A rational argument based on a belief rather than a fact is called begging the question. It is one of many common logical fallacies. So reason is not the issue, it’s the arguer using a logical fallacy.
And yet we have actually free people operating under premises that cannot be empirically verified and using logic that can be mathematically proven to be fallacious i.e. using logical fallacies. note: it would take an extensive open-ended discussion to prove this as I have no textual examples on hand. As such, I may be wrong. I support logic and reason because it’s a methodical way to get to what is accurate sensible. A logical fallacy can be proven using mathematics or simply pointed out using the known definitions of common logical fallacies. A factual inaccuracy can be pointed out using empirical data. Otoh, human beings (seemingly those both free of malice/sorrow/the entire human condition and the horribly corrupt alike) disregard empirical data and ignore their own logical fallacies.
That could certainly happen. Perhaps less often than with a feeling-being though.
This is interesting. I think that logic/rationality can be useful to a point when it comes to becoming free. It is useful to think things through. But, I think that it has a point where it is no longer useful as a point of emphasis / as a guide, because one can’t arrive at the actual via a cerebrally-based process. It results in forever remaining inside of ‘me,’ because it is me using the logic. That’s where the connection to pure intent, and the eventual ‘handing of the reins’ to pure intent, is really what gets things over the finish line.
No longer am I doing ‘x’ (including, ‘becoming free’) because it is logical, or because of my process of reasoning, or because of rational conclusions, but because of the direct seeing of the actual facts. It’s a fundamentally different process.
It pleases me that nothing in the PCE and nothing gleaned from asking HAIETMOBA (when asking with naïve or pure intent) is irrational. I don’t have to reevaluate my strong support of logic and reason. Nor do I have to question anything in the PCE or my answers to HAIETMOBA. Iow, the actualism method is logical and an infinite and eternal universe is logical but only the experience of actuality will truly convince anyone.
Richard describes the universe happening as, ‘magic as in stage magic / prestidigitation.’
What this means is, we are all ‘in the middle’ in terms of: seeing the magic play out, and understanding* some of it, and not understanding some of it.
To be free is to be sitting in the metaphorical audience, watching this magic play out, not understanding all of it, but with no ‘being’ in the way interrupting the clarity-of-seeing.
This means there may still be misunderstandings/misattributions/learning-over-time, but it all happens from clarity.
Where the ‘being’ adds a tremendous amount of obfuscation/jumping to conclusions/confusions.
That is what I see.
*‘Understanding’ really means, ‘seeing/recognizing the pattern’
Just had a magical week meeting a new girl, talking about everything, and this seems to be one of the side-effects
It led to my partner (for lack of a better word) feeling jealous, though not in an extreme way. Just jealous.
And now I’m experiencing this aversion.
It has the character of, ‘why put up with this discomfort?’
I have some imagination that, if I was with someone else, that it would be easier. Maybe it would be, I don’t know. In the past I’ve tended to dodge out of this situation with a little ‘actualist morals’ (of my own invention) / overthinking.
I don’t really know what should be done or what the best thing to do is. No need to pretend that I do.
I’ve experienced these kinds of waves of moods before. One day I’m so attracted and appreciative, another day I’m filled with dread at the thought of the person.
I’m pretty fed up with going through that all the time. It’s no fun for anyone.
As @Andrew said, I’m choosing the drama I have until I’ve had enough.
My drama is, “is this the right person? Where is the right person?”
It’s like that children’s book, “are you my mother?”
“Are you my soul-mate?”
I can see sincerity in almost everyone. Everyone has their moments.
Maybe for some their clear moments are all in the past. But you never know. There’s not a way to know for sure.
That’s part of what is giving me trouble, ‘not a way to know for sure’
So I’m trying to ‘figure out’ something that can’t be known and at the very least I don’t know the relevant patterns well enough.
I’ve given myself some freedom of movement with having a non-exclusive romantic arrangement. That has helped. It’s illuminated a lot. But in most ways I’m still playing the same game.
