Hey everyone, I’ve been using writing-at-myself as a way of complementing investigating since I first got into actualism, and I thought I might start posting those here as a way to facilitate others’ investigation as well as benefit from the observations of others.
It may be light on context at times as I’m primarily writing for my own exploration.
10|25|21
Racing to secure certain outcomes without sensitivity to what’s happening, now
Right now I’m pretty tired out
I’m employed by the salt cave but the hours are pretty spotty there
I have a partially-completed tiny house
Car needs some more money put into it to be really solid
It would be nice to get the motorcycle out of the yard / fixed
I have a habit of going and doing soccer things, which increase tiredness / soreness
These things are all integrated with one another.
And all the while I have particular feelings about what should be happening, about how things should be working.
–
This is what’s happening.
–
Saw the vortex that is ‘me’ the other night cabin camping.
Darkness ahead. When I look up, there is increasing light.
The darkness swirls.
All ‘inner.’
‘Me.’
Critical.
Sorrowful.
Loving.
Desirous.
Desperate.
Insecure.
And here this actual world…
Far more than beautiful.
Fascination builds.
I don’t even have to go anywhere, this is happening right here & right now.
I can see that I’m hiding
What am I afraid of? I’m afraid of being questioned because I think I’m bullshit.
I’m trying to spin the narrative, that I am good
It’s my own beliefs of what’s good anyway.
Is getting attention good? Is not getting attention good? Is having lots of money good? Is having lots of free time good? Is building lots of things good? Is chilling out good? Is drinking this cup of coffee good? Is not drinking it good? Should I go out? Should I not go out?
–
It doesn’t ultimately matter. It’s up to me. There’s no weight to any of it. The weight comes because of my own projections of the things I’m scared of, personally.
The outcomes that I believe will happen if I do this or that, and what they ‘mean.’
My very thoughts are informed by my experiences.
I have a fear of not remembering, of not having interesting enough thoughts. It has to do with being smart enough.
If I can’t impress others, then I’m in trouble. Is my belief.
I guess I can scrape by doing bare minimum employment and I don’t really have to impress to pull that off.
I can be homeless really if it comes to that.
People can be mad at me. I don’t have to perform.
I don’t really know what others will be impressed by anyway, it’s my projection based on whatever I’m impressed by at that time.
If someone else is impressed by me, it similarly says more about what they’re impressed by in their life at that time.
The outcomes that I think are so important, the outcomes that they so desire. The same thing. And the opposite side of that is the outcomes I or they are trying to keep away.
I’m habitually feeling a bunch about specific signifiers.
There’s this adventure of life happening, and I’m squandering it by being driven by my reactions to those signifiers.
Rich & poor…
Young & old…
–
Lazy & industrious…
Criticized & loved.
Sleepy & awake.
Silent & speaking.
I wake up every day with a belief that I should be ‘doing something.’ That there’s something important that ‘must get done,’ that ‘I am ‘behind.’’
Should I be doing ‘this,’ or doing ‘that?’
Is time spent in silent, still contemplation time wasted?
What am I doing, hating my own thoughts? ‘I’ am the only one that can get me out of this mess!
We, humanity, hate the earth and we hate being alive. It’s painful for us to be alive. It’s nothing personal that everyone is so irritable. So desperate.
–
‘I’ want verification that ‘I’ am good. I hope to get that from others. But how can they verify what the right thing to do is, when people don’t know how to live? When they’re as sorrowful & malicious as I am? It’s an act, they are piously granting me the rank of ‘good’ either from their throne of goodness or from their pit of ‘badness.’ They don’t know the perfection. They aren’t living the perfection. The judgment does nothing for me, I keep going the same way, only now with more ‘me’ to defend.
This is really interesting @henryyyyyyyyyy, not so much lately but since the start of my journey with actualism I was always making notes that look very similar to yours, in fact I could confuse one for the other, somehow it would help me ‘digest’ things better if I was able to put it into words even if at times it sort of didn’t make sense haha.
@Kub933 It has helped me a lot to do it this way! Awhile back it would take a form as if someone else was going to read it, and more recently it’s been more “I’ll have a thought, and I’ll write it down and sit there and stare at it.” And that’s been the most useful.
10|26|21
Money fears!
A few things cropped up while I was driving into work, specifically the power steering was making some noise and I already have some other things to pay off.
So the insecurity is about not being able to take care of things like that, but I do have backup in my parents’ car so the real fear has to do with their reaction.
I don’t like it when they’re looking at me thinking I’m screwing up.
