Enjoy this while you can

[son_of_bob]

@Kub933

Tell you what though the spanner in the works which is responsible for the stress is what Peter calls the ‘what if syndrome’ I think that’s a brilliant name for it. It is that ongoing stream of neurotic, fear-fuelled thought.

Yes, I remember reading this very early in my AF days and it immediately struck a chord with me. I believe a big part of anxiety can be powered by this neurotic behaviour. It also ties into sorrowful behaviour and regret, what if I did this, what if this happened, etc.

@Kub933

What I found was that as always I simply went from A to B and things went just fine. Meanwhile ‘I’ was jumping from one doomsday scenario to the other and trying to prepare for them all. What happened in actuality was that the next obvious step was taken at each turn and that was it! As has been happening my entire life.

Yes, it is hard. To stop this constant preparation for doomsday, or to not accept the fact or the events that are happening. I am invested in wanting a different outcome rather than the accept the facts of the events that are happening. I still have this conflict and risk aversive personality…it doesn’t help really. I can see what I really want is the conditional events to be like this:

• No difficult work encounters or stress.
• No conflict with my wife.
• No stress from cost of living and to be debt free.
• No big tax bills.
• My kids never being ill.
• Nothing in my house breaking or only breaking when I have spare money.
• My mum not having Alzheimers and not having decreased mobility.
• Not having to do so much around the house…where the fuck are the robots???
• Sleeping well.

When I look at it this way, I can see which of these desired outcomes are feasible and which are out of my control. I feel better about the ones in my control naturally, such as working on a debt plan to clear debts, I am getting there slowly but surely.

I can see in this way, I am defining some form of conditional happiness, where x, y and z must be happening for me to be able to be ok. The problem is the emotional reactions to emotional stressors a, b and c happening instead of conditional happiness events x, y and z then makes me suffer more and takes me further away from felicity.

I am slowly getting back to a better baseline again at least, as I said, it has taken longer than recent but that is ok, it takes what it takes.

[Kub933]

@son_of_bob

• No difficult work encounters or stress.
• No conflict with my wife.
• No stress from cost of living and to be debt free.
• No big tax bills.
• My kids never being ill.
• Nothing in my house breaking or only breaking when I have spare money.
• My mum not having Alzheimers and not having decreased mobility.
• Not having to do so much around the house…where the fuck are the robots???
• Sleeping well.

I thought something a little different here, I wonder if this could offer a new angle. Because when I read this list I thought “I wonder if there is a common thread underlying the points”? And it seems there is.

Could it be that wanting the conditional things is actually sort of a cover up? Could it be that what you actually desire is the end of anxiety itself? To be carefree. Because as much as the list has various requirements, the underlying theme is you wish to be free from anxiety.

And there is only 1 way to be free from anxiety, it cannot be from fulfilling the conditions because it is anxiety itself driving the conditions.

[Kub933]

Could it be that ‘fulfilling the conditions’ is somewhat of a misguided way of reaching that which you actually desire - the end of anxiety itself.

[Miguel]

@Kub933

Could it be that ‘fulfilling the conditions’ is somewhat of a misguided way of reaching that which you actually desire - the end of anxiety itself.

Could it be the end of suffering in general?

[Shashank]

This is a curious scenario and it is something I’ve thought often and even know the solution, yet at the actualization level, it gets tough

The thinking is that if I tackle x, y, z issues, then I can get happy yet it’s impossible that newer issues won’t arise - tomorrow my country could get into a war situation with me at the center of a crossfire, there could be a robbery at home, I could loose a limb, water supply may stop for a week, banks may fail, I could be fired from work, maybe terminally ill etc etc

So the solution cannot be fixing these conditional issues and then get happy as the “what if” scenarios are endless…

The problem for me with such kind of anxieties is the feeling that I will be more energized and motivated to look for a solution to such issues if I’m anxious…as in, if I were feeling good instead, I will sit around lazily and not be motivated enough to find a good solution to the issues

So anxiety appears like an ally in solving problems

[son_of_bob]

@Kub933

I thought something a little different here, I wonder if this could offer a new angle. Because when I read this list I thought “I wonder if there is a common thread underlying the points”? And it seems there is.