The thought for me of splitting up with someone is hard, because I can imagine them suffering. I imagine them being sad and it’s sad for me.
And, I seem to conceptualize it as, ‘me missing out on future potential excellent/clear times with them’
Which has repeatedly been my reason to not split up.
These last couple of months, with my partner out of town, have proven to me that I can/will have an excellent time by myself. I’ve been alone for about as many hours as I ever have in my life (in a similar period of time). I’ve also had loads of lovely independent social hours with others. ‘Alone/lonely’ no longer makes sense to me / has been significantly weakened.
That makes all of this much easier. Far, far easier.
Maybe I’ll tackle that ‘fomo toward future clear moments’ first.
Well, yes, anyone-everyone can/will have clear moments.
Yes, she is more clear than most.
Yes, if we’re not around each other then I won’t be there when those happen.
I’ll be doing something else.
What is, “something else.”
It could be anything.
The problem is, I ‘highly value’ time spent in a woman’s company / in conversation / physical intimacy. I seek that out because of its high value to me.
So then ‘anything’ can’t compare to ‘company/conversation/physical.’
I’m always trying to arrange that to happen. That means I’m never willing to ‘put down the stick’ (like, when throwing a stick for a dog, sometimes a dog won’t put down the stick. Which doesn’t allow the stick to be thrown, either.)
Interesting. That is running in my mind at all times. “I can’t put down this stick. I’d better not put down this stick. I need this stick.”
I’ve been here before. Another girl pointed out to me that I wasn’t sincerely considering ‘splitting up’ as a valid option.
Especially interesting because in the past I have broken things off with several people. But for whatever reason, now, I don’t allow the possibility.
I’d rather talk with / be with her than with lots of other people.
But there are also some people that I’d rather be with, than with her.
And then I try and ‘arrange/set up.’
I suppose I’m allowed to do that. There’s not exactly any security in it.
I remember Peter points out to Vineeto, ‘you don’t have to be here. You have a car, you have your own apartment.’
She and I have history of difficulty in those moments. ‘I don’t want to hang out right now’ and then there’s suffering. I experienced suffering too.
That narrative still has weight for me.
I still anticipate the suffering in that. That’s the ‘sad’ part from above.
“I don’t want to hang out right now.”
“I’d like to hang out with her/him, instead.”
I’m still living inside fear of that interaction.
I don’t seem to think that it’s ok to do that.
I was raised to ‘include everyone.’
This seems similar.
What if, I don’t include everyone?
What if, I just do my own thing?
Seems pretty cool. No one has a right to my time/attention.
When I was in Australia, it was very clear that Richard and Vineeto didn’t have to see me; they were happy to, but they also had their lines: they were happy to see me for a few hours every day. And they would say, “ok, that’s enough for today.” Very directly. Sometimes I would still want to stay, but obviously that is reasonable for them to decide that.
Where I live, passive-aggressiveness is the norm. People will sit in discomfort, ‘putting up’ with others, and then later complain to someone else. The funny thing is, since it’s such a small town, often the word will get back to the original person. Feelings get hurt a lot. And, little groups are formed. “Us against them.”
Why not just say, “I’d prefer to not hang out right now / I’d rather hang out with her/him” and then there’s no need for discomfort. The ball is in the court of the other, how do you respond to that? And, I don’t have to ‘put up with’ any unreasonableness. I’d rather be alone. Everyone is a little unreasonable, but given the choice I’d rather hang out with more reasonable people. Of course.
And then the unreasonable people get offended because I think they’re unreasonable / because I don’t want to hang out.
And then I don’t hang out with them because there’s more evidence of them being unreasonable. Seems like a perfect arrangement to me, honestly!
So anytime there’s an interaction, it’s an opportunity for the other to show ‘where they are at.’
This investigation has been helpful for me. My ambience around it is considerably lighter than it was earlier this morning.
