Andrew

[Andrew]

Further, I have found it surprisingly fun to be learning about Forex trading. All the fundamentals questions; what is money?, why do we have different currencies?, What is a trade deficit/surplus? And so on.

At each consideration, contemplating the questions that arise (I have been in the habit of focusing on each question in turn over the last few weeks), there is obvious rational reasons, then there will be a layer of irrational reasons, and so on.

Like a layer cake. A sensible system, then the irrational reasons it was created. Which makes what was sensible seen as also quite silly.

For example, IMO currencies seem to be a defence against tyranny. When a currency is exalted, those controlling it have increased power. It’s a rational defence against irrational power. A country has power over it’s currency, forcing the trade of currency to buy it’s goods.

Underneath it all, we have the irrational desire of blind nature, but at each level we have the controls that have evolved to try and check that power. To make society possible.

[Kub933]

@Andrew

Later, a day after I calmed down enough to consider the facts, it occurred to me that it was impossible to frame me. Multi factor authentication alone means that even with my password breached, there is no way to create a false digital trail to me. For context, there was massive fraud (I am told) going on in the company.

What this has highlighted is the futility of IT. Intellectualisation is an emotional response. It pretends to be intelligent, but it’s not. The facts where always there. There never was a god. And while bullies and abusive people are all around, keeping safe isn’t as hard as I had always feared.

…

@Andrew

Finally, after all these years, I genuinely see the silliness of something!!

This is so great to read! I am very glad to see this is happening for you. This is exactly it, you got back to feeling at least reasonably good/neutral and from there considered the facts, then the thing unravelled. Then there is no need to go into intellectualisation.

@Andrew

On the theme of intellectualisation ( I will call it IT for short), there is a strong fear, with a object of an “overwhelming power” that I am , through IT, trying to but failing to defend myself from.

Yes ‘you’ are the object of “overwhelming power”, which through intellectualisation ‘you’ can dissociate from and then seek to control it in some way. Yet this never works because this “object of overwhelming power” is ‘your’ very roots as the intellectualiser.

@Andrew

I am “pencilling in” my theory that it’s from my childhood growing up under the gaze of a wrathful and irrational god.

One is guilty, and there is nothing one can do about it but try and placate the aggressor who has all the power.

@Vineeto mentioned something a few weeks back which may be useful for you to cut through any intellectualisation even better. And it is to be on the look out for times when you are describing some aspect of the human condition in third person in order to keep it somewhat “at arms length” eg “One is guilty, and there is nothing one can do about it but try and placate the aggressor”. Of course at times you might be making general statements so it may be useful to write in this manner however in this case you are exploring the very mechanisms which you are observing in yourself, so it makes sense (for maximum effectiveness) to ‘be’ those very mechanisms whilst they are being explored.

I do notice this habit in people and it is usually that by making these general statements they are trying to present some belief or feeling which they are having as something of universal occurrence (and therefore “you can’t change human nature”) eg “don’t you just hate it when people do X”. This creates this comfortable little boundary between the belief/feeling and ‘themselves’, the problem is that it gets in the way of sincerity so the belief/feeling ends up cemented in place, it ends up “the thing that happens to everyone” rather than ‘my’ belief/feeling, which can be seen as silly.

But now you know it is about going in the other direction, towards sincerity. Which means any distancing between the intellectualiser and the “object of overwhelming power” has to give way to the seeing that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’.

I am very excited at this development of sincerity that you are describing. You were already writing on the forums when I got involved and we were all stumbling around in the dark trying to figure it all out, with questionable successes

It seems lately something is sweeping across the practicing actualists, what a time to be alive!

[Kub933]

@Kub933

I do notice this habit in people and it is usually that by making these general statements they are trying to present some belief or feeling which they are having as something of universal occurrence (and therefore “you can’t change human nature”)

Considering this further it is not just that it is seen as being of universal occurrence but also that it is something that happens to ‘them’, as if ‘they’ are merely an object that is being acted upon. This is of course in the opposite direction from seeing that ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. Without this crucial recognition ‘I’ find ‘myself’ merely a victim to the various mechanisms of the psyche and can only settle for watching them from a distance as the intellectualiser.

