The Man in the Sky: Addendum

You get it. You understand that God isn’t a man in the sky granting wishes. You understand that acceptance doesn’t mean liking what happened. You understand that resistance amplifies suffering. And you still can’t do it. Because the pain is too much. Because your coping mechanisms are the only thing keeping you functional. Because “acceptance” sounds like giving up, and you’re barely hanging on as it is. Fair enough. This isn’t a lecture. This is triage.

Or maybe you don’t even get it. Maybe the whole framework sounds like more spiritual bypassing bullshit. God as structure, acceptance as power—it all feels like dressed-up platitudes that don’t do anything when you’re actually in the pit. Another system that promises clarity but delivers nothing. Or maybe you read it and it just made everything worse—triggered old wounds, surfaced things you weren’t ready to feel, left you more raw than when you started. Fair enough to that too. The following is precisely for you.

“You are trying to assess whether life is worth living while you are actively on fire.”

Here’s what you need to understand before you decide anything: you are trying to assess whether life is worth living while you are actively on fire. You are standing inside a burning building—your current state of resistance and coping mechanisms—and you’re asking “Is this house worth staying in?” Of course the answer is no. Everything is flames and smoke. You can’t breathe. You can’t see. You can’t think. But that’s not the house. That’s the fire.

The main essay is asking you to do one thing before you make any decisions about whether life is worth it: put out the fire, then assess the house. Not because the house will be perfect. Not because acceptance fixes everything. But because you deserve to know what you’re actually dealing with. Right now, you’re experiencing the unavoidable pain of your circumstances, plus the self-generated suffering of resisting those circumstances, plus the side effects of whatever you’re using to manage both. That’s three layers. You think you’re drowning in life. You’re actually drowning in the fight against life.

“You think you’re drowning in life. You’re actually drowning in the fight against life.”

But what if you can’t put out the fire? What if intellectually you understand that pain and resistance are separate, but experientially they feel like one undifferentiated mass of awful? What if everything you’ve tried to create that separation hasn’t worked? Then you’re not just in pain—you’re also failing at the one thing that’s supposed to help. That’s the trap within the trap.

Here’s the truth: if you can’t tell them apart yet, you probably need a higher level of external help to learn how. Not because you’re broken, but because some fires are too big to put out alone. That’s what the triage section below is for—to figure out where you actually are, not where you think you should be able to be.

Here’s the equation: unavoidable pain plus resistance equals total suffering. The unavoidable pain might be that someone you loved died, you have a chronic illness, you experienced trauma, or you didn’t get the life you planned. The resistance—the optional part—sounds like “this shouldn’t have happened,” “I can’t handle this,” “other people have it better,” “this isn’t fair,” or “I should be over this by now.” Resistance feels like a clenched jaw, held breath, tightening in your chest, the mental loop of “why” and “shouldn’t,” the physical bracing against the moment. The pain is real. The resistance is what’s killing you.

“The pain is real. The resistance is what’s killing you.”

Before we go further, you need to know where you are. There are three states:

First, crisis: if your coping mechanism is active addiction, self-harm, or anything that is objectively making your life worse every day, you need external help first. AA, rehab, therapy, medical intervention—whatever it takes. The essay’s philosophy can’t work until you stop the hemorrhaging. This is triage, not weakness.

Second, the “Good Enough” trap: your mechanism isn’t destroying you, it’s just maintaining. You’re scrolling for hours, working yourself numb, using Netflix or gaming to avoid feeling, “functional” but flat. You’re not in crisis. You’re in stasis. And that’s the trap. Because there’s no urgency. You’re not desperate enough to change, but you’re not alive enough to feel okay about it. Years pass. Nothing gets worse. Nothing gets better. This is where most people get stuck.

“Some people oscillate—mostly functional and numb, but occasionally triggered into brief crisis states.”

Some people oscillate—mostly functional and numb, but occasionally triggered into brief crisis states. If that’s you, you’re still primarily in the Good Enough trap. The crisis moments are symptoms of the unprocessed pain underneath the functional numbing. Address the trap, and the crisis moments decrease.

Third, preference: occasionally have a drink to relax, TV to decompress, exercise to manage stress. If your coping mechanism is genuinely optional, genuinely proportionate, and you could stop tomorrow without withdrawal or panic—you’re fine. Keep it.

If you’re in that second category, the Good Enough trap, here’s the only practice that matters: before you reach for your coping mechanism, pause for ten seconds. That’s it. Not to analyze. Not to fix. Not to resist the urge. Just to feel what’s actually there underneath the reach. What are you avoiding? Loneliness? Anger? Grief? Emptiness? You don’t have to do anything about it. You can still pick up your phone, pour the drink, or turn on Netflix after the ten seconds. But you have to see what you’re running from. Because you cannot change what you refuse to see clearly.

“You cannot change what you refuse to see clearly.”

Do this daily. Multiple times a day. The coping mechanism is still available. You’re not white-knuckling sobriety. You’re just introducing a sliver of space between stimulus and response. Over time—weeks, months—the need for the mechanism decreases. Not because you’re forcing it, but because you’re processing what it was covering.