–
I’m reading through Andrew’s Journal as I write this
I survived in a weird twilight between being extremely egotistical, and pathetically dependent.
This is ‘me,’ as well.
I feel like I’m dependent on others to prove my value
So, ‘I’ am valuable! I am great!!!
But, ‘I’ need them in order to have verification that I am valuable/great.
Which makes me pathetic, especially if there is any threat to their attention (toward me).
Because my narrative about what makes ‘me’ valuable, is that ‘I’ must have many friends & lovers.
That is what makes a person great, to me.
There are many, many points of origin for this belief. It seems to me that everywhere in ‘humanity’ is agreement with this belief.
The ‘many lovers’ is more split between the ‘monogamy people’ and the uhhh ‘adventurous people.’
But the many friends one seems to be universal.
Some people say, ‘better deep friends than many’
And I’ve responded by doing both:
“Ha! Checkmate! I can ‘get deep’ with anyone, instantly! I am great!!!”
But it doesn’t have a solution for rejection. Rejection still happens - and usually the more I’m rejected, the more important they seem to me, which deepens the existential hole I’m in.
“I have all these friends, but that person over there doesn’t like me and because they don’t like me, they must be important. Meaning I’m not important, and also implying that all the people that I’ve had success interacting with aren’t important.”
There are some/many people that don’t like me and I’m ok with that / not impressed by them. It’s a ladder in that sense.
I’m not willing to put down the ‘stick’ (aka, ‘attractive person’) unless I see another ‘stick’ (aka, ‘even more attractive person’).
I guess there’s no particular issue with this. I don’t have to ‘include everyone,’ and there’s no real sting with not hanging out with someone in the actual. Rejection isn’t even really rejection in the actual. The vibe-rejection doesn’t have to be a part of it.
‘I’ am still existentially rejecting, while also moralistically trying to paste over, ‘it is bad to reject, so I won’t do it.’
The best thing is to allow myself to not hang out when I don’t want to. To direct my attention toward other things or people when I want to.
Something interesting happened while this other girl was in town, which is that there were points where she wanted to not hang out with her friend (who she was visiting), she wanted to go do something else. And it was sort of offensive, to the friend.
“How can you do this, you are here to visit me, aren’t you???”
But it’s bigger than that. She is her own person, she goes where she will, different things are interesting to her at different times. She is operating in the world.
And that’s the same as me: I am operating in the world. I change my mind, I go here, I go there, different things capture my attention.
I’m not setting out to offend/hurt/inconvenience anyone, but I am rambling the world.
I’m only 32, and I was quite the wallflower for a lot of my life. I am still ‘learning the ropes’ in social engagement. That involves a certain amount of exploration. I’d be lying to myself to say anything otherwise. And I can just tell people that when I meet them: I’m still exploring. That’s what Henry is doing.
If they want me to be doing something else, that’s a bit silly of them. That’s their desire. Because, that is not what I am doing.
What a funny thing that is: we point at someone else, “you are doing the wrong thing. You need to do what I want you to do. Hey, stop. Do this, instead.”
And then we get mad at them because of it. Often it works, too!!!
“Oh sorry! Ok, I’ll stop!”
How often have I been totally confused by why someone was upset, but still changing what I was doing (often in drastic ways) because of their upset?
The depths of illness.
And then the vibe is: sulking. Fearfully skulking in shadows, still trying to get ‘my’ crumbs but terrified of ‘getting caught.’
‘Getting caught,’ wow that one is telling. It’s like I’m afraid of someone eating me.
–
This is me, too.
I never realized it, but I was raised essentially puritanically. I thought it was atheistically, but there are deep roots in the moral-emotional way I was raised of the Puritan religion.
The mommy’s boy observation rings true for me.
Richard and Vineeto informed me in no uncertain terms that ‘I’ had to do it. They couldn’t ‘give it to me.’
And I, too, find myself attracted to those that self-identify as, ‘damaged.’
I feel that I must ‘help them.’