[Andrew]

@Kuba cheers for that.

Yes, I sense myself doing something that felt way to ‘normal’ when generalising about powers and feeling helpless.

I felt that I had to say something generalised, which should be the first clue I was disassociated from both the subject and object.

Funnily, a few weeks back, in a particular rebellion, I started talking to god again. It seemed that I had, many years ago, set up a part of myself as intelligent (god) and myself as some dumb brute.

I never saw it this way before. Back in my twenties, whilst astral travelling, having all sorts of psychic experiences while transitioning to the new age from Christianity, I had conversations with god. I was god though, and it was this whole pantheon of overselves and infinity.

What happened a few weeks back was that I decided the very thing that unravelled that time in my life, is what I should have persued.

That is, I realised (back then) I was just “talking with myself”. The god I was conversing with only knew what I knew. I became disillusioned and took up meditation. At the time I was in a flux of beliefs, absorbing all sorts of ideas, and the apparent atheism of Buddhism became appealing.

Anyway, the point being, I have been extremely disassociated. The part I split of all those years ago was the explorer, the daring edge. It was immensely exciting to be god, after all the years of fearing god.

As you just said though, all the aspects of god I feared and wished to escape; the unthinking wrath, the irrational judgement, the cruel and unyielding punishment, was all me, all along.

It was “rebellion” to talk with my old god again, but I was actually picking up the pieces of where I had left my ability to choose.

[Andrew]

It’s all about time.

[Andrew]

I am time and time is me.

I have been thinking a lot about this. Especially the future. I grieve the passing of time. All the amazing things I have experienced, yet they don’t last.

Once, I tripped so hard I was completely terrified of being alive or being dead. I reflect now and think that I experienced the actual now, but as a full feeling being. It was terrifying.

At the moment, at 49 , I am trying to learn something new. Forex trading.

It really is very confronting. Trying to design trading bots which predict the future! Quite meaningful.

It’s always been this way. The future was, to me, already too late. Yet, here it is, starkly on screens in front of me.

There was a comfort in the traditional ways of earning money. Hope. One can hope that the boss likes you. That one’s skills and experience will be appreciated.

There is no relationship when looking at Forex screens. It reminds me of that terror. The future doesn’t exist.

However, there is something about the future which does exist. That is what exists now.

The tree will be there in the future. Not forever, but in the next minutes, hours, days and weeks. Maybe even years.

That was part of the terror for me. It was something full of destruction and death. Judgement.

Indeed, my entire upbringing was about just that. Future judgement.

Yet, here I am. Judged, but in all the normal ways. Nothing truly terrible about it. Older, fatter, slower, but far from anything that is truly worth the fear I held towards the future.

So, being happy, feeling good, is about feeling good in time. That time, the feeling of it, isn’t something to be afraid of. I am time. I am the passing of time.

If everything is cut short, and all my efforts too, what was I afraid of? Wasting time? Time is me all along!

So, when I feel happy, or have another moment when things feel good, I am not spending time or wasting it, I am it!

There was always the background morality about time for me, which was about future judgement.

When I think about wasted time, it was always laced with rebellion. I remember very early on when homework, or projects for school was expected of me, there was both the feeling of efforts for the future were futile, and there was no way I would invest in things which would get me judged!

I wanted to set the terms of my accomplishments.

I still dream like this.

In an abstract way about “the future”.

That is disassociated. I am the ‘time’ I am rebellious against!

Not quite what I was hoping to write, more of a placeholder for what I am thinking and feeling while pushing into learning how to predict the future.

P.S. I am nursing a broken rib at the moment; as playing basketball with guys half my age like it was still 1988 seemed like a good idea at the ‘time’ ,

[Vineeto]

Andrew: I am time and time is me.

Hi Andew,

You may feel that way but this is not a statement of fact.

In actuality time is the arena in which events happen.

Andrew: So, being happy, feeling good, is about feeling good in time. That time, the feeling of it, isn’t something to be afraid of. I am time. I am the passing of time.
If everything is cut short, and all my efforts too, what was I afraid of? Wasting time? Time is me all along!

