LastThursday

Journey to Nothing

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This was an interesting talk:

This is how talking without debating looks like.

One of the ideas presented of the past informing the present, fits in with what I posted about with Matryoshka dolls. In a way the past is telescoped into the present, the layer of the present moment constantly being laid over the past. Although I disagree that there is some sort of "past" per se - it's not in the same form as the present moment, but it is still within consciousness. I'm more of the persuasion that the present moment is constantly being generated from nothingness in all its full glory (hence Last Thursdayism).  Consciousness is that powerful, it doesn't need a back story.

I also notice the Lyall Watson books in the background. I always wanted to read Heaven's Breath, I'll go hunt for it. One thing leads to another.

What I don't get and really want to know is, how does a philosopher stay alive? And how can I do it too.

Edited by LastThursday

All stories and explanations are false.

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I'm constantly restless. This is something I seems to share with my dad and sister. When I was young I was physically restless, and at times could be very excitable, a trait I shared with my sister (my dad has never been very physical). With my sister I think that restlessness caused her to approach life in a very haphazard way, and she never really learned to stand on her own two feet. With my dad all that restless energy was always driven into working, he's a workaholic and always has been and shows no sign of retiring any time soon. With me, the restlessness is mostly mental, but there is a kind of feeling of constriction (which feels like lack of freedom) because I'm not generally allowed to be physical. Yes, I walk and play sports and at those times I feel some sense of relief. But that restless energy is always nagging at me.

That restlessness for me, mentally, affects my focus. More rightly it means I'm extremely distractable. I have to succumb to the distraction or I just lose focus and energy on whatever I'm currently doing. The only thing that can override that tendency to distraction is if I have a problem to solve or a clear goal in mind. I know the merits of commitment and stamina, but only certain kinds of activity engage me enough to commit and not be distracted. It's like a balance, the energy has to be heavy enough that it overcomes the pull of distraction.

I suspect it's something genetic, I can see the similarity of behaviours in my family. I'm sure it would have a big fat label stuck on it if I were to have it investigated, but what use are labels for something I already have a handle on?

The reason I'm talking about it at all, is that it's problematic at times. Working from home requires me to be autonomous (which I like), but I've found that I'm way too easily distracted (a lot on this site!). When I was working in the office, I was confined to my desk, and people are looking over my shoulder constantly, mindlessly surfing was mostly out. But, because I'm free to service my restlessness now, I feel a thousand times better. I no longer get headaches or backaches or fatigue (physical manisfestations of stresss). But my productivity at work is suffering massively. That causes me a certain amount of anxiety, but so far I've been able to service the needs of my client without too much complaint from them. I completely realise that a game is being played here, both with myself and with my work. In a sense that tension is putting some drama - albeit negative - into an otherwise dull existence.

In all, I need to lean into what I've been given. That restless energy I've used to my advantage, by learning a shit-ton of stuff in my life, which has had positive effects on me. I continue to be driven to learn and expand my consciousness. But I need to readjust the balance in my life: more physicality, more experimentation, less rigid working practices. I need to be free to engage my restlessness full on and be true to myself.


All stories and explanations are false.

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I heard a handclap.

In that moment I had crossed some unforeseen threshold. The handclap momentarily reverberated not in my ears but everywhere. It had not really been my ears at all that had heard the sound I soon realised. Something else reverberated along with the handclap. That something was familiar but had now become indistinct and spread out and less important.

I sat suddenly in a daze. It was like I had crossed into a dream. It was the same world as before, but it felt as if it were new. I had fallen out of the black hole, gone in the wrong direction through its event horizon. I was no longer a slave to the gravitational pull of that old reality.

Presently, I came to the momentous discovery that it had been the hands in front of me that had clapped.  They had moved not through will, but of their own accord. I couldn't find the reason why they had clapped, it was lost to time. It seemed as I looked around, everything had its own will and way. This body I had dragged and cajoled like a dead weight, no longer heeded to any control. Escaping that gravitational pull had made everything lighter. The body moved of its own accord with its own unfathomable will. I was surprised but then that surprise itself reverberated everywhere - it too had a will of its own.

I was nowehere to be found. The new dream had overtaken me.


All stories and explanations are false.

