(and with that post my journal is now one more post than @henryyyyyyyyyy, come on son, have at it!!! 
)
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I realised that there is a lot of context missing when i used the phrase “pimp or be pimped”.
Ever since i was a child, i was physically unwell at the thought, mention, implication of a woman or girl being sexually abused.
I could never understand why anyone would abuse women. I understood sexual desire, obviously, but to rape someone, or to “pimp” someone was inconceivable to me. It just made me both mad and very upset. It would still take next to no resistance for me to kill a sexual abuser. Like, just give me the chance. I would fill stadiums with abusers and “push the button”. Heck, i would slit their throats, individually, one at a time, for weeks on end without sleep, given the chance.
Yet, after now 46 laps of being alive, i see how it works. How ‘identity’ itself it to blame. How an impulse, an attraction, is nothing to be afraid of, but the hungry ghosts of the ‘real’ are the culprits.
So, for me, it was realising that in a way i was being “pimped” by the real.
@claudiu gave great advice, in that i can frame it far better than such a crude phrase. Being confident, decisive; being a carefree yet determined being doesn’t mean i have to be more of a ‘man’. I don’t have to be more ‘protective’ or more ‘controlling’, i can be more free.
Cheers @claudiu.
I have been considering this a lot.
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All morning, i have been extra attentive to feeling good. As soon as i get a bit stressed, i slow down and take it easy.
I really appreciate the phone conversations with Arthur and Rick. Makes everything more direct, more human. More important to be attentive.
As Rick said, the best thing i can do for him is get this done!
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I was looking for your post (perhaps it was the DhO) but i think it was here; where you described the feeling good of actualism, as everyday normal feeling good that any one does all the time.
This is an excellent description. Something that certainly would make for an excellent introduction to actualism.
Ah, here it is…
Claudiu; "All this is to say that, the enjoyment and appreciation of actualism literally is nothing other than the ordinary and regular enjoying and appreciating of daily life that every man, woman, and child experiences, has experienced, or will experience, on occasion, simply by the normal (i.e. “uninstructed, run-of-the-mill”) course of living out their daily lives!
It is nothing other than, essentially, being in a good mood, as in well-disposed, enjoying oneself, being likable and liking, jovial, etc. It is precisely this ordinary and remarkably plain (compared to the jhanic qualities above) enjoyment."
@claudiu, your posts linked above have really clicked with me.
Especially the words “ordinary and regular”, and the whole description about it being so normal and everyday.
I have had a good couple of days where this was the way i approached everything. Almost in an unspoken way.
Even now, it’s actually easy to keep this ordinary enjoyable mood going. Just don’t go down all the obviously un-enjoyable distractions.
I cooked again at work. We have a social habit at work where we take turns cooking lunch on alternative Fridays. I waa looking forward to it. Cooked fish in foil on the BBQ with some lovely flavoured olive oil, lemons and lime, with chilli and garlic. Very nice. I enjoyed my week a lot.
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My partner and I have been having more frequent conversations about life and feelings, which i enjoy a lot. I think part of the reason is that i simply don’t back down on talking. That is not something i will compromise on. However, my focus has become more about the quality of what i am saying, the introspection i do before, during, and after conversations.
I mentioned this a few posts back, that i have generally in my life “talked around topics” that actually could be directly talked about.
For example, instead of dealing with many things directly, and personally in the relationship , i will generalise about “men and women” or talk about society, or nature, or something psychological.
I think this has also been a personal “cop out”. Being general may be something useful, but it also let’s me “off the hook”.
Anyway, one recent conversation was very eye opening for me.
I was talking about my mother and father. Specifically, the convo lead to me saying that i think my mother had selected my father mostly because he was handsome.
This really clicked with me in the moment i said it. I could see that the whole emotional reality i was raised in was one where a person’s character was valued way less than how they looked.