Here you are simply using a philosophical trick to relieve you of the conditioned guilt of “wasting time”.

So, when I feel happy, or have another moment when things feel good, I am not spending time or wasting it, I am it!

What is correct is that when you are not feeling good you are wasting this precious moment of being alive, now, because now is the only moment you can experience being alive, by feeling sorrowful and/or malicious.

Andrew: There was always the background morality about time for me, which was about future judgement.
When I think about wasted time, it was always laced with rebellion. I remember very early on when homework, or projects for school was expected of me, there was both the feeling of efforts for the future were futile, and there was no way I would invest in things which would get me judged!
I wanted to set the terms of my accomplishments.
I still dream like this.
In an abstract way about “the future”.

I remember feeling being ‘Vineeto’ being driven to do ‘something useful’ with ‘her’ time because of ‘her’ work-ethic conditioning.

Now, being free from the social identity and instinctual passions I have all the time in the universe, and it is always now.

But I am not ‘time’ – that is a misleading concept/ construct. It is the universe which is eternal, I am mortal.

Andrew: That is disassociated. I am the ‘time’ I am rebellious against! (link)

That sentence makes no sense whatsoever.

When will you come out of your ivory tower and play?

Cheers Vineeto

[Andrew]

@Vineeto Thanks for your reply.

I hope you are preparing for the cyclone Alfred coming in. I just saw the news😳

[Vineeto]

Hi Andrew,
Thank you for your concern.
Yes, I have checked the ropes and am ready for whatever wind and weather we get. The next two days will be the most interesting for this area of this particular cyclone.

Cheers Vineeto

[Andrew]

So, to reply to whether or not I will come down from my ivory tower…

I smiled genuinely at the reply. A) because I knew that what I had written was laced with various habits of intellectualisation and also my own code of conduct when talking about actualism.

I have, for many years, avoid using ‘squotes’ simply because it always seemed to be an attempt at fitting in.

However, I can see that what I have really done is contrive a morality around the way I communicate with actualists.

Because I don’t know definitely what is being talked about, as in what a ‘self’ is vs what I normally am, it became my habit to always leave out ‘squotes’. It seemed sensible to do that, because it seemed to me to be a way of disassociation.

However, I was obviously wrong. Because what it is doing is creating unclear communication and just cementing ‘me’ further as an outsider trying to make sense of things.

I have just created my own little world of being misunderstood.

Let me try and not do that now!

What I was thinking about, and really feeling a lot of, was how I have always been building an imaginary future. The current preoccupation of coding Forex bots, and generally learning about Forex trading, has brought this to the foreground.

I have thrown up a lot of “hail Mary” schemes in my time. This particular undertaking it very different though. It directly is about a future which doesn’t exist! I can’t bluff or shift blame about my actions. It’s entirely my own choice as to how this plays out. Do I continue to construct imaginary futures, or activity build the knowledge and skills to succeed?

My career has been an accumulation of experiences which have made me a valuable commodity. As a person in a chair in front of a screen, or on the phone, or in person.

I am the commodity. I sell myself, through time, to others.

So this particular interest, in building algorithmic trading bots, it quite different.

I have to extend myself, not as a commodity, but as a creator.

That’s what got me feeling that I was terrified of the future. That it was never worth extending effort to improve my lot. I would dream of it, fantasy being a daily thing, but really build it? No. I would not extend myself.

So, to put more clearly what I was feeling about time;

‘I’ am ‘time’. ‘I’ am not actual time, ‘I’ am imagining ‘time’. A ‘time’ when I will be happy.

This is what I was thinking about. The disconnect between what I am doing and feeling, and that ‘time’ in the future.

Why do ‘I’ persist to feel bad about doing anything to look after the very actual me that will wake up tomorrow?

I have spent so much of my life expecting life to end suddenly. (With a lot of terror and apocalyptic results before the end).

What is it that I am missing here?

For 49 years I have woken up in the morning, but there was never a day I really took proper care of the fact that was likely to keep happening.