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I thought I would try and explain my mythology of existence. The narrative of a mythology is a useful device for both giving meaning and for understanding and which orient you in a particular way. Without these you are ignorant (literally: have no knowledge) and existence is incomprehensible (Latin: not perceived). What follows is my mythology which I have variously hinted at here and there on the forum.

There are several basic players in my mythology. These are Time,, the Changing Aspect, the Unchanging Aspect, Distinctions, Unity and Narrative. They all interact with each other in various ways, no one is more primary than the other. I use the words God, universe, reality, experience, existence, everything, awareness and consciousness interchangeably below.

Time

Time doesn’t exist.

It’s clear that once a thing has happened and is over, there’s no going back to it. There isn’t a chance to re-experience a past event in its fullness as if it were the present moment. We have memories, but these are not the same as the original event in quality. Equally with future events, we are yet to experience them in their fullness, even if they are likely to pass. With introspection it becomes clear that events in time only occur in our imaginations, time is just imagination. We experience time, but only by constructing it in our heads.

The Changing Aspect

Existence cannot keep still. Everywhere we care to look things come and things go. Even in the insubstantial world of thought and emotion there is constant flux if observed for any length of time. Why does this happen? Why isn’t everything static and unchanging for eternity?

The reason is because the whole of existence has to be created from nothingness. If time existed then there only has to be one starting point or moment of conception, which sets in motion everything else. Conversely, if time does not exist then everything is collapsed into a single moment. No sooner has a universe been created from nothingness than it disappears back into nothingness. Each moment of creation is unique in quality. This is the source of the instability of existence, whatever process creates existence is free to do it as it wishes every moment. Put simply existence is being born and dies every moment.

This process of birth and death of existence is instantaneous (because there is no time). Existence is in a superposition of both birth and death; our experience is both dead and alive. This is right, no sooner has something happened, than it has slipped into memory as if it had never existed.

The Unchanging Aspect

Despite all the change it is noteworthy that we experience a sense of continuity. Each moment of existence seems to be based on the previous one. We say that existence unfolds moment-by-moment. How can continuity be experienced in a universe that dies and is reborn constantly? By itself it cannot, this process is without a memory.  Each new universe does not have to be related to the previous one.

We can see that this is not the case. Each new moment is similar to the one that has gone before. There is a kind of “stickiness” to reality. This is the Unchanging Aspect. Like the Changing Aspect the Unchanging Aspect is fundamental to the process of creation. Whatever creates the universe likes to do it in a similar way each time.

Without a brake on the process of creation of that happens each moment, eternity would happen in an instant. The Unchanging Aspect works in opposition to change to act as that brake and so that it unfolds at a finite pace. The interplay between the two forces of change and stillness is what creates our experience of steady change. From this balance we a free to construct time in our minds.

The stillness within existence also gives us our memories. It makes previous incarnations of the universe stick around so that we can relive (in a reduced form) past events. It also confers our sense of continuity of both ourselves and existence itself. Yes we are created and destroyed every moment, but the Unchanging Aspect ensures that we don’t disappear forever.

The Unchanging Aspect is also what creates order from the chaos of creation. It gives us meaning and narrative from an otherwise completely arbitrary existence. It is the thread of existence.

Distinctions

What does it mean for something to exist? On the face of it the thing is there, it is, we are aware of it. We could leave it at that and agree that awareness alone is enough to confer existence to phenomena in experience. This is true. But existence is also distinction.

When we’re aware of the table we are sat at, it is distinct from all the other things around it. In some way the table is contrasted with everything else around it. Another way to look at it is to see the table has a boundary. There is a separation between table and not-table, with a kind of imaginary thin line or boundary separating the two.

This idea of a boundary is important, because it demarcates where one thing ends and another begins. If you are God and begin with a blank canvas (nothingness), it has no boundaries contained within it at all. Nothing exists in nothingness (!) precisely because nothing is to be distinguished, because there are no boundaries drawn around anything.

It is a moot point whether nothingness exists or not. Nothingness is always in superposition with somethingness because of the Changing Aspect and the non-existence of time. It exists because it is something.

Fundamentally, there cannot be non-existence, existence doesn’t have an opposite. Sure, a particular phenomenon within experience can stop or disappear – and so it stops existing. But taken as a whole existence does not have an opposite.

