The Story of a Theory
The Story of a Theory
I wrote this essay to take the reader on a journey that fuels me every day. I am sharing a story based on true events, in the hope that it brings lessons, not only about young adulthood and paranoid schizophrenia, but also about life, love, and humankind itself.
This is the story of a theory which I came up with shortly before having been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and which is the main reason why I don’t mind this diagnosis. It is a theory I „attempted” to „save the world” with.
Let me start at the beginning.
I was born to be the first baby of my generation not only in the wider family, but also in my parents’ friend circle. A very privileged position, as a child needs attention and love, and I got plenty. Childhood was not without challenges though. After I finished the first grade of primary school, we moved from Budapest, the capital of Hungary, to Paderborn, a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
I started second grade without any knowledge of the German language, except the words „ja”, „nein”, and „Marienkäfer” (yes, no, and ladybug). A loving and embracing community made it possible for my family and myself to learn the language and to grow in many ways. I took this kind of environment for granted, up to the point when (five years later, in 2003) my family and I moved back to Budapest.
The culture of openness, kindness and abundance is not a given. It has various historical, systemic and psychological roots, and moving back to Hungary seemed like a big step back in life. It was a change in the living standards. At the beginning, I swore that I will never use the metro line M3, because of the stations’ atmosphere having a destructive effect on my psyche.
Of all the things I began to miss, the strongest factor was hiding in my subconscious, as I later figured out. People are people, no matter which country’s residents you are looking at, but as an internal observer who moved between two very different worlds, I started to miss certain faces and their characteristics. I think I also missed the level of diversity in this regard, which was somewhat higher in the German environment. Beauty and attraction cannot be expressed in one or two factors though. The taboos and misconceptions surrounding the theme of human beauty make it difficult to realise what it is exactly about our faces that we have not discovered yet.
The next phase of my life was the most exhausting one, even to look back and to write about it feels draining. I just started seventh grade, and after a while, I made a decision that I will study as hard as I can, so that I get admitted to one of the higher-ranking universities in the Western world. I tried to find beauty in all of the school subjects, and I think I succeeded at that. I got top grades in five higher-level final exams (A-level equivalents), of which the average high school student used to sit one or two.
When writing about my thoughts and experiences I cannot omit encounters with certain people, who had leading roles in my story. One day, I decided to use an alternative method to improve language skills: In a local social network, I searched for English people in Budapest, and met some of them, to have conversations with native speakers — as my plan was to study at a university in the UK.
With one person, we met in a beautiful casino-restaurant. He happened to be an English teacher too, and gave me some task sheets. We talked about grammar a bit, but soon he changed the topic. He showed me videos, pictures and websites related to different conspiracy theories, metaphysics, and other „things they don’t teach you at school”.
The interesting part is not just what he showed, but the impact this had on my mind. There was this normal person, who has gradually introduced me to this world of ideas that I have not really considered before. When I walked out of the casino, I saw the world through a substantially different lens. I do not think it was my illness already, but my mind was totally open to new points of view. It was an exciting feeling.
At the end of high school I had my first longer-term relationship. It was good as long as it lasted, but after a while I had to realise what love was about for me: being attracted to a person with an especially beautiful face. However, in this relationship everything else seemed to work except for the face-thing. The realization of having been lying to myself came in bits and pieces, and it was not until I settled somewhat at university, abroad, that I could get myself to ending the relationship. Strengthening my aesthetic intuition was key later. As mentioned already: There is something in our faces we have not discovered yet.
The last encounter to mention, from before university, is a conversation I had with my uncle. It was of great influence on my life later, as it turned out. He introduced the idea of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to me. I was listening carefully. It did not occur to me before, that needs can have a hierarchy, what this means for the individual, and how much closer this would get one to figuring out „how the world works”. From then on, I kept Maslow’s pyramid in mind.
I arrived at the campus full of hope. At the beginning, things were normal. In my view, even great. I wanted them to be great. I remember the late morning I arrived, a bit tired from the early flight and the two bus rides from the airport, but the sun was shining, groups of young people were chatting, and some friendly guy handed me a flyer. I completed the registration in the accommodation, then headed for the Freshers’ Fair and an orientation walk through the main campus spots. I collected postcards on the fair, one side of each being some kind of a university promotion, the other displaying a quotation. My house- and floormates were friendly. Cute, actually. I did not have to force things to be great.
