Sweet, thanks. I am due a trip up north, so many families members I haven’t seen in ages. My mum wants us to take her to her home territory in Doncaster before her mind is totally gone, she has Alzheimers.
I think my mum is sometimes accidentally doing HAIETMOBA. It is interesting to see what happens when somebody can’t utilise their memory, they become much more present.
Ha this is good! - I can only be special by sacrificing originality. For I need to be cut from the very same cloth to begin with in order to stand apart from the rest of the group.
Being original is the arch nemesis to being special, they are 180 degrees opposite.
Another thing that just occurred - isn’t it funny the whole idea of competition in sport - this is the arena for ‘me’ to show ‘my’ specialness.
Yet in order to show ‘my’ specialness ‘I’ must first ‘even the playing field’. This is all like a paradox 
‘I’ want to show that ‘I’ am special and in order to do that ‘I’ pretend that ‘I’ won even though the playing field was ‘even’. Why? because apparently ‘I’ only won because of some ineffable quality that is simply intrinsic to ‘me’ being special.
This kind of belief underpins the entirety of sport, of competition and it is literally crumbling in front of my eyes haha.
I’ve found this a lot with actualism, I want to be seen as special for being an actualist, but because actualism is so different from everything else, it doesn’t ‘fit in’ to any other field, and thus it’s impossible for others to see me as special.
That’s a spun out thought!
It is taking me a few minutes to understand. Not there yet though…
How can anyone be truly special when the playing field, which has nothing to do with them, is set up by others, maintained by others, the players themselves are not a direct subset of everyone, but rather many many sunsets down to a rarefied group.
An F1 driver “I am the best and fastest driver in the world”!
More accurate statement, “I drove an F1 car a little bit faster than the few dozen others who drive F1 cars”
It reminds me of when I was giving my youngest son the “statistical” breakdown of his goal to be a professional soccer player.
Not to discourage him, but rather to alleviate the pressure he puts on himself.
He could achieve this goal, (a very naturally talented player, with huge amouns of drive who has been “turning heads” since he was 7 years old) but needs to have the facts so he is not simply living a fantasy.
This also reminds me that as a social identity one is already not special or unique because one is having borrowed values of the group which forms that social identity.
I think we are afraid of being here because there is nothing validating here. And validation is just another word for feeling special. So as actualist we have to move away from wanting to feel validated (special). And towards wanting to feel wonder that one is and was always here. Will be always here. And it is actually always now. That being here is to be aware of that. That it’s fundamentally different than being a normal identity. The negative difference is the lack of validation. The positive differences are an accurate intellectual perspective, a heightened sense perception and a sense of amazement.
“You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of the same compost heap. We’re all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”
To help mitigate this, I like to think of each time I get back to simply being here as a little win. That my goal is to be here so each and every time I am here I’m accomplishing my primary goal in life. Each time is yet another victory. Basically, recreating the little feeling of accomplishment you get each time you complete a n̶e̶c̶e̶s̶s̶a̶r̶y̶ task that puts you a little bit closer to a goal. Feeling like I am getting somewhere is some validation. Which helps lessen the withdrawal: Like methadone.
Caveat: I’m using ‘here’ but really mean ‘near-here’.
I know I’m here whenever there is an unforced appreciation and/or enjoyment of being alive on planet earth. I would say I am a full identity who temporarily doesn’t care about normal identity stuff. Thus can ̶a̶p̶p̶r̶e̶c̶i̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ notice how being alive really is. To resist the chemical need to rejoin the drama, I let myself feel a sense of accomplishment. And hopefully that sense of accomplishment will make me want to stay longer and get back quicker.