What is a distinction really? It is a manifestation of the Unchanging Aspect. It is a sensation or meaning or awareness that sticks around. So the table keeps on being the table. The nature of a distinction is that it stays around long enough to be useful. But because of the Changing Aspect, the distinctions themselves change over each iteration of the universe.

The boundary making up a distinction envelops nothingness. Everything that can exist is brought about from nothingness by its distinctiveness. Existence is nothing but distinctions around nothingness. Qualia and the phenomena of consciousness is all about distinction. Sound is distinct from sight, red distinct from green, leaves distinct from stones.

It is not incorrect to say that we are experiencing nothingness; both in the sense that something is being created from nothing constantly (and both are in superposition), but also because distinctions are drawn in nothingness. It is the Unchanging Aspect that draws the distinctions, the Changing Aspect which destroys them; but behind both there is nothingness.

Distinctions and boundaries may confer existence to things, but there are no gaps between them. Fundamentally, a boundary demarcates a thing, and everything that is not that thing, it’s a binary choice. There’s nothing that’s half a thing or half existing. That’s not to say that boundaries don’t overlap, is a hand an arm for example? Language itself is digital and so it naturally also creates boundaries: a big flat stone can be a table for your coffee; the table is brought into existence through language demarcating it.

Unity

Hopefully I’ve made it clear that nothingness and existence are one and the same thing. Also, that both the Changing and Unchanging Aspects are universal to existence/experience. And, that the Unchanging Aspect drives distinctions which create existence itself. Indeed the constancy of change is also a product of the Unchanging Aspect.

There is a unity in all the base phenomena of the universe of experience. Everything that can exist: the world, the body, thought, the self, the observer of all those things, is a function of the same process. That process is the ever present creation of something from nothing. Everything is both nothing and something. Everything is one.

Narrative

The finite pace of experience, allows for another constancy which is the stringing together of many  changes into a cohesive story line. This is what gives meaning to existence. Meaning is simultaneously the recognition of the constancy of experience, and also the ability to see and then explain change happening around us.

It is only through narrative that we can tell a consistent story of what is happening to us. It ties together ragbag assortment of experience and memories into a cohesive whole. It makes the world a place that can be known and understood.

God plays a game of creation and then tries to explain to itself (through thought and words and narrative) why it is happening. This is exactly what I’m doing here. There is no difference between me and the engine of creation, I am synonymous with it. We all are.


All stories and explanations are false.

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Ever find yourself in a conversation where you've already reached the punchline? Yet, the person insists on rambling to the conclusion anyway? You wait impatiently.

This is something I've experienced most of my life. I'm used to it. For me I don't think it stems from having a quick mind per se, sometimes my mind is quite slow and deliberate. But it definitely stems from paying attention and from absorbing a huge array of information. In one of my previous jobs, at one point my immediate manager became very annoyed with me because I was pre-empting him so often - by already having finished a task he was going to assign me. I thought it was amusing. I was simply good at paying attention to "what was in the air" at any particular time. Even in my current job, I have meetings lasting hours, where I got the gist in the first few minutes - some people just need to talk it out (sigh).

I think I mostly stopped watching Leo's videos for that same fact. I started to know what was coming and I didn't need to suffer two hours of talking head to be told what I already knew. Naturally, I may be missing the odd nugget here and there, but I find I pick up those things somewhere else eventually anyway. But it's nothing to do with Leo, and all to do with me. I'm a fast learner and I have good recall.

And so it is with spirituality and understanding myself. I understand myself well. I get the main thrust of spirituality. I get it. All that's happening now is a layering up of information in the hope that some spiritual magic will happen. I think, like money and happiness, words and explanation will only get me so far in this work. I'm not sure what's left, I could navel gaze forever and not get anywhere different. That's not to say I've reached the pinnacle of my spiritual journey, just that all the foundations have been laid and actually erecting the building itself is a completely different animal. I'm not sure how to do that, for once I haven't got to the punchline already.

Edited by LastThursday

All stories and explanations are false.

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Inside all of us sits the kernel of our own actualisation. Like the egg and sperm that made you and me, that potential inside us is the entire thing. Feeding and nurturing that potential and giving it the right environment leads every time to an actualised human being. It's never too late, whether you're 20 or 80. It's a long and winding path, but that's the joy if it.