On the third day after my arrival, something fantastic happened. It was the day of our very first university lecture, an introductory one. In the company of two girls, both of them my floormates, I sat down in the second row of seats in the lecture hall. I tried to listen attentively to the dean, who held a presentation about the subjects and projects ahead, about the curriculum, and about our lecturers. At the end, he said something vague that is said at almost every university open day and most of the first university lectures: That we will make friendships for life here. And then he gave an instruction: to start now. To introduce ourselves to the person sitting next to us. I knew the girls already, so I turned to the two guys sitting in the first row. The other seats around us were empty anyway.
I shook hands with the first guy, who started to explain that they were actually second-year students. But by then, his talk was background noise. His friend turned around. His face was the most beautiful face I have ever seen, in my entire life. If I had a picture of someone perfect in my mind before, that was him. And in that moment, the beauty had manifested, the person was right in front of me. We introduced ourselves and shook hands. My handshake must have been a weak one, but this handshake had the power of an earthquake in my life.
He said he knew me from Facebook. True, I remembered adding some of my coursemates as friends, from a Facebook group. But I did not remember HIM. He also said they are there to sell lab coats. This information came handy. My girls wanted to leave early after the lecture, and I went with them, but I looked back, at that tall, handsome guy, who was now taking orders for lab coats from all the freshers.
In some way, this person has determined my life ever since. Not by actions, rather by his personality, or simply by being, and his role in my life. As for me, it was very evidently love at first sight.
For some people, or in some way, life is always about love. For me this was the ideal love, and I did not even want it to become true before I myself became ready for it.
After the introductory lecture, when I got back to my room, what I did first was to check his profile (I did not own a smartphone yet, just a simple mobile phone). On a global level, social media was taking its baby steps, but the UK was way ahead, with an overwhelming amount of photos available on Facebook. Some years earlier already, I started saving pictures of beautiful friends and celebrities, and so did I of my then new crush.
I was also excited to send the first message to him, inquiring whether I could place an order for a lab coat of the size „S”. He confirmed kindly that I can, and I was already looking forward to meeting him again. That happened sooner than I expected, as our paths crossed the next day already. I had to go to the computer rooms after a lecture, and there he stood at the entrance, chatting with a few friends of his. Upon my arrival, he turned his look to the right, towards me. I was already gazing at him from the middle of the corridor. We looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment, but he was shyer than me. He turned back to his friends, with a little blush on his (perfect) face. I would have been curious about the conversation of those guys that followed, but I was in one of the computer rooms already.
At this point, I did not end my relationship (the one from Hungary) yet. My then-boyfriend still loved me, and he insisted that we skype every second day. One night, he skyped me from their bathtub, with candles around him. It did not have the desired effect on me, and I also resisted his wishes to dance for him, to strip, or to touch myself while on Skype.
I wanted to let go of him, and it has never been so easy, after meeting the perfect, handsome, tall second-year student. It was as if I had someone stronger by my side now. I felt that connection to be powerful, in all aspects, at all levels. Even physically, at least in my imagination. I remember that there were evenings when I closed the curtains, looked at photos of my perfect crush, and… touched myself. And in milder daydreams, I imagined it was him seeing me in a bathtub, or us escaping to a rooftop in underwear, and taking pictures there.
I went for runs regularly, and soon I started fantasizing about our future house, how we would listen to music there, and have a lot of friends coming over. And about having kids, maybe twins. He was very sporty too. He was a rower, and I loved his rowing photos. He also had great quotes on his profile, like: „Never look down on anybody, unless you are trying to help them up.” And: „Morality is doing what’s right, no matter what you are told, while religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.” And: „To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to change you, is the greatest accomplishment.” He liked funny pages, for example „When I turn off the lights downstairs, I run like hell.”, and he had funny posts and comments, and „very English” ones, which I loved. To many of his friends, he wrote x-s or xx-s in comments, which made me a bit jealous, but which looked cute, kind and caring. He looked like a person whose heart is big enough for the whole world.
On the morning when I went to one of the campus buildings for the lab coat, he was behaving very shyly again. He was the one to unpack the stacks of coats, and his friend to hand them over to the first-year students, so we did not have any physical contact this time. I was trying to make eye-contact, but he seemed to look away or down all the time. At least he smiled much. Long after this transaction, I have kept my white lab coat as a sacred treasure.