And the other side of things is I don’t like working that much, I want to keep my cushy part-time job. I’m not quite ready to work harder for money.
I guess it can fit together any way, but I’m still being pushed in those moments by the feeling, heart-dropping fears of ‘x’.
The funny thing is really I have more free time than I even need, like sometimes I’m just casting about not sure what to do with myself. Though I suppose that comes from its own set of fears as well. And generally happens when I’m tired, so it’s not like I want to be working in that moment.
What I find myself imagining is that I’ll miss out on social things or time spent in the woods or something because of work. That I’ll ‘always be working.’
Basically it’s a ‘good feeling - bad feeling’ comparison, where work represents all the bad feelings and everything outside of work represents the good feelings. But I have evidence of that not standing up because of these situations where I don’t have money for this or that, and I feel bad anyway.
So I want both money and buckets of free time, but that’s not what’s happening. So then I’m basically into escapism of wishing for it.
I’m not willing to admit work into the things that I enjoy. Similarly I’m not willing to admit not being able to pay for something, or asking for help into things that I enjoy.
It begins to seep, too. When I’m tense about an auto repair or owing someone money, I can’t fully enjoy the free time anyway. So there’s no escaping on the ‘human plane’ for me. That’s where the memory of PCE is useful, I see how much I’ve enjoyed this very world, it’s not like there’s something wrong with the world. It’s just how I’m experiencing it now. It’s almost exceptionalism, I’m like “yeah the world is perfect but my situation is too fucked up!”
But my situation is a part of this world.
It’s just that I’m uncomfortable/triggered by some specific things.
Something I noticed when I was working over the weekend (light construction) was that when I was physically tired / wanting a break, I felt guilt which soon morphed into a kind of aggression. But I wasn’t just allowing myself to take a break, those extra layers were happening. I’ve seen myself go through similar patterns in romantic relationships, feeling a sense of obligation/responsibility/duty which didn’t have sensitivity to my physical capabilities or what I was wanting to do in that moment.
With romantic relationships I’ve been able to figure out that that’s not a very good way to exist, like it’s ok to have my own preferences and stand up for myself. But that discomfort/fear is stronger in work scenarios.
Immediately what comes to mind is my father, because I worked for him for so long. I’m scared of him. I have to figure out how to not be scared of him.
I still think that he or others that represent the same thing to me (eg bosses) can control the situations I want and don’t want, the same as when I was a young child. I think I have to go through them, which means that to me, their emotions are very important (as in, ‘I’ need to ‘keep them happy’). If they’re grumpy or whatever, I’m in trouble.
It actually goes back to the same issue from yesterday, I must believe that his view is correct, but it isn’t. He’s not happy. He doesn’t actually know how to live.
It’s changing the focus, from materialism to actualism.
This opens the door to experiencing this and thinking about it differently. But no intellectualizing, it has to be genuine.
With the ‘human’ view there is a ‘must,’ ‘I must do ‘x’ or there will be a problem,’ where in the actual there is no must. It’s all very light, I’m just wandering in the world. I can do anything, it doesn’t matter much if it’s this or that. So when these people give me their feedback, that’s where it’s coming from. It all feels very important.
10|27|21
From here, there’s nothing that needs to be done.
It’s only when I have a scheme, ‘somewhere else’ I need to get to, that there’s a problem.
It ‘feels dangerous’ to not listen to the stress.
Richard has a description of how he decides what to do next, which is basically that if he notices he’s hungry he goes to the cabinet, if there’s no food there he goes to the store for more, if there’s no money he works for money. Simple. No grand plan happening.
When right now is perfect, there’s nowhere else I have to get to.
I can see that a decade or so ago, ‘I’ decided that I would be disappointed by my life. That I couldn’t get the things I wanted, that I wasn’t good enough. From then I’ve been living with that numb sense of disappointment. The last few days, I’ve been seeing a glimpse of the things I had given up on, which is exciting but I can also see that those are all desires: a certain girl, a certain money situation. A certain work situation. It’s ‘mine,’ it’s not what’s actually happening.
The actuality is far larger than those petty desires. Last night I was looking out my window down the hill in the dark, and I had a glimpse of the largeness of just this neighborhood. Not even the world, not even infinitude itself. But just this area has so much happening.
The opposite of that is with my desires everything is pointed toward these narrow outcomes. It’s all happening inside me, rather than everything that is happening. It’s so big! And scintillating, like a jewel.
I can also see that actuality is an entirely different scope than my human happiness. Human happiness is just what ‘I’ can do to allow it to happen. It’s the edge of the egg. Everything is different there.