At some point it becomes self-sustaining. Instead of passively depending on environment and circumstance to actualise, you gain enough experience and insight to organise your environment and circumstance actively and a virtuous cycle is set up. It's a cumulative process of ever increasing awareness and experience.

At the start of the process there are many low hanging fruit. You start by learning that your mind and body are intricately connected. You have to treat the body well and not let it languish or innocently poison it. The body is the vehicle for your self-actualisation. If the body suffers, the mind suffers in synchrony and it works in both directions. It is easy to fix these problems but it requires ongoing commitment. That commitment gets easier over time, until it becomes who you are.

Next you realise that you are incarnated as a human being. That human as a whole needs feeding, it needs love and attention from others, novelty and purpose and belonging to a tribe and identity. Without those things it's hard to actualise any further. Some of these things are pitifully lacking in our Western system or at least are not freely obtained. They are hard to put in place if any of the pieces are missing, but they are necessary. We know that by helping others we help ourselves, that reciprocity underpins our humanity.

Along the path we learn that we are creative creatures and that improvisation and living by our wits feeds our sense of excitement and feeling alive. We don't do this naturally as adults. We are fearful of making fools of ourselves and of not being good enough or being ostracised. We realise that to actualise we have to combat our deepest fears head on. We have so many of them embedded in our behaviours and the way we think. The irony being that if we unleash our creativity and improvisation abilities our fears disappear. We don't need to be heroes or fearless warriors, just aware enough to know that our fears are mostly are mirage.

Talking of heroes and fearless warriors, once we have enough provisions for the journey we can take our stories and uses them as a base for actualisation. The stories we tell ourselves are incredibly powerful. They are the operating system of human beings. When you change the stories you change your very core being. We use that creativity and improvisation to muster up a grand opera for our lives. It drives us, orients us and gives us context and purpose. Without a good story we are left languishing and directionless - that is not actualisation.

We go further and become aware that everything that drives us to actualise is constructed in our minds. And that we are free to construct and deconstruct anything we like to serve our purposes. The mere fact of this makes us realise that "we" are really outside of the constructs, we can choose to see reality at any level of detail we care to. And we can play with reality itself. We a free in a deep and fundamental sense. And we begin to redefine what being human is.

Maybe, finally, we get that we're totally interconnected with everything. Everything is affected by everything else at every level; and that we are playing a game when we isolate a thing from everything else. We cannot say we are just human any more, in a real sense we are everything all the time. It's all one grand flow. We are not observers of reality, we are reality.

 

 


All stories and explanations are false.

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Communicating the incommunicable.

I don't normally let what happens on the main forum influence what I write about here (because I don't like repeating myself). Normally, it's the other way around if at all. By way of example I'm going to recount something that I'm feeling today.

There's a distinct difference in the way I feel nowadays to how I felt a few years back. Back then I felt stressed and depressed in general. That depression had a tangible increase in a sensation that I now seldom feel. We all having an underlying "mood" so to speak, during different periods of our lives. It's often connected to our circumstances and environments, the people and drama, but it's a felt sensation rather than thought.

In terms of this particular mood, I had felt it at least since my teenage years. But I was completely unaware of it until I became depressed. It was that mood that made me mentally unstable and miserable. I had been anxious and felt off most of my adult life until then, but it was normality for me.

To describe the sensation is like comparing the difference between Summer and Winter. In fact Winter used to increase my sadness. Winter here (UK) is cold and desaturated and claustrophobic and isolating. I used a S.A.D. light for a number of years to counteract it - and it helped. It's hard to know whether the mood I felt was like the Winter weather or was triggered by the weather, strange isn't it? I just felt in myself, desaturated, disassociated and an inner coldness and negativity that was hard to shake off.

Two things helped flip me into my current sunnier mood. One was that my circumstances changed, some of the people and events that had triggered and prolonged my depression went away. The other is that I started to take St John's Wort regularly, knowing it was a mood lifter. Slowly slowly I began to feel different. It was like the colour and warmth was being turned up inside me. After a year of taking the wort, I decided to wean myself off it. It's non-addictive from my experience, but I was apprehensive about returning to my former depressed self. I had a few false starts, and went back on it after a month break here and there, because I could feel myself slipping back. But eventually I won out. My new mood was installed and permanent.