I also remember seeing him at an extracurricular presentation. He was in a hoodie, which I thought was the coolest part of a man’s outfit ever. The presentation was about a car engine, but I was hardly paying any attention. I was enchanted by my crush’s presence, only a few seats behind me.
After these first few encounters I started messaging him more often. In the beginning, it was just little things, for example asking help in a homework assignment, but after a few turns I shared deeper thoughts. I do not know how he perceived my personality through the messages, but the attraction seemed to be mutual, and from my side, amusingly evident.
Somewhere at about this point in our story, there was a huge one-night party series in a city nearby. It was a pub- and club-crawl, and both of us were to attend it. I saw that he had responded to the event with „going”, and despite that I was only very moderately outgoing when in the UK, in the last minute I decided to go. I went there with my floormates. In the first bar, I did not see him. Neither in the second. In the club that came thereafter, I was chatting near the bar with my Korean friend from the floor, when I discovered my perfect crush approaching us. I do not know what got into me, but suddenly I gave my friend an affectionate hug. I think it was to make my crush jealous. And he backed off in discouragement.
The fourth place, a club with a huge dancefloor upstairs, was the final party-destination. My Korean friend and I queued toward the entrance, and Mr. Perfect was just a few spots ahead. It was in that queue where I explained to my Korean friend that I have cheated on my boyfriend with another floormate, on the first week already. True story, but not the dominant one here. I think I just wanted my crush to overhear some parts, and again, it was in order to make him jealous.
Our friend circles danced on different parts of the enormous dancefloor, but he was always within eyesight, as he happened to be the tallest of the people there. The party was nothing like the RnB parties I got used to in Budapest. It was drum and bass. I clearly remember Pendulum’s „Slam” and „Fasten Your Seatbelts” from that night.
At one point I lost my crush from my view. It has been minutes already, and the party was getting dull without him. I decided to embark upon a search. I was going down the stairs when we almost bumped into each other. Our eyes met again, and the moment was so magical that I did not even mind the two girls coming upstairs with him, one on each side. Shortly thereafter my friends wanted to return to our accommodation, and so I left.
It must have been a few days after this party that we met in the computer rooms again. As usual, we did not talk. He was sitting in a mid row, and I went straight to a front row, just to be able to pass him by. To repeat this, I went to the entrance to print, and back. Never in my life before and since have I concentrated that hard on the movement of my hips, swinging them very gently on my walk. I tried to observe his reaction secretly. He seemed immersed into his homework on the computer. His level of focus made me a bit suspicious, but I did not want to „get carried away”, and left.
We did not discuss our encounters in detail in our messages, but we did message, especially I did. Once I told him that I do not find many people attractive on the campus, but that he is the most handsome man in the world. After a “lol”, he asked whether there should not be girls running after him everywhere then. I explained to him calmly and knowledgeably that at a university course overcrowded with boys, and in the UK, where there are probably different faces around than what I am used to, it is unlikely that his fans will find him.
I was falling ever deeper in love with this person, but meanwhile I was also deeply thinking about life in general. It was the first time in a long while that I had the opportunity to think for longer periods, safely and freely.
I owned a small yellow booklet to jot thoughts down during the day, and I digitized them on my laptop, once I got back after the lectures.
There were many factors in my thinking which led me to a theory (and a psychosis) later. I thought that life has become easy, that I am happy, and that this is all because I have become very moral, a person as good as I could be. My Hungarian boyfriend (who by then has become an ex) once told me that I should always be good. I thought there must have been something about this, as I felt I have the capacity to give a lot to people. Humans have limits, but in those months, I felt similar to Jesus, or Saint Peter.
Also, I established a relationship between control and my pyramid of needs. I thought I am balancing the latter, all the time, by meeting the different needs I have. I wrote everything into tables (calendar, expenditure, wish list, shopping list, etc.), but spent too much time on my laptop, in retrospect.
One day I participated in a site visit of a multinational company. Everything was very modern and clean: the buildings, the technology, how the employees dressed… Even the bus taking us there and back. But on the way back I cried. The reason was inequality. By that time, I thought that I too, was a person whose heart was big enough for everyone, to lift and to embrace the whole world. But when I remembered Hungary, I realized that in the current state of global inequality, this will be an enormous task. And with comparing Hungarian to English circumstances, I was not even at the ends of the scale, and I knew that. In the evening, under the shower, I was thinking about needs pyramids again. What would it mean to get everyone on the top of their pyramid, what would it take, and most importantly: what is there, at the top? And then I thought… It must be whom or what we call God. This was a spiritual reckoning, but I smiled and thought of the ancient Greeks. We had team tasks that day on the company visit, and we named our team “Eureka”, symbolizing sudden, but great ideas. It was fun making all those connections in the shower.
