Maybe. To what end?
We are way way down the list on the most successful species in term of numbers.
We are outnumbered even in our own bodies. (There are more non-human cells in the human body than human cells).
Evolution doesn’t care about numbers, it’s just survive or don’t survive. Today we’re surviving, so it must have been effective
Plus you can point to all the meta-adaptations humans have made, or the fact that we’re global
Only a few species have wings, only a few (or just us) are conscious. Not a big deal, other than that being conscious is really neat
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I keep being on the verge of feeling really good and then something holds me back, like it’s wrong to feel good. It doesn’t match the narrative I’ve made for my life and so ‘I’ reject it
Maybe feeling good now would be to let go of all the ‘loves’ I’ve had
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It would mean betraying all my friends, family, everyone I’ve ever known
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6 | 7 | 23
It seems all the drama about girls has only ever been one more way to avoid being here
Building some momentum over the last year+ of independently enjoying myself has paid off as I’ve finally managed to poke some holes in the beliefs abt the necessity of having a partner for enjoying
Last week I broke through something in my concern for social status… basically it became apparent that what I was trying to accomplish wasn’t possible, and therefore not worth trying or being concerned about any longer. Strange walking among people and not carrying the previous tension
I knew that there was a similar breakthrough to be made around romantic concern
And with an overall atmosphere of lightness & delight, the tension around certain girls became extremely apparent. With the confidence of the recent social breakthrough, I determined to figure it out. I went straight home from work and crawled into bed, spending the entire evening dozing, feeling & thinking through the situation
The fruits of this exploration are that ‘my’ plan with these girls is to control them into taking care of me… essentially an infantile fantasy.
With this in view my feelings & actions toward them make perfect sense, as well as their defensiveness in reaction to me. Who wants to be controlled?
As well as my overall desperation… I’ve been looking for them to rescue me. All things I’ve described here before conceptually, but now it’s apparent.
I’m increasingly finding delight in the things that I can actually do rather than the things I eternally chase that are just out of reach… this type of possession, being actually impossible (& non-existent), reveals itself as just one more way to escape being here.
Why try to escape here forever, with the pain & suffering involved in that pursuit, when I can delight in what’s happening now, and delight in the things I can do? Why attempt to control someone else when I can independently delight without them?
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The relationships, the control, the rescuing, none of it exists whatsoever except in our imaginations. We’re literally trying to do something that doesn’t exist
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It’s never just “a” woman though is it?
And vis versa. Never just “a” man.
It has to be one with all the goods.
It hasn’t really mattered whether I was with a very attractive woman or a more plain woman. Their desire was always obvious. Is he “good enough” to have babies with?. That is, do I (her) have enough control plus the “goods”?
The female is equally trying to trick the male into a father-look-after-me role, as is the male trying to trick the female into a mother-look-after-me role.
Both, in different ways seek control. The male seeks overt control, whilst demanding the female nurture him. The female seeks covert control whilst demanding the male nurtures her.
So to, if one has this understanding, the power in in one’s own court. Pick the one who feels you are the better catch, and manage your emotions suitably.
The rest is a fantasy. It’s usually better for the male to pick the female with “character over looks” because the playing field is somewhat level.
Emphasis on “character.” I’ve been with unattractive women who were as narcissistic as those who could be on a catwalk. Edit: if not more so.
We are talking a sample size of a dozen. Though my ex best mate has a sample size of a couple of hundred. Similar results.
Finding someone with some spark of “what they actually are”, “getting a word in edgeways”, as Richard put it, is very rare.
Having said all of that, it’s objectively better for two people to forge a life together, than solo.
Solo is a drag. I am getting better at it, but given at least some character and “spark” I would rather a partner.
Yep no disagreements here
Not sure what you mean by manage your emotions here. I can see that I’ve still been trying to make sure I can ‘get mine’ in many ways and as such actualism hasn’t kicked into full gear. On the other hand, my pursuit of ‘my’ goals via actualism means has gotten me closer to the actual world of late. Plenty of back & forth.
Yes no doubt
I don’t know. It all depends on who you’re with. I think I’d prefer to be with someone, but there are perks of being alone as well.
All in all, I’m moving more and more into the ‘it’s very simple’ camp rather than trying too hard to unpack this & that complex interpersonal-emotional dynamic. My role is to enjoy & appreciate. If I’m interested in someone, I can tell them. If they’re interested, I can go from there.