Very rarely do I slip back nowadays, it's especially if I'm tired when I wake up, or there's a certain chill in the air, or especially dark days outside. But I'm acutely aware of it now, I know it will pass and any negativity I feel in the moment I just recognise for what it is and let it go. Ideally, I have a nap and all is right again. I don't need St John's Wort or a bright light in Winter.

So what is the feeling? It's incommunicable in itself, to be honest I can't even describe it to myself very well, it's simply an all-pervading sensation that doesn't easily shift. Scientifically, it's probably related to decreased Seretonin levels, so doing things to increase that probably helps. I suspect I've trained my body to have a new set-point in my Serotonin production and I feel all the more sunnier for it. May it long continue.

 

Edited by LastThursday

All stories and explanations are false.

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Amongst some of my friends it's well known how much I despise wage slavery. Since I've been working at home in the pandemic, with one friend in particular we joke to each other by asking "have you started work today yet?" Often I reply no. Some days I actually do no work at all. He is similar, but he has a young daughter and a house to maintain, so he has his own distractions. It's my own form of private protest.

I see very much like this: it was not my choice to be born into this society. Naturally, I acquiesce to the extent I'm prepared to. I work as a wage slave because I have no other choice. The flipside is that I live a comfortable life as a result. There are pros and cons and nuance to everything in life. Really, what I'm a slave to is my own fear of living a shitty life, or worse, death. A mediocre life is better than a crappy life.

Business is about maximising profit. You push some capital out up front, in the hope that you get the capital back and more. It's a form of gambling or at least risk taking. It feeds into our innate greed and need for more and more stuff, especially money. It is not money per se at the root of all evil, but our greediness. For example, no business would ever cap it's own growth and profits, it seems insane to do that. If the business starts employing more people, then those people are surviving from that greed. What's so bad about that?

It's not possible to escape the system. Starting your own business, is just more of the same, you now become a slave to your clients. Maybe you can be conscious and cap your business's growth? You make enough money to give you a comfortable life and no more. Alternatively, you somehow try and escape having to work whatsoever, you live on government handouts.

I know deep down I'm doing the wrong type of work. My lack of motivation speaks volumes. The inertia that used to keep me going - my love of computing - no longer does that. My focus is moving to other things, it wants to move to other things. I feel that intensely. But in order to jump the ship of wage slavery I will simultaneously have to do something I have no mastery at and decrease my standard of living. My core being is like nope. The temptation to simply quit working for a while is high and possible for me to do. But, it's no fix for the situation, not really. Previous times I've been in the position of freefall with no income, it was anxiety inducing. If I'm going to do it again, I need a very clearly defined plan of escape. I'm not fighting the system, I'm fighting myself.


All stories and explanations are false.

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Guillermo why don't you do something with your talents instead of wasting time doing not much at all?

I've had that sort of sentiment directed at me from various different sources over time. I get jarred by it, both because what I choose to do is my choice, but also because some - irritating - part of my agrees with the sentiment. I'm predisposed to both agree and disagree at the same time. It's like informing a pretty woman that they are wasting their time by not being on a catwalk.

What dawned on me eventually, is that this sort of thing is coming from a place of love. Most people close to you genuinely want to see you succeed, especially if you have the talents to do so. They want to live vicariously through you. This seems to be why talent is so prized in our society, especially if that talent is god given. There's a realisation that talent doesn't come for free, and that it's not bestowed on the great majority of people.

I had an odd phase some time ago where I had a hankering to become an actor. To a degree I'm a show off, or an exhibitionist, I like some attention sometimes. It seemed like a good fit. I took some preliminary acting courses, just to test the waters. At that basic level it's all exercises to build trust and to expose your inner self, and to be childlike again to some extent. I very much enjoyed the experience.  My teacher had even starred in The Matrix films (the irony isn't lost on me).

When I told people about my new direction in life, they were excited for me. I liked the attention. But as it was it fizzled out, I'm not sorry in any way, I learnt valuable skills along the way.