When you switch from a destructive coping mechanism to a “functional” one, something sneaky happens: the urgency evaporates. You’re no longer in crisis, so there’s no external pressure to change. But you’re still avoiding the same pain you were avoiding before. The trap is that you can live here indefinitely. Decades, even. Not thriving. Not dying. Just managing.

“The trap is that you can live here indefinitely. Decades, even. Not thriving. Not dying. Just managing.”

Here’s how to escape: create artificial urgency. Set a date—”I’m giving myself six months to actually feel this grief before I decide if I need therapy.” Track the cost. Count the hours you spend numbing. Write down what you didn’t do instead. Become aware of the real cost: What relationships are you phoning in? What dreams are you shelving? What version of yourself are you postponing? The mechanism isn’t the problem. The cost of using it forever is.

What if your pain isn’t just personal? What if you’re facing racism, poverty, or systemic oppression? Acceptance doesn’t mean accepting that injustice is right. It means accepting that it exists—so you can fight it effectively. Resisting the reality of systemic injustice, spending your energy on “this shouldn’t be happening,” drains the energy you need to actually address it. Acceptance is clarity. Clarity is power. Fight from there.

“Acceptance is clarity. Clarity is power.”

But here’s a pattern worth naming: some people, particularly high-functioning ones, can’t create this differentiation not because they lack capacity, but because they’re actually in state one (crisis) and don’t realize it. They’re intelligent enough to manage the external appearance of functionality while internally hemorrhaging. They resist getting help because they immediately spot the flaws in the helpers—psychiatrists who over-prescribe instead of offering real therapy, systems too focused on profit, institutions that are imperfect. And they’re not wrong. Those flaws are real.

But using those flaws as justification to stay isolated is just another form of resistance. It’s choosing to drown while critiquing the life vest’s stitching. Yes, the mental health system is flawed. Yes, many professionals aren’t perfect. But the question isn’t whether they’re flawless—it’s whether they can help you stop hemorrhaging long enough to learn to differentiate pain from resistance yourself.

“It’s choosing to drown while critiquing the life vest’s stitching.”

If you’re mostly in state two but dip into state one when triggered, you might get help during the crisis but leave as soon as you feel slightly better, already judging the helper or program’s inadequacies. That pattern—help in crisis, judge and abandon as soon as the urgency passes—keeps you in the loop. What’s actually surfacing in those therapeutic environments isn’t evidence of other people’s flaws—it’s the core of what you struggle with. The goal isn’t to find perfect help. It’s to stay engaged because these environments are equipped to hold space for what’s coming up, whereas in the real world, when these things surface, they cause real problems and harm in your relationships and life. The point is to practice working through what surfaces in the contained space, so you can eventually do it outside of it.

If you do the work—pause before numbing, feel the resistance, let the pain exist without the story—one of two things happens:

Option one: life becomes bearable. The pain is still there. The circumstances might not change. But without the amplification of resistance, without the fog of constant avoidance, you discover that life is still hard but not unbearable, that you have capacity you didn’t know existed, that you might even notice moments of peace beginning to outweigh moments of panic.

Option two: the pain is still too much. You do the work. You accept what is. And you realize the pain is genuinely unbearable, acceptance doesn’t make it worth it, and you still don’t want to be here.

“Make that assessment from clarity, not from inside the war. Because you deserve to know what you’re actually dealing with. Not pain plus resistance.”

Both are honest responses. The essay just asks this: make that assessment from clarity, not from inside the war. Because you deserve to know what you’re actually dealing with. Not pain plus resistance. Just pain. And then you can decide if that’s bearable.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably going to try. Here’s what to do: If you’re in crisis, get professional help immediately. 12-Step support, therapy, rehab, medication—whatever stops the hemorrhaging. If you’re functional but numb, start the ten-second pause. Daily. Before every coping mechanism. Track the cost of staying in the Good Enough trap. Make the invisible visible. Remember that you will forget. You will regress. You will return to resistance. That’s normal. The practice is returning, not achieving.

“The exhaustion you feel isn’t from life. It’s from fighting life.”

Know this: the exhaustion you feel isn’t from life. It’s from fighting life. The way out isn’t another strategy for fighting better. It’s the recognition that the fight itself is what’s destroying you. Put it down. Not because what happened is fine. Not because you’re giving up. But because the energy you’re spending on refusing what was is energy you need for engaging with what is. You can be with all of it. And being with it is what you’ve been trying to achieve through every strategy, every practice, every attempt at control or transcendence. Stop trying. Start seeing. The way is already here.

CRISIS DISCLAIMER: If you are currently in danger of harming yourself, this essay is not your resource. Call 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or go to the ER. Put out the fire of crisis before you try to do the philosophy of acceptance.

Return to the main essay “The Man in the Sky” when you’re ready. Come back to this when the philosophy feels too abstract and the pain feels too real.