The birth of shame…
So this is quite funny, my dog poncho has recently discovered that he can pleasure himself. Mine and Sonya’s reaction has been to try to cap this behaviour in him as it’s a bit awkward when he starts gobbling on himself in a middle of a family re-union 
What I have noticed recently is this kinda behaviour, I will be busy doing something and he will sneak away and hide in some corner of the house and begin pleasuring himself. As soon as he notices me or if I just say his name he will immediately stop and scatter away from that spot, like he knows he is doing a ‘bad thing’. The same thing happens when he tries to lick the toilet bowl, there is like an element of cunning that he has to employ and as soon as he is caught out there is something akin to being ashamed.
And it’s fascinating how quickly this happened from the reactions that he received from me and Sonya. It’s almost like in a couple of weeks we have taught him to be ashamed of his sexuality And how he has began to employ cunning behaviour in order to deal with this. Now think about what the lifetime of this kind of conditioning does to a human!
It’s quite cool to observe something like this in action, how a very similar process happens in a human, where shame is actually learnt. This fear that is continually experienced when one is ‘being bad’ is internalised and crystallised into this lasting structure - a conscience.
The other interesting thing is how this sets the scene for this super common drama of - fearing to cross societal lines and at the same time being driven to do it anyways - how much of human behaviour (especially with sex) is about just that, essentially transgressions, getting ‘my’ kicks out of crossing these lines. There is something cathartic to it because in crossing the line ‘I’ am finally stepping out of ‘my’ chains. The problem is that in order to continue deriving pleasure from ‘being naughty’ I must continually enforce the chains on myself also. Ultimately proceeding down this path has me going round and round, it is a dead end.
Shedding the layers…
So I’ve noticed lately there’s less and less that seems worthy to write, the method for me nowadays seems to have incorporated itself quite naturally into my day to day life without me having to ‘do’ so much anymore.
It’s nice to be able to almost take it for granted at this point that I am going to have a good day today and tomorrow etc. There will be the slight dip here and there but that’s about it.
But with things continuing in this manner I am progressively streamlining the thing to be more effortless and more successful. Dropping certain things where they are no longer needed and letting things take care of themselves.
I have always been prone to be rather obsessive compulsive, lots of endless scheming. Lately I am noticing that the last habitual patterns which cause these occasional dips are those very schemes.
Essentially planning out how life is going to go and then feeling stressed/anxious as a result. There is a couple of themes which I do this with over and over, these schemes form the scaffolding of my identity and this is exactly how I experience them. They are these structures which I continually feed into in order to sustain the drama that is ‘my’ life.
I had a really cool brief seeing last week where all of a sudden I saw as an undeniable fact that none of these things exist in actuality, that this body is going around in a world where not a single bit of this stuff is actually going on. None of the interactions which I have with the various real world entities actually take place. This seeing has been imprinted into my mind since, because seeing so clearly that none of ‘my’ life is actually going on has left with me the reminder that it is also all completely unnecessary, those schemes, this scaffolding is only designed to have itself spinning round and round, it serves no other purpose.
I can say this with complete confidence, why? Because none of it is actually going on How can something that does not actually happen have any actual purpose, it’s a paradox.
So now onto the next bit, which is to simply stop playing the game of maintaining these structures, there is nothing more complicated to it either it’s just seeing all of the above and deciding to stop.
It’s essentially me going “Why the hell am I doing all this when there is no point to it?”And so these layers are progressively dropping, then I am noticing there is less for ‘me’ to ‘do’, less and less structures to uphold means I find myself here more. Being here I find a peace that has always existed, it is just that ‘I’ am usually too busy playing these pointless games which obscure it, it’s actually so very close, right now it’s here, all it takes is a removal of the ‘extra’ stuff.
The other fun thing that comes from all this is this growing sense that I have been wrong my entire life, that my entire assessment of what has happened since I was born was fabricated and simply wrong (as in not in line with fact).
All the dramas I created were actually there only so that the drama itself could continue, they are designed in this clever way haha. I create a drama without a resolution so that I can continue being a drama queen forever and a day.
The drama can never be solved, ‘I’ make sure of this. It can only be eradicated by seeing that it is unnecessary, the whole thing.
