Iron In The Soul

Premasudha describes the connection between the sun and human burnout. Stars like our sun produce light through nuclear fusion which causes the atoms to become heavier. When the star starts producing iron, its life ends. Instead of generating energy, the process consumes all of it. The star collapses under its own weight.

In "Iron In The Soul", J. P. Sartre wrote about the heavy despair that settled inside people after the fall of France in WWII. Burnout feels similar. We push ourselves with an iron will long after our energy is gone, until eventually we collapse from stress.

Human burnout is like the sun burning out. We run out of energy. We can’t continue. But it is not only an ending.

Just as volcanic ash fertilizes the earth and supports new life, the ash of burnout can fertilize our inner garden. Out of exhaustion, something new can begin to grow, when we start listening to our heart and really loving ourselves, allowing space for rest and transformation.

Transcript

It's about. Iron and the sun. And our burnout. Metabolic processes cause us to emit light. And in the sun. The nuclear fusion. It's basically the sun's metabolic processes. Emit its light. What happens is a whole bunch of atoms are thrown together violently, And they're moving violently, And they emit light. It's like a small amount of the mass of these atoms gets. Turned into light. The light is released. Stars are powered by nuclear fusion, Which smashes lighter elements together to create heavier elements. During this process, A tiny amount of mass is converted into vast amounts of energy for the heat and the light. This is similar to our digestion in a way. These lighter elements get heavier over time. These lighter elements release light And then the elements become heavier and heavier until the thing that kills a star, You guys. Is iron. Okay. Once you get this. Iron marks the death sentence of a massive star because it is the most stable nuclear element. Once a star's core begins producing the star can no longer generate energy through nuclear fusion. This causes an inevitable and catastrophic collapse. You see, It goes through all the lighter elements and when it's finally the iron. The iron atoms consume more energy. It consumes energy rather than releases it. There is no release. Of the heat and the light. It's sort of like, I remember reading somewhere that it took as much energy to digest an egg. As the calories in an egg. I don't think this is true, But it's the same principle. It takes all the sun's energy to deal with the iron. And no light and heat is released. At that point, A smaller group star, Go supernova. And then the rest of it turns into a black hole. And a bigger star. The like say one that's more than 20 times the size of the sun. The collapse is so, The core is so massive, It just turns into a black hole. Okay, There's another thread. Just to express what I'm wanting to say to you. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a book called Iron in the Soul. And in it, It explores the themes of existential dread, Individual responsibility, And the crushing isolation of defeat. Following the fall of France. The narrative captures the characters' internal experiences of guilt, Despair, And dissolution of their previous lives during the war, Highlighting the sense of profound existential emptiness. So. I want to connect all this up with individual burnout. I feel individual burnout is really like the sun burning up. Stop. Being able to continue. The way we're using our energy. We collapse. We can't do it anymore. And in my experience with for myself when it happened. It's when I'm not listening to my soul. I'm not responding to my soul. I am going forward with an iron will. You think of somebody who's operating like they've decided something, They've got an iron will, They become less kind. They stop listening to anything of the heart. They won't want to hear anything from the heart. They won't want anything that takes them away from their idea of where they need to go. And when this takes over a person, They do burn out. You see, Our outer reality is much more a reflection of us. Than we realize. And it's much friendlier. It's, You know, You will only get from the outside world what you've given out. At some point this life or another. There is no. . . You know. Existential threat. But when we're burned out. It feels like it. And, You know, The other thing I want to talk about this is. You know, If you could just follow this as best you can. Volcanic ash can be used as a fertilizer. So. . . These experiences we have where we get burned out. We just need to take time. And it's all? Going to be used. For our betterment. It all, If you take time. And respond to yourself, Love yourself. It will all be used to fertilize your inner garden. Please. Anything can be used to fertilize in a garden. It's the mud of the lotus. You know, Excrement is the best fertilizer. We just need to embrace ourselves, Love ourselves. If you guys, You know. Remember, I was talking about how Measurement. The scientists who showed that constant measurements stop these beryllium atoms from transforming. So if we just leave it alone. If you're burned out, You know, Just. . . Let the burnt ash fertilize. Your garden.