Q: Life is a bill of goods. I need to go all the way. I have been stuck in disruption or deconstruction since reading McKenna in 2012. Void on/is the horizon but something apparently

keeps refusing to die. What is holding me back and why is everything so agonizingly slow?

A: I’d say you’re probably resisting the only thing left. When someone says “I’m ready to go all the way” there’s always an “except for this one last thing.” (Otherwise you wouldn’t be stuck.) The mind usually keeps some final asset off the books. Something it refuses to liquidate. What’s yours?

What’s holding you back probably isn’t confusion or fear or trauma or insufficient courage. Honestly, it’s likely something like hope. Hope that something will survive, and that the wreckage will arrange itself into meaning. An inner, obscured (as in probably not obvious to you,) hope that the self can be refined instead of eliminated.

We’ve gotta be radically honest when looking at this stuff. You say something refuses to die. That’s true, but it’s very likely not the thing you think it is. What refuses to die is the belief that you are the one doing this. Dig that out and look at it directly.

Deconstruction can take years because the self is very good at dismantling structures while preserving a center. You’ve probably torn down beliefs, identities, worldviews, values, yet somehow there’s still a “me” standing in the rubble asking when it will be over. That’s your stowaway. Shine your flashlight there!

Things feel uniquely slow for you because you’re not naive. You didn’t stop at beliefs, you kept going. People who initially “break through” quickly usually stop early at places like meaninglessness, bliss, awareness, or some kind of reinvention of identity. But you didn’t. So, what’s left is subtler, quieter, and much harder to corner. That doesn’t mean you’re failing; it means there’s very little left to fail as.

So, let’s look directly at the pressure point you’re circling.

The real question you’re asking here is: “How do I complete the process without relinquishing authorship, agency, or credit for completion?”

Nothing is holding you back (literally and figuratively.) What you’re experiencing is what happens when Deconstruction does its job thoroughly, but in your case, the last structure hasn’t been seen clearly enough to collapse on its own.

Reading McKenna can detonate the obvious illusions quickly. Things like careers, beliefs, identities, and spirituality tend to go early. From what I’ve seen, what often remains is subtler and far more resilient. Things like the will to finish, and the one who needs to go all the way. That impulse feels noble, and even kinda ruthless, but it’s still a self-position.

It’s hard to see from inside it that the thing that refuses to die is the one who believes there’s somewhere left to get to. That’s why the process feels agonizingly slow. Not because you’re stuck, but because you’re no longer moving away from illusion like you were initially, see? (Read that again, it’s important.) You’re now leaning toward an imagined endpoint. The false self can live on that tiny bit of dishonesty for ages. Time really stretches when there’s nothing left to dismantle except the dismantler.

This might look like stalled Deconstruction, but I’d say it’s closer to the threshold of the Void. It sounds like everything obvious has burned and what’s left isn’t dramatic or visible. It’s quiet, sticky, and nearly invisible because it looks like sincerity, resolve, or commitment to truth.

Put simply, you’re still hauling some shit around. Like the identity of the one who won’t settle, the stance of I’m not done yet, and the ideas like endurance equals honesty and suffering is proof you’re close. Can you put those down? None of them are wrong, but the Void doesn’t arrive while anything is still being leaned on, even something as austere as commitment to truth. The slowness isn’t a punishment; it’s friction from effort that no longer applies.

During Deconstruction, commitment to truth is what keeps the process honest. It’s the force that prevents retreat into comfort, belief, or self-deception. Illusions fall because you refuse to look away. Without it, the fire stalls. (Further, right?) But Deconstruction has a limit. Here, at the edge of the Void, there is nothing left for commitment to work on. Every belief, identity, and meaning structure has already burned. What remains isn’t illusion, it’s effort. The effort to finish,  to stay true, to not settle. At this point, commitment to truth becomes the last thing holding the self together.

This is why the transition feels stalled, slow, or agonizing. The fire has done its work, but the one feeding the fire is still standing there. The Void appears when the stance of dismantling itself collapses. As long as there’s a narrator tracking progress, measuring speed, and asking why it’s taking so long, you’re not at the edge, you’re still negotiating terms.

So the forward-moving question isn’t What’s left to kill? It’s going to be closer to: 

“What am I still using to prove that I’m serious, committed, or worthy of truth?”

“Who am I if I’m no longer the one who won’t quit?”

“What am I still holding together with my commitment?"

When the last question dissolves this won’t feel like a breakthrough or relief or transcendence. It will feel anticlimactic, ordinary, slightly embarrassing, even. It’s not taking a long time because you’re far away; it’s taking a long time because you’ve been trying to survive the truth. And truth doesn’t negotiate.