Nightwise

Wednesday January 15th to Thursday January 16th Let's talk a bit about suicide and suicidality, shall we? I had wanted to write an essay about this and post it here on the actualized.org forums, but I have forsaken that plan, at least for now, because I had both lost the inspiration to write that essay any further (I had already started it), and it also felt to be a bit more controversial and intense than I really felt comfortable with. It simply didn't feel right to post it. The insights and arguments I used in that essay, and the way I was going to convery them, can be very frightening to certain people because I addressed there some of the worst and darkest human fears, and also one of the greatest taboos and collective delusions. The final conlusion, however, is a hopeful and positive one. I'm going to talk about it now anyway, so buckle up and read it at your own risk, or otherwise just don't read it at all. I'm not going to be as provocative or intense as I was going to be in that essay, though. Okay Sometimes I read these stories of people having suffered from major depressive episodes, and/or forms of anxiety, and/or all other kinds of mental problems, and having been through a long time of all this sometimes intense suffering, they end up committing suicide. And when I read something like that, I can't help to wonder why this person allowed him/herself to be in such a position of this state of deep suffering for so many years? It's one of the things I fail to really grasp about other people: Why are some people willing to encounter massive amounts of suffering and still aren't willing to actually put an end to it for years and years, and sometimes even decades? (It's not essential here whether 'putting an end to it' means suicide or changing their life around) I can understand it from a superficial intellectual position, but I can't really resonate with the attitude of these kind of people at all. Like really, you've been going through bouts of deep depression and despair for like 10 years straight, and still you don't think that perhaps it's time to make some drastic changes in your life? No? 10 years of torment still isn't sufficient enough? Need some more? Well, you'll get more. What else do you expect to happen? Do you think some miracle will take place in your life and overnight all of this suffering will be miraculously abolished? You're not Eckhart Tolle! It perplexes me... I understand what these people are doing though. Most likely they are addicted to some or many forms of distraction so that they do not have to face their own emotions and their fears. They avoid the existential yet rather necessary questions that they would need to ask to themselves if they truly want to put a stop to their suffering, because asking those questions would mean they would have to confront very frightening possibilities. So what they do is that they are willing to settle for a long-term terrible life prospect so that they don't have to face some even more intense short-term pain and suffering that comes with confronting your inner demons. But of course, if you do gather the courage and confront the demons, it will be your first step out of that nightmare you have found yourself in. But some people are just too afraid. Ironically, the one thing they truly should fear is their cowardice, because their cowardice is the reason they have found themselves in that position and the reason they will stay stuck in it. From a rational standpoint, there is nothing to be more afraid of for them than their cowardice. But of course, it's not like many of these people haven't tried to change their lives at multiple points, but they have failed the commitment to stick with it. You can address multiple reasons to why that has failed, but one way you can put it is that the primary reason that they have failed to commit to changing their lives, is the fact that it wasn't obvious enough to them that they absolutely HAD to. This is how it all changed for me. When I started having intense panic attacks in early 2013, at some point I started having this very painful but very intense sense of urgency. I realized that if I allowed myself to be a coward for just even a second, then how I was I ever going to have peace with the fact that I had been living life less than what was optimal? This awareness and this urgency was so clear and so sharp, that awareness that something HAD to be done, that it kind of felt like having a black hole right behind my back and that if I did allow myself to be a coward for even one second, I was going to be sucked up by this black hole, and this black hole would take me straight to the deepest layer of hell. That's how it felt sometimes back then. For me it was just very clear (at least so I thought at the time) that there was no rational argument as to why I would allow myself to be controlled by fear, and I didn't see how I was going to forgive myself had I allowed myself to succumb to fear. On top of that, I also had a strong sense that if I allowed myself to believe in one excuse, then why not the second excuse, or the third excuse? I was using an audio program for overcoming panic attacks at the time in which the guy really emphasized the importance of taking action, and he also told about people who didn't overcome it because they weren't willing to face their fears. I back then had not estimate as to how courageous I really was or wasn't in comparison to other people suffering from anxiety attacks, so I absolutely dreaded the possibility of me failing to live up to the challenge and sliding back into this hell realm that I was struggling to get myself out of. For me, that possibility seemed very real and I wanted to do absolutely everything I possibly could in order to try to prevent that. Having that been the start of the beginning of my awakening process, I now find it so difficult to understand why other people who from an outer viewpoint appear to be going to similair or even worse struggles, how other people like that do not feel this intense sense of urgency to change. And so when I see people like that, I can only wonder: Do they not realize? Do they not care enough? Isn't it obvious enough to them? Those people might say about themselves that they simply lack the willpower, or the courage or whatever. They might even start believing that they're a hopeless case. But I will say differently: They simply don't understand. It's not clear enough to them. Because actually, the urgency isn't even so much about needing to improve and change their life around, but it's about putting a stop to all of it, in whatever means possible. All it takes is one honest moment for such a person and to admit to themselves: This NEEDS to stop. In whatever way possible, this absolutely NEEDS to stop. And yes, maybe they'll come to the decision that the idea of changing their life around and rising out of their misery isn't worth it for them, or perhaps they may think it's not even possible (for them), and they end up committing suicide. And you know what? To me, that's absolutely fine. It's fine because at least they finally made a conscious decision to face death. To improve your life for the better by working really hard on yourself and to rise out of it is also facing death, and you could argue that perhaps that would be the better decision, but whether it's suicide or dedicated self-actualization, at least they FINALLY, FUCKING FINALLY put a stop to all of it. You see my sentiment here? If someone puts an end to their torment that may have been going on for years or even decades by committing suicide... Good for them. At least they finally made that decision to face death. All I truly care about for those people is for them to be relieved from their struggle, whatever route they may take to get to that point. I don't really hold judgement against people who commit suicide. I do feel like there was potential for more for them in this life and in that way it's perhaps a bit unfortunate, but hey, perhaps in a next life they will choose good circumstances to incarnate (if that's actually what happens, idk for sure) and maybe they will give a much better shot at it this time. I don't really like the way people regard suicide as 'tragic'. Because this whole notion of it being 'tragic' creates such a taboo around this topic, just as there is a taboo about death in general in the west. One can start feeling very guilty towards their own suicidal feelings because they are both feeling guilty towards themselves for wasting their potential, and towards others (relatives and friends and so forth) for hurting them by that person choosing to commit suicide. People get conditioned that suicidal feelings are not okay, although people may not directly say it that way to them. So people hide it, both from others and from themselves. But just because you're hiding it doesn't mean you become less suicidal. In fact, the very guilt creates an inner conflict between the death drive within them that wants a release from their suffering on one side, and both their fear of death and the guilt they feel on the other side. And ironically, because the person starts fighting against the suicidalit feelings and thoughts because they are 'unwished for', the more that person reinforces their guilt, starts creating more inner struggle, making them more miserable, and because they are more miserable, suicide becomes even more attractive as a for of release from it all. In fact, it becomes a form of hope. Many people are too afraid to fully commit to life because they fantasize about suicide as an option. "If all else fails, I can always still simply end my life". If you romanticize and put your hopes suicide (even if you do it unconsciously), then how can you expect such a person to really go all-in on life? It won't happen. It won't happen because people don't get anywhere if they half-ass something. Full determination can only happen if the alternative is not considered as an option anymore (actually, this is not true at higher stages of consciousness. But I'd say for most people that that statement is true). What do you think you are going to achieve if the option of suicide is always in the back of your mind? You will lack devotion, because you are not fully sure of yourself that this is really want you want to be doing. When I was getting out of my panic attacks in 2013, suicide, for some reason I still don't really know for sure, is just something I didn't even want to consider for a single second. The idea of it just seemed so dreadful, that I couldn't even permit myself a single second of fantasizing on the possibility. Because of that reason, I HAD to go all-in on life. And therefore, I've gotten to the point I've gotten to now where I've grown tremendously in the past 7 years (although my attitude has shifted quite a bit over the course of these 7 years, but that's a different story) I understand that not every person automatically has this commitment right from the start. Maybe not everybody sees suicide as something that is not an option for themselves in the way I felt it. Maybe in some way, I was fortunate. If I can't invoke a feeling of commitment and devotion in a person even if I really clearly explain that not making a decision in their position is not going to give them a better life than they already had, then certainly there are more alternatives. One thing I can do is try to take away their suicidal guilt. Much of the suicidal feelings come from the fact that the person feels guilty about the suicidal feelings to begin with. It's a vicious circle. I will explain to them why they don't have to feel guilty towards other people for it ("It might be a relief to them", "It may take them on a new path, a new journey to find out the meaning of their lives", "It may confront them with the truth of death, which isn't comfortable, but in the end, truth is inevitably going to be faced so merely acclerate the process for them") I would also take away the guilt they feel towards themselves for the idea that they're a coward for doing it or wasting their own potential ("What do you mean it's weak? Do you realize how much courage it takes to face death like that?", "Why should you have any obligations to fulfill to actualize your potential? Where is this responsibility other than your own ideas about it? Why should you not be able to be a coward?") "Won't that make them more likely to commit suicide then?", you may ask. It's possible, but probably not. Besides, whether they do or don't end up committing suicide is not the point, remember? If you can relieve someone from the guilt they carry around their suicidal feelings, you will take away a large part of their suffering, and therefore a large part of their suicidality. Imagine if this person actually gets it and suddenly becomes completely okay with the idea of them committing suicide. But I say completely okay with the idea. You might not realize the relief that this actually invokes. I had an awakening on the topic of suicide in november 2018 whilst I was on a trip (not a pyschedelic trip) in Switzerland. I actually had been suicidal in 2017 (You might be curious as to how and why that happened. You can find more details on that on the justpaste.it link in the very first post of this thread) And in november 2018, I wasn't actively suicidal, depressed or desperate or anything, but there was this sort of strange fear that I might end up committing suicide at one point in the future, and i dreaded the idea. Will edit this further later. Need to take some rest now.

