Trying to sell the importance of the relationship to myself.
What the whole Authority thing also has is that there is some moral high ground. Something truly important. At the same time it completely invalidates the woman’s birthright of doing whatever she wants with her life.
So, any insights are swept up back into Authority as a moral high ground, rather than what they initially were; that I/her are completely ridiculous in the ‘self’ centred drama that is created. That very little, if anything resembling “caring” was there.
All a play to keep ‘me’ in control, in place, and essentially, sad and mad.
I loved The Game, haven’t watched it in years. My favourite Michael Douglas film though is Falling Down lol.
For some reason, this reminded me of the power beautiful women have over me. I always hated that ability for them to override my priorities, integrity and basic decency.
I always feel this threat too. That and the dread of not seeing my kids day to day and the worse feelings that manifest from considering a failed relationship.
You needed to demonstrate you could so something. I see it with myself in work, I work hard and provide and its like “look…see what I have done…” but it still never enough for them lol.
Yeah, I thought a marriage would be full or more care and tenderness but obviously got that wrong lol. It is ridiculous and absurd…all of it.
I am over the periods of mental torture it seems, that worse phase when love and love sickness make you feel brittle and fragile as ever…
However, the feeling of being separated from my kids scares me. I keep meeting and befriending people already in that situation. I keep asking too many questions probably, just so curious to understand how they coped and managed it.
@son_of_bob
Is it possible you have shifted your need for love (perhaps, a need to not be alone) from your partner to your kids? I know that we humans jump around from source to source once one thing no longer seems reliable. Just floating the idea.
I was talking to a friend whose parents are very codependent on their children. The parallel between codependent parents and codependent partners is striking. They behave in the exact same way!
Oh also, for the sake of transparency. I am the same person as @Josef. I post on different accounts to stay more anonymous, but these are my only two accounts.
I see what you are trying to get at but to be honest that feeling for them has been there from the start, from the moment my first daughter was born I experienced a different kind of love, not the same as romantic love. But also that fear then came into being, that she might be taken away from me. It definitely made me uncomfortable that my wife suddenly had this power over me. I guess it became another reason to resent her as well.
My brother in law introduced me to the comedian Tom Segura last night and he was doing a skit about how different that love is lol.
Yeah. She’s great. She’s great. I love her. I love the kids more, but I do love her. Well, it’s a different love, you know? Like, I don’t want to fuck the kids. So there’s a start. “That’s good, Tom.” So… It is beyond your capacity to explain how much you end up loving your kids. It is. And, like, now I’m on that side of it, so I get to be amused by people who don’t have kids who swear that they get it. That’s my favorite. Like, to hang out with a friend who doesn’t have any kids, and he’s like, “Yeah, man, I see that you love your kids. I totally know what you’re feeling because… I love my dog.” And I’m like, “Yeah.” No. I’m not diminishing pet love. Pet love is real.
[woman] Yes!
Absolutely. I’ve had pets my entire life. It’s the best. I’ve rescued animals. I encourage you to do it. I have a dog that I adore. But here is the difference between my love for that dog and my kids. If that dog were to hurt one of my kids, immediately and without question… I would drown that dog, right? And I mean, through yelps like… [yelping] I’d go… [grunts] Like that. And then I would give it to my son. I’d be like, “Remember when that hurt you? I killed it.”
I don’t know if I am codependent to be honest. I can see that I don’t take enough responsibility for things.
As regards my kids, I am afraid to not be in their lives, to not be relevant to them. It is weird, I don’t even like exploring those thoughts, the whole area seems to hit me with fear, sorrow and discomfort.
The feeling towards them is wanting to be a great example somehow… I often imagine if I die them sorting through all my stuff and finding nothing. The main feeling is wanting to have achieved something for them.
It’s not an issue, I sorta think it useful right now to want my legacy to be actualism, and to have actually done something with it.
Your children are tougher than you are think. Don’t imagine that they will shrivel up and die if she used them against you.
You are their father.
There can never be another.
Whatever you do with actualism, even becoming free, will not change that.
*this is not a PCE report, but it may be one day soon
I went for my usual walk today, enjoying the confidence born of the success of the last week.
