soos_mite_ah

Forgot to include this post in this journal:

Subtle Addictions Subtle addictions I personally need to look out for: Analysis Theorizing, thinking, over conceptualizing Hoarding knowledge Perfectionism These are the addictions that stood out to me as things I see in myself. I have journaled quite a bit when it comes to perfectionism so I'll refrain from going into that again. After all, I made like a 10 part series on it. When it comes to being addicted to analysis, theorizing, thinking, over conceptualizing, an hoarding knowledge, I think it comes down to the more I know and understand about the world, the better I am with dealing with the world from a survival standpoint. These things give me a sense of control in an unpredictable world. But on the other hand, when I was thinking about my values, I discovered that learning was one of my values. There is a genuine sense of joy that I derive from learning and analyzing the world. One of the best feelings is learning something and then suddenly a lot of things in life makes more sense and you are able to perceive more in the world because you expanded your sense of critical thinking. You become more conscious about how brilliantly the world works. I did notice the limitations of these addictions. Happiness isn't ultimately found in the mind or a cool new model rather it is found in being. Sometimes, hyper analysis can lead to anxiety and depression because of the amount of information you're consuming. A good example of this is when people develop a super pessimistic outlook of the world being a dangerous place because of the 24 hour news cycle. For me what helps is being aware, but not always focused on something. Again going back to the news example, during the BLM protests last year, I decided that I wasn't going to read up on issues regarding police brutality and that I was not going to watch the video. This isn't to say that when something happens it's best to bury your head in the sand but for me personally, I'm already educated on systemic racism, police brutality, the various factors that create anti-black sentiments that result in tragedies such as these. For me personally, I knew that I wasn't going to get anything out of being plugged into the news and social media. I'm not going to get new information to broaden my horizons that would further my understanding of the discourse. Instead, I'm just going to be traumatized and that won't help the situation. Same thing with COVID. I'm not going to get anything from tuning into the statistics of how many people died and the rate of infection on a daily basis. Regardless of whether I'm reading up on updates, I'm still going to have to do the same thing which is wear a mask, keep my distance, stay in the house, and mind my own business. And that's something that I ask myself when I see videos that go into more in depth analysis. I ask myself, is this broadening my horizons and making me more aware of what's going on or is it doubling down on what I already know and thus making me hyper focus on things that might not be best for my sense of sanity.