Tuesday January 14th to Wednesday January 15th Once again, there's a lot of things I could write about regarding all that has happened the last couple of days, but really, I just want to stick what's on my mind right now. I don't really care too much of some things get lost and forgotten because I didn't write it down. For those who are interested, I wrote a nice little article on facebook about why atheism and rationalism is in fact ironically irrational. In this article, I cover how people delude themselves by thinking that Truth is about hard, objective facts, based on 'evidence' taken from the physical world https://justpaste.it/1mhxf actually, I think that's all I wanna say today. But to give a heads up: the main topic of past couple of days has been music, but also a bit of sexuality.

It's funny because this issue of getting aggrevated of people not responding back to you has lately really been working on my nerves as well. Honestly, it's just how it goes. Sometimes people are busy, sometimes people are distracted and forget, sometimes people don't know what to say back or don't just want to merely respond because they 'should', that they don't like that feeling of obligation, and sometimes people just don't care. And sometimes it's also something that's not a request, question, suggestion, or anything that doesn't really need a response. Personally, I also don't like in some situations to respond to something that is just merely the socially conditioned idea of what politeness is supposed to be. For instance, when somebody wishes me a happy new year for some reason responding back to that feels like such a mechanical way of acting, and because I don't like to feel like I'm mechanical I sometimes don't respond back to it. I do however pretty much always respond back to someone if I feel someone really could use or desires a response from me. If I notice that someone really wants to engage with me, then I will respect that and I will get back to them. Yeah I get pissed off at it too sometimes when people don't seem to have, as you said, the "common courtesy" to respond when a response is appropriate, but what can I do about it? Do I keep myself pissed off about it, blaming other people for their shortcomings and becoming self-righteous by feeling morally superiour because 'I am the one who does have the respect to respond'? None of that is going to help me. What I can do, however, is just to look at myself and ask myself: "How can I learn from this? What lesson can be taken from this? What is the universe trying to teach me?" If you are open to spiritual notions, I would suggest entertaining the idea that existence deliberately set up this situation for you so you had the opportunity to transcend some of your lower egoic self by. And the only way to transcend it is to become aware of it, and often you don't become aware of it until it/you get(s) triggered. If you look at it from that viewpoint, you will view it as less personal.

Personally, I have a bit of a different take on it. I don't think a polyamorous relationship isn't any worse than a monogamous relationship from a objective standpoint. I think we as human beings desire different forms of relating with each other at different stages in our lifes. I don't think polyamory isn't better or worse than monogamy, but it just depends from person to person and the psychological make-up of somone. Personally, I'm looking as of right now to be in a more polyamorous setting with women because I would like to taste many different fruits, so to say. I like to meet many different kinds of souls and human expressions. I like to have a little bit more range of experiences rather than depth at this moment. Another person likes to commit to one specific person and go more in-depth with that person, and that is also fine. Another thing that I feel is a myth is that seeing many different people in an open relationship would diminish your capacity to love the person you're with at any given time because 'love would have to be distributed'. I don't think love works as a distribution, but more as a quality that someone has. I don't think you are able to love someone less because you would also 'giving away' your love to other people. I don't think love is something like a jug of water; something you only have a limited amount of and that the more glasses of water you would have (people), that the less water there can be for any given glass. I think love is more like the sun. You shine as brightly whether you're only seeing one person or whether you're seeing many people. Love doesn't diminish like that. The only counterargument that can be made is that in a monogamous relationship you give more time to the other person, and therefore more energy. Monogamy is more like... commitment to depth with one person. Going as deeply as possible into the soul of another being. Polyamory (the healthy version of it), is more like spreading love out on a broader basis, but maybe giving a little bit less depth and time per person. You could also see it as the difference between a well-known widespread public teacher who has a very wide reach and therefore affects a lot of people, and a counselor who spends lots of time and energy with and to individual people and therefore is a bit more healing and effective per person that he/she is seeing, but doesn't see or reach a big quantity of people. From my personal take on it, if someone allows me to be free and totally accepts me for the fact that I also have interest in seeing other people, then I would only love that person more for her being totally able to accept me and give me this freedom. I don't want to take someone as my possession, and I don't expect the same behaviour from someone else. I really respect someone who doesn't want to take me as their possession. Of course, monogamy doesn't have to be possessive, but it often turns out to be that way because people exercise an unhealthy version of it. In fact, there is no reason for these different people to be seperated. It is for instance also possible to organize something like... a threesome . In that case, nobody (or less other partners) would even have to be left out. In conclusion, polygamy isn't worse than monogamy. It depends on the person, his/her psychology, his/her point in his/her development, the individual needs, the growth stage etc... I would advice you, OP, to consider the suggestion that love wouldn't be something that diminishes because your partner is seeing other people. Yes, there is perhaps less time spent together and for that reason there may comparatively less depth created, but for the time that you are actually together, the way I feel about it is that the love shouldn't be any less than if you had a monogamous relationship with that person. And don't try to make your partner commit to you exclusively. Try to make it a practice in love that you have the compassion to allow him to have the freedom to see other people. Possessiveness is not love. But... There may also be a strong innate and non-egoic authentic desire to actually have a monogamous committed relationship, and in that case it is probably better to break up with him and look for someone who is able and willing to commit. And don't worry about being selfish. Sometimes you need to be selfish because first you sometimes need to love and care for yourself first before you will be able to care and love for others again. Being able to love others means to be able to love and respect yourself and your authentic needs also. And of course, also take into account if your partner is the right kind of person you truly want to be with, whether he's monogamous or polyamourous... Just consider with yourself what you truly want to do. Leave you ideas behind of what you 'should' do, and follow your gut.