Could it be that wanting the conditional things is actually sort of a cover up? Could it be that what you actually desire is the end of anxiety itself? To be carefree. Because as much as the list has various requirements, the underlying theme is you wish to be free from anxiety.

And there is only 1 way to be free from anxiety, it cannot be from fulfilling the conditions because it is anxiety itself driving the conditions.

Yes, the overall arching theme is to be free of anxiety or to be “unaffected” of the events that I have to deal with.

@Kub933

Could it be that ‘fulfilling the conditions’ is somewhat of a misguided way of reaching that which you actually desire - the end of anxiety itself.

On a calmer reflection, I can always see that this is misguided, like right now, reflecting and thinking about it all is easier, but when in the midst of the multiple stressors it seems I am still caught in the maelstrom of emotional responses.

@Miguel

Could it be the end of suffering in general?

Yes, definitely so.

[Kub933]

What if it goes a little deeper than that? What if the very mindset required for ‘solving conditions’ is what is driven by and perpetuates the anxiety itself? Furthermore it creates problems so that it can find solutions.

Because in a PCE, EE or even when feeling good it is not so much that I get very good at solving problems but it is because ‘my’ problems cease to exist and so there is no need for solutions either.

[Kub933]

So like an example could be right now in my current mindset I am afraid of an awkward encounter with a customer. But would the felicitous and innocuous ‘me’ even see this in the paradigm of problem/solution? It would not even exist as a thing.

[Shashank]

Yes, I get this…from the standpoint of a PCE, the brain magically n effortlessly calculates the next optimum thing to do and the “problems” are seen to be just fear-fueled delusions

[Kub933]

So I’m sorta attempting this weird reversal of things, of life being seen 180 degrees to the normal. In a PCE it is exactly like that, seen with confidence that those problems existed because ‘I’ manufactured them, and so life is unequivocally seen to be already perfect.

[Kub933]

My thinking is that by the time I have entered the game of - problem/solution, I have already lost, even if I come up with the best solution possible, because anxiety is already in place. It is anxiety or ‘me’ just doing its thing.

Yet ‘I’ desire freedom from anxiety at the same time. So it is this weird thing of what am I addicted to? Suffering or the freedom from suffering?

[Kub933]

It seems all this can be boiled down to that single statement - There is no solution within the human condition.

Only further problems necessitating various coping mechanisms.

[Shashank]

@Kub933

Yet ‘I’ desire freedom from anxiety at the same time. So it is this weird thing of what am I addicted to? Suffering or the freedom from suffering?

“Problems” give me something to do and thereby keeping “me” in existence…which is what “I” am programmed to do - survive, survive, survive at all cost…so I secretely want problems to continue because it aids “my” survival…so indeed, I am secretly addicted to suffering…

[Kub933]

The more I look into this though the more twisted it becomes, it’s like ‘I’ desire freedom from suffering and by attempting to escape suffering ‘I’ weave myself into further knots which ensure that ‘my’ suffering continues.

But there is something redeeming here, this seeing that deep down ‘I’ do desire freedom, it is just that ‘I’ go about it in a weird twisted way that ends up perpetuating the very suffering ‘I’ wish to escape.

But for now my brain is somewhat frazzled from trying to pinpoint this

[Miguel]

The problem is intricate because one of the evolutionary strengths/expertises of human beings that have allowed us to reproduce successfully (counteracting many weaknesses) is precisely the possibility/capacity to anticipate scenarios with the assistance/intervention of emotion. This assistance/intervention is not how we solely can or should function, but it is how we have done so far.