I was thinking whatever I wanted, about going out last night, the success, finding a partner who is interested, and wondering what the world would look like in a PCE, and other things. Generally enjoying myself whilst I also get over this cold with some fresh air.
After a while, the finding a partner one turned into an imaginary relationship with one of the women I had met last night. It seemed enjoyable enough, but then the thought occurred that it’s full of hope and I am no longer “feeling good” but having a “good feeling”.
So I stopped. Remembered my commitment to feeling good and went on. Walking not much further there was a park I like. I never sit down during walks, but I decided to sit on a well positioned bench in the middle. It is an overcast day, so I was looking at the clouds for a while.
I noticed that the clouds were moving in the opposite direction to the wind I was feeling. I pondered it and guessed it must be a cold front coming in. With warm air driving the clouds east, and cold air coming under it from the east. Sure enough, within seconds, the wind was cold from the east.
It was cool to have noticed the details and experience it. I then started wondering,
“How many enjoyable things have I not noticed over the years because I was too busy having some drama, with my eyes lowered, watching the pavement?”
Next step is to establish a connection to pure intent.
I am assured by the AFT that a PCE is not required to make one. We shall see.
Indeed, a palpable life force emanating from the essential stillness of the imperturbable universe shouldn’t be hard to miss.
Walking back from the pizza shop with my “Special with anchovies”, my mind was full of a fantasy of having a daughter and being actually free. It came on because I had spent a couple of hours talking on the phone with an ex-fiancee.
It was quite powerful. In it I saw the dream of the intimacy of having a child and wife in perfect harmony with each other. I have had this dream a few times over the years.
Yet, I walked and considered, “next is a connection to pure intent,”
A fear arose, and I thought that the dream could be jeopardised by pure intent/ freedom.
Then I saw that the only chance such an ideal scenario would ever happen for anyone, was pure intent.
What might help to find the flavor to it is that the experience of it is such that you may well think “oh yea I’ve always known that the universe is like this. Of course, it has to be this way”. Which sounds odd if you have no clear recollection of it, but if you find yourself thinking this then you may be on the right track …
I must advise caveat as I don’t really know how to show someone pure intent so i don’t know if this will be helpful
I have been so far reading more AFT and taking notes, which is where I realised that pure intent doesn’t need a PCE, but it does need that commitment to feeling good, each moment again. It only makes sense that one needs to supplement that commitment reasonably quickly and replace it all together with the “background” of pure intent as Elgin pointed out.
I have a rock solid understanding from a priori axioms that it is the case ( the universe is perfect), now that I am pushing into it, I am looking for the purity/ benevolent aspects that Richard describes.
I have a few pages of notes on it; so many useful discussions to help.
Hmm I don’t know if I’d put it that way either. To experience it consistently, yeah. But to get an initial acquaintance with it… I don’t think so. I don’t see this as a prerequisite. But of course such a commitment can’t hurt.
I would say more that it takes a curiosity and a willingness to see that things are not as you thought they were. A curiosity, does this actual world really exist? Does time really not move? If time doesn’t move then how can anything happen? And follow that fascinated trail of thought . . . . .
Nice, I have been remembering Richards writing while walking, and the enjoyment of the adventure of finding out for myself is great.
What you are saying reminds me of one of the discussions with him in Ballina, when he was explaining “but what is electricity?” We were talking about tunnelling electron microscopes and science.
He has an interesting opinion when I told him about the Hitachi TEM. “How do you know they didn’t get that result because they were expecting that result? They designed the machine especially”
I think he was determined to make me wonder about things rather than accept blindly the explanation from others. It is funny that only a generation ago it was considered impossible to “see” atoms individually, but now we apparently can…hmm
“Proving for oneself” is what he says about his words. It’s enough to start by building a prima facie case from his writing. One doesn’t need to have a PCE, to begin putting it to the rest.
This is good to know. It’s easy for me to fall into creating prerequisites which aren’t necessary.
What I probably should say is that I can see my own resolve may get exhausted and for the success of the adventure I need that “pull”. Less prerequisite and more necessity.
I think it’s sound advice. I remember these are the sort of considerations you discussed with Richard and online. If it can work for you, it can work for me.
so i don’t know if this will be helpful