I'd like to share with you a practice that I had found out about in the summer of 2019. It was during the first day of my intended vision quest in which I was meant to get a vision about my life's purpose (and to be honest, it kinda failed but that was alright in the end) It was during one of these moments that once in a while came along where I was just really stuck in confusion and a lot of mental pressure. And the feeling of just not knowing what to do with myself and my mind, how I was meant to get myself out of this. But I had taken a notebook with me for that vision quest, in which I was meant to journal how my experience of these days up in a remote hut in the norwegian mountains was going to be. What I tried to do was just to be very present to thoughts, feelings and sensations, and try to be very much in the moment. But I felt that the effectiveness of this practice was limited and not as satisfying or effective as I would've liked it to be. But then, suddenly an idea occured to me. The idea was: What if I try to do this same practice of being mindful and present, but whilst actually writing down in real-time what I'm thinking, feeling and experiencing? What if I simply start naming everything that I am thinking and feeling, not judging it, not interpreting anything, but just being very keen and alert on what my mind is doing and what I'm experiencing, and writing it down exactly as it is? And that's when I discovered a very, very powerful technique that I personally found to be much more profound and powerful than simply doing mindfulness without any tools, without any method. Now don't get me wrong: I think regular mindfulness and meditation practices have its place, and should probably be used far more often than the technique described. This technique that I'm covering in this post, however, is something to be used when your identification with your mind is too deep-seated and too intense for regular mindfulness and meditation practice to access it. There is just something about writing and putting something on paper (or in an online comment) that is just so immensely powerful. That's why I personally love journaling and writing so much. It just gets the ideas and thoughts that sometimes are stuck and sticky in my head out there, and it provides a sense of distance and relief. Once I start writing my thoughts down, I start to feel that the thoughts that I'm writing down are really getting out of my system. Or at least, a sense of clarity and distance is coming in. I can start to feel like these thoughts are not essentially defining me, and now these thoughts suddenly have taken on the form as an object of study and investigation, which suddenly turns it from dense and sticky to very intriguing and fascinating. This technique that I'm going to talk about here is particularly useful for what I would call 'emergency situations'. Emergency situations imply that the mess that your mind is making is really intense and intrusive, and you just don't seem to be able to create any distance with you and the noise by doing regular meditation and mindfulness practices, or not sufficiently enough. I personally haven't used this method in quite a while now, as my mind has been a lot calmer the past couple of months, but I know I can always resort to it when I would be grasped and dragged along by some intrusive and obsessive stream of mind activity. That breeds comfort in me. It is very, very important that this practice is done with having absolute zero judgement about what you're thinking and/or feeling. This is the trickiest part of the practice. Many people tend to already have their judgements, interpretations and assumptions ready about how things should be and how things should not be. They already have a narrative for themselves of who they are and how particular thoughts and feelings fit into the context of the identity that they have. For instance, if they feel a lot of shame, they may become ashamed about that shame, thinking: "Why am I feeling all this shame? I have been working on myself for such a long time now. It should be gone by now! I am not making any progress! This is never going to work, I am never going to get out of this!". Now that these kind of thoughts of discouragement and even despair are not as uncommon as you may think, and even people who have been on the path for some number of years can sometimes still have bouts where they feel hopeless and think that they are failing at it all. It is difficult but certainly possible with a very strong and keen intention to not allow yourself to become judgemental about whatever you're thinking and feeling and remain completely or at least largely impartial about and detached from whatever thoughts, sensations or feelings you're experiencing. And in my experience, it is even more effective if you name it, and in particular if you write it down in real-time, which is what this practice is about. The intention is to remain very, very objective. The idea is to be as a scientist towards your own experience. I really like that statement, because a (true) scientist does not make any assumptions. A true scientist does not jump to any conclusions. A true scientist is simply interested, curious, inquisitive. A true scientist just wants to know what's going on, wants to see, wants to observe, wants to investigate and experiment. This is the thing: If people were to treat their lives as if it were one big experiment, one big exploration, one big project for the sake of finding out about Truth, then there wouldn't be any suffering anymore if people were actually 100% keen on living their lives in that way. Because even the very painful stuff that one comes to encounter is just another experience that is very fascinating, very intriguing, something to be very curious about. ("ah this is interesting. What does it mean? how does it fit into the bigger picture? What can be learned from this? Let me feel into it and just explore it. What is this? It's fascinating!) But to be able to have that kind of appreciation and fascination towards even the painful stuff requires a very open and curious spirit. It requires someone who is genuinely interested in finding out what it's all about to the extent that this curiousity is more powerful, more vigorous than any form of fear. So if you can bring that attitude of immense curiousity towards your own experience into this practice, it will be incredibly helpful. It is this spirit of genuine impartial objective interest that will decide whether this technique will be effective for you or not. If you are more interested in judging yourself and having all kinds of interpretations about what should be done and should not be done and whether it is good or bad or not what's happening, then this practice will fail for you. So if you want to do this practice, grab a pen or pencil and a notebook, and start writing down whatever comes to mind, whatever comes into your awareness. You can write like this: And you can go on like that. As you have noticed in the example, it is possible for you to start attaching yourself to the notion of how the practice is meant to be done. You may find yourself so keen on doing this exercise correctly, that you lose your sense of flexibility and your contact with your intuitive guiding system. The thing is, whatever acts you do aside from your practice to write all that you come to think and experience down, is really not essential here. When taking for instance this example of doubting whether you should scratch or not... It is totally fine to scratch. There is nothing wrong in doing that. Whether you scratch or not is simply not the point. What is the point, however, is that you note down how your decision to scratch yourself affects your mental-emotional system. Write down what thoughts and feelings occur, and you can also describe to yourself how the itching is experienced as and how the scratching is experienced as physically, and of course how the itching and scratching is experienced as on a mental-emotional level. You can also take a short break from the practice if you want and drink a cup of water or something, if that's what you feel really eager to do. You don't have to create this tightness in yourself of 'needing to stick with the practice at all costs'. Just... keep your keenness and alertness and a strong intention at least whilst you're doing it. That is basically the practice. Just be very, and be very, very keen that you don't start judging yourself. If you do start judging yourself, the moment you notice that you are doing that, then write it down that you are doing that, what thoughts are accompanied with it, what feelings are associated with it, and at the moment you do that, you once again have stepped back on the right track. That's basically what meditation and mindfulness is in essence all about. Whenever you get distracted, even when you get distracted on the topic of distraction itself, simply be aware of that, and at the moment you're aware of it, you're right back on track. So never start analyzing if you're doing it correctly or not, whether you're a good practitioner or not. The moment you become aware that you got distracted, you are a good practitioner. The moment you start thinking or doubting about whether you are doing it correctly or not, at that exact moment you have lost the path, and at the exact moment you become aware that this is what's happening, you're right back on track. Of course, there is always a time and place to think and analyze and start forming certain ideas and interpretations. There's always a time and place for that and I wouldn't even recommend against doing it. Very deep, genuine and inquisitive philosophy can certainly allow you to grow and expand your awareness and accelerate your inner growth. But there is also a time when you want to let that go and focus more on Being. And that's when other practices come in, such as the one described in this post.

=D

Thoughts have a great momentum. Just because you have thoughts does not mean you are failing your practice. The same for negative emotions. Just because you are having negative emotions also does not mean you are failing your practice. Awareness means to be with whatever is. It doesn't need to be pleasant, it doesn't mean you'll immediately have a silent mind. It doesn't mean any of that. It simply means that you look at whatever is occuring in the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, comfortable or uncomfortable, wanted or unwanted, and you stay with that. True meditation and mindfulness is not about trying to feel or be a particular way, but it is about being with whatever happens to be the case. The distance that you create by doing so, is the reward of your practice. And that reward may not (at least initially) even be experienced as happiness or peace or bliss or whatever, but just as a lack of identification with thoughts and feelings and therefore taking a step back from being in suffering. Don't worry about having a lot of thoughts. Only if you become really advanced will you start noticing that you will barely have any thoughts anymore. But there is no reason to fear or oppose your thoughts. Just let them do their thing, but don't identify yourself with it. The practice is done NOW. Whenever you find yourself worrying about whether you're present enough or not, is the moment you get identified and have lost the path. The moment you're worrying about being present is exactly the moment you have lost presence. However, the moment you become aware that this is happening, is the exact moment when you're back on track. So the only power you truly have is the way you can relate with yourself, right here, right now. There is no other time to be able to do that, because future or past do not exist as an experiential reality as such. Read "the power of now" by Eckhart Tolle if you haven't already.

Thursday January 9th/(Friday January 10th) So I have been starting to actually use Tinder semi-actively now. I have two phones which I have used to set up two different accounts. One account focuses on the 18-35 age group of women, and the other account focuses on 35+ ladies. I like a bit more seasoned, mature women, but at the same time I also would like to explore some younger fruits. Really, I like to experience both so I can have a good diversity of experience. Younger women are more sexually alluring, but I reckon them to be a bit more unreliable and flaky. Older women (hopefully) have a bit of a more compassionate and open-minded attitude, and thus hopefully not as much of an ego. That's really the most important thing for me in older women; That they wouldn't have as much of an ego to deal with, that they would have more integrity. Girls with a big ego are just a turnoff to me. I am a sensitive person and I am seeking for someone to respect and emphatize with that. Not that all or maybe not even most young girls have a big ego, and neither are older women automatically free of ego. But generally speaking, I feel that it is true. Though... I did have an experience with a 37-year old woman that would perhaps not totally seem to be supporting that statement, but I have to be fair that I am too early to really make it justified to judge that. I don't know if having an "ego" is even the right word. Calling it "lack of integrity" would be a better statement. But again, that would only be so if this woman I'm talking about weren't to respond to my latest sent message anymore. So what happened is basically this. I got a match with a girl/woman which I will for privacy reasons name R, and I initiated contact with R, and the conversation seemed to go really well, and she actually liked all of my messages (I didn't really know that was even a thing), and because things seemed to be going so smoothly I decided to take a bit of a risk, and since then (the message was sent about 24 hours ago) I haven't heard from her anymore. You may be thinking: "Well, is it really justified to already start writing or complaining about the fact that you didn't receive a message in only 24 hours?" Really, it is not so much about whether it is justified or that it would be 'too soon' to write about it, but it is much more about the feelings and thoughts that the situation provokes in me. It is not so much an attack towards her, but me needing to let something off my chest. The way I'm writing might seem personal, but really, I just primarily need to vent off some steam, need to express myself. So her lack of a reaction frustrates me. It is very, very possible that she will still react, and possibly even react positively, but the lack of reaction triggers something in due to similair situations I've encountered in the past I'm going to put the transcript of the conversation here, for context Also, when I use parenthesis () it means that whethever was between the parenthesis was part of the actual conversation, and in the actual conversation it was also written in parenthesis. When I use brackets [ ] it means that I added my own comments about the conversation to it, right here right now. And the braces { } means it was part of the actual conversation, but it used to describe something which cannot be said in actual words either because I want to disclose information or I use it to describe an emoji which cannot be accurately replicated with the emojis actualized.org has at its disposal. So from that point on she hasn't replied to me anymore. And it triggers me a little bit even imagining that she isn't going to reply anymore. Let's just act as if the hypothetical scenario that she isn't going to reply anymore would be true for the sake of ease of writing and expressing. I know it's still possible she will reply, but it just makes it easier to write if I act as if she wouldn't Why do I get triggered? Because I feel the way I approached the situation was possibly a bit... quick in asking her to meet, or perhaps at least in her perception, but at the same time I also allow myself to be vulnerable by indicating that I'm really not that experienced and good with women, and that I'm experimenting and exploring and trying new things, and that therefore it may not come across as maybe she would've liked it to see. But I'm open about all of this, and I feel that she doesn't show a whole lot of compassion for my situation by not at the very least giving me feedback about how my behaviour affects her. Honestly, I think that after having encountered this situation of the girl simply not responding or saying anything so many times, that I think I rather just have her scold me and insult me and tell me I'm a horrible person. I think I'd rather have that than another girl just planly ignoring me and not giving me any feedback about my behaviour, also taking into account that most of the time I try to come across as respectful, sensitive and emphatizing I get that ladies may be instinctively not so sexually attracted to sensitive and respectful behaviour, but at the very least have some fucking decency by at least giving me feedback about how the way I act affects your behaviour, instead of blatantly ignoring a question or request. Say that you don't want to meet me, or that you don't want to continue the conversation. You don't even have to say why (although I do prefer that). At the very least just express yourself and tell what's going on! It seems like many people in the society that I live in seem to think it's okay to not take any responsibility for the way they affect other people if they consider that other person not being worth their time and energy. And the strange thing is that sometimes when you actually meet the person in real life, they turn out to be quite a nice and friendly person to hang out with too. With one of the places I was going to volunteer at, which is for a great deal centered on life questions and people who have these questions, the woman who I was supposed to have contact have to become a volunteer also totally wasn't attentive to my desires and needs as someone who wanted to become a volunteer. I had missed an appointment once, and after that point I tried to re-engage contact several times and only after making one final attempt to reinitiate another appointment did she reply, and we had an appointment, and that appointment was today. And it then surprises me somewhat that this woman I had this appointment with then turns out to be a fairly nice person to talk with. She did not apologize or anything, but she didn't seem like the person who would be careless about other people, which also wouldn't have been appropriate for the kind of work she's doing. And it just makes me wonder... Is it just a socially conditioned type of behaviour that many people think it's simply okay to not be attentive and sympathetic towards other people when that contact is online and the other person is of no use or interest to them anymore? I personally have this sentiment of really being attentive towards other people whilst being online very strongly. The only way in which perhaps I'm not being very attentive is that I can be quite slow in responding to other people, but I (almost) never ever forget that I still need to get back to the other person. If I feel that it might take me a long time to get back to them because I wouldn't have the metnal space in me to give them an attentive answer, then I will say that to them, that I need tot take a little bit of time. The only person who I don't really care so much about responding to a question, request or suggestion, would be my mother. I have to admit that if she sends me some link which I have really no interest in exploring, I just won't say anything about it unless she asks me in person. Otherwise, I probably won't. But look at me though, mister morally superior. Whilst from the human perspective I do think other people should really make some moreeffort to be attentive to other people and give them feedback and tell them what's going on if the other person makes a request, asks something or gives a suggestion (even if that feedback is painful and uncomfortable, but as long it's at least honest from their perspective), even though I feel on a human level people do have that responsibility to be more attentive, compassionate and sympathetic, from the absolute or the higher point of view things are different. See, I can sit here and be all angry and self-righteous at her or other people, but in the end, who is going to do that any good if I start acting that way? I can stay stuck in the level of the human ego, feeling offended and projecting my sense of what 'should be' onto others, and being angry at them for them not holding themselves to that standard, or I can own up to the fact that this situation triggers some pain in me, and be keen in transforming and working through this pain so that the pain that was already there (but just below the surface), now has an opportunity to come into the light of my consciousness and be healed. So whilst on the level of the human ego I'm a bit triggered and offended by the fact that she doesn't respect my vulnerable and daring experimental way of behaving, that she doesn't show compassion for the fact that still have to learn a lot and that I'm certainly not yet complete, from the higher viewpoint I can even feel a little bit of gratitude that this situation occured because it gives me an opportunity to grow and to gain more depth as a person But let's just wait and see if maybe she actually does get back to me

