LastThursday

I should write love poetry for a living ha! Anyway: I took your smile and put it in my pocket. Your glistening lips pinned on a loop of memory. Sniff sniff, that perfume soaked into my very being. Every idle wandering thought ends at then. All those partitions in time paper thin but impenetrable. Even if we returned we would forever be disjoint-strangers. Would you even remember me? Should you even remember me?

@integral I liked your video, slickly done. Future-gazing™ (mine!) is a fun activity. The idea of having new perceptions is good. Although I think that each thought or memory we have is essentially a different perception. Consciousness is unbounded in that respect.

I'm fortunate to have been on the wrong side of privileged when I was younger, and that makes me appreciate what I have all the more now, and make it hard to give up or change. I think we all have our problems and to belittle them or dismiss them doesn't help us. If complaining helps then do so. I've done many things which seemed like they would go on forever, but eventually they ended. It's no different with breaking out. I suspect it will happen in an unexpected way and probably in a way that I won't even notice at the time. But I'll see. I do know that even this situation will change with time. @Snader what are your experiences on your own questions? I'm curious to know.

Partially yes. Wage slavery is just not for me, it doesn't suit my temperament. Due to my history I've always had to be and like being self-sufficient. To have people "lording it over me" and for me to make them money just sticks in my craw. But, it's convenient and it's stable and it's what everyone else does. The alternative of working for myself, whilst it would probably suit me more, is more difficult and unstable. The self-worth angle is interesting. I've always known my own worth in that I've never particularly needed external confirmation of my worth or capabilities. In that sense I'm confident. But, I've had a lot of experiences, especially when I was a teenager/young adult, that constantly ground down on that self-worth. So I've learned to not expose myself too much and I've tended to just go along with the flow and stick in the background. It's only now more recently that I've felt more comfortable stepping up and exposing myself. It's opposing forces causing paralysis I think. Because of my difficult teenagehood I've constantly yearned for stability and to be free to pursue my own interests. So I have a strong sense of wanting comfort and stability in my life - which I've largely achieved. Giving that up in any way is difficult. Also, my attention has always been quite scattered. I have so many interests and avenues of exploration that doggedly fixing myself to one thing and just pursuing that as my "purpose" just doesn't gel with me. The only thing I've managed that with is my interest in computing, and indeed that is my day job now, and I'm thankful for it. But there are many times when I've wanted to just give it all up and do something completely different. Society seems to want to bludgeon me down a particular path of working and spending and buying houses and having a family and having no time to do anything else with: I reject it all, and yet I still do it to an extent. It leaves me with a strong feeling of being in limbo with no real resolution other than to upend it all. I don't see myself as unfortunate, in fact I know that compared to many people I'm in a privileged position - and I did it all myself in spite of everything. I'm grateful for it. But my upbringing, parents and the society I found myself in have "programmed" me in a certain way. I've done a huge amount of work to undo some of that bad programming, but there is a core that still needs fixing so to speak. I have a conviction that if I can just fix that remaining part then I'll get going. Society just wants me to grind and spend. I want to have joy and freedom. The two seem mutually incompatible to me.

I dunno man these are some hard things to answer and contemplate. Without it turning into too much of therapy session (I don't need answers here thanks!), I'll pick on this point: The sensation of feeling trapped, like in a spider's web and of having been foolish enough to get trapped in the first place. It's partly to do with circumstance (society) and my lack of willingness or ability to get myself out of, or commit to, any course of action to untrap myself. This goes along with a strong feeling that I should have "been someone" for most of my life. A good friend of mine recently called me a "genius". The CEO of the company I do work for said I was the second most intelligent person he'd met, and said this in front of his entire workforce (the first being his finance controller apparently). So what do I do with all that? (rhetorical question lol). I ask myself surely I must have the brainpower to get myself what I want or to where I want? But no it's not to do with that, it's just prolonged commitment and perseverence, I'm learning. The only conclusions I can draw is that in general society doesn't reward outliers, but just your average jo/e and brute subservience to its mores. The other is that there isn't anyone to blame except myself, I'm the one that suffers and the one that has to do something about it. There's no fallback and no-one to give me a leg up. However I'm not a victim. I know the answer to my situation is to uproot everything I've built up around me. I'm just not ready to do that (yet).

