October Report
Things have been mostly pretty amazing this month. Wow a lot has happened. I’ve started finding it surprisingly easy to have intimate interactions with most people I come across though there are still lots of moments where I lose sincerity and naivete and things are less nice. I’ve been having moments of ‘this is too good to be true’ but things have been consistent enough that I think I’m really on to something.
I also started dating a girl and having really sweet intimate conversations with her that are really rewarding. Just starting to explore some physical intimacy but it seems like as long as I am exploring that with the same intention and attitude that I am exploring the mental intimacy it doesn’t pose a threat (which I have often worried it could).
I also started really heavily focusing on deconstructing my masculinity a bit. I went to the rocky horror picture show and dressed in drag which I really enjoyed. Also I have started changing some of my mannerisms to indicate a higher level of approachability and friendliness. Smiling at people more, taking care of my appearance, being more expressive when people do something that I appreciate.
Recently posted a question to Srinath about how to parse out whether intentions are coming from social identity and instincts or from naive, harmless simple preference. Unsurprisingly his answer was to choose happiness and harmlessness each moment again.
I am finding that the way to stay on track is never going to be a thought out answer about a technique to choose the right actions or something. That’s what the social identity wants because that’s how it operates. The answer is going to be choosing a way to feel that brings me as close as possible to the actual world and to pure intent and things spontaneously flow from there.
The area where this currently concerns me most is when my sincere naive self seems to want to talk with women in a naive/intimate way even if they are in a relationship. Really I want to talk to everyone that way but I am finding it easier with women (that’s new!).
I’m fearing that I am being harmful and then retreat into moral/social identity decisions about right and wrong. Best guess for now is to have confidence in my experience that my naive and sincere self will stop short of causing harm without the need for the social identity to take back over and make me withdraw.