So in this way ‘I’ was invested in the ‘hurts’ just as much as I was invested in the ‘triumphs’. ‘I’ was invested in being in ‘danger’ just as much as being ‘secure’. I was invested in being a ‘loser’ just as much as being the ‘winner’, it was all welcome food for the drama to continue.
But it is such release to see that I was simply wrong, that the assessment was incorrect on all accounts, the good and the bad.
So I was just writing some notes now and something pretty obvious clicked. For a long time I have always been quite stuck in this cycle of - feeling others out and keeping them happy at all cost.
Initially it seemed like what I was actually afraid of is to feel their unhappy vibes, but actually it’s the other way around!
I am so sensitive to the others vibes as a way to protect myself. What I actually fear is the consequences which arise when others are unhappy, angry etc.
It reminded me of something like a child growing up in an abusive home and developing a very sharp sensor for the emotions of others, as a defense mechanism.
So this seems like too obvious haha but it has some very important implications, because this means there is a way out! And as always it seems to be with standing on my own two feet, with having a genuine confidence that the correct action will occur.
Because the underlying concern was never the emotions of others as an end in itself, I was only scanning them constantly so that I could nestle myself safely in the position as ‘nice guy’, here I could camouflage and hide from their malicious tendencies.
And I guess in some way this kinda defence mechanism works, but at a huge cost to my own well being and my own freedom.
I stop scanning for others emotions when I no longer feel their is a need to do that, so simple!
This is so obvious now It’s like if I hold a baby and it starts wildly crying, it is not that I am afraid of their emotion itself. I am afraid of the mum coming at me for having done something wrong etc.
I don’t know why for so long I thought it was the emotion I was running from. I have been running from the consequences of emotion, because I felt that I was not capable of standing on my own two feet, of dealing with things.
And actually this swings the opposite way too! I have been afraid of myself getting emotional but because I was afraid of the consequences of this, essentially of doing something stupid and getting myself in trouble, also of breaking my ‘nice guy’ guise in the process and consequently being open for attack.
And so it seems that empathy is actually a self centred mechanism, at least part of its function. I feel others out so that I protect myself, thanks @Andrew I think this all started with your narcissism post 
Omg floodgates opening up now 
, it makes complete sense why women are more in touch with empathy. It is a tool they wield to protect themselves in the absence of brute force.
Of course this is describing the programming, none of this stuff is actual or required. But this is the genesis of things being as they are.
Why does it feel like I am stating completely obvious stuff tho?
Yeah, well, we are all hiding in the same place!
There are consequences though. It was never silly to mould ourselves into something that worked.
It just doesn’t work for happiness.
Trying to rebel though, which has been my MO since childhood, has limits.
It reminds me of a Norm McDonald joke about Germany.
This is actually quite interesting too.
How the “well adjusted” actually have this in their favour. I was thinking about the builder (there was actually three recipients to that email) , and how it was me displaying emotion. He responded with zero emotion. Not even defensive. Extremely rich guy by the way. Part of a billionaire empire.
I looked at whatever it was I was trying to achieve with the email. How it wasn’t going to achieve it at all if I kept that attitude going.
Was able to redirect it and essentially put on my “I really am passionate about getting the problem fixed” persona. It’s a persona I had long believed myself actually.
This “mad scientist” type of attitude to work. I am a building estimator who uses advanced software and I was criticising my own work from over a year ago, and factually, though pointedly blaming him for it not being as good as it could have been due to the unrealistic timeframes.)
So, as defence, I put on this persona that I am angry that the work isn’t perfect.
But I am actually just angry in general.
Well the next thing I am getting onto now is that there is something even better than feeling others out as a tool for staying safe, emotions are a quick and dirty way of attempting to do something that this brain is well better equipped at doing via intelligence.
In a PCE I can be well aware that the other is furious and likely to act aggressively, without feeling an ounce of their emotion, the end product is the same but better.