This is good. You want to take the middle way. Removing the objects in life that burden you (even if just to stop thinking about them), makes life simpler. This extends to non-tangible things too: commitments, bad relationships, addictions, unwanted responsibilites. But don't remove the things that actually make life simpler: washing machines, good relationships, a paying job etc.

What is meaning? What is fulfillment? It's a good exercise to examine those things deeply. I think both things are rooted in emotion. Meaning is an emotional response to events, normally positive. And more specifically something is meaningful if it helps your survival directly or indirectly. Essentially you have "good feelings" towards "staying alive" and that is meaningful. Fulfill etymologically means to "fill until full", i.e. to complete something or to satiate your desire. It's not an accident that you use the phrase "feelings of emptiness". Fulfillment is the knowledge or feeling of being satisfied and complete, and full. The pursuit of meaning and fulfillment is then the pursuit of certain emotions. But emotions are ephemeral and irrational. Emotions are signals to pay attention to, not objects to acquire and hold on to. Emotions are what guide you through the world, you should use them that way. You should pursue what you want to achieve. There's no game plan for living, so you're free to make up your own plan and carry it through to see what happens. If you don't like what happens you come up with another plan and keep playing your own invented game. If you complete one of your plans you will feel fulfilled. If it helps you survive, or improves your life in some way, it will feel meaningful.

For the love of God don't submit. Stand firm!

No. It's completely normal for your thoughts to wander. By narrating your actions you're doing a form of meditation. You're constantly bringing back your attention to the present moment and to what your body is doing. This builds up awareness and allows you to have more conscious control over your body and actions. A lot of mental health problems can be caused by negative and intrusive thoughts. That's why meditation is often given as a way to help with this. But. Narration is just words. Words can never fully describe what is going on and they may end up being a distraction. It's a distraction because you're programming yourself to place importance on the narration and the words. This is the wrong emphasis. You should be placing importance on what is actually happening. Your body is a very intelligent machine and most of the time it doesn't need a lot of conscious guidance - let it spontaneously do its thing. You should also practise not narrating and totally switching off that inner voice. You'll be surprised that it's possible to live like that, and be totally conscious.

Not at all, it seems pretty relevant to the thread. I suppose I was thinking about the result (quantity) rather than the cause (motivation) behind "reading the signs". But your point is excellent. Is there an underlying motivation for why the OP is seeing these numbers? Maybe the meaning behind seeing the Angel numbers, is precisely to uncover that motivation if it's not immediately obvious.

Reflection. Anything I think about others I try and reflect back to myself. E.g. why is that guy such an asshole? Am I an asshole sometimes? Do other people exist? Do I exist? That guy is so stupid. Am I stupid? Is it ok to obsess over someone? Would I like to be obsessed about? And on and on. If done properly, it's very effective for self learning and practising non-judgement. Inverse. E.g. was the universe created? Maybe it wasn't created. Am I the only one in existence? Maybe I'm not the only one in existence. Is God a separate entity? Maybe God is not separate. Does God exist? What if God didn't exist. What is existence? What isn't existence? What is everything? What isn't everything? Do explanations get at truth, or not? Boundary removal. E.g. am I a distinct entity? Or am I part of everything else: the food I eat, the air I breathe, the skin cells I shed? Are humans special? Or are they just another animal? Am I separate from God, or the same as God? Is a colour a different thing from a sound? Or are they the same is some way? Are two people interacting, two entities or one system? Does what I do affect everything else? Are my thoughts mine or just part of this? Is my sense of self separate from my perceptions?

@Judy2 do you think instead of a fine line, there's just a sliding scale? Some folks don't pay any attention at all, some find meaning in everything, most are in the middle somewhere. I find myself constantly looking at car number plates. My brain just loves symbols and my attention gets sucked in. Sometimes absentmindedly, connections and things are triggered, and a whole train of thought comes out of it. I have to try and pull my attention away mostly and pay attention to other things. Everything in moderation. I know well enough that car number plates are randomly assigned. The symbols themselves are meaningless: except for the things they trigger within me, that's what I should be paying attention to.