Does that make sense? That’s the feeling there.

A fantasy ‘future’ was the only ‘future’.

Yet here I am. And, probably will remain.

[Andrew]

I think I can be more specific.

My feelings are this; (I will try and just stream this as much as possible); I am starting to feel good about my ‘past’. ‘my’ childhood. The 1980s. My love for motorcycles has been bringing this out. I really love a lot of the aesthetic about the eighties. Which is very strange, because at the time I think I was caught up in the nostalgia that my parents felt about their own past.

So, this improved feeling, of enjoyment about the ‘past’, made me think about the ‘future’.

Both are not happening, but ‘I’ am experiencing ‘both’.

Is that intellectualisation? Like I said, for many years I just avoided talking like this. With ‘squotes’.

I want to feel good about the ‘future’, like I do the ‘past’. That all of ‘me’ in imaginary ‘time’, is feeling good.

To feel good about the future, it’s important that I do things now to improve the likely outcomes. Which I am historically very bad at.

Basically, being a sensible person. Yeah, that’s what it comes down to.

[Andrew]

Yet, that even seems morality in play. That is easy to be sensible.

Anyway, the feelings. The reoccurring fantasy of being successful is squelch by the reoccurring rumination that I am ablidged to give it all away.

Like I have done before. An entire house worth 6 times what it started as, given away. I am fighting a dual fight as I try to improve my lot. That people will demand that I give them what has cost me time and effort.

Or just as much, the feeling that all efforts are too late, and futile.

Yet, chances are, I will wake up tomorrow. I can’t shake though the feeling that I won’t.

It’s always been like this. I can make extraordinary efforts, and through some combination of me giving it away, or quitting out of fear that it was always going to fail, the exhaustion is there.

I remember being incredibly productive at so many points in my life. Even yesterday. The day before! However, battle is real. To get there is never a matter of becoming someone peacefully working on a sensible project. Always a hail Mary type of effort.

[Andrew]

I feel like writing more.

I do want to change.

Yeah, that’s what I want to say.

[Vineeto]

Vineeto: When will you come out of your ivory tower and play?

Andrew: (…) My career has been an accumulation of experiences which have made me a valuable commodity. As a person in a chair in front of a screen, or on the phone, or in person.
I am the commodity. I sell myself, through time, to others.
So this particular interest, in building algorithmic trading bots, it quite different.
I have to extend myself, not as a commodity, but as a creator.
That’s what got me feeling that I was terrified of the future. That it was never worth extending effort to improve my lot. I would dream of it, fantasy being a daily thing, but really build it? No. I would not extend myself.
So, to put more clearly what I was feeling about time;
‘I’ am ‘time’. ‘I’ am not actual time, ‘I’ am imagining ‘time’. A ‘time’ when I will be happy.

Ok, now I know what you mean by ‘I’ am ‘time’, that you are talking about an imaginary time “when you will be happy”. Hence your sentence would better read – ‘I am living in an imaginary time’. This way it becomes obvious what an ineffective enterprise it is to imagine to be happy some day in the future instead of doing something right here, right now, to be happy, isn’t it?

Hence my suggestion to ‘come out and play’.

Andrew: This is what I was thinking about. The disconnect between what I am doing and feeling, and that ‘time’ in the future.
Why do ‘I’ persist to feel bad about doing anything to look after the very actual me that will wake up tomorrow?
I have spent so much of my life expecting life to end suddenly. (With a lot of terror and apocalyptic results before the end).
What is it that I am missing here?

Mmh, perhaps what you are missing is recognizing that there is fear? And being afraid of this fear?

Andrew: For 49 years I have woken up in the morning, but there was never a day I really took proper care of the fact that was likely to keep happening.
Does that make sense? That’s the feeling there.
A fantasy ‘future’ was the only ‘future’.
Yet here I am. And, probably will remain. (link)

Now that you have faced the fact that you are indeed here in this place and now in this moment in time, and that merely imagining a happy future will not be powerful enough to bring it about – do you perhaps have the necessary wherewithal to allow this fear to come to the surface? In other words, are you ready to not fight the fear that is there?

