I could become actually free right now.
But, I don’t. But I could.
It’s the map I create for myself, the story I created, the pilgrimage I embarked on.
None of these are dictated by the actual.
I made them.
I noticed in the reported paths to , or during the event of self-immolation itself, the absolute ‘knowing’ that ‘i’ am the issue. The evil in the world. The source of misery and malice.
I decided to explore this, and the first obvious thing is “meta-feelings”, feelings about feelings.
Blame. It’s like a circular disc which I think is going towards someone else, but it’s cutting through me at the same time. The culpability I ascribe to others, after some feeling it out, is my own as well. Expecting “better” from others when the same “better” is lacking in me.
Guilt. Avoiding guilt seems to be natural. Or will be masked by self-recrimination. It’s easier to be angry at oneself than to feel guilty.
I had some success doing some faux “calm-abiding” meditation, I remembered @Srinath exploring"emotional tunnels", as if he could crawl into them and expand them out.
Having had success in previous months looking at the feelings already obvious in my thoughts, I started there. It’s really tricky.
The mental habits of being harsh and critical are immediate and automatically there. I must remind myself to explore, rather than indulge.
It seemed that the “critic/blame” tunnel runs off into the future. Like a pipe leading to more pipes, feeding into a stream of thinking.
It worked to get my inspiration back. I clearly saw the blame holding me in place, dragging me down. I got off the couch and went to the gym as it was clear that it all starts with looking after one’s body.
There was also, but this was yesterday, a peace I found in seeing the “predator who thinks it’s a victim” dynamic in my recent ex. Which quickly I could see in myself.
Like Annie Lennox sang; “the greatest coward can hurt the most ferociously”.
I sorta got off track in that post…
I mean when I go looking for the experience of being rotten, feeling out the landscape, I come first across all the “moral defence” mechanisms of deflection
Blame, guilt, etc, all are hiding places that I use to avoid exposure.
Even that has a moral tone.
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I notice that all the time in myself. Like I write the post about elegance and I have to ensure that it’s written in a way that’s elegant, oopsie 
, it’s all good though as long as it’s all taken stock of.
Haha, yeah. Well, I did say above that “blame” pattern is immediate and automatic.
Actually, people have picked that up about me in real life, the unconscious harshness towards myself. I just don’t notice.
Regarding seeing that moment or really knowing I am the problem; I can intellectually see it, easily. What I want is a more abiding affective knowing, which on the occasion recently (laughing at my ex and myself equally) had a very humourous feeling. Otherwise, it’s a serious game; the “blame” business.
It had been bothering me for weeks why I couldn’t stop thinking about talking with my recent ex. I knew that I had seen whatever silliness about the situation, in myself.
It is a belief about power.
There is a secondary frustration in the whole thing though. I know all the “right” things to say to have power. I know that all I have to do is lie.
I installed a dating app two days ago. Heaps of matches with the usual parade of copy and paste lists of demands on female profiles.
All I have to do is lie to “win”.
The 60+ matches with women my own age could be hundreds with younger women with one magic sentence;
“Open to having children”.
Which is ironic, because there is a part of me that is, under very specific circumstances involving an actually free me. However, I have no right to choose what he wants to get what I want.
I could always open with;
“looking for a partner who doesn’t mind if ‘I’ disappear at any moment. No dogs, please”.
“Searching for my ‘soulmate’ so we can psychically ‘self’ immolate together. Also, I like walking on the beach”
“Would prefer company as I seek to end ‘humanity’. Love to travel.”
Something happened this afternoon, a happiness snuck up on me.
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Every mental blame keeps circling back to me.
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How clearly I see what other ‘are’, how dimly I see ‘myself’.
One clear moment of knowing, definitely, who am I should do the trick.
She isn’t exercising her power, but her weakness. I am not exercising my power, but wallowing in my weakness.
Both are failing their offspring. Recalcitrant to the moment.
I am at the coal face with my bare hands. It seems. Time for the gym! Literally.
The wall I hit is blame. The issue is the veneration of abasement. As if seeing one’s sin is enough. As if humility was an option.
All that gets humbled is my power to act.
“He that is down need fear no fall”. Ghanian Proverb.
I got into a very heated debate last Friday when out with friends. One stated " you haven’t suffered enough for life to have humbled you".
I slammed the table and bet my soul that I had suffered more than him. Despite my “country club” charismatic demeanour, which he was obviously assuming means I was a “silver spoon”, I won the bet. His soul is now mine, by rights.