Everyone living inside their own egg, missing one another. Fighting with one another. Reaching for their own petty demands.
I’ve been using the approval of others as my barometer of success. It’s never enough, though. I can’t hold it for long, any moment of ‘success’ is a fleeting will-o-the-wisp. A dream. The dissappointed feelings tell them that maybe I’m not so great after all, and I feel it too. I feel like I’m not doing enough. That I must be missing something.
Others will always vacillate between approval and disapproval. When I am actual, here-as-I-am, it doesn’t matter.
The hunger for approval is driven by loneliness-desperation.
‘I’ want to escape from the pain ‘I’ am in, into the approving & comforting arms of the other.
Even when I’m successful in that process, it’s just a loop of suffering & loving & back to suffering again. Resentment & pain builds. Numbness sets in. The other is suffering as much as I am, the dream that I inflict on them to escape from my own pain tears at them.
All the while this actual world is here. Always ready. ‘I’ do it for them.
The possibility is there for this life to be an absolute hoot, but I choose not to, for ‘me.’
(cont.)
I frequently allow feeling tired to interrupt enjoyment. It’s linked to a sense of performance, both for other people and for ‘me,’ I can’t do the things ‘I’ want to do because I’m too fatigued.
‘I’ don’t enjoy being tired.
‘I’ feel that I’m tired too often.
Nothing really needs to get done. It doesn’t really matter what order I do things in. It’s useful to do them in a manner that makes sense, but it’s not so important. If I’m tired, then it may make the most sense to rest. Of course, it’s not so bad if I’m doing something while I’m tired, either. It’s ok to be physically uncomfortable every now and then. It’s part of the adventure of being alive. But I don’t have to force myself in some joyless way, or because someone else wants me to. Certainly not to try and demonstrate to some other person that I’m impressive.
I’ve been considering a bit lately how much my emotional tone dictates how others interact with me, and thus the opportunities that arise in my life. When I’m miserable or malicious, others tend to want to avoid me or do things in a pacifatory way, which isn’t comfortable or easy. Whereas when I’m easy, light, happy, then people tend to like me and it’s easy to get along.
So me-the-identity keeps trying to make some elaborate scheme to ‘get what I want,’ but I’m missing what’s really driving most interactions with others, which is my emotional tone. It’s pretty funny, really. But I guess that’s just part of identity.
–
Reading simple actualism, and: “You will still have a sense of ‘you’ as being, but notice that it is a joyful version of ‘you’. Sometimes this manifests as a sense of a pleasing undulating in the lower abdomen as opposed to more anxious feelings in the centre of the chest.”
This led me to noticing that I did indeed have a tension in my chest. I have asthma and usually I’ve attributed this tension to asthma, but this made me curious. So, I looked up the chakra understanding of that location:
“Solar plexus chakra
The solar plexus chakra, or Manipura, is located in your stomach area. It’s responsible for confidence and self-esteem, as well as helping you feel in control of your life.”
I found this very intriguing, as indeed confidence, self-esteem, and a feeling of ‘out-of-control’ have been plaguing me for a long time - in fact, more or less since that ‘decision’ a decade ago. This is a very rich vein for me to explore.
It’s clear that the route forward is not to have ‘high self-esteem.’ Rather, in what ways does it simply not matter? What does the third alternative look like in this scenario?
For a start, I don’t have to be in charge / in control of everything to be happy. In fact, it’s an illusion to think that I can control anything at all. I’m simply moving through the world and doing my best with what’s happening. That’s something that’s happening all the time. I think especially in the realms of money and romance, I’ve been trying to figure out how to control it for a long time. How to ‘pin it down.’
In doing that, I’m also trying to control myself: wrench myself, tie myself into certain behaviors because ‘I’ think that they are best.
I have seen how miserable that has made me over the years. Energetically, it looks like being tied to an office chair. At the same time, being out of control doesn’t work that well either. In that scenario I’m crazily chasing ‘my’ desires. It’s ‘me’ at the wheel that time. I guess it’s ‘me’ at the wheel either way.
I’m partly on this track because I read Miguel’s thread about mental illness and actualism, and there was the quote Rick posted about being a mentally-disturbed man going all the way. This struck a chord with me, because I think I have frequently shied away from going further when I became scared that I was acting ‘too crazy.’
This is something that pure intent is for, and it is a good thing it’s there. At the same time, at this moment I’m moreso coming from a direction of having ‘myself’ too clamped-down, and I’m seeing the issues with that most obviously in having a sense that my life doesn’t belong to me. Being constantly worried about what others think of me.