I remember a correspondence from you to the mailing list where you said you ‘girded yourself for battle every morning’ (it is not in the archives so Richard did not respond) but it remained in my memory because it struck me at the time as a hard and tiresome existence. In this post it appears that you are looking for a different, more happy modus operandi, so perhaps stopping the fight (against yourself) might now have a certain appeal to you.

Here is my recommendation based on personal experience from feeling being ‘Vineeto’ and the success of other people’s reports as well –

Vineeto: … stop fighting your pain and stop fighting the feelings you experience. Any battle against yourself only fuels the feelings and the [somatic] pain by increasing the power of ‘you’ to make you feel bad. Personally, feeling being ‘Vineeto’ found that the moment she stopped fighting the feeling (i.e. by being afraid of it), it instantly diminished.
From there, seeing the success of stopping the battle against yourself, you might be able to get to a reasonable feeling good, a little better than neutral. (link).

Andrew: I feel like writing more.
I do want to change.
Yeah, that’s what I want to say. [Emphasis added]. (link)

This is excellent, Andrew, a propitious time to do that.

Cheers Vineeto

[Andrew]

Thanks Vineeto.

It is a fact that ‘I’ am cunning. So many really useful insights will slip away, but now I wonder how much is slipping away and how much '‘I’ push away.

This topic of fear is an example. I was sitting here knowing that I had seen something about this yesterday. Yet, it took a good while to finally remember.

That was I have been expressing the feelings towards the future, and judgement, and the fantasies and rumination, but I push away any specific thing as the object.

So, instead of being specific, as in I am afraid that I will give away what I worked hard for, and really going into that, I have been onto the next thought.

Classic intellectualisation.

The feeling of fear is covered over and not admitted, instead there will be a fantasy to calm it down. Often an “ivory tower” one. Where I have successfully achieved some endeavour and will be magnanimous in give others bread crumbs.

So, instead of admitting that I am easily manipulated, and that is what I am afraid of, because I am afraid of being angry at anyone because I am not strong enough to battle most people. That I just don’t admit I am afraid, and skip straight to some compensatory fantasy or rumination, is a big part of how I am afraid of feeling afraid.

I will feel it out more, but I wanted to write down so to remind myself to be specific about the object of fear, and let myself feel it and get further into the facts.

Cheers

[Andrew]

Rereading that was actually great!

So I refuse to really acknowledge fear, and further also anger, because I don’t want to admit certain facts. Things can be taken away from me, whether legally or whatever, ans I fight this pre-emptively in both my fantasy and my actions.

Hard to take anything away if I don’t have anything. Hard to manipulate me if I already hate the world , planned out a “righteous” defence.

Ha, that already feels better. I have never even thought about fear and feelings like that. I certainly have theorised endlessly.

Admitting ‘I’ am cunning, admitting I am afraid. Actually looking into why.

Hmm, this is sorta fun.

[jamesjjoo]

@Andrew: Glad to see you listening to @Vineeto, doing so has helped me immensely. We are lucky to have her participating in this forum.

[Vineeto]

Andrew: Thanks Vineeto.
It is a fact that ‘I’ am cunning. So many really useful insights will slip away, but now I wonder how much is slipping away and how much '‘I’ push away.
This topic of fear is an example. I was sitting here knowing that I had seen something about this yesterday. Yet, it took a good while to finally remember.
That was I have been expressing the feelings towards the future, and judgement, and the fantasies and rumination, but I push away any specific thing as the object.
So, instead of being specific, as in I am afraid that I will give away what I worked hard for, and really going into that, I have been onto the next thought.
Classic intellectualisation.
The feeling of fear is covered over and not admitted, instead there will be a fantasy to calm it down. Often an “ivory tower” one. Where I have successfully achieved some endeavour and will be magnanimous in give others bread crumbs.
So, instead of admitting that I am easily manipulated, and that is what I am afraid of, because I am afraid of being angry at anyone because I am not strong enough to battle most people. That I just don’t admit I am afraid, and skip straight to some compensatory fantasy or rumination, is a big part of how I am afraid of feeling afraid.
I will feel it out more, but I wanted to write down so to remind myself to be specific about the object of fear, and let myself feel it and get further into the facts. (link)

Hi Andrew,

Isn’t it great that when you contemplate and reflect and become more and more fascinated that you can find out a lot about how you operate and come to a valid conclusion, to wit: “I just don’t admit I am afraid, and skip straight to some compensatory fantasy or rumination, is a big part of how I am afraid of feeling afraid”.