I see some talent on this forum, both spiritually, intellectually and in writing ability. Yes, I'm pointing at YOU. And I just feel like that irritating guy. So, why don't you do something big with that talent you have there? Stop wasting time, make it pay and propel you forward. If you become famous, I can name drop you, and you can keep me on your Christmas card list. Of course, I promise to do the same.

Edited by LastThursday

All stories and explanations are false.

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Who, me? :ph34r:xD

Your teacher starred in the Matrix films! xD That's too awesome. 


My Youtube Channel- Light on Earth “We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”― Robert Frost

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I'm reluctant to feed the ego but here goes: YES YOU xDxD (and others of course).

I only found it out after I started taking the lessons, she seemed like any other normal Aussie. If anyone ever offers me a choice between two different coloured pills, I'll going to change my name to Neo and learn some martial arts.


All stories and explanations are false.

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@LastThursday The ego's food is only itself, so no need to worry about feeding it.  xD

Edited by mandyjw

My Youtube Channel- Light on Earth “We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”― Robert Frost

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@mandyjw that's making me hungry, time for some light lunch, hopefully my ego's waistline doesn't get bigger.


All stories and explanations are false.

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1 minute ago, LastThursday said:

@mandyjw that's making me hungry, time for some light lunch, hopefully my ego's waistline doesn't get bigger.

xD Well, the universe only ever expands. ?‍♀️


My Youtube Channel- Light on Earth “We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”― Robert Frost

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Not much to report today. Just haphazard rhetorical type questions.

 

Is it ok to have nothing going on?

Have you ever been with people and felt the suffocating vacuum of having nothing to say, even if it's only momentary? 

What if you've been with your partner for years and in fact the norm is to say nothing to each for long periods?

Should every moment be filled with activity?

What about boredom, how does that figure in having nothing going on? 

Isn't boredom a fate worse than being a loser? Winners always have something going on. Being bored is just admitting to being a loser (?).

How is it possible to life live and be bored? Aren't they complementary opposites?

What if you give up doing anything? Just recontextualise activity as nothing. Isn't that bliss? Isn't that just admitting death in through the front door?

Isn't death a fate worse than knowing you're a loser?

Can you attract any/thing/body by doing nothing at all? 

Can anything get done by doing nothing at all? Doesn't the world revolve anyway?

Can't you just recontextualise doing nothing as constant activity anyway?

Isn't doing/doing nothing just a duality to be squashed like a bug? Only to be left with an uneasy sense of WTF? 

 


All stories and explanations are false.

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In the spirit of the Socratic method. I wanted to leave some rhetorical answers as just food for thought  to the rhetorical questions. Just for fun!

Two people sitting together for hours in silence could be an indicator of two people who have quieted their minds and communicate with one another through the presence of their Being.

Couldn’t resist posting this clip about “brother Sez” and “brother Ahl”.

Neo Shamanism has practices called non-doing practices which cultivate Being. Boredom is sometimes the result of not being present which is the antithesis of Being. The more one can be present and fulfilled through the practice and art of non-doing the further away from the state of boredom one gets.

The ability to give up doing anything and be content and fulfilled is at the pinnacle of achievement in a human life experience on Earth.

Ram Dass quoted a Hindu Mystic who stated that death was not a traumatic event at all. Just the opposite. The Mystic stated that when death of the body occurred, it was like taking off a pair of shoes which were uncomfortably tight.

 

 


"To have a free mind is to be a universal heretic." - A.H. Almaas

"We have to bless the living crap out of everyone." - Matt Kahn

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@Zigzag Idiot I like the message. The clip is like a painting, or something you'd see on a Christmas card, with a certain doing nothing vibe to it. The other thing that springs to mind is: is a rhetorical question and a rhetorical answer just a duality? And is that itself a rhetorical question, or is it an answer? xDxD Welcome to my mind.

Edited by LastThursday

All stories and explanations are false.

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Some more (not) doing:

Euphoria take me into slumber,

Make me insensible to petty concerns,

Remind me of whoat* I was meant to be,

Of becoming etherial and lightly bound,

Vaguely and indifferently embodied,

Just resting and slowy divesting,

Euphoria take me deeper,

Let me forget it all,

And renew,

Me.

* not a typo, smoosh of who and what, one for the dictionary


All stories and explanations are false.

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I thought I'd broach the subject of having a love life. 