And then, I feel ‘trapped by them.’
That’s what all the drama above is about.
–
Something that has helped me a lot in understanding the above was seeing the mechanism of ‘disgust’ (a form of aversion).
In ‘disgust,’ the signal I was getting was, “I don’t want to eat that.”
But the beauty of existence is, I don’t have to eat it! If I choose not to, I simply don’t eat it.
So, all these situations where disgust is arising, and I ‘grin and bear it’ and eat it anyway, I didn’t have to do that.
When disgust arises I can notice, “ah, this is one of those disgust-situations!” Recognize that ‘I’ don’t like something that is happening, and try to come to a sensible/experiential decision, rather than an instinctually-derived decision.
With all of the above, my ‘disgust’ was, “I have to hang out with this person.”
Recognizing that, I can say: No I do not. Also, the disgust is clouding my judgment. What is really going on?
To use the food metaphor, I could say things like:
“This apple is rotten, I will not eat it.”
“There is another not rotten apple over there.”
Maybe,
“This apple is rotten but it is the only food I have, so I will drop ‘disgust’ and eat it anyway.”
and:
“This apple has some rotten spots, but I can cut them out and enjoy the parts of the apple that are not rotten.”
By not grinning and bearing it, I am sensitive to information.
Something I have been doing with some frequency lately, is biting into an apple, being aware of a subtle moldy flavor, I know from experience that it won’t just ‘go away’ if I keep eating - that ‘moldy ambience’ tends to permeate the whole apple- and so, with no second thought or even disgust, I throw that apple away and perhaps try a different one or eat something else. It’s quite easy.
So, with all this romance stuff, there’s so much emotion that it’s difficult for me to be loose about my decisions, everything is weighted by ‘import.’
It’s almost as if I’m faced with literally throwing a human being into a garbage can, or faced with literally taking a knife to another human being and physically cutting out the ‘rotten bits’, by force.
Not exactly a pleasant image! And, sometimes, in a break-up, people will respond as if I was literally stuffing them into a garbage bin.
But, I am not. I am freely going my own separate way, and the actual world is right there if only they could see it in that moment.
But they can’t/couldn’t, because ‘being’ was in the way.
Because we are all born with ‘being’
Because it’s what evolutionarily got us here; it is quite literally in our DNA.
I’m remembering Richard saying people thought he was crazy for risking his relationship again and again for the sake of freedom.
That’s what I’m doing, too. I’m being happy & harmless & direct even when maybe it will result in her not wanting to be with me anymore.
I have some morbid curiosity of what will happen…
In the past, every time I’ve stepped into a more free space, she has followed.
“Where go the men-folk, the women-folk follow”
Not as like a law, but with becoming free first it was Richard (boy-from-the-farm/adventurer), then it was Peter (a male play-mate), then it was Vineeto.
And now it’s Henry… what is Henry ‘being?’
Obsessed certainly… a snot-nosed kid, out to prove himself… a bit distracted by ‘girls…’
Discouraged by the social reception of ‘free…’
‘I’ want them to like me, to love me.
I’ll have to settle for, doing what’s best even though they can’t recognize it / don’t like it / are threatened by it.
That’s what’s happening for me in this moment. I’m afraid of what will happen if everyone rejects me / what I think / what I am.
Why settle? It can be the best. I just have to get there.
(edit: “a bit distracted by girls” is the understatement of the century. That’s ok… I’ll be fascinated by whatever is in front of me, up to & including ‘girls’)
Distraction is a nature’s bait for sexual intercourse. We know that. If there are no/fewer emotional needs, it gets far simpler. But the need for validation, love, security, a tonic to loosen up ourselves and freedom from hostile emotions that drain us make this whole mating game complex.
Working out by removing the parameter emotions for the time being–
If there are no emotions, would you want sex as much as you do now?
If there was an AI sex-robot with all the relevant variables including temperature, moisture, texture, and their unpredictability/predictability as you’d fancy which can give you much better physical sensations, would you desire that more? If not, why?
