LastThursday

Don't forget that women are human beings too, just like yourself; even the beautiful ones. Rejection often hurts the rejector as well the rejectee. Have compassion if you're rejected. Some prep is good, but nothing beats just doing it. You can think about skydiving all you like, but actually doing it doesn't even compare.

Damn. Doing an online journal is bringing out the commitment-phobe in me. I don't think I've quite grasped why avoid commitment. Some of it is to do with avoidance of pain. This is kinda ridiculous, as pain has no particular correlation with commitment. In fact some of my proudest achievements in life have been done through commitment. Did they cause pain? Yes, of sorts. I think I avoid pain because it seems stupid to go through pain, if it can naturally be avoided. No pain no gain, has always seemed to me a strange way of motivating people, it's a disengenuous way of being. 'You will succeed, but it will hurt', just seems spiteful. But in every saying there's a nugget of truth somewhere in there. Maybe it's just commitment with no foreseeable end? A prison of commitment. Maybe that's closer to the truth. The sort of commitment you have to bear by going to school or work or in a marriage or bringing up kids. I've neither been married or had kids. But I've seen enough examples of crap commitment to marriage and bearing kids to put me off. Why commit if your intent is half hearted or half-witted? So I do commit, but only if my heart is in it and I have enough knowledge beforehand. Perhaps this is too limiting a way to be? No commitment, no progress. I think my lifestyle minimalism has come out of this way of being. Avoid commitment, by keeping things stripped down and as simple as possible. I also have a fetish for minimalism, small is beautiful. Large, is unwieldy, scary, dangerous even. But I think my life needs largeness, I need to expand out, not stay shrunken in minimalism. My soul wants to be as big as possible, to be the best version of myself.

Having a super-intense curiosity about how things work, without passing judgement. Thinking in depth about everything. Putting knowledge into action.

Aiming high is great, don't stop doing that. Aiming low or not aiming at all is limiting. Aiming high is freedom. But aiming high takes work, some of it unpleasant, some of it boring, some of it may seem pointless or strange or going away from Truth. But. Nothing is wasted, it all counts in the end. The Truth will come to you in due course.

Falling asleep in the day is a strong sign that you're not getting enough good quality sleep. Having good quality sleep can't be overemphasised for good mental health and body functioning. Here's some practical things you could experiment with: Not sure of your age, but it is now known that sleep patterns can be shifted significantly during teenage years. It's not uncommon to be alert until the small hours. You could be fighting against this. The amount of sleep different people need varies. You may just need more sleep than others. Try nine hours. You may be getting too much blue light in the evenings/night. Try wearing blue light blocking glasses. This will shift your sleep cycle earlier. This can work wonders for quality of sleep. Apps that reduce the blue content of your phone or laptop can help to an extent, but glasses are better. Have lower light levels in general in the evening. Eat earlier in the evening. It's common to eat at 8pm or even later. Try 6pm. Digestion is less effecient later in the day. Keep away from alcohol. This will disrupt the quality of sleep. Keep to a rigid sleep schedule including weekends. This will train your body to expect sleep at the right times. Reduce stressors on your body, such as smoking or bad diet. Conversely, exercise more during the day (late afternoon is better for this). Keep away from stimulation late at night, such as TV, Youtube, films, listening to music etc. Read or just meditate instead. Some foods are good for inducing sleep, such as kiwis. Anyway, good luck!

If you don't start sometime, you'll never get there. And when you're young, a LOT can change in 6 years, including your income. Move out and rent for six months, get a taste for it. If it all goes to shit, move back in with the folks, no harm done.

One of the features of suicidal ideation is that it can become a habit that can be hard to break. This type of thinking could easily persist for years, and there is always the danger that a day comes when you decide to actually carry it out. As @Gabriel Antonio says it can be a very complex issue. I think at its heart is the need to escape an unbearable situation or thoughts or feelings, and is often accompanied by long term depression. I'd say it can be nearly impossible to shift out of this way of being through willpower alone - you will need outside help. Saying that, if you're given viable options for moving past the cause of the pain, then the suicidal ideation will stop. However, there are some things that you can do that can take the edge off depression, which may help: Have a regular routine Sleep properly Take regular exercise Have regular contact with friends or people (especially supportive ones) Eat cleanly and regularly Engage in activities which need focus Take medication (personally not my first choice, but results can be helpful)

There's no guaranteed way to tell. But one sure way is if the belief changes over time. How can a belief which is true, change?

