Journaling - for the first time in my life

[Truth Addict]

@Bill W

Haha! ? I hear you.

For me it's when I say that I'm going to do something, I probably don't. Everything seems to be going well until I announce that I want to do it.

[Truth Addict]

There it is, I'm super lazy and kind of greedy. How does these two qualities even work together?! The thing is that my laziness always wins, therefore (maybe even because) I don't have much desires. I mean, really, nothing is worth all the grind.

The problem is that I like life that way. So, is it even a problem to begin with?

Edited September 10, 2019 by Truth Addict

[Truth Addict]

I think I should start a new journal for disciplining myself. I grew up very disciplined and had been strict with it while gradually losing it over the years. The last year or two were basically freedom and chaos. I couldn't commit to doing anything besides working, and by working I mean being very neurotic and a workaholic. Well, I also used to be very strict with Muslim prayer and practices as a whole, but then for the last year I'd completely let go of prayer. Furthermore, I don't practice spirituality on a regular basis, I only do it when I feel like it. Interesting thing is that I feel like meditating almost every day, and I undisciplinedly meditate for nearly 1 hour per day while walking back and forth between home and work.

I should start gathering resources on discipline. Or, should I? lol ?

Gotta have something to keep my lazy ass in shape! ?

Edited September 12, 2019 by Truth Addict

[MuddyBoots]

Hi, you are journalling here regularly (I've just got into this section of the actualized site), plus you have a regular job. It sounds like you're being a bit hard on yourself? Perhaps just picking and choosing which things to be disciplined about  I know what you mean though, I have oodles of to-do lists full of undone stuff! I think I'm too slack scheduling in my tasks and having a realistic routine. 

Nick

[Truth Addict]

@MuddyBoots

Thanks man, that put me out of my perspective for a while. I guess I was stuck there.

Anyway, I think you're right. Maybe I am being hard on myself, but then again, maybe I want to be that way. I am a greedy person, always wanting more and more. I feel like I can achieve a lot more. Being undisciplined might probably be wasting my potential.

18 hours ago, MuddyBoots said:

I have oodles of to-do lists full of undone stuff! I think I'm too slack scheduling in my tasks and having a realistic routine.

See? At least you have to-do lists. I don't have any.

And right until now, I'm procrastinating about starting the research. Guess I'm a lost cause lol ?

[Truth Addict]

I've somehow started developing the ability to detect the stage of development that people are at, along with an estimated actual age, plus their capacity of information, wisdom and experience. All of that I can estimate through the depth of their writing.

I'm not at the apex point yet, but I can see a lot just by reading the posts that members/mods write.

For example:

• Leo is at stage Orange/Yellow, so deeply immersed. Juvenile teenager style while in his early 30s. Strongly into business more than anything else. He has a lot of information, no doubt, but he has a lot of shadow yet to cover/uncover.
• Serotoninluv is at stage Yellow and borderline Turquoise. Very grounded and informative, so much depth in information, and solid metaphysics. He's probably in his 40s-50s. I didn't like him at first, his empathy ruins his judgements, but I understand.
• Nahm is a complicated character, I couldn't find him on the spiral because he's scattered everywhere lol. He's growing too fast, and is so much integrated, yet he's so Green even his avatar says that lol. I like his style and everything. Probably 40-45 years old.
• Tsuki is at stage Green and borderline Yellow. Very grounded intellectually, not so much emotionally, becoming more balanced each day. He's in his late 20s I guess.
• Aakash is at stage Green and borderline Yellow. Monkey-yet-open-minded lol. Philosophical too much, not very practical. His age is something between 24-28 years old.
• Mandyjw is at stage Blue/Green and borderline Orange/Yellow. I don't know how she does that, but she does have a complicated character, perhaps because she's evolving fast. 30-31 years old (I already know it).
• Truth Addict. A deluded fool at stage Beige (see my avatar) who'd thought that he's the smartest guy in the universe until 14 years old, then started discovering his foolishness and bullshit, only to do it again at 17 years old and think that he's the smartest guy in the universe until 18 years old when he discovered his foolishness and bullshit once again. After that, he began to become humble and started listening to (not learning from) other perspectives. Only to discover 4 years later that his humility was fake all along and that it opened the doors to hell for him. This deluded fool, however, still manages to love and accept himself, regardless of all of his imperfections and flaws. He's not suffering right now, but he's stuck. He wants to become a better version of Serotoninluv whilst having the mindset of a lazy undisciplined ass. He wants to gain more while working less. A perfect mindset for a genius, you know, genius people are the laziest ones, they invented the stuff that made life easier. How lazy is that? Right? See? I started thinking I'm the smartest guy in the universe once again. What a deluded fool! I love you! ?