Wow, I can see really clearly how ‘insane’ it is to see everything as fine, no problem anywhere. It really doesn’t matter what happens.
From the human perspective, that is madness. It ‘feels’ insanely dangerous, suicidal. Actually, it is suicidal! Because ‘I’ have to die!
That is truly hilarious, it was right here all along. It’s too easy.
I don’t need this, I don’t need that, it really doesn’t matter what happens because it’s all - everything - is literally perfect already.
I’m already doing everything perfectly right. My brain is sending signals to my fingers to type this, I’m sensitively integrated with this world. My memory reminds me of things as I need to know them.
I won’t necessarily get to where ‘I’ want to go. In fact, I definitely won’t. That’s the nature of the dream: its connection to actuality is extremely distant. And in terms of tone, it has nothing to do with it at all. It’s literally the opposite direction. Wow.
‘I’ am constantly feeling disappointed by what’s happening, with brief bursts of thinking, ‘What ‘I’ want is happening!!’ or a somewhat-forced, artificial feeling of gratitude. My entire view of life is essentially that something is going wrong.
How can anything go wrong here? This is fantastically exciting.
–
Being alive isn’t hard, it’s easy.
Being ‘me’ is hard. It’s harrowing. It feels like death.
–
I seem to have some belief that it is ‘important’ that I finish things in some ‘timely manner.’ That’s actually a hint right there, that time is involved. It involves impatience, whether mine or others’.
If someone is impatient, there must be some misunderstanding happening about how long something takes or what is happening.
I sometimes get into situations where I feel bad because I feel like I’m supposed to ‘stick to my word’ when I make a promise. Probably I’m a bit too optimistic with my promises, like I tell people what I think they want to hear.
But the bigger piece is that I have some decisions to make in terms of what I do to stick to my word or not. It’s not just something where I have to mindlessly do it every single time if it’s not the best thing to do.
So in the past I’ve frequently exhausted myself trying to prevent others’ impatience or to try and be ‘honorable.’
That also lines up with the narrative I get sometimes of ‘being a screw-up’
Maybe. But I also just have different priorities than them.
Either way it’s nothing to get wound up about. I am tired, it’ll be alright.
It actually already is alright. Wow, and with that excellence sweeps in.
–
Something I just noticed is that frequently after PCEs I get very ‘clever,’ like ‘I’ have all the answers and ‘I’ can use ‘my’ newfound clarity to go get what ‘I’ want. It has the energy of sneakiness, sort of oily. I haven’t caught it before because it feels very ‘good,’ like I have previously thought of it as an extension of the PCE rather than the thing bringing me out of it. More observation required.
The biggest ‘tell’ is that it’s always ‘my’ ideas of what I’ll ‘do next.’
Mm, there’s delight there. It doesn’t much matter what happens next, whatever it may be has delight in it.
@henryyyyyyyyyy
High self-esteem helps because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Low self-esteem ruins things for the same reason–it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Self-esteem is a bogus concept in that way.
Be attentive to the narrative you may be telling yourself. A positive narrative creates high self-esteem. But you can’t create a positive narrative when your past experiences were bad.
To create high self-esteem, you need to have positive experiences or accomplishments that will trump your bad past experiences. By its very nature, it requires a long time. Also, if you depend upon the narratives that you develop based on past experiences for your self-esteem, it is susceptible to change when you face failures at your enterprises in future. If part of your self-esteem depends on what others tell you, then it anyway fluctuates.
Narratives aren’t needed at all. Your past was a result of factors–both internal and external–that were acting on you. Results cannot be separated from the environment–both internal and external–that secured them.
Your environment is different now. So if you don’t have conclusions from the past, you can do whatever you are doing with maximum efficacy.
Far more than self-esteem, it’s important to have an awareness of your abilities, how well you can do a certain work at this point and how well you can do with respect to others. Since that awareness can help you much better than what high self-esteem can, self-esteem will then fall by the wayside and die its natural death.
@Kiman Thank you for the thoughtful response 
Yes 
Incidentally, sometimes it happens the opposite way, too: I’ve seen when someone gets ‘too much self esteem’ and starts to perform poorly (big head), another example might be when someone gets low self esteem and someone offers them help out of sympathy. So there is some belief in the cultural ideas around ‘good/bad self-esteem,’ as well.
I agree with this to a point - for example, if I can lift a maximum of 50 kg yesterday, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to lift 200 kg today. However, for some things awareness of abilities might be a continuation of identity, where a better alternative might be being surprised by events as they happen. Perhaps this is something that comes with time (for example as part of virtual freedom), though. Richard does mention ‘getting to know oneself’ extremely well, which seems the same thing.