For sure. That is the ultimate way of being; it will take a lot of work on yourself to get there though. And until you get there (which I'm sure you will), you can learn other skills that will improve your situation. I guess I'm just being pragmatic, having experienced a similar situation to you. For example, if you're swimming in shark infested waters, then fear is a good emotion to have. Spirituality won't save you at first, being a stronger swimmer will. Once you're a stronger swimmer, then you can be spiritually cool, calm and collected and make better decisions.

@XYZ exactly it. Laziness doesn't exist.

(Western) Society has a very strong emphasis on 'doing' (and working). If you're not filling up all your waking hours with 'doing', then you are wasting your time or there must be something wrong with you or god forbid, you're lazy - which all have strong negative connotations. The only respite, is that you're allowed to go on holiday and 'do nothing'. But even then, when you come back off holiday you will get asked: 'What did you do on holiday?'. If I have my SD right, then it's a very stage Orange way of seeing things. If you're not constantly doing and producing things or progressing forward then it's sub-optimal and you're potentially a lazy defective person. There is a different way to be and that is just 'to be'. I say that lazy types should be cherished as much as the doers in life. It's all the doers that have made us wage slaves (I'm not bitter).

Your level of anxiety is perfectly natural, although it may feel unpleasant. As an example, I grew up in rough part of inner London, where the likelihood of confrontation was quite high. Where I went to school the fear of mugging or being held at knife point was also quite high, often by people I went to school with! Knives and air-rifles would covertly be carried on school grounds. There were often stories of murders locally and people openly using drugs or having sex in the local housing estates. Being a defenceless skinny teenager in those circumstances, the only thing you can do is be hyper-vigilant and learn to keep out of certain areas and away from certain people. The consequence is you have a constant level of anxiety and thoughts of confrontation and playing out scenarios go around in your head all the time. So the anxiety servers a purpose, it's to keep you safe. Social media exacerbates the situation, because it makes it harder to avoid people. And you feel you're constantly being 'watched'. I only mentioned self defence because it will empower you in a physical confrontation and give you mental confidence that you can take care of yourself. This may reduce the anxiety. I'd also advocate starting a regular meditation or mindfulness habit, it will give you a 'space' away from the anxious thoughts.

No. But you can try and bypass the mind. So you could also say: there is awareness because there is something. The mind baulks at circularity, but there's truth in the circularity. A circularity points at one thing: inconsistency. This is otherwise known as illusion. Whenever you have a self referential system, that is also illusion. This is because a self referential system has no foundation or ground. That is why Perception a.k.a. Reality is an illusion. Basically, if you say that 'I am aware that I am aware', then it is an illusion.

@WindInTheLeaf there is something because there is awareness. The alternative question is: why is there awareness?

@kindayellow So the logical/rational part of you is functioning well. What about the light breathing, pressure building in the chest part of you? How is it helping you to survive in a confrontation? Have you ever had a real fight? Have you thought of taking up self defense classes or a martial art?

@CreamCat I also do this compulsively. At work when I send emails and even on this forum. I'll keep re-reading what I've posted over and over. The following thoughts have gone through my mind: Am I autistic? Do I have OCD? Am I a perfectionist? Something else...? I think the reason I do it is because I'm trying to capture the moment. It's the same reason young kids like repetition. There's a bit of us that wishes we could stay in the moment forever: to savour the exquisite wording we've just posted. In other words I get a kick out of it, and I like to repeat that kick over and over again. So.... fuck it! It's fun, for me at least. EDIT That must be at least ten times now

@kindayellow what's the worst thing that could happen in a confrontation?

