The Quiet After the Collision
Living the Afterglow of Deep Encounters
There’s a curious pattern that has rippled through my life for as long as I can remember.
After deeply connective encounters, the kind where souls seem to meet for a brief, electric moment beyond their usual masks, I often find myself sitting alone, almost immediately, in the quiet. Not abandoned. Not rejected. But left somehow outside the familiar currents of daily human traffic, as if the encounter itself discharged something so potent it rearranged the field between me and the other.
In Jungian terms, it feels like those meetings are active imaginations made real — encounters where the deeper archetypes we carry inside break through the mundane and make contact.
The Self touches the Self. The numinous shows its face.
But the psyche, protective as it is, can’t sustain that intensity indefinitely. Jung said the unconscious compensates for consciousness, seeking equilibrium. After the depth, the pullback is inevitable. To conserve. To integrate. To survive.
The I-Ching, too, seems to understand this dance. Hexagram 61, “Inner Truth,” speaks of the invisible threads that bind and the care needed not to pull too hard on them. True connection is feather-light. When grasped too tightly, it vanishes. When acknowledged in its mystery, it leaves an invisible imprint on the soul.
And then there’s Human Design — and my Manifestor energy blueprint. Manifestors, it is said, carry an aura that repels even as it initiates. Our purpose is to move first, to catalyze, not to bind or linger.
In the wake of a Manifestor’s presence, people may feel stirred, shaken, even confused. A deep conversation with me can often leave another person’s inner architecture rearranged — but without necessarily knowing why. They may retreat, not because harm was done, but because the energy exchange has fulfilled its purpose.
For a long time, this pattern bewildered and wounded me. Why, after giving someone my undivided presence, did I often find a strange distance appear? Why did people seem to pull back just when something beautiful had cracked open between us?
Eastern philosophy has been a balm and a guide here. Taoism reminds me that the Tao that can be clung to is not the true Tao. The energy that seeks to hold or possess distorts its original purity. After the spark comes the space. After the river overflows, it must recede. Lao Tzu teaches that those who stand on tiptoes are not steady; those who reach out aggressively cannot hold.
In Zen, there is a phrase: “After the ecstasy, the laundry.” After the mountaintop moment comes the mundane — and we are called to integrate spirit into the everyday, alone if need be.
I share this because I know there are others — sensitives, Manifestors, old souls, wayfarers — who walk through life wondering why moments of profound intimacy often end in a sudden hush.
It is not your defect.
It is not your failure.
It is not your fate to be forever disconnected.
It is simply the nature of deep energetic contact. Two auras brush against each other, stirring up hidden sediments of the soul, and then — as in nature — a recalibration must occur. The river clears itself again before the next storm. The lake goes still before reflecting the next star.
The invitation, then, is to meet each encounter fully, generously — and then let it go completely.
No clinging.
No explaining.
No expecting.
Just trust that the deeper self in each person knows what it needs, even if the conscious mind doesn’t.
The real magic of the encounter was never about sustaining it.It was about the aliveness of the collision itself. And when the quiet comes, as it surely will, treat it not as exile, but as a necessary clearing.
In the silence, we return to ourselves.In the emptiness, we prepare for the next meeting, unexpected and holy as ever.
If the Daily Chocolate Taoist nomadic wisdom lights up your day, fuels your mind, or gives you a fresh perspective, I’d love your support as a paid member!
Or, if you’re feeling generous, drop a little (or a lot) of dirty chai latte love my way—every bit helps keep this Taoist journey flowing.
I’m committed to delivering high-quality, thought-provoking features straight to your inbox—no paywalls, no fluff, just raw, unfiltered wisdom on what it means to be human in today’s paradoxical, mysterious, and uncertain world.
Your support fuels my full-time mission, and I appreciate every single contribution. Let’s keep this energy going!
Diamond Michael Scott
aka The Chocolate Taoist
Exploring the nature of intimacy has become a fruitless pursuit in the modern world, probably for a considerable time before as well. We were designed, for the purpose of propagation, for a man and a woman to become one. As we degenerated from that design into single souls pursuing brief encounters instead of lifelong unions. We till join as one, but then tear ourselves apart unnaturally, causing much pain and damage to each other. Repeated endlessly, we become less able to truly join ourselves together. As always, pursuit of cheap thrills become not so inexpensive, but cheap like a Micky Mouse watch.
Such a gorgeous explanation! Thank you!