I have not stopped saving pictures of beautiful people. I wanted to become one of them. I was planning to earn money through modelling on the side of studies. In my teenage years I suffered, and I thought that one of the main factors separating me from happiness is money. I always felt the need for more and better clothes and accessories, and I was blaming my parents for not being able to dress like the “elite” of my high school class. In my Hungarian school, there was a hierarchy determined by the financial status of the parents. There were other factors and values determining our relationships and stories, but the financial one was way too heavy, in my experience.
Driven by the underlying motivations, I started looking for modelling agencies and photographers in the nearest city, online. I have actually met a photographer, first to discuss the details. He seemed to find it adventurous from a 19-year-old girl to study overseas, away from her family. On the bus back to campus, I felt emptiness. As if I did not have real connections, as if I did not belong anywhere. By that time, I had no more contact to my ex-boyfriend.
The last time I saw him was at the start of the winter vacation, in London. He was accompanying his father on a political trip. His father suggested, back in the summer, that he would introduce me to some influential people there. That did not happen, we just walked through places, like Hyde Park and Oxford Street, with my ex, and he was astonished that he could not fight my independence anymore.
“You’re like an ice-bloc” – he said, when he tried to hug me. We have tried to talk about, and to clarify our past, and why things did not work. I explained that I gave too much of myself, and that I was like a servant, in order to be able to enjoy his higher life. “But that’s like being an escort” – he said. And I knew that. I just cried. “And I thought” – he went on – “that you liked being the slave.”
Back in the hotel room he asked me who his “successor” would be. I showed the folder of beautiful people to him, opening pictures of the boys. He was criticizing all of them, except my super perfect crush. “Maybe him” – he said.
In the second term of that academic year, my results started showing negative tendencies, but I was not alarmed. I was occupied with thinking about people, potential friends and other types of connections, and stories we could live.
In the Facebook group where I added coursemates in the summer, I also sent a Russian guy a friend request. He accepted it, and he replied to my first message, but with a distance in his tone that he would keep for the rest of the time of our friendship. He was a sophomore too.
Russian was my third language at high school, and this new acquaintance transformed into a deep motivation for improving those language skills. I have never put him first, but at times, second. He was mysterious too. I only saw him three times in real life, and only from a distance: Once before I left a lecture hall (and he was already there for the next lecture), once in a seminar room, where I spotted him unpacking his bag, and once in the library.
He liked some of my posts, and invited me to his Russian party-series. I was reluctant to go, and there was an overlap with another party, one that my floormates were planning to attend. But the two parties were to happen in the same building, and my crush (my number one, who sold me the lab coat) was about to attend the Russian one.
That night, I sneaked out from the dancefloor upstairs, hoping to meet my crush in the queue for the other party. And so it was, there he stood with a friend. I took a few steps in his direction, and looked at him. I was about to make the final decision to talk, but suddenly, a person in a weird onesie jumped into my way. His zipper was stuck, and he was begging me to fix it. I managed to unzip the very top of the onesie, but by then I lost the courage to talk to my crush, and I backed off.
So I did not have courage, but I had hope. Our conversation in the messages got deeper and deeper. I expressed to him my concern over inequality and the selfish behaviours of the people I encountered. “You know,” – he wrote – “I never thought about this, but you are so right. They all want to be investment bankers, such a thing as helping others is not on their mind.” Somehow I was in awe.
I have also shared more thoughts about the power of beauty with him. And about my declining test results. “How did it go?” – he asked after one of them. “It went well…” – I replied “Half copied, half guessed.”
There were online moves of his which I took for a sign of affection. The last song my ex shared with me was "Fireflies", from Owl City, which I found so brilliant that I shared it on my wall (my timeline) as well. A day or two later, my crush’s wall read that he absolutely loves Owl City. Coincidence? I did not think so. And soon he suggested he would say “Hi” next time he saw me on campus. A few days later, a girl from his year posted on his wall, when and where he should be. It was short notice, but it was the place and time of a seminar of mine. It was at 1pm, in one of the computer rooms. I ended up in the row and seat right behind him. I was sweating. We did not have had a chance to talk, or to say Hi, because I tried not to look at him. I felt like I was not my best self yet, as if I was not ready for something. On that seminar, my performance was terrible.