Coupled with my mother’s self reported life long loathing of her looks, it made perfect sense how i simultaneously loathed my looks, yet also relied on them for relationships. I have been a hybrid of my parents.
To fill in some blanks here, my personal finances have been a mess my whole life. Exactly like my father. I could feel, and still do feel, that having seen this dynamic, i can actually enjoy fixing them.
I commented maybe 8 years ago on the old yahoo forum that it seemed i was determined to go broke, commit financial suicide. This is exactly what my father did while he was alive. It was my mother who rescued the family via negotiations with banks etc.
Cue Vineetos “mummy’s boy” comment. Very perceptive heh?
I have been enjoying some greater freedom to feel good around these topics of looks and money. Both which have dominated my reality forever.
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I have noticed a similar trend with myself @Andrew in terms of talking ‘around’ topics. I notice nowadays when there is a topic to discuss I want to get into the meat and potatoes of it as opposed to talking in general terms. I think this shows a commitment to being sincere and to exposing anything and everything that stands in the way. I remember I mentioned this a while back that the devil (me) is always in the details.
I do remember in the past when I would normally talk around a topic it would be either because I believed I needed to protect someone else’s feelings or because of my own morals and values which said that certain things could not be said or admitted. But what I found was that most of the time the other persons feelings were fine, it was mostly my own fears of admitting things I wasn’t willing to, and talking in general terms was the best way to avoid those things being exposed.
Now when I talk to other people I see this a lot, there is a general fear of being straight to the point and specific because ‘I’ fear being exposed. It’s so much safer for ‘me’ to talk in a way which is basically an exchange of beliefs and values, and as soon as we get into the specifics of what it is about this situation right now and how it relates to me specifically, the whole dynamic changes.
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I just reread your post, and you sum it up perfectly here. “an exchange of beliefs and values” or in my case often, a unilateral gift of my beliefs and values. It’s often i notice that others won’t even go there and exchange anything. Probably for the exact reason you say; any discussion could turn to the specifics of the situation right now and ‘we’ would get exposed.
Then of course, there are those few who do nothing but talk about the specific things they want right now.
Guilt.
All week i have been feeling it. I said some honest things to my partner (maybe ex?) which were perfectly honest, not said to try and hurt, but otherwise regarded as taboo.
It was almost a “set up”. An ambush.
I can’t go into detail, but it was if the ‘real’ reason it happened was exactly to keep drama alive. It made perfect sense from the perspective of the ‘real’ that this happened. Absolutely no sense from an unemotional perspective.
I feel compelled to try and fix things. But, there is nothing that can be done unilaterally. Apologies for not somehow magically changing ‘her’ beliefs? It was exactly her beliefs that are the problem.
The human condition is the problem, of course. Am i to apologise for that?
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So, i am reflecting on how i have recreated my fathers reality. Literally, looking around my back yard, it could have been his.
Junk i should have taken to the tip. An Italian sports car in the shed, that needs parts. Basically, no direction.
I am not complaining though. Just noticing it. The previous weeks insight into the "reality ’ i inherited.
No need to take anything personally. The goal is feel good. I actually am feeling guilty.
Not just for the drama.
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I am also lonely, sorta. But also pleased to be alone.
I can see that being alone is something i must achieve.
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Being understood, is really not that. It’s trying to understand. Trying to find the one reason.
Richard’s words, that “no one is in control” keep coming back.
Hmmm.
I sit at the cafe with my gourmet “chicken and avo” on Turkish bread. Lovely decor. Great music. Some obscure indie band.
Someone must have been in control on this. It’s very nice.
Maybe that is all the control possible. The decor and the sound tracks. 
A little vino on my gut. What’s producing all this? The chemicals will do whatever it is they do. This brain will do whatever it is that it does. Where do “I” fit in?
‘We’ get to choose the decor and soundtrack. Apparently. 
I doubt even that much.
But don’t let that distract you from your meal. Cheers! 
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It was lovely. 