a Sherlock of homes you are to have uncovered the real root issue. You fix the leak in the pipes. You clean up all the green gunk. You reinstall the cabinets. And then you sit back on the couch with your legs up on the coffee table with a sigh of relief and satisfaction. For, now you are truly done.

A month passes…

Then, like some cruel twist of fate, the stench returns.

WITAF?

In a fevered frenzy you move the fridge, you rip out the cabinetry and discover the gunk again. You check the pipes, they’re leaking again. Why, oh benevolent Source, why? You take the kitchen sink pipes apart and discover that there is something clogged deep within the pipes. Loads and loads of built-up residue; hair, food, trash. So, THAT’s what was actually causing the leaks!

You spend hours pulling all that residue out. The pipes look as clean as new. Finally, FINALLY - you are done!

Ah, but if that were the end of the tale where would the fun be?

For, a few months later, when the smell returns again, the dread that descends upon you is palpable. Are you to be haunted by this stench forever?

At first, you remain in denial. “Perhaps, I’m imagining it? May be some kind of lingering effect triggered by my PTSD.”

Then, you move to anger. “Well, fuck it then! I’ll just live with that damn smell!”

Then you begin bargaining - “If I just fix the pipes one more time, can the smell just go away once and for all, PLEASE!”

Then you shift to depression - “I’m proper fucked.”

Finally, you arrive at acceptance - “I’ve got more work to do.”

Once again, you pull out the fridge. Once again, you rip out the cabinetry. Once again, you take the sink and pipes apart. There it is again, the built-up residue even deeper within the pipes. You begin to investigate the entire system of pipes in your home. The residue is everywhere. As are pieces of drywall and concrete where you’ve had to break things apart in order to access the pipes.

After weeks of arduous labor, you finally arrive at the real real root cause. There is a backup in your home’s sewage system that is causing built-up residue to be pushed up into your kitchen pipes. You rent out some specialized machinery to remove the years of accumulated crap that has festered and fossilized in your sewage disposal. When you are finally done, your sewage system, your pipes, your entire plumbing system is as clean as a whistle.

The fatigue you feel is only second to the sensation of elation and freedom. What a journey! What an arduous path! But how you persevered! And how dark that night was right before the dawn of your inevitable triumph! How much you have learned about your own abode in the process! How naive and ignorant you once were! How enlightened you are now!

Over the next few years, you begin to write books about your process. You become somewhat of an expert in the matter of deep diving into the root cause behind what causes the stench in people’s homes. You begin to guide others in how to deal with the gunk under their own refrigerators.

The years pass…

And then one day, several years after your great overhaul, the smell returns.

You are shocked and dismayed. And yet, you recognize that there had always been a small part within you that had dreaded this exact day.

As if in a dream (or perhaps a nightmare) you watch your body perform those distant yet familiar functions again. Pulling out the fridge, taking apart the cabinets, opening up the pipes, breaking drywall to expose all the plumbing, and finally revealing the sewage system.

There it is again - the giant buildup of residue. Could it be possible? How can so much have accumulated in just a few years?

Incredulous, you trace your sewage pipes to where it connects with the city’s sewer system. In a daze, you enter the sewers by removing the manhole cover on your street. And that is when a reality you that had never previously fathomed possible slowly dawns upon you…

As you explore this subterranean network that services the lives of the millions who dwell in the city, you realize that the entire system is backed up. And this system is pushing built-up trash and residue into everyone’s sewage systems. It is causing everyone’s pipes to clog and leak. It is causing everyone’s kitchens to smell. It is causing green gunk to grow beneath everyone’s refrigerators.

Then, horrifying insights begin hitting you a mile per second:

“My green gunk is the same as everyone else’s green gunk.”

“No matter how much of my own gunk I clean up, there will always be more gunk under my refrigerator because it’s all interconnected.”

“I cannot clean up the whole world’s green gunk.”

“I will NEVER be done!”

Very few people arrive at this realization. Even fewer survive the wave of nihilism that sweeps over them like a tsunami right after, desecrating their worldview and leaving their lives barren of hope and motivation. Fewer still, find a way to tolerate their existence afterwards and to create some artificial purpose for it. And finally, only a handful learn to feel joy again.

For me, that joy has come from learning to LOVE the stench of existence. It comes from lifting the manhole cover of my personal identity that conceals the void within me (is it any coincidence that it is called a man hole cover?) and inserting myself in the sewers of human consciousness. Relentlessly. Each and every day.

This is what inner work looks like and where it leads.

For, it is only in this subterranean reality, where the stench is at its peak, that the unity of our shared existence, of our shared predicament, of our shared suffering, is revealed.

Exploring this subterranean world of our collective unconscious has taught me compassion when viewing the gunk other people carry. While the whole world is polarized, pointing fingers at one another, filled with fear, hatred and mistrust towards what they believe to be “the others” who threaten to destroy all that is good - that is not what I see.

Down in the sewers of the mind, surrounded by rats and creatures that have yet to be named, I can see that the differences people perceive are merely superficial. They have not gone through the process I have. Most have not even moved their refrigerators out of place, choosing instead to use air fresheners to mask the stench of their own existence. Fewer still have removed the cabinets. A handful have cleaned the kitchen pipes. Almost no one has ripped the walls apart to arrive at their own sewer systems. And I can speak from experience when I say, I rarely encounter other explorers in these sewer systems who have not lost their minds entirely from grief.

For when I do, the recognition is immediate. It is like looking in a mirror. Joy witnessing joy. Love witnessing love. The horror and hilarity of our absurd shared predicament on full display. And all we can do is laugh uproariously.

And I know that I am not done. For the sewer system feeds into a larger grid network of other sewer systems. And that network connects to rivers, lakes and other water bodies and further to the planet itself. The connections go on and on.

There is no done.

There is simply NO done.

Perhaps, one day you too will know the spontaneous joy that emerges from fully comprehending this statement.