Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

You made it through reading all of the pills. Now what? It just seems like a lot of work, and there is no guarantee of success at the end, but what I have actually walked you through is the 5 stages of grief, as expressed by the societal descriptions of the pills. Denial, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance. Blue, Red, Black, Other, White. These are not a cycle, but are mapped as a linear path. Your path, on the other hand, will not be linear. Mine is not. I regularly crash back into black, and pull my way back up to white, almost like clockwork. This entire chain of posts is on the tail end of getting back into white. It is a continuous process, one that involves climbing at every level, not back to the previous but in investing more energy to go to the next. It is not a religion of progress, it is grief. Do not force it. Acknowledge it, and live. If you seek guidance, you will be walked through it, if you do it on your own, this is at least a map to get you started.

The Blue Pill

Often seen as weak, normie, or boring, this is the stage of denial, where you try to do the same thing expecting the same results, but something within you has changed. It feels wrong. From my description, most of the western world falls into this camp, trying to keep the system going, but it takes more and more effort to do so. This is the anxiety. This leads to the red pill.

The Red Pill

This is the pill of anger, passion and flame. The desire to change it all NOW. The desire to burn it all down, or dominate it, bending it to your will.

The Black Pill

The period of burnout after the red, where fire is dead and all that is left is smoldering ash and charcoal. The passion is gone, nothing can be done. It is depression. To see no hope in things getting better.

The Other Pills

The rope to pull you out, the bargaining. The flicker of hope when all seems lost. The last chance. It is not wholeness, but the beginning of life again.

The White Pill

The braid of many ropes, where you accept the crash of the system, but you choose to live anyways. It is pure acceptance, the ability to say "whatever my lot, it is well with my soul".

These are the pills of society, each one has fewer members than the last. Few people make it to black, even fewer to white. But now I introduce to you the final pill. The rarest of them all. Small, unassuming, it resembles the white, but it now sees it all. It is enlightened white. It is not peace through comfort, but peace through clarity. It is the clear pill, and that will be the next post.