I don’t need to, and actually can’t control anyone.
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Being addicted to good feelings results in maintaining beliefs of certain people, objects, & events as being ‘good,’ so I can have something to attach those good feelings too.
It fails because no one and nothing is actually ‘good.’ This results in a lack of intimacy because I’m looking for them to be a fountainhead for my own good feelings (which they cannot be, reliably) rather than for what they actually are.
That’s why it’s been so hard to step away from love for certain people, because really I’m still addicted to those good feelings as an antidote for suffering. I can’t stop loving them because I haven’t stopped believing in love itself.
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Maintaining belief in the good/loving emotions is the same thing as maintaining belief in the bad/fearful/malicious, because the good only exists to make us feel better after we’ve been struck by the bad
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A Conversation With A Spiritual Teacher - I was reading this link yesterday and came across the below bit which I find so cool! and relevant here :
In my sixth year I was ready to examine Love Agapé – which up until then had been far to sacred to put under the microscope – and I soon found enough to warrant further investigation. If Divine Compassion had been found to be murky and dirty, I was to go on to discover that Love Agapé was sordid and squalid to the extreme. Just as compassion has its roots in sorrow, so too has love its origin in malice. Hatred is the essential companion to love; the one can not exist without the other. When I first saw the other face of love I was horrified … for I was in the grip of a Demonic Power disguised as Divine Authority . The Diabolical is but the essential sub-stratum for the Righteous ; the sinister for the good; the fiendish for the glorious; the infernal for the heavenly; the wicked for the charitable … and so on. Love Agapé – which has been touted as the cure-all for the ills of humankind for thousands of years – was hand-in-glove with Evil . No wonder that Religious Wars have beset this planet for aeons, for the central tenet of any religious or spiritual path is love … and love is the very element that will sabotage any well-meant endeavour with its secret agenda. A loving self is still a self , nevertheless. And a self is made out of the sorrow and malice that are generated by the instinctual aggression and fear that humans are born with in order for the species to survive.
I mean what an intense discovery it must have been for Richard (who was Love), to discover that the other face of this Love was a demonic power disguised as Divine Authority, gives me shivers!
But this is it, the Divine simply offers a mask for the Diabolical to pursue it’s agendas in disguise. It really clicked for me reading this yesterday why Love can never lead to peace, it is for this very reason. Because with the Divine there is still those brutish instincts flowing underneath (at all times), they have merely covered themselves with a thin coating of love, compassion, beauty etc. And now it makes sense why Spirituality is to be blamed for the continuation of human sorrow and malice - Because out of Spirituality those concepts flow, where ‘I’ the instinctual being can propagate ‘myself’ under the guise of Divinity (in whatever form) - I do love it when these things finally click!
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Actually I just remembered Peter mention this in the Virtual Freedom video, that this was his approach. That when he found himself stuck pursuing some good feeling he would take a good look for what is on the flip side of it, and sure enough he would find that his love was merely covering up his hate.
This might be a useful approach in general - ‘Find the demon’ 
But practically this can be seen all around - For example is not the pursuit of Beauty the very thing propagating the Ugly? The Holy really is hand in glove with the Evil.
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This made a connection I’ve been circling for a long time: sexual desire is essentially a form of aggression.
The confusions come because we also feel tenderness in the form of nurture toward the same individuals, which creates a denial/split. Essentially the ‘hand in glove’ of evil & love that Richard describes.
Here’s an illustration I made of this dynamic from 2021:
Desire feels good to us, it is our own pursuit of ‘good’ for us, but it manifests as evil itself.
We may attempt to emphasize the loving & nurturing, but the aggression is right there, always driving the dynamic from the shadows. The love is only there to create space for the aggression to operate.
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Realized tonight that my desire is for people to see ‘Me,’ but it’s not possible on two counts
‘I’ don’t exist to be seen
and
They can’t see the actual me either, because they’re not free / in PCEs most of the time
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How do you make these @henryyyyyyyyyy is it some kind of app you draw on?
I often have this urge to somehow draw the various realisations like Richards other face of love being evil itself, how cool would that be for actualist art!
Yeah it’s on this really awesome app for iPad called Procreate. Super fun way to draw, it’s nice having an ‘undo’ button 
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