When it comes down to it I feel very conflicted. It's something I think about consistently almost like a reflex. But even now I'm struggling to gather my thoughts coherently. Ok, time for Mr Left Brain, a list of points:

  • I get horny
  • I want regular sex with women
  • I don't want to have to compromise what I can and can't do by being in a relationship
  • I'm an all or nothing type of guy, I can't have a part-time relationship, it would drive me crazy
  • I do want intimacy, sharing and joy and some adventure from a relationship
  • I have an acute sense of beauty and especially for faces (see below), it's important to me
  • want to flirt and attract attention, even if not to get off
  • I don't have opportunity/make opportunity to put myself in situations where I talk to women
  • All my social circle are around my age or older (i.e. married with kids, i.e. no source of new people to meet and no partying)
  • I'm prepared to go out by myself, but I'm always very conscious of my age 
  • I do like the idea of having a family and all that, so that limits the age range I can go for
  • I'm 50/50 about taking on someone my age with kids, there will be hurdles to overcome
  • A 50 year-old woman can be attractive no doubt, but it gets much rarer
  • I'm not into PUA tactics, it just sucks, although I will approach if the situation allows it: nightclub, possibly pub but unlikely
  • Online dating is low odds, I mean I do scan on occasion, but the response rate is nearly non-existent
  • There have been one or two work colleagues I have found attractive and got on with, but that's just luck of the draw
  • I could do courses or activities that would allow me to meet women, but from experience you get stuck with a particular cohort, and if no-one fits that's it, no luck. And I would need to do something I'm interested in
  • I'm at my most relaxed, confident and self-assured I have been in my life, and I feel frustrated that I'm not in a position to explore that more with women
  • I don't want to go out with bimbo even if she was a supermodel, intelligence is important to me
  • I know for a certain fact that if I'm looking for some sort of good fit in a partner, it's a numbers game, I need to meet a fair amount of women to meet one that fits my standards
  • To a degree my standards are high, because I have a lot to offer, I'm high value in a lot of ways
  • Energy is important to me, I don't want a woman that just wants to stay in all day on her laptop or painting her nails, there's a strong inverse correlation between age and energy
  • I would happily go out with women in a wide age range, but I'm acutely aware of being judged if the woman was noticeably younger than me, whilst personally IDGAF, I'm also not into making my life harder for no reason at all: she has to be worth the aggravation!

I'm sure there's a lot more going on, but that's the stuff that immediately surfaces.

In terms of the face thing, I've taken various tests and I'm a super-recogniser or at least I'm high up there. I have both an extremely good memory for faces, and attention for facial characteristics:

https://theconversation.com/facial-recognition-research-reveals-new-abilities-of-super-recognisers-128414

I like a good body (especially good skin) in a woman, but the face is most important to me. I would probably have a bias against stick thin, but it's not out. I'm not bothered by height, but I know for a certain fact that women are. But I'm a shorter guy at 5'7", so probably it tops out at 6' in a woman (without heels) for me. I'd probably feel odd going out with someone under 5', but I have done 4'11"!

I feel it's a bit childish to say I have a type, there's so many different characteristics that might attract me in a woman physically let alone personality. I would genuinely say I'm race/ethnicity agnostic. But that's not to say I don't have biases in what attracts me, I do, blue eyes for example, or jet-black hair or blonde. But it's the entire package so to speak, not just individual characteristics I go for. I don't think I have any sort of race fetish, but I've never really given it much thought.

The way I see it, is even in spite of everything else, I will have to look at this person day in and day out, she has to be interesting to me visually, I'm a very visually-led guy. My ex always had a particular pair of jeans she looked good in, and that attraction never wore off. And vice-versa, if something were to bother me about appearance, there'd be no shaking it off. It's a visual shallowness I guess, but not something I have control over.

Ok. So if hypothetically I had a stream of "encounters" with women that fit my vague criteria at least visually say, but no real relationship, would that satisfy me? I think it would do a lot to satiate that horniness I regularly feel, and give me some sort of ego boost too. I would probably keep things mostly private from friends etc. I'm not sure how maintainable that is longer term, and knowing me I'd probably fall in love with most of them. So being put through the emotional ringer regularly is not something I relish. I'm not sure I've got the right mindset for a numbers approach to it. But not getting into relationships would leave me free to be myself and not compromise.