Anyway, I think the people who come here and only read are probably the wisest ones. Then again, they don't know what they're missing.

Of course, all of that is pretty much my projections, but hey, who said projections can't be right?!

Why am I here? (I mean in life). Dammit!

Edited September 13, 2019 by Truth Addict

[tsuki]

Thank you. I agree with your assessment of me.

I enjoyed the fact that you've put your ass on the line for once. I would enjoy it even more if you made an honest assessment of yourself instead of pretending to be a clown. ♥️

Playing your projections out is the fastest way to learn them, even if it makes you a pain in the ass for others. In the long run, everybody benefits from it.

I consider you to be green as well.

Edited September 13, 2019 by tsuki

[Truth Addict]

@tsuki

Thanks. Brace yourself for more.

I've had many insights into tier two, but I have a huge shadow in Orange, I'd always been neglecting being selfish and pragmatic, I've only recently started developing an 'ego'. Well, not quite recently, but at least recently it's been more conscious.

I've been raiesd a stage Blue fundamentalist, but never really got into it before the age 14, my first breaking point. Before that I was at stage Red, a little fighter, selfish boy. At 14 I got into high school, and it was no ordinary one. Most of the other students were frankly smarter than me. I was pretty bad compared to them and I used to be better than others earlier. It was a high school for superior students. My parents made me apply for it, and I succeeded in the exam. The experience with that school was a huge disappointment for me, I wasn't ready for it, it was way above my head, but nevertheless I needed it, I grew so much simply by being exposed to other highly intellectual students, even though I couldn't merge with them properly. I've only had a handful of friends. They'd had very big egos compared to mine at the time.

So, years go by and I have my next breaking point at 17 years old, as I studied for the graduation year with a bunch of 'inferior' students, so it was only two years with the superiors, but the graduation year was no ordinary year, I've had a terrible time because my city was at war. So, as that was happening, I was gradually turning to Green, and skipping Orange completely as it was so much against the stage Blue religion that I was born into. To be more accurate, I only skimmed the surface of 'my' Orange lol, I only took the minimum required for succeeding in high school. I didn't want success per se, I only wanted to skip failure, but my intellectual skills were very good for the education in my country (thanks to the two years experience with the superior students), so I succeeded in applying for the top field here, medicine. The bad news is that the same superior students also did the same, so we've come together once again, my second breaking point. I was one of the worst students in college, however I succeeded easily in the first half (three consecutive years), but failed twice in the fourth year, and finally succeeded and finished this cursed year only about three months ago. The last year was the best in terms of understanding/growth both metaphysically and spiritually and the worst in terms of productivity, thanks to my stage Orange shadow. I've been questioning my Islamic beliefs for about 6 years now, and I only could let go of them during the last year, you can see my earliest posts and threads on the forum. I've grown a lot in the last few months, and a lot more in the last year, thanks to the forum and the free time that was available for me as I was unemployed.

There's so much to say about my childhood and teenage life, but I don't want to make this post any longer. I already have provided a lot of information I guess.

So, in conclusion, yeah I think I'm Green, or maybe Yellow lacking Orange. And here's why: I don't want to overestimate myself, but I am a very critical thinker, the problem is that my language sucks (my primary is Arabic) and I can't express what I want to say without talking in depth and I don't have enough time or energy for that, so I tend to give short answers, or I tend to lump in a lot of things together. Even my very long in-depth posts like this one is very condensed. I write a lot less than what I think. It's also very exhausting and sometimes disappointing to put effort in writing but then not finding anyone appreciating what you said because you didn't know how to communicate it. Besides, I like being alone and I'm not the emotional type nowadays. I know I have many blindspots in Yellow such as lack of variety of sources of information. I think I'm probably just starting to get into Yellow.

I'm still young and I'm learning. Besides, I seem to almost have no suffering anymore, although that might be a downside as well, since suffering = motivation. But, things seem promising.

EDIT: it took me about two hours to type this post (on phone).

Edited September 13, 2019 by Truth Addict

[tsuki]

@Truth Addict I think that you miss the core of what orange is. Orange is about learning to influence the external world successfully. It's about leveraging your mental capability to produce outcomes. It is not necessarily about being selfish. Selfishness arises in orange when a person leverages power to gain more power and that loop hoists the meaning-making process of the mind. It's a self-harming pathology.

• Blue's dogma is the cocoon from which the rational mind bursts out.
• Orange's selfishness is the cocoon from which green's empathy springs.
• Green's miasma of absolute relativity is the cocoon from which yellow's integration comes forth.