Monday January 6th 2020 It's been a while. Or at least, it's been a while comparatively to how much I had been writing before the last post. So what have I been doing? Well... Barely anything proactively. I've simply been having a bout in which I didn't want to do anything at all that could even provoke a little bit of stress or resistance, what I would have called this "second-degree struggle" in the previous post. For the most part, I have been doing energy/shadow work, I have been exploring my sexuality a little bit, and I have been gaming a lot, wanting to sort of drown myself in that and forget about everything else. Even though gaming is not the primary thing that I have been doing the most time-wise, it is the thing that has been most on my mind. I am energetically quite sensitive so on top of the fact that I have an almost constant energetical pressure rising up in me even if I were not to be gaming, the gaming itself and the physical position I sit in and the energetical emission/radiation from the screen and electricity (at least so I suspect), also contribute to the fact that I very often have to take long breaks and do some energy work before I feel ready to continue. So even though I have not been gaming as much as I have been doing energy work, much of the time I was doing energy work I just kind of did it with this attitude to "get it over with" so I could return to gaming again. So most of my interest in the past 3 weeks or so has been involved in playing OSRS (Oldschool Runescape). There is something so enticing and addictive about playing a video game like OSRS. It gives me a distraction from being very stimulation-less. Doing energy work, it really isn't something that is very interesting to do. It itself isn't even that bad anymore, but it is simply the mere fact that I get so bored and restless doing that, because I have nothing for my attention to be really occupied with. The energy work itself isn't really interesting enough for that alone for me to be occupied with. So since not too long I also have started to try listening to podcasts or lectures or music when I'm doing that energy work. But being so incredibly lazy and unproductive for a long time starts after a while getting to me a little bit. There have been bouts where I had felt that "I should be doing something a bit more productive now", but at the same time I had felt this... You could call it resistance but even more than that it was just lack of conviction or faith that actually trying to be productive would have actually been the right thing to do. For instance, when thinking about wanting to learn to play guitar, I instantly resent it a little bit because I did not feel automatically drawn to it. Really, I have just been very suspicious about almost anything the mind was saying that I "should" do, instead of what I naturally felt drawn to do. Feeling over thinking. Because with feeling, there is no struggle in doing something. If you go by feeling, it will drawn you in almost automatically. It is like an attractive magnet. And many other things like learning to play guitar or going to the gym, that felt like I was going against a somewhat repulsive magnet, trying to get myself to do it anyway by sheer willpower. Another person might just think that pushing yourself through that repulsive force would have been the right thing to do, but as I happen to be so clever, I cannot help myself but to doubt that that actually would be true. How do I know for sure that this is what I'm actually meant to be doing? What if I just stop trying to go against the force of this repulsive magnet and just allow myself to completely surrender to the energy of the attracting magnet? Such an attitude, I would then think, is that attitude of Tao, of going with the flow and embracing it. If you can truly surrender to such an attitude, then life becomes very relaxing. I thought about that yesterday... What if I simply stop trying to want anything at all anymore and from this point on simply go along with wherever the river, the attracting magnet, is taking me? But I wasn't so sure because I had gone through this phase of absolutely allowing yourself to go along with the attracting magnet, and in the end it didn't go very well. This attitude (appeared to have) largely contributed to my dark period in 2017. But what if I just take the leap of faith and just do it, I thought. After all, the situation is different now to how it was back then. I am a different person so different things may happen. But it seemed so strange to me... Because even though some things were indeed happening on their own accord (such as primarily gaming-related and sexuality-related goals), other things such as learning how to play guitar or going to the gym would then seem like they would never happen on their own accord. Yet at the same time, at least the idea of playing guitar was something I wasn't really willing to give up. At least not if letting go of the desire to play guitar would mean the same as actually never learning it, as actually never acting upon it again. Could I trust that this impulse to want to practice playing guitar would happen on it's own? Would the desire turn into an attractive magnet? Or would I by giving up on the need to play guitar actually never get to practice it anymore, and therefore I would never learn to play guitar? Because if giving up on the need to learn new stuff such as playing guitar would mean I would never ever learn something new in my life of things that are outside the field of the attractive magnet, then would it really be worth pursuing this attitude of what i would then name "surrender"? There really is this sometimes quite strong desire to learn new things in my life, even if that would mean having to will and discipline myself to get it done in order to get through the force of the repulsing magnet. So this caused some confusion for me... I didn't want to struggle in order to learn something, i felt like it perhaps wasn't necessary, but at the same time it would inhibit me from or at least delay the learning of quite a couple of new skillsets or pieces of knowledge. Something strange happened a couple of hours ago though. I thought about this topic, and the confusion it evoked in me reminded me of the way I felt into this dark phase in 2017. That phase was also coupled with a lot of confusion and the struggle that was about this: "I want to be able to will myself to get out of this, but how can I convince myself or make myself believe that I have to struggle and fight to overcome the force of the repulsing magnet?". Eventually I simply had to act and discipline myself, but it was terribly frightening and difficult because I had to accept the idea that maybe I had to really push myself and force myself to get certain shit done, causing sometimes a tremendous amount of resistance and inner division. The greatest dilemma was that I couldn't really feel like I could trust my feelings alone anymore, and that I also had to acknowledge that the sometimes very disturbing things that my mind was saying about what I should do could also potentially be true. So thinking that I would have to take a similair attitude to the situation now as I did when climbing out of that dark period in 2017, naturally evoked some fear in me. Because letting go of the notion that you only wanna go by your feelings and your 'intuition', means you will suddenly find yourself in a space in which absolutely nothing is certain about what should be done, and the most disturbing possibilities or ideas can suddenly have potential validity to them. You simply lack something to ground yourself in, as the ground you stood on before started becoming quicksand and you had to leave. Luckily I am a bit more matured than I was two years ago, so even though I may feel some pressure to make a transition and to start leaving this fairly comfortable but somewhat fruitless ground I had been standing on for the past couple of weeks (or at least so I think this is what's happening now), I now feel like I am able to make a more gradual and smoother transition. Where yesterday I thought that maybe it was a possibiility that I was simply to perhaps try to abandon all 'needs', right now I am thinking of allowing the mind to have its say even though it may not have a very deep connection to something intuitive. Though I do notice that not just any idea is instantly acceptable, and that there do appear do be new gateways which I had not seen before. A few hours ago, after accepting the possibility that perhaps I needed to slowly abandon the old ground and perhaps follow the desire to learn something things, the first thing I did was to pick up the guitar. This was the primary thing I had been having some desire somewhere to do, but had not come to do it as it still hadn't been an attracting magnet. I had been skeptical towards doing it, thinking that if I don't happen to do it spontaneously, then maybe it's not worth doing at all. The strange thing once again was that, once I acted upon this desire and started playing guitar, it really wasn't something uncomfortable. It was quite alright. I haven't been practicing just because of this distrust of mind-based desires as opposed to feeling-based desires. I want to learn to play guitar because I have a vision for myself that I can pick up a guitar anywhere and start sharing a song with my environment. But the act of learning guitar itself is not something that feels attractive if I were to speak from the perspective of my feelings. It's for a vision, it is not so much for fun. I don't happen to do it just for fun, but I do manage to sometimes somewhat enjoy it once I actually am doing it. The debate here is vision vs pleasure. Short-term vs long-term. Do you want to do something because of the person you can see yourself becoming with it, and you enjoy that idea, or do you want to do something because you like to allow yourself to let go and be contempt with what is right here, right now, what you feel attracted to right in this moment. Just the Being vs Doing debate. I (so far) naturally prefer Being much more. Especially in a society where everyone is just doing, doing, doing... But can I allow myself to just go after and act upon a certain vision that I have for myself, and work towards it? It's funny how I can be immensely skeptical towards the dimension of Doing, and how I rarely question myself when I am fully engrossed in Being. In this physical plane, is Being alone truly enough, or do I need Doing for doing's sake as well. Not doing combined with being alone, but doing alone. But I must be careful that I don't start getting the idea in my mind that going by feeling is the only proper way to go. The ironic thing is that the believe that you can't trust what the mind says and that you should go by feeling, is once again something that is of the mind. If there is a desire of the mind and a desire of the feelings that are both equally strong, then how do I know that the desires of the feelings would be more trustworthy than the desires of the mind? The thing with Being, or following the attracting magnets, is that it requires no energy of the "personal will", as Adyashanti calls it. You just get taken by the flow of the river, and you in a way don't have to do anything for it at all. It is automatic. And to actually direct your energy and focus and discipline yourself towards something, takes a whole lot more energy. It depends though on how much energy you give it. I think what I'm probably gonna go with from now on, at least for the time being, is to start picking up a few things again slowly, and at the same time be careful that I don't get too hurried and start wanting to do many things at once again. I feel like some change I may feel ready for now is to start practicing guitar every day at a set time of the day now. A recurring, structured event. That's like completely new to me, doing something in that way. But I feel like I may just be ready for that. Later edit: It's interesting how something can sometimes seem like such a big deal until you just get to it. There are two things I had in mind that I could do that were very similair in nature, but one I had a negative association with and the other one not. The first thing I could have done was to continue making the comprehensive word-document on the account plans I have for that OSRS hame I'm playing. The second thing was to make a document about how I can learn to play guitar and what songs I can practice with. The first option felt a bit more tempting to me, and the second option I felt some resistance towards, as I associated it with "strain" for some reason. The interesting thing is that the first option doesn't require any less energy than the second option. In fact, I think the first option gives a bit more of a headache as I really need to reflect and look up very specific information, as with the second I had in mind that I would just browse a little bit and write down or save a couple of things that sparked my interest. Primarily, I was just going to look how I can practice a song I don't know for myself and what songs I could use for that, and how to read tabs and chords, and how to time it all etc... I don't know why my mind associates certain actions with strain and heaviness and force whilst in reality once I just get to it it's usually not nearly as bad as I sometimes had imagined it to be. It is this whole idea of 'needing' to do something that I don't like. If I drop the idea that I need to do it and just do it, then it is way different then when I really try to pressure myself and hold myself to this task. So to clarify, when I just said that I would "just do it", I don't mean it in this way, with this kind of attitude. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0 If I can just drop the idea that it's some kind of chore or some kind of to-do list I have to work off, the attitude towards it changed. The insight here I think is that I just don't really like that part of myself that puts pressure on me in a similair way of how Shia acted in that video. If the pressure is not there —either because I had forgotten about the notion that it could be a chore or simply because I have been able to let go— then there is a completely different kind of attitude. But honestly, I can understand Shia's point of view. Sometimes I feel that way about myself too when I just don't happen to do anything at all and I got all of these excuses or reasons not to act up. The problem once again is that there is sucha vast array of logic possible, that literally everything can be put into doubt. And because I tend to want to act more through feeling than through logic, there is always more doubt and hesitation trying to activate myself as opposed to allowing myself to let loose and let go. But it does get me thinking. What if I "just do it", and I keep on "just doing it". Because maybe Shia is right. Maybe I need to drop all of this logic and "just do it". I feel just a yearning for learning to sing, learning to play guitar, and overcoming all the obstacles associated with it. i feel a yearning to keep at it, to keep on doing it, to not put it aside for long periods of a time anymore, or to pick it up more frequently. I just want to be that person who can sing, can play guitar, can combine singing and playing guitar, and express this to the world. I want to share my gifts to the world. And the slowness of it all of how slowly I am progressing can sometimes be quite frustrating. I feel like I just want to give at least a shot at practicing both singing and playing guitar on a daily basis. Like I said before, I used to dread any form of structure in my life, and there may still be some resistance, but I feel like now may be the right time for the first time in a long, long time to put something of this self-imposed structure in my life (other than perhaps brushing teeth, which even that I rarely used to do earlier in the past).