@Athemnajar The first thing to question yourself is: what is it about procrastination that upsets you? Is it the cognitive dissonance of wanting to do something, but not actually doing it? Is it something else? Get to the root of this issue first. The next thing to do is realise that you have many people inside you fighting for attention. See here for an idea about that: quitting smoking . This is a recipe for avoiding addiction. Third is to set up some away and toward motivations in your life. These need to be exciting/scary enough that you'll actually do them. At the moment for you, porn is more exciting than everything else. Put in place things that excite you more than porn. You will definitely have to work harder to achieve this - but if it motivates you enough, you'll do it. The subtlety to this wok is knowing yourself well enough to know what will motivate you. What do you find really exciting or really scary?

Learning a skill is mostly not a binary thing. At any moment in time I can play the piano: I extend my fingers and press the keys. The skill is always just 'there'. So how much time does it take to learn to play the piano? None at all. You and I can both do it, right now. So what about playing the piano well ? That is entirely a conceptual exercise. What does 'well' actually mean? Maybe I play classical 'well', and you play jazz 'well', they're different skills. So the only way to know you've mastered a skill is to compare to someone else. What is actually doing the comparing? It's all in your head, or even worse, someone else is telling you how good you are and you conceptually believe them. Where does the struggle in learning come from then? It's simple, it's a mismatch between the skill you have right now and the skill you think (conceptual) you ought to have. You get frustrated because you can't roll your R's in the back of your throat, the frustration doesn't come from the action, it comes from the mismatch. But the struggle doesn't last, and there will be a moment when you stop struggling, and all that struggle you had is just 'in your head', and becomes your conceptual 'past'. It's a headfuck thinking this way, but you can get used to it. One day I'll be enlightened, and all the struggle I had to get there, will be a figment of my imagination. So why spoil it now by struggling? It's fruitless. Just enjoy the ride now it, and soon enough it will be then.

@Jack River no way, leave that to their shrink or guru. But even that person has moments of relief. The fear comes, the fear goes. Given enough consciousness we can drop the struggle - we are made new with every second that passes - tick tock. What is a thought? We recognise a thought because it's fragmentary, it doesn't obey the rules of the rest of reality. If it wasn't fragmentary, we wouldn't recognise it as a thought: it would be reality. Because we are addicted to our concepts of time. In reality, learning a skill or becoming liberated takes no time at all. We just pretend we struggled 'all that time' to learn a thing, but hey here it is, and there's no struggle, you just 'do it'.

The river of time is actually no such thing. The notion of an extended, ordered time is entirely concept. What we experience is an ever present now, which sits entirely outside of time; all we are aware of is change. Any memories or thoughts of things having happened or things that may happen, is just constructed from thought fragments and chains of causation (belief). All those thoughts and memories are contained in the now. If you push the idea to the limit, then reality did not evolve and progress through time to this present moment. This present moment just 'is', there is no prior cause, no 'why' or 'how'. There's nothing outside of the present moment. If anything, it's the other way around: time is a fragment of the Self - quite literally a figment of its imagination.

Magic, yes. But if you want the real nitty gritty, 'it' is none of those words you've used. Or any of the words I've just used.

The only thing that is fairly certain is that we observe the world changing (although I would even argue against that). But as soon as we start thinking about how it changed, we are in fantasy land. The fantasy is what sustains time. But. The actual thoughts about these past events are themselves not fantasy, it's just their content. I only mention thoughts, because most memories of the past, are actually thoughts about thoughts about thoughts of something you believed happened.

@stevegan928 no no no. Most humans care about not being unhappy - there's a difference - humans are innately happy, that is the natural state. That's the motivation for self development: to uncover all the bullshit in our lives and to recover our natural state. Ultimately that natural state is itself: Truth. In other words, to stop all suffering we need to recover our real selves. But most people don't even realise they need to do this and they go around like headless chickens all their lives and live with constant suffering.

@Tony 845 Where does the Brain begin and end? Is the Cerebral Cortex, the mid-brain, the brain stem, the spinal chord, the nerves? Does/can the brain exist separately from the rest of the body? Is the brain really separate at all from the body? Is the brain clearly demarcated from the rest of the body? Where does the body begin and end? Is it really just the food we eat in different form? Does breathing not mix ourselves with our environment. Are our excretions part of our bodies? When we touch others, don't we mix our selves with them? Where did our bodies originate?