I agree with most of your comment, I especially can see how my self-narrative is driven by what others tell me about myself.
I caught myself in something interesting when I was in Ballina: when I was telling R+V about my childhood, I made a very ‘positive’, sparkling, PCE-filled narrative. But then an hour or so later, I was describing the same period of time but exemplifying all the ‘negative’ things that had happened. The interesting thing was that while I was telling each story, I believed it wholeheartedly. It felt very total. It was only by telling them both in such short succession that I caught myself. So it’s evident that ‘I’ can cherry-pick any kind of past events to make the story that ‘feels right’ right now. That’s where it has mostly to do with the current feeling.
So then where I am today, certain things happen which I have beliefs about, I’m funneled into that feeling in that moment (whether good or bad), and then I can cherry-pick past experiences that feel similar to build a strong narrative. It’s possible to inhabit pretty specific feeling-zones for a long time by doing this. I’ve had an experience a few times, when I’m in a very clear space, where I start remembering things that I hadn’t remembered in a long, long time. I think that’s because it had been a long time since I had felt that particular emotional tone, so that ‘seeking’ had to look farther back to find something similar. This is also, I think, why people have trouble remembering PCEs clearly.
Right now, I’m experiencing some financial instability which leads to me feeling certain things, and with that I cast backwards to previous times when I felt similarly and similar things were happening. With that comes the formation of identity: ‘I’ am someone that feels this way, that these things happen to, and I wholeheartedly believe it. The believing also leads to the same habits acting out. This is borne out in my experience, I’ve gone through this same cycle a few times before. But it’s the same thing: my identity integrated with everyone else’s identities (aka ‘humanity’). The human drama.
So, then: breaking the cycle is as simple as dropping the familiar narrative/feeling/‘me.’
And being surprised by events unfolding.
Enjoying + appreciating this moment of being alive.
Awesome, I really enjoyed reading your journal entries. There’s some very relatable points in there and also a ton of great information! It’s so interesting to see just how similar all our dramas can be, the themes that you write about are themes that I have experienced in myself also. It’s kinda funny that I can feel and believe that I am somehow unique in my troubles and suffering and yet it is all so similar/repetitive.
@Cub933 Thanks!
Yes it is quite funny, that’s part of why I’ve felt pretty loose for awhile about sharing my personal insecurities… they are the same as everyone else’s!
There’s a Tibetan Buddhist quote that encapsulates this: “You are another me.”
And it’s all neatly described by the fact that we are genetically identical (at the ‘being’ level)… my feelings are yours… and then the world has only so much creativity as far as the conditioning goes. Most of it is in-common, and the cultural variations are pretty surface-level.
I remember being shocked when I had a regular meditation practice: I would meditate for an hour every day during lunch-time (& then another hour in the evening). I discovered that I had the same thoughts, in the same order, every session: I would think about girls, then I would think about money, then I would think about work.
It’s so basic! ‘I’ was just a cultural download. My deepest, most inner desires were given to me, and they were the same as (almost) every other young man my age.
And now when I talk with others I’m rarely surprised by what they share… they hit the same beats, in similar orders to one another. It’s just a question of ‘which identity’ they ascribe to.
10|28|21
Successfully shot down fears of tiredness earlier, realized the extent to which manipulation by others consists of both good & bad emotions - they can control me when they can make me feel good. And when the powerful ‘wizard-me’ attempted to arise, I steered away.
Extended excellence since then. Such a different ambience than ‘my’ usual!
It attempted to arise to make you feel good? How did you steer away?
It consisted of a good feeling, combined with the oily sneakiness that I described previously. So its arising was a good feeling in itself.
Having uncovered the sneaky nature, it was obvious that leaning into it was only going to lead me back into ‘me.’ I remember the same energy coming across me as far back as 2017, I would start to scheme all the things that ‘I’ was going to do with ‘my’ newfound clarity. But it always devolves into feeling bad, so it’s a lie to myself.
It’s what Richard was warning about:
“But refrain from possessing it and making it your own … or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared.”
So then by steering away I was able to maintain excellence, essentially ‘stay here.’
It’s pretty exciting for me because it has always been seductive to me in the past, this is really the first time I’ve identified it and steered away.
To help identify it further, I’ve been calling it ‘the Wizard’ because its energy is of competence, genius, having secret knowledge that most don’t possess… it’s ‘me’ claiming the excellent experience & clarity of the PCE to acquire the things that I want - which is the beginning of readmitting desire, as they are my desires.