But we naturalise -thus quickly forget- that compared to other species we can relax much more by anticipating, planning and creating more predictable and safer scenarios (civilisation with its rules, the agreements to divide labour to obtain sustenance, the resulting leisure time, the artistic production, etc., are products of that).

However, those millions of years of successful evolution condensed in our “soft” greatly obstruct the organism to experience how without those remaining levels of anxiety, aggression, love, fear, etc., it can still secure it own sustenance, interact correctly with others, act safely, plan, care for others, etc. That is, it’s difficult to be able to experience those same behaviours/achievements without the assistance/intervention of emotion (i.e. during PCEs). More so the additional benefits that outside of a PCE cannot even be envisaged.

On the other hand, our own history since birth shows us that those fears, aggressions, preventions, love, etc., have proved sufficiently successful in providing us with sustenance, etc., despite the associated suffering.

A bird cannot afford to stop constantly looking everywhere for food and danger. If the bird’s neck hurts, it will at best think: “This is a necessary condition for staying alive; it is the price to pay for an evolutionary programme that keeps me alive”. It is almost inevitable then that we end up seeing our positive and negative feelings as a necessary condition to survive, as a price to pay.

Not only is Actual Freedom counter-intuitive: it’s actually counter-evolutionary from the feeling being perspective, as it proposes to change/delete a central part of that succesfull software and make an evolutionary mutation that the current software resists. And it resist the change generating fear, avoidance, imagining the failures/problems that the new software could suffer in known scenarios! But those scenarios/problems are imagined by the very software that utilises the emotions to function and project! At the same time that we dislike the suffering that the current soft generates…

So, @Kub933, I think this state of affairs make more understandable facts like this one you described in your diary:

@Kub933

But yesterday I took a different route, seeing that I was doing this again and remembering what @emp mentioned I instead decided to allow myself to feel good. It felt weird at first, like I was doing something wrong, on some level I did not want to feel good, it felt like I was letting go of something important to me by feeling good.

Indeed.

[claudiu]

@Miguel

Not only is Actual Freedom counter-intuitive: it’s actually counter-evolutionary from the feeling being perspective, as it proposes to change/delete a central part of that succesfull software and make an evolutionary mutation that the current software resists.

I just want to propose - I would rather put it that it initially appears to be/feels to be counter-evolutionary. But when the full picture is grasped - how the purpose of ‘me’ as a feeling-being is ultimately the survival of the species, and that a planet of actually free humans will have said human species survive much longer - then I think it turns into just the obvious next evolutionary step. Though I am not quite there yet at a deep core feeling level

[son_of_bob]

One step at a time hey.

4 or 5 years ago I couldn’t cope with a single stressor and would lose felicity for months.
2 or 3 years ago I began to cope with 1 stressor, and could get back to felicity and know that was achievable, doable.
Within the last 2 years I have come off my medication and I am able to cope and function without it, that seemed impossible 3 or 4 years ago.
Within the last 2 years I can cope with a couple of stressors and get back to felicity and it wouldn’t take months, at worse a week or two, or days, sometimes hours or minutes.

So, there is this progress I can see. It takes a real amount of complex stressors in a short space of time to disrupt felicitous/EE states for a longer time period now, which is still progress.

As I already mentioned I don’t make myself feel bad about it either now. I don’t dwell on the fact that I lost feeling happy and harmless. There is always another opportunity to feel good.

Funnily enough, articulating what I was going through helped in the process of refocusing on getting back to that better state.

The way of reacting and emoting, so much of it is just habitual as well. Breaking the habit… the problem is that emotional responses have this ability to disrupt my awareness, so the more I am under the influence of the affect, the more unpredictable it can be for me to get back to being aware/felicitous.

[claudiu]

@son_of_bob

As I already mentioned I don’t make myself feel bad about it either now. I don’t dwell on the fact that I lost feeling happy and harmless. There is always another opportunity to feel good.

Awesome!! This is so key

[leila]

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