In this very sentence is the recognition and admission that you are indeed “afraid of feeling afraid”.

Now that you uncovered and verified the fact of the matter you can act. You can dare to not fight the feeling of being afraid.

Of course, in order to summon the necessary courage, you need a sincere motivation to do so.

Could this motivation be that you would like to feel good now?

Would you perhaps like to become happy and harmless (instead of fighting yourself or rebelling against anything that tickles your fancy)?

Do you like the possibility that you then more likely feel good in what you call ‘the future’?

Or, even more, would you like to devote your life to something worthwhile?

All this is possible if you sincerely want it – and take the first step, the first action, on the fact which you discovered – “I am afraid of feeling afraid”.

This time, don’t allow the habit of being “easily manipulated”, or skipping “straight to some compensatory fantasy or rumination” to distract you from this first action towards a more peaceful life. The action to feel the fear without fighting your initial impulse to fight the feeling.

Cheers Vineeto

[Andrew]

Thanks so much @Vineeto !

I have not had such a success as far as I can recall (excluding the possibility that I am cunningly not remembering it).

It’s a powerful imagination of mine right now to think of the weather you are probably experiencing right now, and yet such a detailed and thorough message from you has arrived in my journal.

I felt more encouraged by this success yesterday than perhaps ever before (excluding the possibility of me deliberately forgetting for cunning purposes)

I even remembered that the actualism method is the enjoy and appreciate, when the habit arose to become bogged down in some intellectualism about how I felt.

There has been a sense of space in front of my physical eyes. Like I can lean into the future, the world has space. When looking at flowers they are somehow more there.

[Vineeto]

Andrew: Thanks so much Vineeto !

I have not had such a success as far as I can recall (excluding the possibility that I am cunningly not remembering it).

Hi Andrew,

This is great to hear – did you pat yourself on the back? Appreciate the big day of change in your life?

Andrew: It’s a powerful imagination of mine right now to think of the weather you are probably experiencing right now, and yet such a detailed and thorough message from you has arrived in my journal.

Yes, it has been quite windy last night (~ 80 km/h gusts) but has calmed down a bit. It is predicted that most of the storm will be over tomorrow morning for the Ballina area. Dealing with high water in the streets and shops and houses of the towns around here will take a bit longer. Funny, some acquaintances were concerned that I wouldn’t be safe on the boat from their perspective, but boats are quite useful when there is a flood (wind is another matter).

Andrew: I felt more encouraged by this success yesterday than perhaps ever before (excluding the possibility of me deliberately forgetting for cunning purposes).
I even remembered that the actualism method is the enjoy and appreciate, when the habit arose to become bogged down in some intellectualism about how I felt.

Ha, indeed. The method is just that – enjoy and appreciate, and enjoy and appreciate more … if anything triggers a diminishing of that feeling good (noticed via affective attentiveness) you do whatever it takes to get back to feeling good, and then work out what the problem is, which triggered the lessening of feeling good. If you care to read more about how to deal with arising feelings or social identity issues, here is a link you might enjoy – (Richard, Origin of the Actualism Method).

Otherwise just ask, many here on the forum have well-founded experience.

Andrew: There has been a sense of space in front of my physical eyes. Like I can lean into the future, the world has space. When looking at flowers they are somehow more there. (link)

This is great – but take care not to get distracted dreaming about the future too much – now is the only moment you can actually experience and this is where life is happening. It is here where “looking at flowers” shows you more and more of actuality, and if you pay attention and appreciate, you can discover that matter and fauna and flora are not merely passive.

Enjoy the adventure.

Cheers Vineeto