10|30|21
Feeling some internal pressure to accomplish certain things but I’m also a bit sleepy. Exacerbated by just drinking coffee rather than eating food. Ok, I could just eat something. But I’d like to understand the emotional push here as well.
There must be some belief in me about the effects of coffee, ‘I’ like coffee but I’m somewhat missing what the actual experience of 2 cups on an empty stomach is.
Well, it’s happening! I have only to observe the effects.
I guess a lot of this is feeling cranky that I don’t have complete control of the state of my body, ‘I’ have certain things ‘I’ want to accomplish and my body has the gall to be tired out. That’s where the coffee comes in. And then the coffee doesn’t have the exact effect I imagine it should! Ah well, silliness.
‘I’ keep being very inconvenient to ‘myself,’ I keep staying up late to do things ‘I’ like doing, and then later don’t have energy to do other things that ‘I’ want to accomplish. And then I’m annoyed with myself, or annoyed with my body.
It’s also possible to accomplish things even when I’m tired. Is that worth it right now? It’s hard to say.
—
I think part of those kinds of difficulties are that I become fixated on the plan going a certain way, and then when something happens like I’m more tired than ‘expected,’ it’s a ‘problem.’ When the alternative is to roll with the situation changing. So then I’m sitting there bemoaning the situation, rather than just adjusting to whatever the (new) best thing to do is.
It definitely draws attention to the ‘sensible’ decision-making rather than the normal emotional/fantasy-based deciding. The pain comes from feeling that there is a ‘wrong/bad’ way for things to happen, as well as always trying to reach for the ‘good’ way. The sensitive intelligence happens when the emotional/fantasy-based Me is not present.
I get suspicious of myself, that I’m being ‘lazy’ or that everything will get ‘screwed up’ if I don’t ‘take care’ of certain things. That’s pretty interesting.
The other side of it is I certainly do get avoidant of certain chores or jobs out of fear. I guess because they do feel so heightened, I set a lot of pressure in those situations. Because I have strong ideas of how it should go.
But then life throws curveballs… maybe a certain material in a project doesn’t do what I thought it would do, or I find myself tired when my plan was to do a certain task. Maybe I get sick on that day or something. But I’m thinking of ‘my’ plan, there isn’t an admission that there are a lot of things happening outside of ‘me.’ In fact, my own body is outside of ‘my’ conception!
‘I’ have a horror of rot & dysfunction, and so I feel tension to keep everything ‘just-so.’ The tension between this drive, and my desire to ‘let loose’ creates pain in myself. I want it both ways, there isn’t a connection to the actuality.
The actuality is that it’s all happening at the same time. As soon as something is built, it is falling apart. As soon as I begin to do something, I begin to exhaust myself. It’s not even opposites, it’s the motion of existence. The very ideas of what to do are that same motion.
If there is any force driving me, no matter how ‘good,’ I am not actually free. I’m not deciding to do this or that out of sensitive consideration, but rather because I’m always driven. Driven to desire, feeling disappointment at it not matching. ‘I’ thought I would feel some certain way… when will I learn?
I have more beliefs to investigate.
I believe that if I don’t take care of this chore now, that I’ll ‘never do it.’ But that’s not borne out by past chores… yes they took longer than I initially imagined, but I did get a lot done and kept going. It was even fun a lot of the time. That’s the other side of the belief, that doing the chore ‘sucks.’
Even if I’m tired or sore or whatever it doesn’t have to ‘suck.’ It can still be fun in a certain way. But that also doesn’t mean I have to do it all the time. Hm hmm.
–
It’s definitely ‘me’ deciding either way, I get all wound up and impulsively do things, I get ‘downtrodden’ and do nothing, or impulsively do something to escape from it. As long as I’m feeling, as long as I’m being, I’m not free to decide. It’s driven.
Being a ‘me’ is so uncomfortable! I’m always at odds with what’s happening, with this actual body and with every other body.
I’m at odds with the very factual nature of everything that’s happening. ‘I’ hate it all, ‘I’ want it all to be different. I’m trying to get somewhere else than here, anywhere else than here.
I want everything to be different. Well, it’s not! ‘It is what it is,’ as they say. Am I really going to get grumpy every time I’m tired and have a to-do list, forever! What a life that would be! In fact, I’m living it! I can confirm now as in so many other times, it is not pleasant. ‘I’ am not pleasant.
Plain to see for me & anyone else. So, my options are to shut myself away whenever I’m in this position, or to get over myself.
