Yes, I was feeling good / reflective. I’d say it came from contrasting my ‘holiday atmosphere’ against my ‘normal.’
Yes, and I’d say typically that happiness & harmlessness has frequently stopped in the past because some hopeful fantasy of mine was disappointed.
Yes, I can see that same retreating attitude coming up reflexively. And then the pursuit of fantasy-objects drains what affective energy I could conjure. So it’s about choosing pure intent / pursuit of freedom as the priority over those. I have believed in them.
Believing in romantic love, essentially.
This is definitely my bleeding edge at this point. I’m looking at this now.
This point is well taken. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me how I have consistently leaned on ‘my’ intellect to ‘understand’ things and overlooking the essential ingredients of naivete & fascination. I had an experience of naivete around 10 days ago and I could clearly see how the thoughts & conclusions I was experiencing were completely different, things were coming out of ‘left field’ which makes it apparent how my normal thinking process is trying to imaginatively construct meaning from within myself. I can see how that would ensure that I stay in place.
It’s funny looking at it right now because the advice is essentially “have you considered using the actualism method.” Without being hard on myself, it’s amazing & amusing to see how I’ve managed to dodge it to stay alive, always going back to ‘my’ habitual approach. Seems I’m moving in the right direction, though. Considerably more naivete, purity, simplicity, excellence in the last month or so.
I really want to figure this out, get over the hump with this.
And I also find it threatening and fearful to not be considered attractive by people that I’m attracted to. That was, and has been the consistent trigger: I interact with someone I’m attracted to, generally become nervous, and then perceive or interpret that I’m being rejected and begin to spiral. This week has been a music festival evenings in my town, and that setting has been and continues to be a minefield for me. All of this is based on your observation above that I am viewing these women as an object of desire rather than
Throughout the week have had some opportunities to observe this in operation, as well as to experiment with more naivete and changing my goals away from “desiring sex” toward becoming fascinated with seeing people as they actually are. I’m still halfway in and halfway out, I can see that I could use more actually desiring the naivete, desiring freedom, more ‘punch’ behind it, it all still feels rather tentative & ‘backseat.’
It seems that is inherent to my habitual approach: strong libidinal desire, coupled with tentativeness, confusion, anxiety. It’s a whirlpool.
If ‘my’ approach worked, there would be no need for confusion, so that’s a pretty big red flag by itself.
Well, enough thinking, time for more naivete! Thank you for the considered response!