Thanks friend

Let's get to your question, OP. Be very careful when you start judging certain statements from certain people. ESPECIALLY be careful when that person is Osho. Osho doesn't care about contradicting himself. Osho doesn't mind offending or shocking people. In fact, that is a large part of his trade. He does that for a very deliberate reason. When you feel a certain resistance against a certain statement coming up, start looking at yourself first instead of judging the statement or the person who made the statement. It may be the case that you misinterpret it. Or it may be the case that you are biased to believe one thing but not another thing. Look at yourself first, and ask yourself if perhaps there is something about this statement that I fail to understand or appreciate because my awareness is not yet high enough to understand what is actually meant. This particular statement that Osho I said I find an interesting one. With Osho you never want to take his statements at face value, but you want to actually think about how this statement can potentially be interpreted in a way that is more in alignment with Truth. When he says that hatred can unite is it instantly clear to me what he probably meant. Just look at war. In war, the hatred gets channeled and projected towards an enemy. There is a division between "our army" and "their army", but at the same time this intense hostility bonds together people who want to fight together and alongside each other for the same cause. Hatred divides larger groups, but unites smaller groups (against the larger enemy group). You'd expect for instance that Neo-nazis can get along well and unite with other neo-nazi's as well. And love cannot unite? Well... I feel like in some context love definitely unites. But I feel that love cannot unite the way hatred can. I feel like true, deep love is more universal, not directed towards particular groups or parties or people. It's perhaps less interested to form something and rather wants to share something. I think Osho is probably talking about egos here. Maybe what Osho meant to say was: "Love cannot unite the way hatred can". Hatred can unite egos very well. It is a very toxic, dark kind of unity, but a sort of unity is there nevertheless. Love can also unite, but it cannot unite in the same way that an ego can unite. It unites in a different fashion. I've heard Osho say that true love is like a sun. It shines it love upon whoever comes into contact with it, but it doesn't choose or direct where to send the love to. Anyway, as you can see, there are different ways to think about this particular statement. I don't fully understand either what exactly Osho meant with his statement, but there is so much I myself stil don't understand and there is still so much philosophy that could be delved into, that I'm not going to discard Osho's statement just because I don't fully understand it. To appreciate Osho you have to be very much willing to not attach yourself to his words so much, and just see what he's trying to do: He's just throwing many different perspectives around in order to get you to detach from certain beliefs and idealogies you have attached yourself to. He's in fact very deliberately trying to trigger and offend people because the point where they get triggered is exactly the point where there ignorance is. In order to appreciate Osho you have to be very much willing to not take his statements so seriously. Read/listen to him not in the way where you analyze and try to fact-check, but read him in the way like you would read a novel or listen to music. Don't let there be a wrong or right when reading him. Just try to have some admiration and wonder for the many different perspectives and possibilities he is throwing at you. Just marvel at it, wonder about it, but don't try to agree or disagree with hm whilst reading him. Because don't you see what you're doing? If you only can come to respect someone you absolutely 100% share their ideas and viewpoints with, you will literally find nobody on earth that you can respect and look up to. But if for instance Osho shares 90% of what you consider to be great and significant wisdom, and 10% of what you consider to be "bullshit", then why not skip over the bullshit and appreciate the wisdom that you feel he does have to share, instead of discarding him as a person altogether just because there are a couple of points you felt triggered or offended by Even better would be to question yourself and your own assumptions when you encounter a part where you feel triggered, but the next best thing to do is to just skip over that part where you don't feel comfortable with and get to another part in the book which you do feel inspired by.