It’s funny because what I’m ‘working on’ (or not working on depending on how you look at it lol) is a tiny house, so I can relax and ‘do what I want’ with my day. So here I am, tired out & badly in need of relaxation, and I can’t! Because of the very thing that I’m doing so I can relax. I’m still saying, ‘no, you can’t enjoy until this is done!’ It’s always off in the future.
I’m 31 years old, how far in the future am I supposed to wait? Maybe when I retire?
I guess I can just do whatever, no one’s really making me - other than myself! It’s just a question of figuring out how to stop ‘me’-ing.
It’s obviously pretty painful to ‘me.’
I just took an entire perfectly lovely day & fouled it up by ‘be’-ing all day!
A lot of it seems to come down to things not going according to my plan, what I think I should be doing. So it becomes a question of being able to float in that lack of ‘security’ of getting what ‘I’ want.
Can I be happy without getting what I want all the time? It’s so childish! Yes of course, most of the time I don’t really get what I want… hence most of the time ‘I’ am unhappy! Is that how it’s going to be the rest of my life? If every day is like today, then yes. Unless I can drop it.
It’s actually really ridiculous. I’m tired out, I’m obviously not going to get up & do what ‘I’ think I ‘should do.’ So all I’m doing is sitting here feeling bad.
It very much has the same character as past situations where someone else was putting pressure on me to get something done, except this time it’s all me. I can’t blame anyone else for these feelings.
Maybe I can do it tomorrow. I guess we’ll see. No way to know in advance, but I can put pieces in place to make it easy, eg get some good sleep.
I have this whole drawn-out dream of how terribly things will go if I don’t take care of things in a certain way, but it’s all imaginary. None of it is happening right now, I don’t actually know how it will go, and not only that but if it goes in some way that’s inconvenient, that doesn’t mean that I’ll feel badly about it in the future. So it’s still not ‘bad.’
This is greeted by sweetness.
The initial drive to do the chore didn’t feel good to start with, there was already discomfort for the start. The discomfort was my entire reason for doing it.
I can see more clearly with my mood shifting how big of a deal that is, what a drag that is. I must think that ‘my plan’ is more important than delighting.
The contradiction is revealed in the fact that the entire reason I’m doing the chore is to create delight. And then I’m shooting myself down when I try to delight so long as it’s not in line with ‘my’ plan. Even when the ‘why’ has a valid reason behind it. I’m supposed to wait.
And then there’s always a new reason to ‘wait.’ It’s like an abusive parent, where what the kid does is never good enough. The goalpost keeps being moved, no matter how hard I try.
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I’m still so unhappy with my life, after all this time. I guess it doesn’t match with what I wanted. What I thought I could ‘make happen.’
What I thought it would look like.
I can’t get over that I can’t have everything.
I’m miserable over it. I choose to be miserable.
These are the conditions in which I’m alive. This is the only universe that exists, and this moment is all that exists. That means, this is all there is. The sensuous connection to the world - literally through the senses - is my only connection to the actual existing thing.
All the dreams aren’t here.
The ‘being’ isn’t here.
This is where the entire manifest universe is. Everything that is.
I’m actually alive right now, in this actual manifest universe. Any being is between these senses and the thing itself.
It really is everything that I am. Everything that Henry consisted of, has to go.
Everything is fresh & new when I’m not there, because I’m not sorting it & feeling something about it.
Discounting it, or else trying to make some sort of pet out of it. Trying to put it in my possession.
I am unable to do what is best each-moment-again so long as there is ‘being’ present, as the ‘being’ steps in and informs what is done. It is ‘me’ and ‘my’ personality in action. The reason ‘the Wizard’ exists is that the level of intelligence in action is so obviously far above ‘my’ normal, that when ‘I’ see it I desperately grasp at it.
10|31|21
Halloween!
Spent the day crawling under the house installing pieces of plywood. Painful, but mood wise it was (somewhat predictably) just fine. Still probably best to not have done it yesterday.
The interesting thing was that later in the evening when I was musing on it, I was struck by a sense of ‘accomplishment.’ It seems to be the other side of all the pressure I was experiencing yesterday. It had the character of being relieved to not have that pressure hanging over me… “I’m good… I put all that work in…” which is doubly interesting because 1) It’s totally arbitrary, I could potentially tell myself I hadn’t done enough 2) I still don’t want to be driven by that pressure anyway! So the patting myself on the back / feeling good after accomplishing something is keeping the pressure alive.
The alternative is feeling perfect - or as near to perfect as possible each moment again.
Far better than merely ‘good’ about ‘my’ accomplishments!