One day, in the middle of an evening laboratory, I had the feeling that I have come to a conclusion in my (constant) thoughts about life, God, power, etc. I left my work, and hurried back to the student accommodation, to my laptop, to draft the first version of what I now call my theory. I was writing half the night long. It was a theory and a letter (obviously a love letter) in one piece, in approximately five pages. It was also a letter to the world. I put together my thoughts about God, morality, the pyramid, and beauty. These thoughts were absolutely interrelated in my mind.
My fingers were hitting the keyboard, and my tears were running down my face.
It started like: „This is the theoretical proof of the power of love and other things, and how I think the world should be from now on. Sorry for the shock, but this is the best for us all. I think the world has grown to understand where it is heading, and the purpose of life in general, because it is written, and I have no other choice but to tell you.”
I sketched my life’s story so far, in a few paragraphs, emphasizing the effects of moving from one country to another, and the importance of knowledge and thinking. My letter got a little wilder after this:
„Everything is written, and we soon will be able to see the future. We are seeing a bit already, especially when we are "good". For example, when we were in Germany, and I was looking into the mirror (I look a lot into the mirror, there is something in our faces we haven't discovered yet, and what we are unconscious of, I think), I suddenly got very very scared. I think I knew that THIS would happen. But now I'm not scared anymore.
I heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs first from my uncle. It fascinated me. I felt already that it's a powerful tool, because I like order. I wouldn't have got to this point without its help, trying to balance my life all the time by thinking of it. But without your help, it's impossible to balance it completely, and you will understand why. We are something we call „selfish”, and we think that the aim of our life is to balance that, and to arrive at the top. So what is there? I think that, what we call „God” (think of the pyramids, or masonic symbols). We should definitely think about the pyramid and maybe develop or refine it, because then we would know better how to balance it. We balance our pyramid constantly to reach love, God.”
I thought that every being has a needs pyramid, and that we are balancing our life trying to meet all our needs on the pyramid. By doing this, we are sort of „climbing up” on our pyramids. But to reach the top of our Maslowian pyramid, we have to become moral, to meet the „respect of others” need, which is almost at the top. By respecting others, I meant treating others as equal, and living in harmony with them.
„Coming here was enough for me to get to the top of the pyramid and over, because my self-esteem, respect for others, and respect by others levels got so high. I really had to become very pure morally, because, as Aristotle says ’But he who greatly excels in beauty, strength, birth, or wealth, or on the other hand who is very poor, or very weak, or very much disgraced, finds it difficult to follow rational principle. Of these two the one sort grow into violent and great criminals, the others into rogues and petty rascals.’ But it didn't work well enough. I almost got a total burnout, but then I realized I have the capacity to "save the world". That was when I have started to grasp things. For example, why people who get high or almost reach the top of the pyramid, go into gambling and stuff. They can't go further, until others didn't.”
The letter was not lacking abstractions and ambition: „There was beauty in the beginning, or there is beauty at the end, or both. Beauty, love and God are so close! We like human beauty in general. I like beauty so much that I keep saving pictures of beautiful people on my computer. I think love moves the world, and love is based on human beauty. And if you are together with someone, whom you find more beautiful, or whom you find less beautiful than yourself, your pyramid gets unbalanced, because you don't think it is moral. This is why we feel so seldom that we have found the right one. And this must be a reason for why people of different origin attract each other. Mixed race people are often more beautiful, and maybe we have a collective aim, to produce more and more beautiful descendants. Different people attract each other, because our aim is to reach equilibrium, which we probably lost in the "beginning". Beauty is written on our faces, but we should not only protect our natural beauty. Don't care what others say, because you personally know who the right one is. From their face, and because it's written. Everything is connected, connecting, everything is written, and it is love that drives us. And although it's not on the pyramid, we need the beauty of nature. That's why we should think more or in a more clever way about environment protection.”