@Spiral_Wizardry_Fan http://oshoworld.com/e-books/ Check this out too. This is a whole library of E-books

(about) Thursday December 19th I will (probably) edit this later (if I act within 48 hours after posting this), but now I really feel like I want to talk about something else first. Saturday December 21st I've gone into a phase of passivity, of yin. No goals that need to be met, nothing specifically that needs to be accomplished. I am going with the flow of whatever I find comfortable at the moment, and I am capable of allowing myself to be that way without any pressure or guilt. It is relaxing. I'm becoming aware of the fact that even if I act completely spontaneously without any needs or requirements for myself, it does not necessarily altogether inhibit my creative drive or the drive to improve myself upon certain areas. For instance, I had written a lot in my journal the past 10 days or so (but not the last two days). This writing for the most part was spontaneous and without any pressure. I've also noticed that without any inner friction or without any sort of egoic desire to discipline or control myself, that I've taken up a lot of action towards trying to meet a prostitute. It's interesting because there was a sort of discipline and structure in trying to go about doing that (like trying to contact at least 1 girl a day), but this discipline and structure happened on its own accord in a way. I think the key thing here is that there was no division within me. It didn't require a fight or struggle to make myself do it. Maybe a first-degree struggle, but no second-degree struggle. The first-degree struggle is when your energy naturally wants to move somewhere but it encounters a blockage or limitation. As the energy still naturally wants to move there, there needs to be no additional energy spent for you to start coming up with solutions or the courage to overcome it. The river flows that way. Even though there may be an obstacle, because the river flows that way, the more and more water (energy) starts building up before the obstruction in the path of the river, the more likley over time it will become that the obstacle will simply give away by the ever-increasing pressure of the water. Or otherwise, the water will just find a way around it. So there's something flowing within me that makes things happen on its own accord. I feel like it can even invoke a certain sense of duty for structure and discipline in me. That sense of duty arises without me needing to make it be there. Then there is second-degree struggle. Second-degree struggle I would say is trying to redirect the flow of the river because I think the river should end up or go by specific places on the land. Second-degree struggles imply all the 'shoulds'. Second-degree struggle is in a way also a lot more constricted and heavier than the first-degree struggle, because the second-degree struggle implies fighting against yourself, being divided against yourself. One part of you wants to relax, wants to take it easy. The mind says that I should not take it easy, that there are some goals and obstacles to be overcome, that one needs to redirect to flow of the river to a specific route that from the limited perspective of the (ego-)mind seems more desirable as it is in accordance to its ideas of what is good and what is bad. If there is no second-degree struggle, then the first degree struggle of encountering an obstacle is in a way not os frustrating. This is because there is much more space around it. As Eckhart Tolle puts it: There is pain, but there is no suffering. Pain is what happens, what is inevitably a part of life. Suffering is what you do to yourself because you don't accept yourself. Suffering is saying "No", and in pain alone there is still a "yes". You could even say there's a sort of third-degree struggle, in which you start becoming really frustrated at yourself that you're not succeeding in your attempts to redirecting the flow of life and start creating a sort of complex of shame, guilt and self-hatred about that. When I am talking about the differences between pain and suffering here, and when I talk about saying "yes" and "no", what has to be clearly understood is that I'm talking on the level or dimension of Being. I'm not talking on the dimension of Doing. This is where people very often get confused. Being implies your attitude. It implies your capacity to yield and to witness. It quite literally refers to a self that is different from everything that that self witnesses. Doing is the level of action. Doing simply means the way you shape your life by what actions and activities you participate in. As Being is different than doing, you can be very ambitious and do a lot of stuff, yet at the same time be very connected to Being, to a space surrounding these activities, and thereby you can stay relaxed even as you're doing a lot of stuff. Yes, it's easier to connect to Being if you aren't doing a whole lot of stuff, but that does not mean that it's either that you're just Being and not doing anything, or that you're completely preoccupied with doing and thereby have lost all touch with Being or witnessing. It can be both, but that requires a high degree of awakeness, and therefore there are very few people who are capable of fully integrating and living in both dimensions at the same time. In the phase that I'm currently in, I would like to work towards being able to integrate both. Currently, it's more like it alternates in a fashion where I'm like 1/2 weeks more passive and yielding, and then it is often followed by a phase where I'm like 1/2 weeks more active. I'm not exactly sure if those numbers are right, but at least you got the idea that I'm alternating them. Of course I find it more easy and comfortable to be in the Yin-phase of passivity once I get to the point where I'm able to completely surrender to that, because not only is the Yin-phase more relaxing almost by definition, but it's also the phase that I was strongly familiar and even attached to in the past; A phase in my life in which I wasn't really alternating between yin and yang so much but just stayed primarily in Yin. So Yin is where I come from, and Yin is therefore also what I'm in some extent most comfortable with. I've still not completely outgrown my attachments to being detached, you could say, so therefore I still tend to be more Yin than I tend to be Yang, although I'm experimenting now with bringing more Yang into my life. So in a way you could say that I don't give Yang as much of my totality as I give Yin. I feel usually quite a bit more hesitant and uncomfortable with going into Yang as to going into Yin. Yin is like my safe base, my home, and yang is for when I'm feeling a bit more adventurous and want to go outside my home and explore a little bit. I know that for many people the opposite is the case. They know very well how to be preoccupied all the time and to constantly be doing stuff, but they find it very hard to actually relax and perhaps even literally do nothing. Then their Yang would be their home. Referring back to the story of the stream and first and second-degree struggle and so forth... I am now trying to see if it's possible for myself to give some degree of conscious and willful direction to my life without making it into a second-degree struggle. For instance... Just now there was a moment when I wanted to drop all needs to create any sort of obligation for myself whatsoever and just play some OSRS, and relax into this spontaneous yin-state. The idea of doing something like once again trying to create an elaborate plan on how to structure and organize my life using internet information seemed absolutely exorbitant to me at that point and I knew there was no way I wanted to do something like that right now. That seemed like way too much second-degree struggle to me. But does a lack of second-degree struggle mean that you can't give some willful direction to your life whatsoever? Do you then only go with the flow, or are there more possibilities? It occured to me that —although not my very first idea or preference— that playing or practicing the guitar was also a very worthwhile consideration. Practicing to play guitar is this sort of activity with a strange kind of middle-ground. I don't happen to really do it if I just go with the flow and not trying to create and sort of direction for myself, but at the same time it's something that I don't really find to be much of a problem at all once I'm actually doing it. And this is interesting. Because this indicates to me that there is some opportunity or possibility to put down certain structures or items in the path of the river of life so that the river wll run a (slightly) different course, without simultaneously creating this layer of second-degree struggle by doing so. And I do want to learn to play guitar, and I don't even mind it so much when I'm actually playing it, but if I go by pure spontaneity without ANY willful direction I'm trying to give to my life, then I most likely won't end up playing guitar very often, if at all. So i feel like sometimes there's a space of a possibility to create a direction for your life instead of it all happening to you and you going along with it (even if out if this 'allowing to happen' activities and actions arise spontaneously). There is a certain space, a certain expanse, but you can't push it too far otherwise you'll once again end up in this second-degree struggle. I think I've already talked about this topic before, but I feel that now I've found a way to give better expression to it. I feel that perhaps a good way to go about it, or just something to experiment with, is to try to see where there are perhaps some opportunities to enter into this space where goals can be worked towards without creating this second-degree struggle when I'm more in my Yin-phase, and to actually remind myself to relax a bit more and to take it easy at certain moments when I'm more in my Yang-phase. This might just mitigate the extremes a little bit, and get me closer to the "razor-sharp edge of the middle way".

Well, what to say about that... I suppose you're right about that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess the reason I said it is because I'd like to to a certain degree inform other people that are watching about what's going on also. Also, for any other readers here: I just edited my latest journal entry (the second post about wednesday the 18th) to include a part 3 and a part 4, in which I talked in part 3 about a walk with a friend that I had which went surprisingly well, and which I talked in part 4 about how the singing class went and the revelation I had during it. I also certainly have something to talk about of what happened today, but I'm not in the mood to write about that right now, so that will probably come tomorrow.

Well I send you a private message about this. We could discuss this in public also but I'd prefer not so let's keep it with the private messages I'd say.

