11|11|21
Something persistent is a fear of ‘bothering people’ in the course of communication
Like I want to get in, say my piece, and get out as fast as possible
Hanging around at all is felt as risky, like I’m asking too much, ‘being’ too much
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Reading this bit from simpleactualism.com:
I was aware of how these coalesced into an ‘I’ and knew without doubt that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’.
and thinking about ‘my’ being at this moment, any time I start to have some success I get over-excited about it, which further solidifies my ‘being’ as desperate, my belief is that any success I have is fleeting & must be crowed about before it’s gone.
Remembering how a few weeks ago I saw ‘me,’ ‘my’ ‘being’ as this dark threatening rectangle, with this desperation it’s more like an unstable broken-edged thing just begging others for validation. ‘I’ don’t believe that ‘I’ can have any success, and am thus blind to any results I do get… as I mentioned they quickly become fodder to brag about. I’m thinking of the image of someone trying to brag to their older siblings but it falls flat, no one is impressed. And then ‘I’ go back into ‘my’ little hole of feeling pathetic.
I was reading an account last night of being in Adi Da’s (aka Franklin Jones’) cult (fascinating, highly recommend checking it out - incidentally, Richard says he was the last genuinely Enlightened person) and I was struck by a particular passage where the author describes the ‘presence’ that another master has:
During our weekdays in San Francisco, several of us clandestinely visited Muktananda at his ashram in Oakland. His “presence” was quite similar to Da Free John’s, if not more powerful; when he entered a room behind your back, you would involuntarily swivel to see him, as if alerted by a tingling sixth sense …
I realized that I had a desire to have that power, for others to ‘feel’ me coming and to be impressed by me, a little scared. That’s a common theme for me, wanting others to be impressed.
And I dug into that a little more, here I am 3 years into wanting to be actually free and I’m still drawn by the seduction of power, and I realized that it’s because I’m afraid of the power that others have over me. They can make me jump, they can make me deeply uncomfortable, they can make me worried, they can make me feel sorry. And so it’s a kind of defensiveness, if I can have more power than them then maybe I won’t have to feel that way. I suspect that that is in common with desires for power.
Anyway it’s obvious how pernicious that is, all I’m doing is making it so others have to jump to me rather than me being the one jumping. It is pure selfishness.
And it comes out of that ‘being’ of ‘pathetic’… I’m feeling bad so often, and it’s obvious that at the first chance of gaining power over others, ‘I’ will jump at it every time. If I think I can definitely win, I would jump at that.
I guess what I’m trying to do is go from that ‘broken’ ‘me’ to a ‘strong, powerful, aligned’ ‘me.’
Where all the enjoyment, peace, harmony, intimacy, is right here in the actual world without ‘me.’
And any ‘me’ is - at this point, very obviously - keeping all the battles and sorrow going. And further driving other ‘me’s’ who would likewise jump at that chance for power.
So every time I ‘be’ ‘me’ (pathetic, sad, powerful, intimidating, impressive etc. etc. etc.), I’m adding to that cyclone. Hm hmm
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I’ve been giving more consideration to the ‘need for validation’ aspect for identity, as I haven’t fully explored it previously. It’s obviously social in nature / keeps the social alive (requiring others). Something I uncovered this morning was that because ‘I’ am my emotions & my emotions are ‘me,’ the validation really is others validating my emotions as being ‘correct’ in any particular situation… I can use anger as an example, if I get angry and another agrees that it “makes sense” (to speak colloquially) to be angry, then I’m being validated. On the opposite side, if I get angry and someone things I’m ‘being ridiculous’ by being angry, then I’m not being validated.
So because ‘I’ am my emotions and my emotions are ‘me,’ then I want the ‘being’ that’s formed from my various emotional states to be considered ‘valid’ by others, and am thus constantly tuning my emotional responses to guess at how others will validate, as well as constantly hiding emotional responses or faking reactions when I deem that others would think that was what was ‘valid.’ I’ve seen myself become uncomfortable when something happens that I know (or think) that others would get upset at. Like I feel that I should join in, or else I’d be attacked by the group. I suppose that is often accurate actually, lol.
But it doesn’t matter, I have the opportunity to consider all emotional states, & thus ‘me’ ‘myself’ invalid. Disagreeing with everyone. But from a perspective of understanding of the actual dynamics at play.
I think the biggest obstacle here, for me, is in being in the position of no-one within humanity considering me/my position valid.
I think the opposite is when someone laughs at your joke, or compliments you, it feels good… “I’m good.”
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This bit really gets to me, “ if not more powerful” , I want to be ‘more powerful!’ I want to be ‘the most powerful!’
It reminds me of pretty shortly after I got into actualism I had to stop reading a lot of social commentary / pop reviews because every article was just like “this is the most _____” or “This is just so amazing,” or “This is terrible, isn’t it?” and the subjectivity was so naked that I couldn’t take any of it seriously.
So, similarly, that type of moment, “he is more powerful!” “she is the most powerful!”
Well, what is that?
It is felt… “I felt his power”
It is social… “Isn’t she so powerful?”
It is not permanent… people are gaining & losing ‘power’ all the time
There is belief involved… one person may be very swayed while another doesn’t see it / experience it at all
So much of it is imaginary too, no universal deity or whatever is ‘keeping score’ how many wins I get or whatever. Well, other than the one in my head lol
It’s always a precarious/insecure position too, I’m always having to do more to ‘increase my power’ & ‘shore up my position’ by manipulating others, it’s obvious from the actions of every megalomaniac in history that there’s no end to it.
Obviously the greatest power is held by the lovers… enlightenment is such easy seduction for most people. Even secular people tend to express to me that they like buddhism… they like the energy of it, everything is about love & compassion. Of course if you get to know any buddhist group or really come up against them that facade falls.
Similarly with me, if someone threatens the things I love I get riled up. Or if I have some grand plan for ‘saving everyone,’ if someone goes against that of course it’s a militant situation. And then we all die and it recycles.
People have come up with so many new convoluted systems of ‘the best way to do things,’ all of them heartfelt and similarly defended. One of the big lightbulb moments for me with actualism was the ‘splitting’ that humans get up to… because we haven’t solved the underlying malice & sorrow with all the systems in history, the suffering keeps going, and so we align with systems that just split over & over forever when different members feel differently about ‘what’s right.’ But there’s nothing or very little behind it, it’s driven by the feeling. “I don’t like this.” “Yeah, well I don’t like you!” Of course the initial system wasn’t valid either, but whatever they come up with isn’t any or much better. I call that the Fidel Castro problem. A lot of times it’s worse. Of course, ‘normal’ is pretty bad too. A slow, grey death.
And of course ‘normal’ is itself mediated by our culture’s little ministers of power.
It’s all fear all the way down.
I don’t need everyone else to do what I’m doing or to tell me I’m right. It can’t be done anyway. No one in history has ever been all-powerful. It’s just people making other people pee their pants because then they can have more sex.
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Ok, what’s in the way of freedom right now?
Can I sit there when someone else is very angry, and be happy/harmless?
Even if ‘everyone’ agrees with them that it’s ‘reasonable’ to be angry
‘Everyone’ is really saying ‘those who I associate with as my group.’
‘My people’
‘The people I kow-tow to’
‘Those whose authority I respect’
There’s a bit of disingenuousness to me with being an actualist/wanting to be free, but hanging onto that subservience.
Obviously that’s where I come from, no need to be hard on myself, but either way it’s something unresolved.
I think a core part of maintaining authorities in my mind is my feeling of being impressed by them, so that’s another area I can look for in interactions.
I’m impressed by others when they seem to have something that I want, which is driven by my own feeling of lack, sorrow