Cringeworthy Part 1 I'm currently half way through Melissa Dahl's book Cringworthy. I guess since I was thinking about cringing while I was reading this book, my brain decided to do the smart thing and bring up some of the most cringworthy memories I have from the last 5 years or so . It was painful. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out because my entire existence feels like a disgrace. I know that sounds dramatic, but that's how physically cringing feels like to me. But that aside, I got a lot of valuable stuff from this book and I thought I'd journal about it. P.11: "Cringing happens when you accidentally let an un-scripted, unpolished version of yourself escape." It comes from wanting to conceal aspects of your personality. For me, that explains why shadow work can be effective in smoothing out awkwardness because in shadow work, you go from rejecting parts of yourself to integrating them. I think this also applies when I cringe at they typos and the way I wrote past journal entries. It also relates to how I have an issue around wanting to be seen as competent which I have journaled about extensively at this point. P.14: The book goes into how awkwardness is seen as a character trait rather than an emotion or temporary state of being. "American pop culture often depicts awkwardness as a personality trait treating it as if the cause were socially inept individuals" I found this really interesting because whenever I feel cringe I often catch myself also going through a self loathing spiral which is usually along the lines of *my personality is awful, I'm so ugly on the inside.* And in more extreme cases, I have internalized feelings of awkwardness as shame because growing up I was "the shy awkward kid" and now as an adult, even though I don't come off as a walking blob of awkwardness, whenever something awkward happens, my gut reaction is to take full blame for the situation and cringe at myself even if the situation was caused by the other person since part of me still sees myself as the awkward 13 year old I used to be. P.25 "There's often a stark difference between the way that you see you and the way that others see you; the distance between something the psychologist Philippe Rochat calls the irreconcilable gap" .... "It's something that makes you newly conscious of yourself an how you're being seen by others, especially when someone else's perception of you doesn't measure up to the way you see yourself." I do agree that there is always a gap of how we see ourselves. I remember one time I came across something along the lines of "Other people know us from the outside looking in but we know ourselves from the inside looking out." It was relating to feeling like an imposter because everyone has a more positive view on you than you do of yourself because since you know yourself from the inside out, you're also aware of all the messy stuff behind the scenes that other people might not notice unless you tell them. P.31: "Not only are we trying to present ourselves in a certain way, but we're also simultaneously trying to interpret the impressions others are trying to make on us." The book talks on how this dynamic can make socializing nerve wracking instead of natural and fun because for some people, they're working out a lot of things mentally within an interaction. Later on in the book, Dahl also discusses how this interferes with us being present in the moment and pay attention to social cues, and then because we weren't paying attention, we do something embarrassing. So basically, what I'm getting is that thinking you're awkward is often a self fulfilling prophecy. P.44-45: These two pages talk about how "our relationships are a potentially infinite cycle of concealing and revealing out authentic selves to each other" and why it can feel awkward when you have two groups of friends coming together. "If awkwardness is caused in part by 'unfulfilled expectations,' as Goffman once wrote, then that's why this situation is so awkward. You've created different roles for yourself to play in discrete social situations and you can't play them all at once." When I read these two pages, I was just sitting there like *omfg that makes sense.* Also, I see Goffman's work coming out in different parts of this book and that automatically makes me feel like I'm back in school in my sociology class in a good way. The familiarity gives me a nerdy sense of comfort lol. I also thought of this meme that I found a long time ago. P.106: "Paying close attention to every little thing you're going is a great way for novices to learn. If you've never played golf before, then you have to start by focusing on exactly the right way to hold the club or exactly the right way to position your feet. But studies by Beilock and many others have found that once you develop expertise, too much self-focus can cause you to fumble." P.107: "Beilock writes that this is because worrying about your performance is so psychologically taxing that your mind doesn't have enough capacity to be fully engaged in the task at hand." P.109: "Nervousness can trap people inside their own perspective making it less likely that they'll be able to see the world from someone else's point of view." P.111: "Most of us are already pretty well practiced at talking to other people, the mechanics are the same whether you're talking to your closest friends and family or your boss at your company holiday party, or someone who is visibly different from you. Whatever the case, she said, 'keeping in mind the goals you want to achieve can sort of lift you out of the details' so you can focus on the person in front of you." Basically this entire section told me to not ruminate on being awkward and for god's sake don't search up something like Charisma on Command because while there might be good advice there, if you don't have much of a problem with socializing, that content is just going to make you overthink all of your mannerisms. The advice in this video is pretty good but personally, I don't need to ruminate on how high/low energy I am when I'm around people. For me that would easily fall into the overthinking category.

Posting these because I found a really good channel and I was binging her content

Analyzing Cottagecore I've been getting into analyzing different popular aesthetics recently and why people find themselves drawn to them. And then YouTube recommended this video by The Take that discussed cottagecore. Upon watching this video, I guess wanting to escape to a rural idyllic life in the country side to get away from the chaos of the world and the existential crisis that capitalism produces isn't a new concept. I didn't know that there was a whole history to this and that there were past movements that had similarities with cottagecore. I also loved how this video discusses how marginalized groups, particularly black people and lesbians, find a safe space in this aesthetic and turn it into a form of empowerment. It's along the lines of reclaiming the past and rural life, and seeing yourself in it outside of notions of struggle and oppression. This was one of the videos that was cited when The Take was discussing how POC fit into an rural, old timey aesthetic. I went ahead and watched this video and I liked how Tanya discusses how this contrasts with "strong black woman" trope along with why that trope is harmful because it justifies the oppression that black women deal with since there is an assumption of "she's strong so she must be able to handle it." She also talks about how femininity is something that gets stripped from black women as further justification to dehumanize them. I've seen that point be raised in other contexts as well so when I first saw posts of black women adopting a cottagecore-esq aesthetic, I immediately thought of other Instagram posts that I've seen before which had captions (or implied something) along the lines of "let black women and men be soft" and the pictures would be something along the lines of black people being joyful, carefree, having flowers in their hair, etc. I also think it's really important for people of color to see themselves in different aesthetics and feel that their sense of self expression is unlimited. Personally, I feel that if you are a POC, there is a tendency of people expecting you to be a walking stereotype of you ethnicity or else you're "whitewashed" or you aren't cultured. I remember being around 14 or so and listening to emo music and I had people say that I "act white" because of it (also you can't act a race without having a stereotype in your head of what a certain race acts like but that's a post for another day). I've heard some of my black friends at the time say that they encountered that as well along with being seen as "less black" because they liked anime or anything else that seemed out of the ordinary. Recently, I had a friend tell me how she had people assume that she doesn't care about her culture because she is into cottagecore and knowing her it felt ridiculous because I know that she is secure in her cultural identity. From what I've observed, being whitewashed is something that can be used differently based on the person and what they consider whitewashed. I know there are some people who consider being whitewashed as preferring things from western culture and that everyone is whitewashed to a certain extent. But for me personally, I believe that being whitewashed is more about a sense of internalized self hatred towards your culture and people from your culture. To me liking cottagecore as a brown person isn't whitewashed but saying something along the lines of "brown girls are rarely beautiful" while being brown yourself is whitewashed. That said, I understand why people may jump to the conclusion that you must be whitewashed if you are into an aesthetic like cottagecore. A lot of the aesthetic has to do with rural life and the settings of period pieces from the 1800s, which aren't exactly settings that are POC and LGBTQ friendly. Plus like with many aesthetics, POCs aren't really represented. There is a connotation exclusion that can come with it. But at the same time I don't see why people can't reclaim it and make a space for themselves either if they just like the aesthetic. We're talking about aesthetics and ways of expressing ourselves, not literally going back to 1850. I also really liked this video. I liked how it discussed the ways cottagecore can be an extension of one's political beliefs because of the imagery it has. While The Take focuses on how cottagecore relates to anti-capitalism and sustainability, I like how this video delved into how cottagecore can serve as a way of saying "lets go back to the good ol days back when women knew their place in the home" by alt right people who romanticize the past. While I haven't seen alt right people adopting this aesthetic, I can see how the imagery can be twisted in that direction. Cottagecore, like all aesthetics, don't have defined political leanings but like anything visual and artistic, it can be up for interpretation and can be used as an extention of expression, whatever message that expression may have. I believe this video also touches on returning to a gentle form of femininity away from the context of patriarchy not as a form of escapism rather as a form of self care. This also reminded me of a tiktok that I saw a while back of a person talking about how bisexual/lesbian women find women attractive feels different compared to how straight men finding women attractive. It was something along the lines of how women when they find another woman attractive is along the lens of seeing that woman as a work of art. It's like looking at a painting where even if that person doesn't fit the standard of what is considered beautiful, there is something beautiful that is about them and the vibe they put out, kind of like why people may find impressionistic paintings, abstract art or anything else in between beautiful despite all of the types of beauty contrasting with each other where there are no common features setting a standard of beauty. I think something like this can be seen with a group straight women as well where even if we have friends who don't fit the mold of what is considered conventionally attractive, we still hype each other up and point out the features that we find beautiful in each other. Whereas with men, instead of the "work of art lens" a lot of what they consider attractive is painted from the lens of things like porn and objectification due to the way that women are presented in media and advertising. It's more along the lines of a woman has to check a series of boxes for them to be deemed attractive. And then you end up with a more limited idea of what is considered attractive. Then there is the concept of men being visual creatures. I love how this point is always brought up to justify objectification but men being visual creatures is never brought up when it comes to how they design their homes, what kind of clothes they wear, etc. rather instead those things are written off as things that women care about because of their "feminine natural drive towards beautification." And if a man god forbid cares about these things and does something along the lines of doing his eyebrows or using a facemask every now and then so their skin doesn't get crusty, suddenly other men think he's gay . Honestly, from my observations, straight men generally are not visually competent and don't know how to carry themselves. Like I've flipped through different tinder profiles and I swear to god like 90% of the profiles have selfies from the awkwardest angles to where basically the guys are shooting themselves on the foot as far as attractiveness goes. I stg there are men out there who are 4s who could easily be a 7 if they got a proper haircut, did their eyebrows, did something nice for their skin every now and then instead of just washing their face with 3 in 1 bodywash/shampoo/conditioner, and bought clothes that actually fit them well. So much for being visually inclined smh. Anyway, my rant is over lol. I think that's why a lot of lesbians flock to cottagecore. Because the aesthetic appeals to a form of beauty that is more aligned with the way women find other women attractive rather than from the male gaze. Granted that I'm going off of things that I heard in a tiktok and how it resonates with how I compliment my friends so I can't really say how much of my analysis aligns with the experiences of women who love women.

I think it's good because it can spread valuable information in the mainstream and can make him more approachable. I think what Leo talks about is more important than the fact that he's talking. Talking about how we are all one, we are god, and how we should use psychedelics to realize that imo isn't a good move from an optics point because the vast majority of people aren't aware of nonduality being a thing much less have a basic understanding of it. Unless you got exposed to those topics through philosophy, religious studies or something, it isn't unlikely that people will jump to the conclusion of "great another guy on drugs claiming he's god, what's new." Like if you leave enlightenment, psychedelics, and talking about god off the table, I think Leo becoming more mainstream can be beneficial.

@modmyth Thank you

Same Also, I think a lot of teachings in Leo's videos can easily be used to justify devilry by people with lower levels of consciousness. I think a good example is spiral dynamics. It's a good and useful model but if it's introduced into the mainstream with people who are at orange or blue with no intention on integrating green, it can be used to justify eugenics and racism. Or blue people could make this into a cult. You raised some really good points about why we shouldn't get rid of comments/forum. I talk more about the dangers of spiral dynamics going mainstream in this entry I made in this journal:

@Raptorsin7 @egoeimai

Videos that Resonate with Me While I didn't literally blur out the world, I had a similar experience with deleting my social media. I've been feeling more myself and I feel like there is less pressure, like I can be a little messed up and be a work in progress. I don't think it would've been the same if I was still at school but since I'm mainly at home, after getting rid of social media it's like I had no choice but to focus on myself because I wasn't getting any information about anyone else. I never really had a social media addiction. If anything I rarely post and rarely check up on my feed or anything other than memes. But even then I guess there was a part of me subconsciously that took in what other people were doing and then in the middle of the night I would be in bed wondering wtf am I doing with my life after comparing myself to other people. And I haven't been feeling that nearly as much lately. I still have doubts regarding if I'm in the right direction and it's a challenge to accept where I am in my life and have faith that my life is on the right timing, but getting rid of social media has helped. The whole video resonates with me. Even when I was little, there was a part of me that wanted to perform but I didn't really know what medium to use. I don't want to sell my soul and my body to the Hollywood reptiles. I don't want to deal with anything social media related because I don't care about social media like that. I tried to have a YouTube channel but I realized that something just wasn't clicking. When it came to writing on here, not to be cliche and *that* person, but something just felt right. Around 15:30, the video talks about advice for anyone wanting to start a YouTube channel. While I don't see myself in that category, a lot of what was being said resonated with me. I did have those thoughts about *what if no one reads any of this and I'm wasting my time and everything I post is cringe.* But there was a point where I stopped caring and I took on this attitude that even if no one else sees this, this journaling habit is for me and my future self. I took on this attitude that I'm going to document what I'm going through and where I'm at in my life in a more candid way. I think that's where I went right in this journal vs what I was doing with my YouTube channel where I was putting more pressure on myself to make videos of particular topics that I planned out instead of doing what felt natural. And I don't think that pressure is necessarily bad, it can be incredibly helpful when you want more structure and cohesion in your content, but when you're starting out and getting a feel for things or just beginning the habit, it can be a bit much. When trying to implement a habit, rather than focusing on what you need to do, focusing on doing something simpler like showing up can be much easier because you take the pressure off of things. I feel much more detached from outcome in this journal. It's like part of a person portfolio that I can look back at later and even if nothing comes from it externally, I still get something out of it internally during the process and at the end.

That would be interesting. I feel like I run into a Jordan Peterson thread on this forum like a couple times a month every month. There is a lot to unpack. This is a tangent but I'm wondering, is there going to be a video on shadow work and/or chakras?

I heard that Australia does something similar as well. I think over there when it comes to college they only look at your grades from your senior year and those grades are heavily impacted by a series of tests. We don't really have that here. We have to take the SAT or the ACT on our own outside of school and as for what grades get sent in, it's all of the grades from all four years. The good part about this is that it doesn't feel like all of your eggs are in one basket so like if you didn't as well as you normally do one year, the other years just balance it out. But when it comes to standardized testing, it doesn't impact your grade unless the teacher is like "ok I'm going to enter this in as a test grade" to incentivize students to not slack off. Standardized testing is mainly for the school district and for state and local funding. When it comes to writing, it felt weird when my professors were more lenient. For me personally, it didn't feel like I had to do a lot of unlearning rather it was more along the lines of "great I can do what feels more natural for me instead of confining my thoughts to a specific structure/formula." Also, while it can be confusing how different subjects and professors prefer a certain style over another, I low key like that because it lets me experiment and get outside of my comfort zone of how I normally write. I think it made me more versatile overall. Yeah that's kind of how I try to reframe the inconvenience and anxiety of figuring things out at the moment. I know I'm making progress when it comes to figuring out what I want, working through my limiting beliefs, working out my purpose etc. but sometimes I doubt that progress because I have yet to get a tangible affirmation of going in the right direction. Like I see my peers hit different milestones socially, academically, career wise etc. and sometimes I feel like I'm in hibernation still trying to get it together. I don't know when all of this is going to pay off and I will admit that part of me is rather impatient at this point lol. I know that I shouldn't rush that process because it won't really end well but it's this question of *what is all of this leading up to if anything?* Oh well, I guess it's just a matter of time and patience until I find out.

@RendHeaven LMAOO I remember liking his work when I had to read things in English class. But I can't remember many details about him or any other person I had to read (wasn't Thoreau a transcendentalist?). They all mush together after a couple years of not reading them. I might not remember much but I do credit those classes for building up my critical thinking skills when it comes to analyzing different texts.

@modmyth @LastThursday All of you're words is really reassuring and overall makes me feel good inside. I read both of yalls journals as well, and I do enjoy them and get a lot from them. I started reading both of yalls journals before I started really being active in the journaling section on this forum so reading yall's comments just as me feeling like this SpongeBob meme for a lack of better way of putting it. Upon journaling here and journaling regularly, I started to notice just how much of a straight jacket the writing style I learned in school was for my personal writing style. I think the amount of structure and the particular way that my teachers expected me to write was beneficial in that it helped me be more organized in my thoughts but at some point it felt really limiting. In Texas, (not really sure about any of the other states) standardized testing especially for English class was a big deal mainly because test scores can impact how much funding schools can get and whether teachers were perceived to be doing their job. I could do a whole rant on this but when it comes to writing, it was reduced down to a formula in order to get the best test score. First sentence had to be your hook, second had to be a counter argument, third had to be your thesis that had 3 points. The body paragraphs each corresponded with the 3 points. You would have the first sentence introducing the point along with more detail, the second sentence was an example or quote as evidence, the third sentence was elaborating on what that evidence showed. You get the point on how structured the whole process was and if you deviated from that, your teacher would take points off and you're probably going to piss off the standardized test graders. The whole system of standardized tests is ridiculous and isn't the best way to gage whether schools are performing well. In my opinion, while it doesn't stress students out because testing is relatively easy, it puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on teachers to teach a subject a certain way in order to do well on a test so that they don't get fired instead of teaching a subject in a way that actually educates students. Thankfully in college the whole standardized testing thing wasn't there and my professors were much more lenient on how I can structure my papers so long as it makes sense and utilizes the course material. But in general academia does have its own set of standards and things that it prefers particularly when it comes to formality. I suppose because of that, sometimes I see the informality of my writing as either lazy or writing that isn't particularly good. Like when you had to sit through the likes of Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other old white guys from the 1800s all through middle and high school, and then you get to college and the works Immanuel Kant shows up in at least one of your classes each semester, that shapes what is considered "good writing." And then, some people end up viewing "good writing" as something that is formal and has an air of inaccessibility whether it be because of the test of time making the style of writing seem confusing because no one talks like that anymore or simply due to the general bougieness of academia. I'm double majoring in international relations and management. So whenever I'm in my social science classes for my international relations major, I do have to encounter a lot of dense and sometimes confusing writing. These are the classes that I write my papers for. While I don't have a problem with writing papers for most of my classes when it comes to sociology, anthropology, and psychology, when I write for my history classes or my political science classes, I feel that that's when a lot of nitpicking happens because those classes expect more formality but that also depends on who I have as my professor. As for my business classes (mainly management and marketing), I have to do some writing but my professors are super lenient and just wants something that makes sense and is to the point. Sometimes it's almost informal to the point where in my mind I'm like "am I even writing something for a grade or am I just expressing my thoughts on a subject." @modmyth I really appreciate your comment on my writing style. Sometimes it's really helpful to have a different person make an assessment because I have my own biases. At times it can be difficult to step back and observe something because you're still in the middle of it. I think journaling has been a very important component for me finding my natural style of writing because it isn't filtered through "shit what will my professors take points off for." And as irritated I can be because of the way the pandemic derailed my plans I think the things that I have had the time to think and write about has been incredibly productive and illuminating when it comes to me figuring my life out. I always thought about take a break right after college to ~figure myself out~. I just never thought that the break would manifest in this way or that it would be in the middle of my college career. I wonder what all of this is pointing to down the line and I feel that wondering is all that I can do at this point because there is only so far I can look ahead at the moment.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeqYpFBM/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeqYgBgJ/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeqYgh9T/ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeqYpKwA/ I find this person's tiktoks really entertaining because it's like watching what would happen if my 21 year old self met my 17 year old self (especially in the first link) 17 year old me is Alexa 21 year old me is Skye I'm pretty sure that if 17 year old me knew where I am right now she'd hate me, be angry, and be super disappointed lol. Ok but in this one, I'm still alexa. I havent made the transition yet lmao https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeq21R9E/

Honestly, if anyone has any life purpose ideas by reading my entries, don't be shy help a girl out

Nothing New Here So I was reading Atomic Habits by James Clear because I kept hearing people talk about how amazing the book is. I finished reading it and I agree, it is a good book. But unfortunately, I don't feel like I got much from it. Most of the information that was in the book were mainly conclusions that I came to all by myself through contemplation, journaling, and self observation combined with my interpretations of teachings that I got from other teachers and how I tied it back to habit creation. Basically, the book was everything that I knew and discovered for myself by me overthinking and overanalyzing repackaged into less than 300 pages. While this book is insightful and people rave about how much it helped them, for me personally, there was nothing new here. I have had similar experiences when watching/listening/ or reading the works of other teachers. That includes school as well. When I got to college, during my freshman year I took a couple classes on anthropology and sociology. A lot of the content came really naturally to me to where I barely had to study the subjects and what I was learning essentially felt like common sense. It wasn't because I took those classes or read books about the subjects before. It was more along the lines that I thought about similar subjects before naturally in my free time as I grew up. Because of my background I had to learn about different cultures and how to navigate different situations from a young age. I was also really curious about why people did what they did and as a result I built up the skills of analyzing and empathizing in a way that enabled me to get the answers that I wanted. Those classes felt very natural to me because the mode of thinking that those classes require or build is the mode of thinking that I operated in for years prior to me stepping foot on campus. I will admit, I feel rather self conscious typing this out. I feel like so far in this post I have done nothing but brag about how I already know things. But those instances felt really humbling. Like, hey you're not the only one thinking this way, you're not some type of superhuman insight/analysis god, people have already discovered whatever you're thinking about, you're not special. There's nothing new here. I know that sounds rather demoralizing but I can have a bit of a spiritual ego at times so it's sometimes necessary lol. I look back at some of the stuff that 14 year old me wrote and came up with and I swear to god I remember her thinking she was being ~~**so deep**~~ (not to shame 14 year old me, it's natural to be fake deep at that age because your emotional depth perception is starting to develop and as a result even the littlest thing seems like a metaphor. That's a post for a different time lol.) But there is a part of me that likes feeling special and insightful and that part of me sometimes takes those experiences in a demoralizing light. It manifests as a reluctance to share my thoughts and findings. There is a part of me that desires to come up with something original and groundbreaking. And sometimes when I encounter such experiences, I catch myself thinking along the lines of *hey I'm not discovering anything new, I guess everything that can be known has already been known.* I know just how delusional that sounds but that's the illusion that my mind encounters. It's like you're all excited about something being new and original only to find out that it has been done already. There's nothing new here. Or worse, sometimes these instances build me up more. It's like *Hey I got to these conclusions by my own devices without spending a shit ton of time on research like the professionals had to. Surely that indicates something like natural talent!!* And then my ego swells up. As I was reading Atomic Habits, somewhere in the middle my mind was like *you know what, I could've probably written this book given the insights I had and wrote down in like 5 journal entries. I wonder how many self help books I could write based on my life experience thus far based on the sheer amount I already write.* But then the self doubt kicks in and is like *ok but even if you did write a book, you wouldn't be contributing anything new or revolutionary so what's the point? Don't kid yourself.* And then there is this part of me that is like *OMFG FINALLY SOMEONE WHO THINKS ALONG THE SAME WAVE LENGTH AS ME!* It's this feeling of having my inner thoughts and ideas that I accumulated through experience and contemplation finally being seen and recognized. It also gives me a sense of reassurance. Like hey, maybe I'm not insane or seeing patterns that aren't there because I was overanalyzing a situation. Look, science and research backs up my point of view. I'm not crazy, there's nothing new here. This whole thing is such a weird dynamic for me to where I don't even know how to detangle it. Tbh, I feel like I'm not even making any sense. I've been dealing with this weird feeling of deja vu when I notice lessons I learn from a book or in university line up with an existential crisis I had months or years prior that led me to the same conclusion. I've been dealing with this since like 2018 mainly. There's nothing new here.

