Psychic Cannibalism

Reflecting on my various mental contortions around girls, and I’ve noticed in myself a definite attitude of acquisition.

When I’m single, I’m thinking about dating someone / ‘being with’ someone.

When I’m courting someone, I’m thinking in terms of doing things to make them attracted to me.

When I’m dating someone, I’m already thinking in terms of looking out for someone else. So I am clearly not satiated.

It got me wondering what it is I’m looking for, what it might take to be ‘satiated,’ and it became clear that I’m wanting ‘something’ from these women. But what it is is a bit unclear. It is some kind of mental state of peace, that I imagine they can bless me with. When I’m not in that mental state, I’m thinking that it must be I’m with the wrong woman, and set about seeking once again.

It reminded me of something I’d read previously about the ‘normal’ state of being (as opposed to enlightenment), which is that it is a state defined by desiring to acquire things. We desire to acquire food, we desire to acquire money and material objects, we desire to acquire acclaim, and we desire to acquire people. The idea is that upon ‘collection,’ that those things will give us peace. Of course it never works, because the mental state itself is designed for the desire for acquisition: with one thing acquired, the next thing takes its place, and we’re feeling the exact way we were - just with a different object in mind.

In this book, this was contrasted with a permanent state of satiety, enlightenment: One understands that one is the God-head, understands that all this action is merely the smallest of cogs in an infinitely large spaceless & timeless plot, and that everything is going according to plan. Any one case of acquisition doesn’t matter because it’s all part of that larger plan. And that one has an especial understanding of the plan that others aren’t aware of, and that it’s essential that one goes about convincing others to save them as well.

I can clearly see how one would go toward this view.

I saw my desire for women as a hunger; I feel hungry, and will consume people in an attempt to sate my hunger. It’s obvious that no one can sate me, because I want something from them that they cannot give me.

This gives me an altruistically driven reason to stop approaching these situations in the same way. I care for these people, actually I love them, and I don’t want to be doing something harmful to them.

I started remembering Goya’s famous painting of Saturn (Kronos) devouring one of his children, the new Olympians:

I am doing the same thing in attempting to acquire people, sapping them of their energy in hopes that it will make me feel alive.

I remembered the other side of the myth, which is that Gaia (earth goddess) and Rhea (mother goddess) conspired with Zeus to kill Kronos and set the olympians free.

I’ve since learned that Kronos was the embodiment of time, which means that Zeus was in effect putting an end to time… ringing any bells?

This is in concert with Kronos previously castrating his father, Uranus, the master of the Universe.

In other words, the two cases of patricical violence were in essence creating a condition of timelessness and spacelessness.

This reveals the mystical nature of the earliest of Greek myths - it was an oral metaphor to explain to early initiates how to become enlightened.

And of course, the enlightenment project still doesn’t end the cycle of violence inherent in ‘being.’

I made a drawing illustrating this moment: the young Zeus, now the supreme God, emerges from the bowels of his dead father, confronted with the void he now consists of.

As for me, I’m determined to enjoy & appreciate, no matter my situation.

1 Like

Man I’m definitely digging the artwork! This is one of the more weird and wonderful posts I’ve seen here haha and then on top of that @claudiu posts about the mushroom hive-mind taking over, something is in the air :smile:

1 Like

I believe Richard once said that leaving ‘humanity’ is very weird, because ‘humanity’ is very weird!

Onward!!!

It is weird, I only recently discovered that Goya painting myself. I had only seen Goya’s more “normal” paintings so was unaware of them having done some interesting stuff like this lol.

I love your artwork too.

I can relate to what you are writing about women. My first experience of reciprocated love, I remember thinking it would be over then and I wouldn’t desire anybody else, like it would be a completion of me. There was this quote I used to like from a Stephen King book in his Dark Tower series;

  1. “Now I think that all of us are born with a hole in our hearts, and we go around looking for the person who can fill it.”-Susannah Dean, Wolves of the Calla

I was looking for this person that would match me like how an enzyme can only function if working on a substrate that fits the shape.

I am never satisfied with one persons attention, or one persons love, I want it all. I want to be wanted and desired perpetually. I was a good looking kid and had a lot of female attention, so I guess I go to experience what that was like. I almost wish I never knew. After getting spots, rosacea and puberty in general, it was like then the complete opposite, zero female attention and no positive reactions, such extremes.

Also though, when falling in love with my wife and my ex-girlfriend, I can recall beginning to feel a mourning for my identity as the loner/reject/outsider as though I liked that narrative. I liked being the one against the world and saying forget women, creativity and learning is my goal. This also kicked up again when I had kids, like cementing that I will never be that type of lone wolf identity again, my life will never be my own singular narrative.

I also liked unrequited love, it was kind of masochistic. But you get the plus of the love feeling without the troubles of a relationship, inadequacy, jealousy, pleasing them, being romantic, etc.

I feel it like this too, both love and lust, as a real hunger. The desire to love and be loved manifests like a ravenous hunger. The sexual desire and horniness manifests like hunger too. I have always liked a woman to look at me with hunger too, like a subtle fetish. Weird interplay of sex and food hunger lol.

But nobody ever absolutely satisfied me either, especially mentally or emotionally, they can physically in sex, but I always felt like my mind/being was lacking for something else. Nobody could compete with my own fantasies and imagination either. Which made the real world take a secondary place to the imaginary to me. Obviously until having had a PCE (and refamiliarising myself with EE’s).

1 Like

It’s another great example of how we can go round and round forever within humanity and never be satisfied nor come up with any satisfying answers, as you say some other part of our identities is always dissatisfied even when we’re getting exactly what we want

It’s so crazy how differently everything operates in the actual world. All these problems are instantly swept away.

1 Like

Being constantly craving and restless seems like a feature of the biological software, as the evolutionary agenda is to keep advancing no matter what. The individuals are the cost, as we always say.

Just occurred to me that, when in a traditional relationship, even when constrained with the [monogamy] plugin —that is, fully and willingly adopting it as a mechanism to keep some kind of order—, it’s only natural that conflict and chaos arise eventually, as any form of stability would imply complacence and stagnation, while nature wants us alert at all times, be it to reproduce, to defend the nest or to attack to get resources.

One result is always a member or both members of a couple looking for excuses to fight or otherwise have the risk of having a “boring relationship”. Then makeup sex or any other reconciliatory reward after that feels like advancement for us creatures that crave the short term shots of dopamine to continue. Another weirder consequence of all this is people basing their identities on this, declaring almost with pride that they are “drama queens/kings” or “toxic persons”.

1 Like