Journey to Self Actualisation

[UpperMaster]

There are a few things I want to record in the journal today.

Firstly, I talked about my mushroom trip with my therapist. I explained to her the existential part of it. In the beginning when I confessed I've taken psychedelics, she wasn't too judgmental, she communicated her skepticism around psychedelic substances and how it leads people to make "truth" claims. In her view, we can't know what "objective" truth is. 

Anyway, then I explained to her my experience, I told her about the peak existential part of my trip. I told her the feeling of disgust I felt after retracting from the feeling of love. I told her how I felt bad about the idea of being created, how now I felt as if survival was a burden. 

She responded by connecting it to the challenge of becoming your own person,  of forming a separate identity. She explained that it’s similar to what happens when someone grows up without strong personal boundaries, often remaining emotionally enmeshed with their parents. Many adults never truly separate from their mothers or fathers and end up living according to their family’s expectations and norms. It’s safe and familiar, so they cling to it. But when they marry or have kids, they’re suddenly forced to define themselves, and that’s when they need help. That’s often when they come to therapy.

She said what I’m feeling, the discomfort, the destabilization  mirrors that same struggle. It’s the pain of becoming sovereign. When you lose something profound, like that sense of unity or love, and realize you can’t get it back, it creates space for depression.

She encouraged me to reframe the experience: life isn’t a burden, but a chance. A chance to survive in my own form. It’s tough. Being a separate, sovereign self is hard. But it’s also an opportunity. And that’s how I need to move forward.

 

Secondly. I want to discuss Learned Helplessness. 

Over the past few years, especially after starting high-school I started getting worse academically and every other area in life. I started getting a sort of learned helplessness. 

Before when I had to meet a deadline or pass a test, I would sit down, grind it out without taking any breaks, Taking a 100 percent shot was worth it and easy to justify. 

Now thats not the case, and its only become increasingly apparent as I've fixed a lot of my sleep and focus issues (so the learned helplessness is the main thing that I suspect that it bringing me down). 

Nowadays, if I have a test or anything, I just rather not try, because I've failed so many times before. I really suspect that this is causing me to not give it my all when working towards my goals and exams. 

To clarify and confirm my learned helplessness I asked ChatGPT to diagnose it for me. This is its response:

You don’t have pure learned helplessness (which would look like all 4s and 5s), but what you are carrying is:

Quote

 

⚠️ Learned Futility Syndrome

You try, but expect disappointment.

You plan, but doubt success.

You keep going, but emotionally brace for failure.

You’re not hopeless — just exhausted from hoping and getting hit.

This is a learned mental shield, formed because life (especially school + expectations) made effort feel unrewarded or punished

 

It described my condition perfectly. 

 

Now that I know this, I aim to remind myself and keep myself aware about this learned helplessness. I hope that awareness is curative here, and I can take steps to move forward with my life.

 

[UpperMaster]

My grandfather passed away. I just experienced my first funeral. My grandfather was one of the biggest reasons I started doing philosophy. He was the biggest reason I now find value in what Leo teaches. 

I love you Gramps. You changed my life. I am so grateful to have had you in my life. You lived life more consciously and intelligently then most. 

 

May you rest in peace.

Edited May 24 by UpperMaster

[UpperMaster]

I have a tendency to do things slowly. I rarely ever complete tasks on time. I'm always late to things. I've discussed speed before but actualizing faster work speeds have still been challenging. 

A good trick for this may be to do things before I think it's the perfect time. So basically to do things earlier than I believe necessary. 

I came up with this when I realized that I almost always sleep too late which is problematic, as sleeping too late also means I miss the time window where I sleep the fastest. As a solution, I realized it's best to go to bed even before my scheduled "sleep time", I go to bed even before the tiredness hits. 

 

Maybe this trick will help with procrastination of other kinds too.

[UpperMaster]

If I slept well as a teen I would have been taller and much better looking. Maybe even smarter. Now Im short and fat.

I wanna kill myself Im so unsuccessful. 

[UpperMaster]

An idea for life purpose might be to create the ultimate education system. 

 

I think today's education system isn't the best. Specifically I think that it should incorporate teaching through practice. What I mean by "teaching through practice", is that a subject is thought while doing it. You learn the laws of physics while observing it. You understand chemistry as you do it. Modern education does incorporate this for sure, but much less than I think is ideal. 