For that 80's vibe

Same thing as people's opinions and advices. So it evens out. Ignore or don't ignore, same effect. Sane result. Indeed. To be clear, the OP is free to take my advice/opinion or not. I wasn't trying to be dismissive. I agree that the universe is constantly trying to speak to us, but it's not the happenings or appearances themselves which are important. It's how we interpret those things which is important. Numbers/numerology is far more abstract and ambiguous than other "signs" we could pay attention to. There are other things to focus on that give much clearer signs. @Agrande is seemingly stuck in limbo, where they see some meaning in the numbers, but don't know what the meaning is. We can't help, because our meaning in not @Agrande's meaning. The only sensible solution is to ignore the numbers, to get out of the bind.

Agreed. But you might need a map to find the territory or to navigate around it.

There is a lot of talk on here about the map not being the territory. But what is a map exactly? How does a map relate to stories, hallucinations and imagination? Let me know your thoughts.

It's instructive to look at the situation in Northern Ireland. There they have power sharing between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The power sharing is fairly unstable and there's a lot of bickering, but it's way better than the alternative was (killings, violence, bombings, terrorism). I remember the regular bombings on the UK mainland clearly. In fact there were no litter bins in major train stations for years, and even now there are clear plastic litter bags at stations. I suspect that a one-state solution for Israel/Palestine would also need this kind of power sharing for it to be viable. Otherwise the interests of the Palestinian people would still be suppressed in favour of Israeli ideals (as they are in fact now). A two-state solution would at least give the Palestinian people autonomy. However, in that there would be a very persistent and long lasting tension between a Palestinian state and Israeli state, which could destabilise the whole region - although that's no different to now - just look at India and Pakistan for reference. Or maybe the solution is to have a no-go zone like in Cyprus or the two Koreas. Also, I think that any Palestinian state would need to have contiguous land for it to work properly, at the moment Gaza and the West Bank are separated. Otherwise you would constantly have the presence of Israel interposed physically. But there are many countries with exclaves, Spain or the UK for example.

The only not-this is nothing. What is nothing? Not-this. So this and nothing are a mutually exclusive duality. But that's a duality! Yes and...?

Ignore them. Numbers only have as much meaning as you want them to have.

Some loose thoughts I had while reading your post: If there is some perception that has no bearing on our survival, then evolutionary processes would not favour being able to perceive it either way - it's a 50-50 chance. So we may have perceptions not directly related to survival - and spiritually related perceptions maybe one thing. Evolution doesn't progress, it has no end goal. Natively, that is correct. But there is an argument to say that any human invention is also a product of evolution/nature. Enhancement through technology does allow us to perceive more of reality. And it's done by using a transformation process: infra-red light is converted to light we can see, and so on. You could extend the argument further and ask if there are perceptions yet to be discovered through this enhancement (expansion) process. There's always variability in populations of any species, so it's quite possible some can perceive what others can't: for example see tetrachromacy. Note also, that this is an assumption based on form, so does it necessarily hold that if we have similar brains and bodies we must be perceiving similar things? If perception is relative to itself, then we could all be experiencing very different realities.

Running through the tall yellow grass Ghosts of past whisper and glisten in the dew Listen! Can you hear it? Walking beyond on the wooded path Miracles of present grip and sway gently in the breeze Stop! Can you feel it? Over hill running over stream over and over Futures rush through and fizzle in the noon Go! Are you not it?

Maybe communion with someone is spiritual in itself, the divided wants to become unified, two become one? The reward is unadulterated bliss and sticky mess.

It's a measurement problem. The interplay of chemicals is so intricate, that it's extremely difficult to work it all out in real time. If I was God and I had to solve the problem, I'd have chemical gradients in three axes to provide a 3D grid of different chemical concentrations in the early stages of cells division. Each level of concentration then switches on and off different parts of the DNA machinery in each cell, which then makes different cells. You can get at least one axis from where the sperm enters the egg. Alternatively if you have say 8 cells in a ball, then each pair could easily form a different axis of chemical concentration. I dunno just vibing here.

Except death isn't random, that's why they evolve. Imagine it like quality control in peanut factory, what would you do? You take out all the bad, rotten, shrivelled and mishapen peanuts. And you're left with the best ones. Nature does exactly the same thing, it is more likely to kill off peanuts that don't do as well in their environment. It's completly logical and simple.

Don't believe for a minute you don't rely on models though. Here's a thread about maps (aka models), the conclusion is drifting towards something you wouldn't like: In particular read this response: