The times in my life I have applied myself to career & physical improvement, were 100% because she was beautiful.
This came in stark contrast last week.
I met a woman who is someone I connect intellectually with. The very first woman to express any interest in actualism. An extremely natural “spiritual” woman, who became that naturally.
Sexually, we get along great.
However, because I have very low attraction to her, it has put in high relief just how much I am motivated by beauty.
My precious actualism means nothing in the face of the facts of what really motivates me to action.
It’s almost funny, just how shallow I am. At least it would be if I didn’t otherwise sink below “flat” into nihilistic despair a few days ago.
However, it also highlights just how moralistic I am about actualism. There is nothing “wrong” about being externally motivated. I probably wouldn’t be here at all if it were not for the intense drive to improve myself when beauty is the “carrot”.
Instead of trying to come up with a reason (something outside of yourself) for why you should want to feel good I think it would be more fruitful to fully experience this part of yourself which does not want to feel good.
This is what I was writing about yesterday, there is a part of yourself that does not want to feel good but is instead desperately driven to be the good/bad feelings. That part is indeed you, as in deep down you do not want to feel good, not for any intelligent reason but as a blind affective response - hence no amount of convincing (with the best reasons) will ever do the trick. It is kind of like trying to explain to someone in the midst of a panic attack that they have no rational reason to feel this way.
The other approach would be to allow yourself to experience this part of yourself, not just intellectually via reasons and insights but to ‘live it’ fully and ‘sit with it for a while’ so that it can be seen (in a way that is total as opposed to separative and also existential as opposed to just intellectual) that it is indeed you and that it is indeed silly, then you might find that the inner conflict disappears.
Btw as you can see I have a certain agenda at the moment to pursue a certain way of tackling things so take with a pinch of salt
This focus is shifting a lot for me though, so far so good. It is getting me to experience on a level that is far beyond just ‘thinking about’ something.
The more I do this myself the more I realise that this constant need for insights and being swayed towards various actualist intellectualisations, theories etc are actually very cunning ways that ‘I’ avoid being seen on that level.
It’s actually pretty simple, I make it complex though so I can not be exposed. This kind of looking exposes me.
I was hesitant to say that I was exposing my core, because I don’t think it’s that. Certainly a very basic level of something.
Something immune to insights. Something apathetic to improving my lot.
Or perhaps something already convinced about how to improve my lot; the normal way!
Find an attractive partner, and hitch myself to that wagon!
Meeting a woman (in person) who is interested in actualism, was a first. However, my lack of attraction, her children, and 70km between us is like a highlighter on what actually motivated me before; beauty.
I really felt very depressed when I visited. Even worse when I got home.
It’s a double whammy. I find out that I don’t have the desire for actualism I thought I had, and now have to disappoint another person.
In fairness, I was “catfished” by her. No mention of her children, photos were minimal, and she has a dog; I can’t stand dogs. I grew up with them, but really don’t like being around them.
So it’s “Mr Shallow”. No heroic actualism going on here.
However, it’s not like I don’t appreciate the situation, intellectually. The conversations have been great. I wouldn’t be realising how much I was tricking myself about what I wanted.
So I’ve been experimenting with this approach and have a few thoughts. Basically, we are unable to choose to feel good because we don’t see that we are choosing in the first place. When feeling bad, we create a split between the part of us who is feeling bad and the various morals (actualist: you should be feeling good, real world: you should not be feeling bad!). This causes us to feel victimized by the feeling, and our choice is taken from us. The bad feeling is now imposing on us, and we are trying to get rid of it. A struggle ensues.
When you commit 100% to being the bad feeling (no tricks, no pretenses), you realize that deep down you are indeed making the choice to feel bad. Just seeing this puts the power of choice back into your hands, and then you can choose to feel good. And none of this happens through rational thought. The seeing itself happens in a flash.
So to sum it up, being sincere in how you feel, unifying yourself 100% with whatever you’re feeling. And then “choosing” to feel good instead. Sometimes you also have to look at what you’re doing to deny what you’re feeling. And there’s a lot of morality there.
The way I experience it is that part of ‘me’ I am shying away from is like this big crying baby or a cornered animal going wild. It is when I see that I am actually being that, that the silliness of it is seen. But like you said all the excuses, morality etc must be out of the way.
Yes, exactly. And the “investigation” can often be an attempt to avoid feeling the feeling. Looking at the underlying feeling while “investigating” immediately reveals whether it’s authentic.
The information that decisions are being made to feel bad has made all the difference.
Very quickly too.
I can see that the automatic decisions to feel bad this last week added up to a shit storm of feeling completely bad.
There was the dating app itself. I hate them.
Specific decisions to feel bad were happening.
When I met her, I wasn’t attracted. There was awareness of this, but no acknowledgement that I felt bad. And so on…
The more I pushed past each semi-conscious decision to feel bad, the more that decision was split from anything I could understand easily, besides the obvious lack of attraction.
I chose to keep going, further into the relationship out of a optimistic actualist ethic of beauty is part of the problem whilst ignoring the growing bad feeling.
The cool part is that the decision to post here was also automatic.
That “part of me” is indeed all of me, really. It’s that I didn’t know what I know now; I am always deciding to feel something.
That’s a radical perspective. That a ‘self’ is a decision. A very “deep” , ancient, and powerful one, but a decision.