I also wrote about religions, their figures, and the quotations I collected over time, in a confused manner. After that part, I got more personal: "And maybe he is not the love of my life, but at least I grasped these things. I think I am the most selfish human being ever, but we are selfish to give the world back later. And now, dear world, don't throw yourself at me, because my pyramid has to stay balanced. I have almost made the mistake to be too selfless, but that was only because my pyramid wasn't balanced. And at other times, I was worrying about money, and it just stopped me from the good things. It would be so nice if no one had to worry about money.
The world has formed me a lot, I thought it was time to form it back a bit. We don't have to fight anymore. And we can be different in beauty."
Then I could not follow my thoughts anymore with the keyboard, and started writing in detached half-sentences. The part, where I got myself together again, was a bit more emotional:
„Oh, and I only saved the world because I am very selfish. I have a few plans, but I had to help you up first. And I'm so lonely, being this clever. I'm just balancing my pyramid, there you see: humans never want to be lonely. And dear world, I really love you now, because I feel my pyramid being more balanced by having helped you. Helping each other is a good thing.”
The theme of helping others was a recurring one for a reason. I thought I had discovered that all humans could be much happier if we respected others and lived in equality. I thought that I have „saved the world” with this and the other "discoveries". I thought that I had proof of fate’s existence, because the needs of humans and their options to meet these needs would determine the course of their lives. And the way they climb up or drop down on their pyramids would be like a composition, the symphony of life.
I have come to the thought that if fate exists, and if morality is leading straight towards happiness (the top of the pyramid), then those who are good, will someday be able to see the future. And I had the feeling that beauty is something like God as well, or that it comes from God.
At certain points, my desperation about inequality took radical shapes:
„And you know why we must change as soon as possible? Because when I went on a company visit, I was crying on the way back, that the world is so developed there, whereas in other parts... And if you do not change, you are all going to cry, or your children latest. We can't be stupid anymore. We are one. And we are equal. I am equal to you all. And it seems we are at a new start, and this time we could really make it right.
Our knowledge will improve faster than we can imagine. But I think you see you have no choice, because you are all selfish with me! And you know what proves the power of love? The fact that I am trying to save it, even if I have to become someone whom you call a ’crazy genius’, and save the world for it. But I would never have come this high without it. And you know why I grasped all this? Because my love is the biggest ever, it seems. And maybe I should let him talk to me soon.”
I went on amplifying the theatrical tone:
„I will help the world more, later. That's all I can do for now, you know, it is written, and it is because of love. And I would love to live average, but love doesn't let me.”
I have become very supportive towards globalization, and have become a cosmopolitan thinker. But unfortunately, as the reader must have recognized, I have become more than that: „Someone who moves between worlds can move worlds. And don't be surprised if she comes one day with the theoretical proof of ’Omnia vincit amor et nos cedamus amori’. Love moves the world, it is on all the levels. The power of love will cancel or move forward all your plans. And if we don't obey love we will suffer.”
My mind was so „open” that I have started to make connections between symbols and my theory. I thought that after humans reach their goal, equality and happiness, their pyramid turns, and this will be a new era. I thought that it was no wonder that I discovered this in England, the „home of the Holy Grail”:
„Please don’t wonder why it was a woman who ‘saved the world’. Think of the grail, from „The Da Vinci Code”. Seems like it’s time to turn the pyramid around. And I wrote all this stuff out of love and I wish you all that you meet someone who you think could be the love of your life. It feels much better than saving the world.”
I concluded with the following:
„After you have read this and plan to change your life, think of your pyramid first. Take a breath (oxygen on the pyramid). Relax. Take it easy.
So what can you do now? I don't want to burst the economy or so, but if I were you...
- I would live as healthily and balanced as possible.
- Spend money on everything you feel you need, but not on unnecessary things, rather on charity.
- Not use bad words.
- Be as polite and nice with other people as possible.
- Make up rules for yourselves how to protect your pyramid.
- Don't change your natural beauty artificially.
- But basically: balance your pyramid.
I hope you understand. We'll go much further, we just have to make a little order here, and now we have the recipe. Maybe we are not fully conscious of what we are. Someone probably would have done it soon, the world was moving towards it, you know, I'm just lucky, it's written.”
The last lines were expressions of gratefulness for everything that has happened to me so far, and a list of recent coincidences, or at least of what I perceived as coincidences.
Looking back, writing this letter seems to have been the focal point of my life – where I made recognitions, but also, where I went insane. Writing an interpretation of how the world works on this level was heavy for me. I may not have turned humankind’s pyramid, but there was certainly something in my own personality that got turned upside down.