Thanks Henry, this struck a chord with me. The past few years have been extremely hectic between kids and work, so for the past year I’ve been taking steps to re-arrange my life to be a bit more chilled and conducive to practicing actualism. I’ve got it in my head that ‘once my life is more chilled, then I can make good progress with actualism’. But where’s the sense in that, why not practice actualism more while I’m waiting!
Yes, now is the best time!
I’ve been working on a construction project for the last year, and part-way through I realized that I was living as if “when this is done, I’ll be happy.” What nonsense!! I was essentially telling myself that I’d be unhappy on purpose for the next 6 months or however long it took. In that moment I decided that I’d do everything I could to have fun with the project. It was really a watershed moment for me.
Now I take more breaks and maybe it’s taking longer, but I am way happier and indeed having more fun with it! And I’m discovering all kinds of ‘me’ along the way.
11|1|21
It’s clear that the ‘being’ is what creates conflict with others.
The ‘must’ within ‘me’ becomes a ‘must’ for others, just as their ‘must’ becomes ‘my’ ‘must.’
“This must happen.”
There’s a pressure, just as the other day I felt pressure to do a certain job.
It lacks consideration, sensitivity, current-time awareness.
It’s self-centered - ‘I’ am perfectly happy to sacrifice others’ well being if ‘I’ feel threatened.
Richard: Okay, an affective ‘self’ is otherwise known as ‘the seat of the emotions or sentiments; the emotional part of human nature’ … according to the Oxford Dictionary. Furthermore, and in other words, the deep and abiding human ‘spirit’ (which is ‘being’ itself) is from whence ‘hope springs eternal in the human breast.’
…and sorrow & malice spring eternal!
RICHARD: Sure … the [quote] ‘good’ [endquote] feelings mentioned are the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) and the [quote] ‘bad’ [endquote] feelings mentioned are the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) whereas feeling good/feeling happy/feeling perfect are the felicitous and innocuous feelings (those that are delightful and harmonious).
Seeking altruism.
In-mind that mindlessly ‘doing what others want’ isn’t altruism, as they don’t know how to be happy. It makes sense for the end of ‘me’ to be the most beneficial thing, as no longer do I place my pressure on others. My enjoyment of life opens space for their enjoyment of life.
My ‘being’ wants anything but enjoyment, as ‘I’ am constantly on the lookout for ‘threats’ and for ‘good’ things to keep me safe.
Intelligence in concert with altruism allows ‘me’ to see the sense in bowing out.
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Feeling sleepy, and some tension about debt and wanting it to go away. Thinking that I need to get another job, while also not wanting to because I’m tired.
I know there’s a hole in here somewhere but I just can’t see it yet.
There are a lot of things ‘I’ am not willing to give up, I don’t want to work more, I don’t want to give up free time, I don’t want to hang out with people less. A lot of it isn’t very rooted in my actual actions, like I don’t hang out with people all that often anyway. I still have a fearful sense around work. Hm, well-worth digging into.
It’s very relational, I anticipate a situation in which someone’s asking me to do something that I don’t want to do, and I feel a sickness in my stomach from that. I guess the problem is ‘I’ don’t want to be there at all, so it’s poisoned from the start.
I’m resentful about the whole arrangement of money-exchange, I don’t like the trade. But I’m not willing to give up on the things that ‘I’ like spending money on, either. It’s very much wanting to ‘maintain the lifestyle to which I’ve become accustomed,’ while also living some kind of hippy lifestyle of never working. I must have turned that into a virtue at some stage along the way, I consider it ‘good.’
And I’ve put myself into debt mindlessly trying to have it both ways like that.
Well, I can make it simple by enjoying & appreciating regardless of circumstances. Broke? Enjoy & appreciate. Have money? It’s not ‘going according to my plan.’ It’s just time to enjoy & appreciate. At work? You guessed it!
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I seem to have it in my head that I can’t do most jobs or don’t want to, when I read a job posting it generally seems extremely unappealing.
I think part of it is I’m trying to imagine walking into any one of these jobs & immediately being proficient, rather than picking up the skills as time goes on.
I’m also not interested in putting myself into a position that’s super demanding, I guess I anticipate stress. That’s interesting in itself because there are different kinds of stressors, physical stress vs. psychological stress, but also stress of a busy job vs. stress of being behind on money. So it’s kind of weighing those parts of the equation against one another.
I haven’t been able to get over the hurdle in the past of just thinking, “I don’t want to do that job!” until I get to the point where (I think) that I HAVE to get a job, and then of course I go into a high-stress situation.