We seem to be similar in that we're bordering yellow, but the difference lies in the stage were integrating. You are integrating orange while I'm integrating green. If you're really grounded in green then you shouldn't be too afraid of Orange's selfishness.

Edited September 13, 2019 by tsuki

[mandyjw]

LOOK AT HIM, STEALING MY COCOON ANALOGY.

I think that the universe gracefully allows you to progress and then at a certain point your old hangups from other stages become very obvious. I think that's what you're seeing, not necessarily the general overall stages people are at. Nearly everyone here is yellow, a few are stuck in green and desperately fight yellow, those who insist how painful life is. Nahm is stage coral, Faceless was stage coral, some here are stage turquoise.

I also have a stage orange shadow.

Spiral dynamics is a gross oversimplification of evolution, there should be two scales one for emotional evolution and one for intellectual evolution. 

You can know without knowing. And you can know without knowing. Both are problematic. 

 

 

[tsuki]

@mandyjw Sigh...

[tsuki]

I swear, one day I will go through every single one of Nahm's 13'000 posts and understand him.
There is more to him than just being all lovey-dovey and it vexes me. He's my guru and I can't admit it to myself lol.

Edited September 13, 2019 by tsuki

[mandyjw]

His mind has sunk into his heart, that's the end goal that does not exist. The journey is the magic. We chose it. Leo said that Nahm is a carebear, but Leo is the actual carebear.  Nahm is the most terrifying "person" here.

Edited September 13, 2019 by mandyjw

[tsuki]

Why so?

[mandyjw]

Because what is fear really, underneath it all?

Love.

What happens when the mind sinks into the heart?

Clarity.

 

[Truth Addict]

3 hours ago, tsuki said:

@Truth Addict I think that you miss the core of what orange is. Orange is about learning to influence the external world successfully. It's about leveraging your mental capability to produce outcomes. It is not necessarily about being selfish. Selfishness arises in orange when a person leverages power to gain more power and that loop hoists the meaning-making process of the mind. It's a self-harming pathology.

I see. All of this I understand. The problem is that I can't make it real. Part of the problem is my laziness, and part is lack of experience.

You see, as I grew up, I've almost got everything I wanted, I mean that I got everything that I can work for and get, not what my parents provided me with, they didn't/couldn't provide everything I wanted, obviously. For example, I didn't need to study hard to get the best grades. I always got that easily until 14 years old when I got into high school. In other words, there was no competition for me at all until 14 years old. After that, there was so much competition and the students were way out of my league that I couldn't even compete, so I kinda gave up. Then at 17, in the summer right before college, I randomly stumbled upon a Sufi book that was sort of a little biography of an early Sufi called 'Al-Fuḍayl ibn ‘Iyāḍ'. It was a book filled with wisdom, mostly focused on surrendering and letting go, and also some mystical stories. That book made a lot of sense to me, but never sparked my hunger for wisdom. However, at college, there was so much competition as well that I gave up even more easily than high school.

The point is that I grew up without experiencing stage Orange. I was either completely successful or a complete failure relative to my community. I never had a chance to know how it feels to compete. I even used to despise it as some kind of barbaric mindset/behaviour. At stage Blue, I was mainly concerned with principles and morality. At stage Green, I am mainly concerned with functionality/health. I lack the ability to create that health.

One funny thing is that I used to give to charity even when I needed money the most. I was mostly broke, but I would still give money away. It's been only a couple of months that I stopped giving to charity completely, and it was something so hard to maintain. I've always been neglecting and demonising stage Orange as it being egotistical and barbaric, probably confusing it with stage Red.

So, part of the problem for why I don't come off kindly is because I don't know how people think at stage Orange. I don't know what they value (I know it only in theory). I can't manage to find a win-win solution, either me or them. And that sucks, because at stage Green I can't function properly, I want to share my love, but I don't know how to translate it into people's language. I do lack social skills. I don't think I'm well grounded in Green, thanks to my Orange shadow. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a little bit about the lack of social skills. I mean I certainly was pretty bad, but I've got a lot better during the last year.

So, if that's not the correct understanding of stage Orange, then please tell it to me straight, because that would mean that I need to study it once again.

@mandyjw Nothing fascinates the eye of a thief more than a fascinating caterpillar bead 

1 hour ago, mandyjw said:

 

I think that the universe gracefully allows you to progress and then at a certain point your old hangups from other stages become very obvious. I think that's what you're seeing, not necessarily the general overall stages people are at. Nearly everyone here is yellow, a few are stuck in green and desperately fight yellow, those who insist how painful life is. Nahm is stage coral, Faceless was stage coral, some here are stage turquoise.