Epistemology should be thought. I actually had Theory of Knowledge and epistemology in highschool as a mandatory subject as part of the IB system. It's a great subject, but I don't think anyone got out of that class with an understanding of why it is even important to understand the Theory of Knowledge. By everyone, this subject was disregarded as an extra bs school mandatory thing. 

I think execution was poor. I don't think many teachers questioned these things enough themselves. 

My grandfather was like a one in many type of guy. He unlike other people was awarded a scholarship education due to his abilities, and studied engineering, which in those days was something super special. An education completely separated him from the pack. An education gave him new perspectives and opportunities, and as a result he lived his life super differently, and the family took an alternate direction. 

What if I can help provide people with an education that will enrich their life to the same effect (or even better effect). How good would that feel? How much better would the world be?

Not only that, I see an opportunity here with AI. Maybe I can leverage it to build a school. Where students learn to live life to the fullest. 

Edited June 6 by UpperMaster

[UpperMaster]

I have crippling self doubt. I feel so unsure of myself. How will I ever actualize, I don't want to keep failing. I am moving too slow. How will I get a good girl. I'm scared. 

My sleep hasn't been good lately. 

 

My motivation is just to do whatever it takes, pay whatever price I need to pay, so that I can live the best life possible.

Edited June 7 by UpperMaster

[UpperMaster]

I went on the insomnia sub reddit. I feel validated. People do feel suicidal from less sleep. Through-out highschool I had no sleep and my parents told me that I was being a wuss. i barley felt alive.

[UpperMaster]

I just realized, that no way am I gonna be able to work a 9-5 with a sleep issue. 

I'm done not treating this as a condition. Its been improving for some time. But I cant go to all my classes for example, because it would fuck up my sleep and that would fuck shit up for me. 

But now I realize that that would remove any possible jobs for me with strict time schedule. I probably need to start my own business. Noway Im living the life I did in highschool.

[UpperMaster]

Sleep problem started because of myself when I was a kid I'd be on my phone every night. 

[UpperMaster]

A lot of people have it significantly worse than me. 

But I genuinely feel suicidal. I have such high standards and aspirations it physically hurts how I am not even close. Now it's like will I ever get there?

I hate myself. I don't want to hate myself. But I can't let go of my standards. I never will.

Edited June 17 by UpperMaster

[UpperMaster]

One true intuition that I feel is super real is that all of life is just side quests and that the main plot is to figure out what this is. 

Everything else I do is just distraction. I remember having this intuition several times through-out my life. 

[UpperMaster]

My insomnia has come back. So many years to get better just for it to come back. Fuck this. 
my hair will fall again. Do much I did to reverse it and it worked.

but fuck now I’m cooked. I don’t want to go through it all again.

 

maybe this time will be easier but I seriously feel like killing myself

[UpperMaster]

Fuck perfection.Fuck greatness.

Edited July 10 by UpperMaster

[UpperMaster]

Last message was just me crashing out. I'm so ambitious it hurts, I want to be great, I will be great, but that high standard hurts when your not close to it.

It's been a month since I properly journaled. A lot has happened. Some I am excited to share here because it is a very important journey in my development. 

Firstly, I just want to say that I've passed all my exams for the second semester and am going to the second year which is great. I have one more mathematics exam to clear. If I clear the math exam I won't be carrying any subjects from year one to year two.

Secondly, at my therapist session, I've uncovered and started to recognize the abusive parts of my relationship with my parents. I have great parents, they are good people, but some bad things they've done had incredible psychological impact on me. 

This was something that my subconconsious did not want to look at, but when I eventually did look at it, it was devastating. 

I can to the therapist complaining that I have an inferiority complex and a sense of very strong self-hatred. She suspected that the root cause was something else and we looked at my relationship with my parents.

I won't elaborate too much, but to whoever reading, if you have inferiority complex, or emotional issues in your life, the root cause could be something or partially in denial about. Go to a therapist. There is no simple fix. Root causes can be incredibly complex. 

Processing through my trauma is something I have to do going forward.

I've also looked at my own behavior towards my younger brother, some of which was abusive. I am making sure that mistakes I have done, or mistakes my parents have done to me isn't repeated with my younger brother or my children.

I think the past two weeks have completely changed the way at which I will orient my life. 

A lot of my pain has been validated, and I am starting to love myself.