Henry: It’s been becoming very obvious lately how much I center lust/ libido in my priorities, as well as some of the pitfalls of that approach, so I have been poking around in it a bit more. It seems my loop is boredom – desire/ lust – anxiety. They depend on each other, as in boredom is an escape from anxiety, desire/ lust is a fantasized escape from boredom, and anxiety occurs when something interrupts or breaks the fantasized desire.
Seemingly every moment of ‘my’ life has been within that loop in some way or another, I can see how many of my habitual activities are driven by one of those 3. Perhaps you could add anger-aggression as a step after anxiety (rebelling against feeling the anxiety, which eventually collapses into boredom/ depression).
Hi Henry,
My first question would be – did you come up with this diagnosis when feeling good? Otherwise your diagnosis would just be a symptom of your feeling cycle.
Let’s assume you have identified three main priorities correctly – boredom, lust and anxiety – with some incidences of anger.
Here is one example where Richard talks about boredom – without me having to guess why you are possibly bored with life when you could be fascinated with finding out why you are bored –
Respondent: Most of the time, when I am not happy, my feelings are that of boredom, light resentment, hope etc. In case of such feelings, even though I can see the silliness of having them, I can not find what causes them and when do they start.
Richard: Put simplistically: they start when the happiness (and harmlessness) stops … and the happiness (and harmlessness) stops because of an event.
The moment you become aware of feeling bored (for instance) can you not recall when you last felt happy (and harmless)? What has happened, then, between the last time you felt happy (and harmless) and now? When did you feel happy (and harmless) last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end that happiness (and harmlessness)? Was it something someone said? Or was it something someone did not do? Or was it something you wanted? Or was it something you did not do?
And so on and so forth until the specific moment of ceasing to feel happy (and harmless) is pin-pointed by the event which triggered off that loss of felicity/ innocuity. (Richard, AF List, No. 4a, 31 July 2005).
Boredom is sometimes also described as ‘feeling neutral’, listless, resigned, resentful or depressed, and they all have at root the same cause – I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to find out what prevents me from being happy and harmless instead and enjoy being here now, at this only moment which one can experience being alive.
The loop you describe all stems from trying to escape the original condition of not wanting to be here in an engaged way. I am reminded of what you said about dissociation a few weeks ago – perhaps there is a clue –
Henry: I’ve been trying to force something which wasn’t happening, it explains a lot of the dissociation that I’ve experienced over the years. (link)
Henry: In contrast to this loop is fun, as Vineeto has reminded me on a few occasions! Fun is interesting because it exists completely on its own, it does not depend on any outcome in contrast to desire-lust, which depends on certain instinctual cues which then must be engineered/ controlled. No wonder it’s always disappointed! Fun happens here & now. I’m having a very interesting time right now contrasting this against ‘my’ loop, they exist on such different existential threads. I can be a Henry that loops through those 3 familiar states, or I can be a Henry that enjoys and appreciates what is happening now.
Again, what is the obstacle that prevents you from enjoying and appreciating being here?
Henry: My most consistent interruption of PCEs/ excellence in the past has been that I ‘remember’ my ‘important mission’ to seek out my symbols of desire, and then turn my attention toward acquisition, which I now see is just one step in the looping.
The following correspondence might be informative –
Respondent: One thing that puzzles me is when I do examine my conditioning, it is difficult to establish what exactly is social conditioning and what is not – for example I adopted our society’s view of what a hot and sexy female body ought to be, from the covers of Maxim magazine and the like. Upon exploring how meaningless this particular standard is by comparing to other societies’ standards, it seems that my sex instinct naturally selected another, now simply broader, group of women to be attracted too. It was funny to see how that altered desire just showed up, like a redirecting of the same old instinct, without ‘my’ consent. However, the social conditioning behind the idea of ‘human beauty’ is my big question. What does human beauty mean in the actual world?
Richard: Nothing whatsoever … there is no ‘human beauty’ here in this actual world: beauty is the affective substitute for the purity of the perfection of the actual … just as love is the affective surrogate for actual intimacy. (Richard, AF List, No. 42, 16 Feb 2003).
In other words, when you are naïve, awaken your dormant naiveté, women will no longer be objects of your “mission” or merely an “acquisition” to satisfy your desire, but fellow human beings, persons in their own right and interesting to interact with. It is an entirely different ballgame and a fascinating inclusive adventure to boot.
Henry: I am informed here by Vineeto’s description of the woman of Indian birth becoming free:
Vineeto to Kuba: I have seen it happen with the woman of Indian birth. (snipped) (Kub933’s Journal).
The situation you are referring to does not apply here – you seeing the loop does not end it, perhaps because the seeing is merely intellectual and not existential. However, with sincerity you can unlock naiveté (again), which will allow you to be more fully engaged and sincerely fascinated being alive, and like your fellow human beings, both male and female –
Richard: In early January, 1981, feeling-being ‘Richard’ had ‘his’ first memorable experience of being naiveté – the nearest a ‘self’ can get to innocence whilst remaining a ‘self’ – and ‘he’ was particularly struck by the experiential fact of finally being likeable (albeit a likeable persona mind you), and, thusly, a liker of ‘his’ fellow human beings also as they too were (potentially) likeable as well. (A Quaint Clay-Pit Tale)
Henry: As I recall moments of my life, I can look for moments of particular vibes and see how they have repeated metronomically, whether in the hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly scales. This is ‘my’ life, what ‘I’ have proven myself to be. And then there is now, where there is a choice to be made of how to be. (link)
What happened to the ‘holiday atmosphere’ after you stepped off the plane which you wrote about 2-3 days ago? Viz:
Henry: All it took was for me to get on a plane and fly an hour from home for ‘me’ to go into somewhat of a hibernation (or ‘holiday!’). All these objects, attachments, ‘needs,’ narratives etc. were discarded and forgotten, why pick them up again? (link)
Cheers Vineeto