Upon reading the comments and contemplating this a little more I guess a lot of whether you dislike negative people or you dislike positive people can manifest as distrust, ingenuine, or uncomfortable because of the perception that the other person has a different view on reality compared to you. And that can call your own view into question which again can be uncomfortable or you might label the other person as deluded because, hey your reality has to be real because it feel real to you. A lot of it has to do with not resonating I guess given that there is authenticity involved. I dealt with this before. It can be rather annoying and borderline gaslighting, like your truth and your expression is fake. That's in general not relating to positivity tbh. Yeah if it isn't natural to you, forcing it won't make things better. Also speaking of Mormanism, idk if it's just me but sometimes with really religious white people (when I mean really religious I mean occasionally bringing up bible quotes in a conversation and going to youth group and church like 2-3 times a week), have this positivity about them that is borderline creepy to where it's like they're in the sunken place. And I say this as someone who can be pretty bubbly at times. Idk, maybe it's me being a person of color and knowing how exclusionary and sometimes dangerous conservative "Christian" values can be when it comes to people in the religious right (btw I live in Texas so I've encountered a lot of people like this). I like that you brought up dimensionality. From what I've seen, I feel like an overly one dimensional presentation can feel deceptive because then it's like *what is this person hiding, surely this can't be it* but at the same time to other people who resonate with that presentation they might see that one dimensional presentation as more authentic because of consistency (i.e. Trump supporters who think Trump is the realist politician there is). People who have multiple dimensions can come across as more authentic because there are multiple sides to them that they share or it can come from an integrated place. But at the same time, for people who don't resonate with that presentation, that multi dimensionality can seem duplicitous and deceptive.

By positive people I mean people who are generally upbeat, try to present the best version of themselves, when they talk about their problems they also try to talk about what they learned when handling said problem or how they are handling it, is warm, and friendly and bubbly when you first meet them. Is it because these people seem fake or out of touch with the awful stuff in the world and as a result come off as cold/ detached? Is it because people mainly don't mesh with that type of energy because of where they're at? Is it because they seem deluded and stupid? Those are somethings that I've heard from other source.

@RendHeaven It's just something that I observed and experienced at certain times of my life. I noticed that a lot of people talk trash about positive people and think they are annoying or they look at positive people like they are insane.

What does positivity have to do with femininity lol Also I'm seeing a lot of comments on how positivity can come off as fake. But I have met people who were positive and it came from a place of authenticity and people still thought they were fake. So how does that work? Does it then come back to the relatability aspect because what we feel we relate to is what we feel to be more real?

Also random thought I had while writing about my childhood experience with journaling. I swear to god that there was a trope in the early 2000s media that was geared towards young girls where the main character would have a diary of sorts and would start the page with a cliché "dEAr DiArY" and then talk about the drama they encountered at school or about some guy they liked. I swear this isn't some type of fever dream I made up and that this was an actual thing that I would see in TV shows and movies. As I was writing that part in my post, I was cringing at that idea. "Dear Diary" is so cliché and basic and headass. I don't know why this phrase bothers me so much lol.

