Kub933's Journal

Journals
302

Hmm, I have noticed in myself that I love to reach a “conclusion”; to neatly wrap up a question with a definite answer.

However, I have to ignore a whole level of nuance to do that.

The other day, it sunk it a bit just how radical a proposition it is to psychically ‘die’. Only a little bit though.

There is potentially a list of “I am just addicted to suffering” type conclusions which will quite easily span our natural lives.

Just consider Alan and his repeated “Prima Dona” humble-brag.

Don’t let any conclusion knock you off exploring more.

To me “addiction to suffering” is a very broad and mostly high level catch-all.

Be specific. Very, very, specific.

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@Andrew Your reply essentially ignores the gist of what I wrote, then proceeds to explain what things mean to you and then proceeds to offer advice based on those self ascribed meanings. Advice which seems to be more directed towards yourself than me.

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Unless you are actually directing this at yourself ?

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I don’t doubt that, that is the nature of conversation. We are always referencing our own understanding and experience.

I was reflecting on what you wrote after, and it seems that if that conclusion “I am addicted to suffering” is what is going on before your Saturday gigs, or martial arts classes, then, great!

Stop.

I smoke too. I gave up the other day. Relatively easily. Then I started again. I’ve given up for years at a time before.

Why do I go back? Even long after the last trace of nicotine is out of my body?

Is the gist of what you realised the simplicity of just stopping being addicted to suffering?

That sounds great.

Is that getting the gist?

Because that sounds exactly like stopping ‘being’ altogether, which is the whole point.

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Yes exactly, the point is that I have done the specifics, the nuances, the explorations etc extensively over a prolonged period. However there is a certain habitual movement towards ‘being’ those emotions which persists.

So noticing that ‘I’ as ‘being’ have a certain agenda/complusion/drive/investment etc towards suffering is not just a ‘catch all’ but rather an observation of how ‘I’ tick.

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Although it’s probably worth bearing in mind that the addiction to suffering cannot stop until ‘I’ disappear.

But seeing the extent to which I am invested into my own suffering allows a different path to be taken, one of enjoyment and appreciation.

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308

Ah, I see. So it really is seeing it as an addiction like smoking then. One could just stop.

That sounds very fresh and freeing to me.

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309

Yeah it is very simple and also very perverse when I think about it. All this horrible sorrow and malice that we see - the depression, suicide, wars, rapes etc.

The fires fuelling these things are not happening to me, rather I am being those very things, the things that I wish to be free from and thus end up weaving myself into various knots.

So how else could we call this but a perverse addiction to suffering?

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310

Sure.

What do you see as the next step then?

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For now - to catch myself beginning to ‘go there’ and back out.

So the pattern has been identified and exposed, now it’s a case of blending it into my daily life via attentiveness.

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312

I like that.

313

Like catching oneself reaching for any addiction we want to stop.

At some point, it’s you can do it energy which makes the difference.

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314

So it’s getting pretty wintery here in the UK recently and with it comes some deeply lodged memory of a PCE for me, it’s actually really weird!

I don’t know when it happened, I think within the past couple of years, but I remember finding myself completely lost in this magical wintery wonderland.

Now almost everyday I begin finding myself in that wonderland again (this morning it was one foot in one foot out) and it feels so damn familiar! I still can’t pinpoint the PCE though :smile:

It is always interesting how the rememoration works though, that sense of I know this place! I have been here, and yet it seems somewhere ‘out there’ that I can’t fully pinpoint. It is utterly ‘ordinary’ and familiar when found and on the other hand it is this completely other world that I seem to know nothing about.

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315

Stumbling across the actual world is kinda like I’ve been living with dementia or something, all of a sudden there is this undeniable actual world right here and I feel almost stupid that I was somehow doubting it’s existence, when in fact I have been here all along. Very bizarre!

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The other thing that I forgot, I somehow forgot that it existed! Was the total and absolute safety that the actual world bestows. And this safety is intrinsic to the very set up of this universe, when I am this body I cannot get away from it.

And I could see with startling clarity how ‘I’ as identity lock ‘myself’ away from this safety and thus all the problems begin. All the doomsday scenarios and tragedies, they simply could not exist when this safety is everywhere all at once.

But ‘me’ as identity is only this shadowy construct that locks itself away from this seeing by its very nature, because it is always busy ‘being’ somewhere else where this safety isn’t.

The other thing this seeing pointed to is that essentially all ‘my’ dramas revolve around this fundamental insecurity, when this safety is experienced none of ‘my’ dramas are required anymore because it is known for a fact that all is well. So things like pain or death or the various facts of existing as a flesh and blood body are no longer some chore that ‘I’ have to put up with, it is all transformed into a magical wonderland where nothing can go wrong, including the pain and death etc.