Spiral dynamics is a gross oversimplification of evolution, there should be two scales one for emotional evolution and one for intellectual evolution.

See, this right here is why I think you still have some Blue in your psyche. This absolutist attitude is a hallmark of stage Blue. Blue doesn't necessarily require religious ideas, you can be religious about any idea. It's a very sneaky mindset that I was able to notice it in myself only recently. To think that I truly know something is already enough of a bold claim.

Also, Spiral Dynamics is not my only lens for judging people's development. I started developing an intuition integrated with my knowledge, that's why I spoke confidently about you and the others. I use Spiral Dynamics because it's popular here, it's sort of a common language.

About Nahm, I don't even know what Coral and Teal are. I don't feel comfortable even learning about them, Turquoise is already way above my head. Even when I said that Serotoninluv is borderline Turquoise, I wasn't really comfortable saying it.

Of course, the human psyche is way too complex to simplify it in models. I would guess there are tens of ways to categorise and study the human psyche. Emotional vs. Intellectual can be one of them. Feminine vs. Masculine can be another one. And so on...

[Truth Addict]

3 hours ago, mandyjw said:

You can know without knowing. And you can know without knowing. Both are problematic.

Do you know that I don't know what you're talking about?

2 hours ago, tsuki said:

I swear, one day I will go through every single one of Nahm's 13'000 posts and understand him.
There is more to him than just being all lovey-dovey and it vexes me. He's my guru and I can't admit it to myself lol.

I've seen some of his worst posts. He's grown a lot. There was a girl posting a thread in the serious emotional problems sub-forum about her brother raping her. Nahm suggested that she was trolling. I don't know if I can find the post, I read it once when I was reading a criticism of Actualized.org on reddit or quora. EDIT: found it: 

I don't mean to criticise Nahm or put him down by any means, just justifying my judgement of him. He's one of my favourite people of all times. He helped me A LOT.

2 hours ago, mandyjw said:

His mind has sunk into his heart, that's the end goal that does not exist. The journey is the magic. We chose it. Leo said that Nahm is a carebear, but Leo is the actual carebear.  Nahm is the most terrifying "person" here.

Nahm is awesome! Yet, I don't want to overestimate him. He definitely is way beyond me, and beyond many people here. But to me, he doesn't seem to be at the highest levels yet. Maybe in some areas, he is.

For example, he does not lock threads at all. While this seems like a positive trait even to me, but it shows a vulnerability on his side, more of an empathy really, but still something to integrate.

Quote

Because what is fear really, underneath it all?

Love.

What happens when the mind sinks into the heart?

Clarity.

 

This video is one of my favourites ❤️

Edited September 13, 2019 by Truth Addict

[tsuki]

1 hour ago, Truth Addict said:

You see, as I grew up, I've almost got everything I wanted, I mean that I got everything that I can work for and get, not what my parents provided me with, they didn't/couldn't provide everything I wanted, obviously. For example, I didn't need to study hard to get the best grades. I always got that easily until 14 years old when I got into high school. In other words, there was no competition for me at all until 14 years old.

@Truth Addict We share a similar story. The difference is that I aced the schools with no competition till the day I graduated at the top of my class in the university. I know what it feels to have everything I need in the world and not having to earn it. I also know how it feels to be alone because I focus so deeply on what I'm interested in, that everything else ceases to exist.

I can relate to your "genius laziness" a lot. Wherever I look, I understand the end result and see most of the things apart from consciousness work as a pointless treadmill. I rarely even think at work, I mostly meditate while doing the things I'm supposed to do. Helping people in my immediate surroundings and here on the forum is the best way I can utilize my time. I am very hopeful of integrating my green and expanding my life to include "spiritual people" because this forum is the only place I can almost go all out with people.

So, I think that we share similar "demons" of having no problems in life. My solution to having no problems is to not fuck this up by having a restless mind that can't enjoy what it has. At least, for now.

[Truth Addict]

14 minutes ago, tsuki said:

@Truth Addict 

So, I think that we share similar "demons" of having no problems in life. My solution to having no problems is to not fuck this up by having a restless mind that can't enjoy what it has. At least, for now.

I didn't talk about my current fucked up situation in life, and I don't mean to be rude but I really don't feel like talking about it. But here's a little trailer: economical breakdown of the whole country, barely affording to live. Not saying that I'm suffering or anything right now, in fact that suffering turned into peace and then happiness and bliss through surrendering.

And well, good for you for acing your education! I was/still am never interested in theory/abstractions.

[tsuki]

@Truth Addict Mmmm, sorry for my projections.
I guess I needed to spill my guts.

Edited September 13, 2019 by tsuki