Part 2 I guess 3 things happened today. The topic on singing I'll come back to at the end. What happened first today was that I had another appointment with my new sex-coach (although she's been more of a sensual masseuse than a coach) Our meeting was more or less a repitition of the first meeting. The massage got a bit more heated. I did get a firm erection this time around, and she a couple of times touched or massaged a couple of spots around my genital region that rekindled the sexual energy that made my semi-erect penis again more erect and stiff. I also liked it when she massaged my front body with both her hands and arms. That also made me feel quite aroused. She did however at no point give me an actual handjob I notice that I'm a bit more self-conscious now about typing this than I felt last time when I talked about sex. My face is now actually visible on my profile picture, so my identity is not hidden anymore (though I doubt hardly anyone actually knows me in real-life). However, last time I typed about this I think I had already updated my profile picture to what it is now, so I don't think nothing has really changed too much, yet somehow I now find myself being a bit more self-conscious and uncomfortable about it. But even though I feel that way a bit more, I really do value being able to express myself fully uncensored and wth very descriptive and detailed language, so I will continue along the same lines as I have been. So that was once again an intersting meeting with my sex-coach. But... even though that was nice and all, I still feel like I am missing a possibility for conversation about everything that's going on in my system that is sex-related. I thought what had happened last meeting was just a sort of introduction to get me continue going to her sessions. I had not expected that I would be faced with almost the same situation again. Yes, I also had the assignment of staying alert to the sensations and/or breath, which I did still definitely give value to, but that and the massage alone felt to me to be as... insufficient; As pleasant as the massage may have been. I also wanted to have an open-hearted conversation about my sexuality for some time. Really, I wanted both. Both the massage and a conversation. I'll address this to her if she happens to do it this way again the next meeting. But if I had to choose, if I could only have one or the other, I think I still would choose for the massage. I really do like the fact that she's not a convention sex therapist who ONLY talks about sex but at the same time does not give you some sort of means to experience your sexuality directly. I must admit I am starting to fantasize about actually having sex with my sex-coach. I doubt she would be willing to take it that far, though. But it does cater to a very appealing fantasy. "MILF sex-coach teaches younger guy about sex by example" Ha! I've seen too much porn... Still the fantasy lingers that she may be willing to give her clients the ultimate satisfaction of her coaching by utilizing her own body as a tool for teaching. I definitely like that fantasy. That she is willing to undress in the upcoming sessions where I can experiment with her body in differnent ways such as stroking, touching, kissing and even penetrating; that she would teach me what intimacy is like by showing it. I think the chance is very small that that would happen. I do however see myself at some point actually expressing this fantasy towards her. I hope that she at the very least shows understanding, compassion and (total) acceptance towards those feelings, that she can make me feel that it is totally okay and natural to feel that way towards her, and of course I somewhere also secretly hope that she will actually like and be flattered by the proposal, and my ultimate hope is that she actually will agree to it. I don't think that is going to happen, but a man can always dream, right? I also have something women that are a bit older. Let's say the age range from 35-60. I think what I like about older women is that they are a bit more seasoned and matured. These young women often don't really have a lot of respect and integrity, is something I've noticed. Well, maybe that has to do with the fact that I have been searching for escort and prostitutes. When trying to make an appointment with them, they tend to be sometimes quite inconsiderate or unresponsive. Just the other day I had a girl tell me that she would be available for the rest of the day, so i contacted her through whatsapp and tried to make an appointment, and the girl simply didn't respond anymore after she had said that she would be free. It created all these expectations for me that were never met, and that is frustrating. I gve a lot of time and energy to her because of what she said and she simply disappears into thin air. Physically attractive or not, I don't want to associate myself with girls with that kind of behaviour. I don't respect girls like that. It just really grinds my gears in general when people don't respond to my messages in general when it's a question or proposal. It's one of the things that annoys me most about other people sometimes. Just their sheer lack of attention or consideration towards me. And behind whatsapp it's easy, because you don't have to face the person. You don't have to tell the person that you're not interested or that you have something other going on. I don't mind a person rejecting me or denying me as much as I mind a person blatantly ignoring me. In fact, rejecting me but being direct and honest about it, I can respect that. Such a person at least doesn't leave me hanging in this place of insecurity where I don't know what to except from her(/him) anymore. At least the case will be closed in many cases if the person is just directly honest about it. Same for the woman who is my contact person for the place I want to volunteer at. That woman just really pisses me off. She was already someone who was rather unresponsive and slow to begin with, you had to really push to get a good answer, but after I made a stupid mistake and missed our first scheduled appointment, she totally refused to contact me anymore after I apologized and made the proposal to make a new appointment. This volunteering position felt to be pretty important to me, and she just wouldn't get back to me. I would have been more easier for my mind to bear if she just had said that she didn't want me to be a volunteer anymore because I fucked up by missing that appointment. Admittedly, I still would feel like that would have been unjust, as it was a genuine mistake, so perhaps I wouldn't have been able to let it go completely (also considering the fact that I just really wanted to go there), but it would at least have been a lot more respectful and better. Such a lack of correspondence I felt to be totally not in the spirit of the services they were providing, which was to have conversations with people about life's questions. You may hope that someone who is having conversations with people about the essential questions of life, that such a person also has a degree of intergrity and respect. Just answer me. I care so much more about getting a reply at all than I care about getting a negative reply. But I have to be fair: There are instances in which I myself don't really want to reply to another person. One example is when my aunt congratulated me with my birthday three days ago, and asked me how I was doing. For some reason, I feel a lot of resistance against answering such a question, so I tend not to respond at all. It's also with a good friend of my parents, who also congratulated me. I also didn't really want to respond to that, because I never know what to say at such moments. I realize also that I don't just wanna only point fingers to others and blame others for their misbehaviours or less-than-courteous behaviours. I won't get that far with constantly blaming other people for their shortcomings and not taking responsibility for my own feelings in this matter. Because ultimately, whether justified or not, these felings of anger and frustration still are my feelings, and these are not feelings that are given to me by others. The potential for anger was already inside of me, and other people simply triggered it. But it was already there a bit more deeper in the unconscious. So I realize that also. i can't just keep blaming people and be angry at them. I do have to take responsibility here and transform my own emotions, instead of thinking that other people should change. And I also want to look at where perhaps these behavours that 'm being angry at other people for, where these kind of behaviours would also be in myself. Part 3 I guess In the afternoon I had a walk planned with an old friend/acquaintance of mine. This was a little bit of an uncomfortable move for me. After all, I have barely been socializing at all for the past couple of years, and I had never really been good at it. But the walk went surprisingly well. We actually had pretty good conversations that flowed pretty well, and on many topics we happened to be on the same line. He's also quite an open-minded guy. What I found interesting is that I found myself capable of just listening without actually even trying to listen. That was something new for me: I don't think that ever before for such sustained period of time I was capable of just listening to a person and asking questions that were relevant out of sheer interest. The funny thing is that I wasn't even really aware that I was actually being a very good listener until I reflected upn the walk in hindsight. It all went so spontaneously and effortlessly, that it seemed like the most normal thing in the world. But when I think back about it, I'm not sure if for my situation it would be very normal to pay interest to another human being as much as for as long as I did. I also didn't get triggered by random things during the walk or I didn't encounter energetical blockages or states of dividedness within myself or anything like that. It's nice to actually have suddenly and almost out-of-the-blue myself being capable of being a good listener and a good communicator and even someone who was capable of forming somewhat of a bond. I've never really had that capacity to that extent ever before, I think. Seems like a good sign, although I know I must be aware that there can be a backlash always. Part 4 I guess Part 4 will be about singing. Somewhat before I started to go to this band practice course I had written my previous entry in my journal. So this part 4 comes back to what I had written in what you could call "Part 1 I guess". So as I arrived at the location and the course started, initially things were still quite fine. Our teacher actually wanted us to play some christmas songs. That was quite okay at first. But at some point, the trigger just went off. I think it was at a point where it was hard to decide whether I wanted to go low or high. At that point, the trigger really went hard on me. I retreated with the excuse of going to the toilet, as I have done more often in such situations, and wanted to gather myself. Upon my arrival, initially I felt okay again. At some point I started to get a little bit triggered again, and I was about to get really frustrated again at the whole thing, until finally a good strategy or insight on how to deal with it arose within me. Basically, the reminder for myself was to stay very focused on the present moment; To not have any thought whatsoever about 'how I'm gonna do that one part later on this song, whether i'm gonna go low or high'. No, just stay purely focused on the present moment and keep your attention on what is right here, right now. Don't even think a second ahead about what is going to happen, and stay really, REALLY focused on what's happening right now. That I found to be the best possible strategy or insight or reminder or whatever your want to call it, in order to deal with this situation. Perhaps this whole situation required no strategy whatsoever other than strategy in which there are no other strategies to be had, which is to stay in the present moment and not think about anything else whatsoever. That's a way to get back to spontaneity. I knew I had lost contact with my spontaneity and with the flow-state, but I didn't know how to get back to it and let it all go. This notion of just forgetting about it all and just resting your attention acutely on the right here, right now, might just be the way out of all these forms of resistance and division, and into the spontaneity and flow of the song.

Wednesday December 18th Feel like I need to get into a topic which there is a certain time pressure for me to get into it. Singing. A couple of days ago I said that after my quite unpleasant singing session I really wanted to have figured out or resolved my way to deal with it for the next time, which will be later today in this evening. I've realized over the past couple of days that perhaps I don't really want to fully express myself and show all that I got. Maybe I'm just too insecure and uncomfortable about it. And maybe it's okay to be that way as well. I have realized also that perhaps it is okay to be triggered during this band practice course. To be triggered means that there is an opportunity for something to be processed. Considering the total course of 16 lessons only costs around 190€ or so (I had 10% discount), it's just a very cheap way to be able to get exposed to a situation in which i get triggered. Why avoid being triggered? What's the harm in being triggered? Even if I had done nothing but energy work and contemplation on this topic of singing during the past week, there still wouldn't have been any guarantees that I would have been able to avoid getting triggered altogether. And if I had not done this course, there would have been every possibility that this trigger would have stayed dormant within me because I wouldn't have been confronted with anything that could have triggered it, and the it may have gotten triggered almost inevitably much later, and perhaps in a situation where there would have been a lot more at stake. So yeah. I may get triggered, but at the very least it's a fairly safe environment to get triggered in. I feel a little bit of guilt also that I hadn't addressed this trigger much more during the past week. I wanted to yesterday, but I found myself in a situation in which I felt a great amount of resistance towards practiciing the song so I could get triggered. But to be fair, I did get triggered regardless and also did some work on that trigger. I feel that giving too much time and emphasis on this trigger may create the idea in your mind that this trigger is some kind of enemy that cannot be allowed to be in your psychological system. That it would be something that would have to go. Maybe a bigger danger here is to get triggered by the trigger. To create resistance towards the resistance. I'd say let's put te emphasis on that: If I get triggered, fine. But I want to be very alert and careful that I don't create a whole lot of drama and fuss within myself because I would be angry or frustrated by the fact that I were to be triggered. On top of that, I need to remind myself why I get triggered in the first place. Part of it is because I am uncomfortable with the idea of fully expressing myself. I would even go as far as saying that I'm not ready for it. If I can acknowledge to myself that perhaps I am not ready to fully show everything that I have got, then maybe this would bring about a feeling of acceptance towards the idea of trying to reach the higher notes, or even towards the idea of trying hard to sing good or practice a lot at all. Then I would go to that singing course just to fool around a little bit, and to allow myself to get triggered so I can have something to process. I think those may be the most important reminders: To stay alert that I don't get triggered that I don't get triggered, and to be aware of the fact that I don't feel that I am ready to fully express myself to begin with, which makes it okay to hold myself back, and to just take the low notes. Anyway, I feel triggered . Time to do some energy work.