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317

So experiencing some frustration at work has lead to an incredible discovery just now.

I mean this is pretty much spelled out in the various actualism materials but I have never seen this so clearly, and just the extent of this thing.

I found myself at work and feeling like I was trapped in an ‘impossible situation’. It was that very familiar feeling of being torn apart, that sense of inner-conflict where whichever way I travel it will always be ‘bad’ in some way.

So after a little exploration I saw that this situation arises when I am simultaneously holding up various (and always conflicting) morals, values, beliefs etc and trying to satisfy them all. It feels impossible because it is impossible lol.

The way this came up at work was essentially relating to this very common dilemma where as an employee I feel I must live to the value of having the company’s best interest at heart at all times. However as a customer service agent I feel I must live to the value of keeping the customer’s best interest at heart at all times. Then as an individual I also feel that I need to live up to the value of being a ‘good, honest, well meaning person’.
Then the one which really solidifies the dilemma is that as a professional and as a business I must also operate to the values of complete transparency and a lack of any kind of deceit at all.

So what is the way out of this? How do I simultaneously satisfy all those values? The answer is by becoming cunning, manipulative, scheming, planning etc (all the hallmarks of a social identity). And of course forever living in fear of being found out for the fraud that I am.

The traditional way of resolving this inner-conflict is to pick the value I ascribe to the most and proceed to walk gingerly down that path, or it may be to adopt some ‘higher value’ which seems to transcend this conflict - as Richard wrote, to find the ‘Big Daddy’ or ‘Big Mommy’.

But I know this is not the way to go, the way to go is to bring all these values to the fore and examine them. The end goal being not to pick one over the other but to operate outside of their influence altogether. No longer being under the influence of these values means that I simply do that which is sensible, so then intelligence is operating freely - this is where freedom is.

This is all kinda actualism 101 but seeing this mechanism so clearly has catapulted this seeing into all the other parts of my life where the same thing has been happening.

What I realised very quickly is that this mechanism I describe is the fundamental dilemma of existing as a social identity, I could give endless examples of this happening but really all it takes is to look at any dramas I find myself in to see that this very thing is going on.

So although this seeing hasn’t eradicated the values it has given me some pretty good direction of where to look. And in this particular workplace scenario all it took was to bring those values to the fore and examine them one by one to see that the whole thing was silly, to see that operating outside of those values is the superior way.

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318

This is a tricky one for sure and there is even a well known term for that in Hinduism called “dharam sankat”…which means a religeous crisis…as-in when a person is in a situation where he has to make a decision between two conflicting choices coming from one’s religious dictates, then which one to uphold ?

In Hinduism, in one of the epic battles one fellow of the warrior caste is in the battlefield having to fight against his blood relatives. teachers etc … and that causes a crippling confusion…the solution finally given to him is that he is of the warrior caste and it’s his csste’s highest duty to uphold righteousness and fight the relatives, mentors etc as they are on the wrong side

But as an actualist, I don’t buy this solution lol…it’s just nonsensical killing n wars etc in the name of right and wrong stemming from a socially inculcated caste identity

Vineeto mentioned something like operating out of benevolence taking everyone into account

But this could be a bit of a tricky situation to handle from silly vs sensible approach…like is it sensible to be on the wrong side of one’s company and risk loosing the job ?

I would think that one can escalate the matter sincerely if any of the party- customer or the company- has a sensible point…but again, the specifics of the situation will matter in this

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That sure is a convenient answer for the social order at large!

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What I found is that it’s not tricky at all, in fact when I am genuinely seeing this situation happening right now without the medium of belief and emotion then the sensible thing to do is plainly in front of me.

But even here when you say “is it sensible to be on the wrong side of one’s company and risk loosing the job” there seems to be some hidden moral/principle. As in who says that being sensible would land me in such a predicament, why? Does being sensible automatically entail not going along with my company’s evil ways? Wouldn’t this be acting out of principle instead?

I think what can happen is that ‘silly/sensible’ is taken as a principle in its own right. It becomes like my actualist principle, some way of simplifying the world, with it’s own hidden actualist morals.

But actually seeing that which is sensible is a whole different thing altogether, it is the ability of this brain to take in all the facts of this situation happening right now and comprehend them in a way that is free from previous bias. It is like intelligence through a clean slate, I experience it as being extremely simple, it can somehow cut through all the bs surprisingly well.

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321

Plus a lot of times with less ‘being,’ any sense of urgency has disappeared, and for a lot of situations the best thing is to wait & see, gather more information, and play things as they become obvious.

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