Hugs and reassurances later, I made sure he understood that both that he started it, and being humble is stupid. Humble is for losers, which is exactly what the ‘system’ requires of the bell curve. Self abasement.
So the feeling of being stuck in a loop is finally giving up some details.
The blame starts. I will realise something about my ex(es) , about their goals, games, victim/predator dynamic (latest one), and this happens rather automatically. It’s easy to see through people I know so well. Then, rather quickly, I will acknowledge that I am the same, with my own selfish goals, games, etc etc.
That’s where the loop gets stuck.
I internally go “yeah, I know! That’s why I am even sticking with this! But, how do I end it?”
It seems to be the habit spotted a few weeks back of Penitence. Being sorry is enough.
Also, a curious reversal of power happens at that point. As Neitzche talked about regarding Christianity; it is a slave morality. “Blessed are the meek”
What stopped me sending a rather cutting text tonight was that I saw clearly how ridiculous it is to challenge someone just because “I know them well”. Would I say that to someone else? I know a few doing exactly the same thing. How about a stranger?
It became silly. Obviously silly, the “right” I assume in challenging those closest to me. (Or were closest). It is literally true, the things I want to say, but that isn’t the point. It’s literally true of me, and it’s me that I can actually change.
It’s the morality of slaves to subvert power, to glorify weakness as virtue. My power is mine to exercise, and so to cut through the false virtue of being weak.
Thinking in writing here.
As Claudiu has often said over the years, if I am not feeling good (et al) then it’s because I don’t want to feel good.
It’s not a matter of insights. There’s a desire to not feel good. Simple.
So, I am left wondering, do I try and desire to feel good? This seems the only simple answer.
I’ve been very flat the last week. Which is what has simplified my thinking down to “want/don’t want”.
The temptation of course is to go looking for some reason. As if, another insight, among the thousands already thought, will change basic desire.
It’s a matter of selfishness. I could go on and on about moral conditioning, and it would probably be correct. Yet, it seems to miss the mark. It’s not that someone ruined my fun, it’s that I am ruining my fun.
Finding out “why” is seemingly irrelevant. I am reminded of something Noam Chomsky said to an interviewer about “raising awareness” of social issues. He said, (paraphrasing), “Everyone knew how brutal slavery is, everyone. Everyone knew that many on the gallows where only there because they were poor and stole just to live. Everyone already knew. It wasn’t for hundreds of years later that anything changed. Awareness made no difference. They already know.”
Which implies the question, what does cause change?
Pain.
It’s a truism that people only change in a crisis. Not necessarily for their benefit.
Pure Intent.
• [Richard]: ‘Pure intent is a palpable life-force; an actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity that originates in the vast and utter stillness that is the essential character of the universe itself. Once set in motion, it is no longer a matter of choice: it is an irresistible pull’
(As a linguistic note here, a force cannot come from stillness, so it must be the reverse; an apparent ‘movement’ -the vortex of ‘self’- is being drawn to a ‘stop’. Pure Intent is the inertia of a “universe going nowhere, and nowhen” pulling the frantic ‘self’ to oblivion.)
Coincidentally I have been reflecting on this exact “simplification” of my very nature. One thing to add, to make it even simpler, is that “want” and “don’t want” are the same force, the same activity. “I don’t want to sit here” = “I want to not sit here.” I am just a constant act of wanting something to occur or not occur. It’s my basic nature. Dare I say this want, this will, is common to all animals? To all vertebrates at least:
The seeking system is the generalized activation system recruited by all vertebrates to organize the pursuit of food, mates, and shelters. The energizing (wanting) component is driven by the dopaminergic-cholinergic pathway described earlier. Activation of the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens plays a critical role in causing both approach and aversive action responses . . . . The hedonic (liking) component is caused by opioid neurons in the nucleus accumbens shell, ventral pallidum and brainstem. . . . Stimulation or activation of these regions is responsible for the pleasurable sensations that occur once a tasty food item has been consumed . . . . The wanting and liking circuits of the seeking system can be separately knocked out without destroying the other component. . . . A good communication-related example of this seeking and rewarding system has been described in songbirds, where distinct patterns of dopamine activity influence the motivation to produce song, and opioids released as part of social interactions induce further singing.
Animal Communication: Web Topic 10.4
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Interesting.
I thought so, especially because @geoffrey described that final moment of ‘self’ as a vortex which stopped.
I have a few times experienced myself as a vortex, at least a feeling of spinning.
When I was a Christian in a prayer group.
Once when infatuated, the ground appeared to spin.
When deep in dread.
And like everyone, when drunk.
There is something to it, me thinks.