I think it was a Friday evening that I started the letter, and on Saturday, in the early morning, I fell asleep.
I woke up shortly before noon. I reached for my laptop, still in excitement. I was determined to send the letter to the person who mattered the most, and I did so. In that very second he messaged me too. This was in times when one could not see the other person typing yet, so this coincidence seemed miraculous. He just asked me how I was that day…
But after sending the theory, I got scared. I did not know what I did, and how it would affect me or our relationship. I have become paranoid about it, and started sending paranoid messages. The thing I worried about most was that I’m the one who is „turning the pyramid”, which made me feel very special, but endangered.
I mixed my political paranoias with personal ones, and suspected that my crush has a website, which has never been shown to me, but where he would expose all kinds of information. The most embarrassing point was when I thought that he has had access to my laptop’s camera. Also, I thought there might be a hidden thermal imaging camera in my room, and removed the fire alarm, upon which there came a man to fix it.
My state has become worse and worse, I got confused, but my mind felt more open still. People from staff have noticed my problems, and sent me to student support. Everyone was kind and normal, but I perceived the talks and examinations as criminal investigations. The only good thing I can recall is my irony about having become „crazy in love”, but I still did not know much about what was happening to me. My life collapsed, I could not manage it anymore. My parents visited me, and finally, I flew home with my dad.
Back at home, it took me weeks to get over paranoias. I thought that I was being watched because of my precious thoughts, and after I’ve been brain-scanned with three different methods (EEG, CT, MRI), I thought some people could even read my thoughts. I thought someone must have the technology to do this, it is just not public. I was not far from conspiracy theories.
After I had to leave my first university, I dropped out of the second, in Budapest, as I was psychologically not really ready to study again yet. I started a third, a different course: International Relations. Although I did not know yet why, I started studying harder again. I still had my theory in mind. And after a while, I had the feeling that what I’m learning could be used to confirm the theory. I got hungrier for knowledge. International Relations courses are multidisciplinary, and I made use of the material we learned in Philosophy, Economics and History lectures.
At an International Law lecture, the first two lines of the United Nations Preamble were displayed on the slides. „We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.” - it read. I thought this sounded beautiful. The next semester, I came to read the whole Preamble. I had the feeling that it is a meeting point of my academic studies and my theory. At one seminar, I held a presentation about it, and decided to write my thesis in the final year about the Preamble.
I started preparations for the thesis in the summer already. At the end of summer, I knew the structure of the thesis, and had collected many sources. Then third year has started, and life has become more stressful. Also, I stopped taking the medication. I took less and less, and in the summer I quit fully. I had a feeling that I have to hurry, otherwise there will not be enough time to think about, and to write the thesis.
I was working on connecting values. Out of the values in the Preamble, I constructed a system, of which the elements were connected by the history of integration – values important on the global, community, and individual levels. And then I realized something significant: that the levels of the individual and the community are connected – symbolically, or as in a model – through the needs pyramids.
One night I wrote a short essay about the connection between human cooperation, progress and human needs. I wrote that progress means climbing up on humanity's Maslow-pyramid, i.e. we have a common pyramid, beside the personal ones. Progress has always been achieved by cooperation, and cooperation was needed because that was the only way humans could meet their needs. The „higher” they climbed, the more they had to cooperate. I wrote about the connection of security and freedom as well, in the context of my human progress theory.
After writing this essay, things got worse again. I felt like I made a big step forward with the new connections, but meanwhile, paranoias have started to reemerge. One day I „ran away” from home. I made a short trip to the fields in the agglomeration – what I thought is a journey to „the brain research center”. Then I was hospitalized again. It took me a similar amount of time to get over paranoias, as it did the first time, but during this recovery, I have read very much about philosophy and United Nations values. The knowledge I gained helped me in – metaphorically saying – getting up, and dusting myself off. Over the course of the next year I have finished the thesis, and graduated successfully.
Schizophrenia is an illness without disease awareness. I switched between my realities without noticing. After the psychoses, I could tell that most of my paranoias were groundless. In contrast with these fears, the theories I made up back then, still seem to make sense. My mind was more open to these thoughts, which lead me to a journey full of adventures. In a sense I was travelling — without hallucinations — through my own knowledge I had gathered so far.
A bit later, I presented my ideas at an international conference, and I have not hit the bottom since.