I'm definitely not into long distance relationships. I mean, yes it can start that way, but one or the other would have to move. Either I'm in a relationship or I'm not, I don't want some vague something in-between or meeting via Zoom now and then, that would suck big time.

I suppose the only other thing, was that if a relationship were to become serious and longer term, that she is amenable to having a family (my ex wasn't and that caused problems). 

And for god's sakes no dogs or horses. I get the companionship thing, but it's just not me.

I actually got a message from a dating app from a 25 year old recently. She was definitely attractive facially, and was a Buddhist, so maybe? I found myself being reluctant to message back, it's a big age gap, but I did, however she didn't follow through. I think 25 is pretty young for me, but it's a hard lower limit. I'd probably be more comfortable with 30 and upwards to 38.  After all, it's only a number. But I would feel kind of odd being introduced to parents younger than me!!

That's it, no real resolution, or much coherence about what direction to head in. Fuck it. I'll just carry on as I am for the moment. Singledom bliss.

 

Edited by LastThursday

All stories and explanations are false.

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Ever encountered a difficult person? Someone who constantly fights the the world, or doesn't play by the rules, or is completely intransigent, or is just plain chaotic and insane? How is it possible to love such a person? Should you love such a person?

Notice the negativity which arises when you are with these difficult people. There will be a whole bunch of judgement going on, about how this person shouldn't do this, or should be more loving, or think like you, and how they can't see the obvious? The irony is that your judgement makes you a difficult person. Maybe you can justify your judgement to yourself, by saying that you can't help it, that difficult person brings out the worst in me: their negativity is infectious.

If you look past the judgement there is love to be had. A person is difficult because they challenge your worldview in some way. If you have an ignorant unempathetic boss, they are challenging your view that everyone should not be ignorant and unempathetic. It is actually you who are imposing upon the world and that it should function in a certain way. It is that dissonance that is causing your misery. It's both a rigidity and lack of acceptance on your part.

Often difficult people are self assured, righteous, immobile, intelligent, manipulative, lacking empathy, or have wonky thinking (outside of the norm). They are not wrong for having these qualities, it is the normal spectrum of human behaviour, they are normal from a human perspective. They can be got through to though, if it's your wish to educate or change them or help in their suffering. But you have to go through a different path than normal, judgement will normally be met with resistance. 

One powerful way is through suggestion. You mention tangentially that things could be different if they tried something else. You say to your horrible boss, that they could get more productivity if they eased off the micromanaging. You pit a strong positive against their strong negative. Give it time to seep in and let the difficult person take ownership, as if the thought were theirs. Be strategic in how to inject positivity into a difficult person's view of the world.

Another way is to match the difficult person and meet them on their level. For example you have to deal with an impolite person, who never thanks you for putting in extra effort. You then become as "difficult" as they are. Become impolite and short, don't do small talk, don't smile. You reward every bad bit of behaviour with equally bad behaviour on your part, you reward good behaviour with good behaviour. You are matching their difficulty head on. The change in your behaviour will become very obvious to them, and this will cause confusion on their part which will make it hard for them to continue with their difficult behaviours. They will start to actively seek an easy life, by doing the things that make you behave well. Stand firm!

You can of course just be stoic. You're pleasant, polite and forgiving no matter what the difficult person throws at you. You lead by example and show that there is no malice or judgement from your part. They will carry on manipulating and being aggressive and yet your passive nature shines through. It is hard to be unpleasant to someone who is constantly pleasant to you, something clicks eventually and you change. The difficult person "wakes up" to their challenging behaviour and it cannot be ignored after that point, something must change.

Often the thinking processes of a difficult person traps them in their behaviours. If you are insightful enough, you can help point out inconsistencies in their thinking, and sometimes this hits home. The difficult person realises that they are conflicted and this is the source of their suffering. This can initially result in confusion or a kind of silence and introspection as they try and resolve the conflict. Even if they choose to ignore the conflict, the realisation cannot be undone. Difficult people often suffer from conflicted thinking which they aren't aware of.

But it all has to start with you. Ask yourself "Am I a difficult person sometimes?", and if so are you willing to change?

Edited by LastThursday

All stories and explanations are false.

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