6/30/21
The sexual shame thread has been successful in revealing that so much of my desiring for girls and for sex comes out of a lack of enjoyment in my life
This is something I’ve been gradually seeing more and more over the last year or so, and I have been making progress on, but at the same time have taken a few lumps during that time that have set me back somewhat. May as well attempt to identify those now.
A big one has been that my tiny house has taken longer to complete than expected
I’ve already gone over this a few times but have not successfully completely removed it.
What is sensible?
The situation is what it is when it comes to money etc.
I started my build in the middle of construction materials basically quadrupling in price, which I could not have predicted. I also attempted to set a budget and got it very wrong, which is apparently common and also something that happened as a result of my naivete.
It does seem I feel bad about being naïve, but I don’t see any way around that. I am where I am in terms of awareness. I’ve been seeing this one coming up a lot, I keep looking at others that are doing really well at various pursuits or skills and feeling like I should ‘be there,’ that I should be ‘competent’ like they are.
I’ve done this for a long time, I think it comes from being relatively competent as a kid, constantly outcompeting other kids at various activities, and then when I became an adult I expected the same thing to happen. But adulthood is a little different because I’m now competing with people much older than me, with decades of experience on me. I don’t think I’ve ever connected this before really. I expected everything to come easily but it didn’t. I found myself comparing myself to some of the most brilliant people in history really, and then when I found myself falling short it was really hard. I hit a wall. I just realized that I’ve never recovered from hitting that wall, I just sat there feeling wounded and eventually became used to being wounded. It was my new life, like I had a disability.
So since that time I’ve been really careful, not challenging myself in any way because I clearly wasn’t ‘good enough.’ Even building my house was doing that in a reverse way, building the house so I wouldn’t have to pay rent so I wouldn’t have to compete in the tough world of humans to afford rent. Spirituality has been the same thing, going into this discipline outside of the normal human world as a way to escape from having to deal with it. I could have a cool identity, and people would find me cool, and I wouldn’t have to compete. Little did I know at the time that there was a whole world of spiritual people competing with one another as well… ah well…
When the house was more difficult to complete than I thought, and more expensive than I thought, it was just another blow… ok, I must be really incompetent… it has been hard for me to talk with people about it, because I’m just hanging my head… “they must think I’m an idiot.”
When I was in college I thought I was going to be this cool philosopher, just have all the answers to everything, and be really respected in society. It feels like such an affront to have to work a normal job.
I guess I’ve made it work out for me, I’m literally on the clock puzzling about all this right now. So I’m sort of getting paid to be a philosopher. I just don’t have the universal acclaim that I was hoping for. My dad doesn’t understand what actualism was. I remember that being painful, it just made so much sense to me but he couldn’t see it. That disappointment has been recreated with almost everyone I’ve talked with about this. I’m actually going on something of a date later and I can feel the tension in me… will we talk about actualism? I want to, but will she understand? Probably not. I’m still taking that moment hard.
I guess it is similar to Richard’s perturbation upon becoming free. “Am I really the only one who has the right idea? Are all these other enlightened people wrong, and I am right? Jesus Christ had it wrong? Siddhartha Buddha had it wrong? Wow.
The moment I’m having trouble with is that everything that I’ve worked for, everything that I’ve discovered to be genuine, is invisible to most people. The more I get into it, usually the less sense it makes to them. And then that colors my whole vibe, my whole experience of the world. That has led me to here, now.
They haven’t had the experiences to have the context necessary for all this to make sense… it’s very weird to be here, there aren’t many other people in this place.
It only matters because of the loneliness though
I’ve always bailed from PCEs in the past when I’ve started to think “Ah! This will make me attractive!” but that has taken me out of the PCEs and into an adventure of chasing attraction… the more I chase it, the more I chase it away, it’s like this decay from a starting point of feeling really good. I’m at the end of that decay now.
It’s obvious now that that moment later creates so much discomfort… not just for me, for others too. I didn’t know that at the time but I do now.
I feel like I’m on a waterslide, gathering momentum
I don’t have to have anyone else understanding for things to be perfect. I don’t have to have a lover for things to be perfect. Those words have never been this sincere before.
I don’t even have to do anything