Journaling Habits and Writing Style This journal as a whole is mainly a release for me so that I can get anything that I'm thinking of out of my system so that I can see it in a more objective light. It also helps me process whatever feelings and events that are coming up so as a result not only is this a release, it's also a way that I can conduct myself. Ever since I started this journal, I found that I journal and reflect more often and that has been incredibly helpful for me. I really like the way that I can format my entries on here specifically how I can quote previous posts and link youtube videos that I found sparked joy or gave me a lot of insights with what I'm dealing with. I guess initially there was a part of me that liked to have an audience. In the first couple months of me starting this journal, I would check how many times my journal got viewed. I don't really do that anymore but I guess the feeling of being seen and having people comment was motivating. Before this journal I had this thing I did where I had a finsta where I would post memes along with post a tiny paragraph of how my week went, something funny that happened to me recently, or just a mood in the caption. It was mainly for my close friends just to keep in touch but I found that much more rewarding than my regular Instagram account. I've since deleted that account and I found myself leaning towards journaling on here more because although I like memes, the writing portion of it was more rewarding for me. Even before me having any type of social media, I remember when I was around 5-7 years old, I wanted to have a diary or journal because I kept seeing people on TV have one. It would usually be some trope of a character writing in a diary but then having their sibling read that journal and then that character getting pissed off. I remember at the time I liked the idea of pouring out my emotions and thoughts and seeing something insightful out of it but I didn't like the idea of keeping it a secret. I have this memory from when I was 6 and I tried to start diary and then I went around trying to share it with people and I had a kid be like "isn't the whole point of a diary for you to not go around sharing things" and that straight up turned me off from journaling for like a decade because I was like "well I guess it doesn't resonate with me." But then around 16 I eventually got to a point where I had way too many thoughts and it felt like it was too much to process it all in my head and instead I need to have all of my thoughts out in front of me or else my head was going to explode because of my existential crisis. And thus my journaling habit was born. I think the reason why I was able to consistently write things on my finsta and why I'm able to consistently journal here is because I like the idea of having a public diary. I like being able to connect to others through it and see whenever someone either resonates with something I wrote or finds some type of insight that was really helpful to them. Growing up I also entertained the idea of being a writer. I really started thinking more about it recently because of the sheer amount of stuff that I write down. I remember once in 2019, I took all of the documents in my computer that consisted of my journal entries and then copied and pasted to a single word document and it turned out to be like 200 pages single spaced. This was along the course of journaling for 3 years. In that moment, I was shocked by how much I wrote because I wasn't intending on writing so much. I thought I was writing sporadically in order to release and analyze my thoughts. I didn't realize how much of a habit it was for me. It also got me thinking *damn I guess I could write a book.* But then my sense of doubt came back. I guess when I thought about writing seriously, I mainly thought about something along the lines of writing fiction, so things along the lines of writing novels, screenwriting for shows, etc. And I quickly realized that I don't have that type of imagination. At first I thought this was resistance as in, I need to buckle down and learn how to write in an artistic way filled with imagery, metaphors, and other literally devices. But upon journaling here for 9 months consistently, I'm starting to revaluate that sentiment. I don't think that my voice in writing is this flowery piece of literature. Even when it comes to me reading books or watching TV or movies, it's almost never fiction. That's not to say that I have some type of resistance towards it or that I don't see the value of fiction, but it's not something that I find myself drawn to. The media that I consume is much more analysis oriented. I mention media consumption in this because a lot of creatives find their voice, their style, and their inspiration from the work of other creatives. Hell, I find myself much more in a flow state when I'm writing papers for school about something that I'm interested in than when it comes to writing fiction. My mind just draws the biggest blank when I try to make up a story. And I don't think it's wise for me to force something that doesn't resonate with me in the first place. That said, I'm pretty sure that I can polish up my writing more. I write these journal entries often in a rush because my mind works much faster than my ability to type so as a result I often make typing errors and phrase things weirdly in a way that doesn't make as much sense or could have been more concise. But I'm not trying to submit these journal entries anywhere and it's mainly for my personal development so in my eyes, as long as I can make sense of it and not cringe, I'm fine with it for now. This is a very informal place for me. But the reason why I'm evaluating my journaling habits and my writing style is because I think it can be connected to my life purpose. Most of the meaningful flow experiences I've had in the last 5 years or so has to do with me contemplating/meditating, me writing, me connecting to people, and me researching whatever the fuck struck my interest at the moment. Again, there is this sense of hesitation that comes up as I'm writing this, especially as I wrote the previous paragraph, There is a part of me that can't take myself seriously as a writer whether that be in a fictional creative sense or in a research oriented analytical sense. I think part of it comes form me not fitting this mold of what is considered "good writing." It's why I would be hesitant with sharing anything I wrote in this journal to people I know in real life. I write my thoughts raw as they come up in my head. Sometimes that looks like a bullet pointed list and sometimes it's a stream of consciousness. I feel like I don't have much of a consistency when it comes to how I express myself and that can cause people to get confused. And as someone who wants to connect, empathize, and give out content that helps people, confusion isn't exactly an ingredient I think of in the mix because it usually indicates a lack of connection whether it be a message not resonating or ideas not flowing together properly. And then finally, the last thing that I'm insecure about in my writing is how most of the time I don't have a formal introductory paragraph (unless it's something academic) and I never have a concluding paragraph (even in academic papers tbh). I just stop writing about a subject whenever I feel like I said everything that I had to say. This goes back to the whole thing about what's considered "good writing." And in my opinion, my journal entries here aren't good writing and therefore part of me is nervous about sharing this with people in real life.

Also, when it comes to the Noah Elkrief's videos that I included earlier, I think I integrated most of the messages in all of the videos except for the one on social anxiety and anger.