Would masturbation be a considerably less a pleasurable activity than sex?
Hmm… certainly not as a ‘must.’ Ironically that might result in having sex more. Guess I’ll just have to become free to find out.
It’s not the same… something I frequently experience when I’m in a PCE is a vast sense of ‘context’ that I can’t seem to ‘keep track of’ when I’m ‘me.’ Intimacy with an actual human is experientially different than with a robot of some kind, no matter how ‘realistic.’
Physically it could still be enjoyable, but not the same. The same goes for masturbation. I might still do it when I’m free, I’m not sure. But obviously not because of lust.
–
I loosened up my sense of ‘neediness’ for female company last night somewhat, and my drive into work today was experientially-noticeably more open, I was thinking about more things, I was open to more possibilities, not everything was about girls/sex. It was nice. I can see that becoming free is very, very large. Still more to go, but I’m circling the drain at this time.
What I’ve always wanted: to be perfect / to be doing the perfect thing.
Obviously it is not perfect, to be making a big fuss when someone doesn’t like me, or chooses someone else over me. That is an expression of their interest, and it is not for me to question that. That is theirs.
It is not perfect to make a big fuss when something in this world does not go ‘my way.’ Of course it didn’t go ‘my way,’ the world is larger than I am. It has things going on that I know nothing about. Most things going on are far outside my purview.
And that is the situation. How can I complain about, ‘outside my purview?’ It’s what makes this universe the wonderful jungle-gym that it actually is.
And, it is simply how things are. For me to complain, is to miss what is happening. What is actually happening, now. And there’s really no one to effectively complain to: my fellow human-beings can’t change it anyway, and there is no ‘Big Man’ out there who can.
How funny that is, we twist our little child-instincts into asking some imaginary sky-being for guidance. The height of delusion-comedy, really.
On top of that, it’s common to then get so serious about one’s ‘purpose,’ ‘chosen aims,’ that they/we/I roam around with a scowl, daring anyone to ‘get in my way.’ Really I’m in my own way…
The normal alternatives being, wander around sadly-pathetically, hoping someone or something will ‘come along’ and ‘save us’ from ‘the sad…’
Another alternative, puffing up one’s chest, insisting to all and sundry that we ‘have the answers,’ that we are ‘awesome,’ surprised in a day or a week that it didn’t hold up
All a facade.
–
To be replaced by naive hope-less-ness
Present-time awareness
Enjoyment, appreciation, of what is
Perfection, ‘feeling perfect’
–
I’ve been getting glimpses/re-memories lately of some moments when I was FAR more aware-naive-feeling-good than I am at this moment, which are opening my eyes to how far I have to go, that I am missing something.
It is a good sign that I am remembering these things, it means I’m close enough / naive enough TO remember them
And now I understand (better) the inter-plays of how these things work, too. It’s no longer random to me.
But weirdly the gap seems largest (?) when I’m in something of a clear-aware space… I can see how NOT clear-aware. Maybe because the distances involved are so great
It reminds me of interstellar distance, you can have your mind blown by how far away the Moon is, but then you jump to like “how far away is the Sun” and be mind-blown by that for awhile, and then you can think about Saturn, or Pluto, sit there dumbfounded for awhile, but then it’s like wait…. Proxima Centauri!!!
I’m being a bit too analytical/intellectual to properly see what’s happening. Having a fun & interested time, though.
I’ve been getting glimpses/re-memories lately of some moments when I was FAR more aware-naive-feeling-good than I am at this moment, which are opening my eyes to how far I have to go, that I am missing something.
Yes, the ‘ceiling’ is way higher than I can normally see… even as a human…
I have these stacked up psyches/beliefs which get in the way of pure experiencing now
Can you please explain what you mean by “context”? For me, I lacked context in PCE/EE. As in, there was nothing to get a high or depressed about, whereas “me” tends to contextualise activities and feel good or bad about them.
