James' Journal

The world is a better place because you are here. Enjoy being the youngest. Growing up is overrated. :tada:

@Andrew: Never grow up. From a t-shirt my waiter was wearing at breakfast.

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Ahhhh, it’s the little things. :blush:

Going back to the crying thing above, I’ve noticed a tendency among spiritual folk to point out to me that “it’s important to not suppress my emotions,” and that “if everything is perfect, aren’t your emotions too?”

Obviously Richard’s advice is to neither express nor repress, and speaking for myself I’ve learned a lot from allowing my emotions to flow. Either way it is some very interesting territory and with subtleties that are important to sort out

‘I’ can only be seen when I’m allowed to operate, but when I really ‘be me,’ I don’t want to change either.

The enjoying & appreciating, combined with the pure intent, open the door to something else happening. For ‘me’ to demolish myself

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Are you saying then to neither express or repress the crying which makes possible enjoying and appreciating when combined with pure intent opens the door to demolishing the ‘me’ ?

The crying itself is no issue at all, as that is simply the action of tears coming out of the eyes.

It’s about the underlying feeling leading to the crying

So ‘expressing’ in that sense means, ‘making a ruckus about the feeling.’
(Again, this can be independent of any physical crying that may or may not be happening)

By not ‘making a ruckus,’ there aren’t additional feeling-layers being piled onto the initial moment of feeling happening, which allows for the greatest amount of clarity possible

Repression, on the other hand, is trying to hide/escape the feeling, which obscures in a different way.

From pure intent, from whatever you have closest to altruism and motivation, comes the motivation to do all of this activity called ‘actualism’

From that motivation/pure intent comes a fascination with the feeling that is happening (as opposed to expressing or repressing)

From fascination comes insights about the feelings, as well as enjoying + appreciating as an outcome rather than expressing or repressing, both of which reify & strengthen ‘me’

This process, as well as the sincere decision: “it is silly to feel this way when perfection is experientially possible, now” weakens the feeling’s impact both in the moment and the next occurrence of ‘x’ event, which used to cause the feeling to occur.

Which results in a continuation of enjoying & appreciating, which results in an increasing baseline mood.

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My take is the “expressing” discouraged is when i may get angry and yell AT someone. Or if i am sad and I verbally blame someone in person etc.

That is, remaining harmless towards others.

Expression when on one’s own, or in like minded company with the goal of understanding and being free, surely must be done.

I have never felt pure overwhelming sadness which didn’t turn into tears. The same as anger.

Maybe, at a certain point, it’s a matter of not going down that path again because one knows where it leads, but if one hasn’t explored that path, then one does not know where it leads.

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Yes henry I agree, This all sounds sensible to me.

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Did you really think Richard would set the bar that low? :wink:

RICHARD: G’day No. 33, In regards to your first query, ‘not expressing’ does indeed refer to thoughts/ thinking, as well as actions/ behaviour, and to not have either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ feelings fuelling thoughts (feeling-fed thinking), as well as no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ feelings fuelling actions (feeling-impelled behaviour), is to have all of the affective energy channelled into the felicitous and innocuous feelings (the happy and harmless feelings).

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Been seeing so clearly how it is all a memory. Everything except this moment is a memory. Past relationships and experiences are all memories. The future is memories projected. The memories have associated feelings.

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The future is memories projected.

Sure. Why not…

Which must be the reason (or one of the reasons) why the simple fact that we are actually alive at this actual moment doing an actual thing is so fascinating. Because the vast majority of the time we are unaware and uninterested that we are actually alive now and totally ignorant of the significance of this obvious fact.

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Yes, if we are not experiencing apperception then we are living in/out of memories.

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@jamesjjoo

Very nice insight. One could call this fantasy. But fantasy gets harder with age. So, it’s likely the future is full of memories.

This is the cliche of getting older, living life looking backwards.

Yet, there is still life being lived.

It’s also possible that feelings can be turned into allies. They will give up the information of what is stopping us truly being alive now.

I was wandering in fantasy of talking with the woman who lives up the street. Then those feelings you talked of revealed the fear i have of other, bigger, men. Then thought of how fearful most women must be in this world full of aggressive men.

I can see how an actually free world would be so much better. No one afraid of the blind jealousy of men, no one owned, intimidated.

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My ex-wife called me 10 days ago to wish me happy birthday. This triggered love and hate which is still lingering. I’ve got a long way to go.

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I’m finishing out this year with a bang. I’m happy and harmless and feeling excellent.

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Haha, awesome!!!

I remember a time when i was so thrilled to be alive, i was shouting “let’s start this party with a bang!”

Back to feeling good this morn after a one month bout with cold, allergies, real world drama and such. Having experiences of being the body which makes it all worthwhile. It’s fun just being alive when one is feeling good.

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It is the identity that gets lonely, needs a partner, wants to socialize and do this and that. The body itself has no need for any of that.

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Been enjoying walking around a small lake the last two morns. Both times I had an experience of being close to the actual world.

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Awesome @jamesjjoo.

Sounds lovely.