Just a few reflections I’m having…I’ve been spending time contemplating a lot lately - each moment again, looking to see what’s there.
What I’m experiencing is that the Doer/Controller is there in nearly every single moment. I’m hyper aware and vigilant, always with an “intent to feel good” that often does not hit its mark.
Occasionally, such as last night, when I am doing something else (like driving), things quickly scale up and it goes into feeling great or excellence - it’s a sudden and very surprising reprieve from my usual way of operating.
But most of the time when I’m actually purposely aware, the opposite is happening. I feel “stuck”, and very awake/active - which I know is actually putting myself in the way all the time. It’s exhausting and kind of depressing.
This dichotomy, of experiencing both ways, but never being able to willingly go from the stuck state to the excellence state, is confusing. That’s what I’ve been looking at.
It’s like there is this tendency to cling - half of me once to jump off the cliff into the water, the other half is clinging to the edge and fearful. Meanwhile I’m hanging on to tight, feeling my feelings with all my awareness, and hoping it’s going to work.
What is this oversleeping ambition and desperation? It’s pathological. It’s like “I” won’t let myself relax until I achieve this thing that I absolutely must must must achieve. And why? Is it for peace on earth? Or is it for my own means my own sense of self, my own need to accomplish something on this earth. Vineeto is right, it’s always better/faster/stronger - preventing even a simple baseline level of feeling good.
I’ve never seen this clearly before. I mean I knew I’ve always been a bit “intense”, goal-focused etc - but I couldn’t see it in my awareness because my awareness was so co-opted by this drive. It’s so hidden - it seems to be almost intrinsic to my very being, and a deep survival mechanism that’s encoded in my nervous system. It’s “Felix’s way”, that I’ve used for everything since a small child. “If I don’t work hard, if I am not enough, if I relax - I’m going to be exiled or die.” And all of this has been put into actualism - it could have been anything else and I would have still had incremental success to distract me from it, but not this. The pea under the mattress that has not allowed me to sleep. In a way (my application of) actualism has further held my feet to the fire and kept me constantly striving more than ever.
Tears are coming as I write this. It’s very unusual for me - I think I am coming to something genuine. The relief of seeing this. The “Spannung” (tension) that has been wound and wound and wound over years is gently unwinding a bit and it feels good.
I just read Richard’s quote about letting this moment live one, rather than trying to live in the moment.
• [Richard]: (…). I have oft-times said that if one allows this moment to live one (rather than trying to live in the moment) one’s journey will be over sooner rather than later. (Actual Freedom Mailing List, No. 32, 27 April 2002
).
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Im starting to realise that I am deathly afraid to be naive. At the same time I’m realising that I can be. Lots of tears. I don’t want to fight anymore.