Monday December 16th I'm sitting here and thinking about what I should be talking about. It's hard to pinpoint. I feel a subtle pressure within me from the idea that something should change. At the same time it's like I find myself in a sort of hypnosis which I find hard to break out of. But I feel quite a bit of resistance against doing stuff and becoming proactive again. I can't rest yet I can't act either. That's how it feels. The idea of acting, pursuing goals, making plans and putting in effort in creating a more disciplined, organized and structured lifestyle I now find in myself a certain unwillingness to pursue it before I really understand... how and for what I want to do that. I stlll feel that to be important to me but it yet again seems so big and tedious in my mind. What I want to be working towards right now, or rather, something I want to be doing or capable of in year or so is to be in a band, to participate in volunteer work, to overcome some obstacles on my OSRS account, to perhaps even stream and make video's with it, to work some hours in the week in order get handouts from my municipality, to have learned the guitar decently, to be going to the gym a bit more frequently (although perhaps I should contemplate as to why I want to do this), to have maybe a couple of songs finished and online, to have a better way to organize and structure my life together... In a year time, I'd also like to have (a couple of) girl(s) that I'd be seeing on a regular basis that I could enjoy myself with in many different ways. Sexuality is something I'm dealing with quite a lot right now. But so far it's been pretty frustrating. I'm actually trying to set myself up an encounter with a prostitute, actually. Unlike before, I've actually been quite persistent in trying to get this handled, but so far I've not really had a reaction from anyone so far, even though I've tried to contact at least 5 girls. Many of them who I like want you to call them instead of texting or whapping them. I don't like that. With texting, I get to think a lot about what I want to say so I get to ensure I don't miss out on anything, or that i express myself as precisely as possible. I don't like calling. Because I'm a little bit uncomfortable and nervous in such a situation I quickly can come across as talking quite monotonously and serious. On top of that, I feel uncomfortable with asking them all sort of questions about what would be available and whether they would like this or not. I can do this with texting much more easily. But alas, I decided to just get myself over it and tried to call a couple of girls today. But none of them have answered so far... It's getting on my nerves. I've been trying this shit for almost a week now where I have tried to contact a girl amost every single day, and this day even more. These lack of responses is bothering me. I have difficulty understanding why they are not answering me. With texting or whapping I could still look at what I'm writing or my profile that could potentially be a factor here. But if I'm calling with number recognition ON (I checked it), then why would they not be answering. Are they busy? Are they inactive at this moment? It bothers me. I'm unusually determined, though. I feel like I wanna continue until I finally do get a proper response. I also want to put up an advertisment myself in which I describe myself and that I want a relationship with a girl who is open for learning and experimenting in the area of sexuality. I seek this kind of partner who isn't completely caught up in this sort of ego-mode way of relating to others in which there is a certain agenda behind it, a certain transaction or a certain business-like attitude. To be fair, I also have a certain agenda. But simultaneously, I also seek something genuine and innocent. I seek fun and joy and love, and I want this to be mutual. I am doing it for me also, but not JUST for me. But I wonder how I find such a girl. A girl that wants to be authentic, who doesn't want to play games of greed, pride, jealousy or anything like that. Someone who wants to know what it is like to... truly get to know someone else. Does that make sense? At the same time, I also find it important that it's a girl who despite maybe having a higher standard of integrity doesn't shy away from sex, and accepts sex as a natural and spontaneous facet of the relationship. In fact, because there is as of currently a lot of sexual energy within me that still wants to come out, I feel that sex should be primary in that relationship. It's just because I have such a high libido, such a high horniness-factor. That's why I don't really want to seek out normal girls on tinder or anything like that. I feel that sex should intially at least be primary. But it should be sexual experimentation. It should not merely be to relieve one another. It should be to learn what sex is and what can be done with it, and what's possible with it. All the different games that you can play with it. I want a promiscuous girl, yes. But also a girl that has a vision for something higher and better. A girl that isn't... dull. A girl that can resonate with me as far as her intelligence, her taste for spirituality, her innocence, her devotion to a life of higher values is concerned. A girl that is compassionate and understanding. And these kind of attributes will also be reflected back in sex. I guess what I'm saying is that, yes, I do find sex as of now the most important thing. But at the same time, I find it important that sex has depth. And to have sex that has depth, you need a girl that has depth. And of course, there is indeed also a lot of enjoyment to be had with her in moments that aren't directly related to sex. Yes... I am not denying that those moments don't matter as well. They do. And I can see myself enjoying them. Perhaps after the initial sexual steam has been taken off then perhaps the sex itself won't seem that much more important anymore than the things that happen not in sex. Who would say... Another topic... I start frustrating myself about the fact that I'm only up at night. It makes me feel... A lot more apathetic I suppose. You sort of get a bit... darker and denser if you stay up only in the darkness for a sustained period of time. I've tried changing it a couple of times, but it is really hard to change if I don't have anything to keep me active during the day in which I start getting sleepy. I am awake from 3 in the afternoon until 6 in the morning right now, and it's been like that for quite a while now. And with these days already being quite dark, I almost see no sunlight whatsoever. But I feel like I would like to have just more daylight in my life right now. Like a walk in the daylight. And maybe also go to somewhere else for a change. I feel like I want a reason to be more outdoors. And to be outdoors during the day. Work and volunteer work seems fit for that, but this is just picking up sooo slowly. I had contacted a while back a center which i wanted to volunteer at, but for some reason the contact I had decided not to answer me anymore. Now I have signed myself up at another place. Luckily, they have contacted me, but for this too I have to wait. And then for the work I am meant to do to get my handout from the municipality (I don't even know if that's the right definition or not. Just from the governance of my city who gives money to people who can't do normal work (just yet) but can already participate in society in other ways)... This is also just not picking up speed at all. i had expected that things would be happening right now, but the contact who would be in charge of these things happening has simply not letting me know anything in a while. I will send a mail again I guess... Overall, I'm just a bit frustrated with things not working out that well or going way too slowly and that my efforts are not really producing their fruits yet. I want to challenge myself more and be more active, but it's rather difficult and I somehow keep bumping into obstacles or delays. It's rather frustrating. i wish things would just fall into place more easily. I really do want to reset my sleeping schedule, though. So what I think I will do is to prolong my waking period by going to the swimming pool this morning and staying there for a number of hours. And maybe also take an extra walk or go somewhere else. Maybe that's also a good idea: Just to go somewhere else. Another city, another place... Just wander there a little bit. It may provide the inspiration for me to reflect better upon my situation right now and how I want to deal with it. Hopefully that will give a bit more clarity. I think it's the right step to be taking now. I think I'm just going to take a walk right now. I feel a little bit hypnotized by my screen. Felt like this yesterday too. Like being sort of in a haze in which I don't really feel like i have a lot of clarity or space to be doing anything proactive.

Well so my old account got banned. I took the risk and seemingly it indeed did have consequences. The moderator in question had seen that I wanted to use this account from now on so Skanzi got banned instead of this account. I was notified by a private message froma moderator on this account, who had told me that my other account was banned. Upon logging into that account, this indeed seemed to be the case. The message of "you have been banned" however takes priority ovet the interface in which you can choose to log in and log out (with another account), So what I had to do in order to log back into this account again was to delete all the data from google chrome from the past hour in order to get access to the login screen again. How do I feel about that? Well... I feel it to be a bit unnecessary to have banned that account just because some forum guidelines say that it is not allowed to happen. I feel that one can look at the specific circumstances as to why someone decided to have two accounts as well, and look at the profile of the person to see if this person intends any harm with having two accounts. I estimated the chance of not facing any consequences because of it to be about 70% or so. Well, to be honest, I kind of screwed myself over. I had put in a "manual signature" with this account when I made a post on the forum that said this: "This is a manual signature. My old account is named "Skanzi", and I am now intending to start using this account instead of the old account, as I like this username much more. i don't intend to use these two accounts interchangeably; Only this account from now on." And I think because of this signature it was noticed and I got banned. I care much about transparancy and I find it important that people can know what my (previous) identity is/was, but as far as for the sake of trying to preserve my accounts from getting banned is concerned, this wasn't a smart move to make. I had better just shut up. Maybe my chance would have been around 70% to preserve both if I had never put up such a signature. But I can put the blame on others and start acting like a victim, but at the same time it's a risk I took willingly and I have to put up and acknowledge the consequences of my actions, also knowing that I was fully aware that having two accounts was officially not allowed. I also understand that making exceptions as a moderator can make certain situations quite chaotic and disorganized. I understand the need for order and structure. I'm not too devastated about it because at least my posts that I made on Skanzi were saved and preserved (though I had made a backup just to be sure). I can continue with my journal.

I decided to continue on with this account from now on instead of the old "Skanzi". Why? simply because I like this username much more. For some reason this feels to be quite important to me, to have this username. I love the username "Nightwise" actually. You can see it as "wise through the night", but also as "the way of the night". Both of which are very true and applicable. Unfortunately (but understandably) you can not change usernames, so I made a new account instead. I hope this won't be a problem to the actualized.org moderators. I have read the rules and I am aware that it is officially not allowed to use two accounts for one person, but at the same time I literally intend to stop using my old account from now on and use this one instead. i don't intend to use the two account interchangeably or intermittently. On top of that I will use my Skanzi signature to indicate that Nightwise will now be my new account from now on. If you're a moderator reading this: If it's still not allowed, I would then really urge you to contact me first (preferably on this account) before you would block one of my accounts or something. But for the love of god, please don't delete any content or block both of my accounts. I think the chance of that actually happening is really slim, but I thought I would say it anyway. My intentions are good with this. I hope you understand.