Scout: Hi Vineeto,
I have been sifting a lot through the majority of my social moors this past month and change, like loyalty and “politeness” and belonging. I would like to write about some of what I’ve been finding at some point but the exploration has unearthed a lot of uncomfortable ways in which I constantly punish and contort myself to beg for scraps of love.
Hi Scout,
While it is great that you have “unearthed” ways in which you “punish and contort” yourself, let me tell you that the way forward is to be friends with yourself – the human condition is something you were born with (and hence not responsible for) and not something to blame yourself for, let alone “punish and contort” yourself for. When you treat yourself in a friendly (not condemnatory) fashion you are also less in need “to beg for scraps of love”. You may even start genuinely liking yourself and consequently like your fellow human beings.
What you can do instead is to feel good and appreciate that you been attentive enough to bring all this to light (as in regard this as the fascinating discovery it is and equally judge it cool that you have seen it) and then, when you are feeling good, have a more clear-eyed look at one of the issues you “unearthed” and assess if it is worth keeping it as a problem or perhaps discard it as being a silly habit, simply because it interferes with your sincere intent to be happy and harmless.
This sincere intent will also guide you which “moors” you can safely loosen without harming yourself and your fellow human being. The necessity for morals/ ethics/ values/ principles cannot be cast aside/ dismantled until an essential prerequisite, pure intent, born of a pure consciousness experience, is genuinely established.
Scout: The more I’ve become aware of this, the more I’ve been noticing an organic confidence start to emerge: not my previous false bravado used as a social tool to gain admiration, but just a calm self-assuredness that is comfortable saying and doing what it wants without constantly apologizing for itself.
“A calm self-assuredness” is a good initial sign that you are on the right track. However, given the cunning of ‘you’, the identity, an affective attentiveness is advisable so that this “self-assuredness” and “organic confidence” can safely segue into being naïve, like a child again with adult sensibilities. I am saying this not because I expect you to become licentious or malicious but because I know from experience how the identity is endeavouring to retain/ regain control by swinging from one side to the opposite of the emotional spectrum.
As such, all it takes is to be aware of/ attentive to the slightest diminishment of whatever degree of felicity/ innocuity one is currently experiencing and recognize it as a warning signal (a flashing red light as it were) that one has inadvertently wandered off the way.
Scout: My illness is a particularly nasty bout of long COVID, which keeps my energy levels fairly low even when my mental state is pleasant. However, my symptoms are greatly exacerbated by stress, be it physical or psychological, which has made me acutely aware of how much stress emotions place upon my body. I recently experienced a week-long systemic crash which left me bedridden in response to some intense emotions triggered by menstrual hormones. My doctors say avoiding triggering such crashes is key to recovery, which has given me all the more incentive to stop letting my usual emotional cycles run entirely unchecked and wreak actual physical havoc.
This is great that even doctors recognize the role emotional stress plays in sabotaging your physical wellbeing. The solution is to channel all your identity-enhancing affective energy into the identity-diminishing felicitous and innocuous feelings.
Vineeto: Nipping in the bud is only useful when you recognize a thought- or feeling pattern that you have already recognized, investigated and resolved and which may pop up as a habitual hang-over, so to speak.
Scout: Thanks for the distinction. This makes sense – I think sometimes I continue to humor the thought/ feeling cycles because I figure if they still hurt then they still have something to teach me that I haven’t fully explored. I don’t know whether that’s true.
This quote from Richard may help –
Richard: What the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body all those years ago would do is first get back to feeling good and then, and only then, suss out where, when, how, why – and what for – feeling bad happened as experience had shown ‘him’ that it was counter-productive to do otherwise.
What ‘he’ always did however, as it was often tempting to just get on with life then, was to examine what it was all about within half-an-hour of getting back to feeling good (while the memory was still fresh) even if it meant sometimes falling back into feeling bad by doing so … else it would crop up again sooner or later.
Nothing, but nothing, can be swept under the carpet. (Richard, AF List, No. 68c, 31 May 2005).
Scout: For example my mom suffered a lot in her childhood and lives a scared life and thinking about this makes me cry. I guess I can’t say this thought/ emotion cycle is entirely without utility because it has helped me break a habitual callousness towards the anxiety of my mother and allows me to be patient and kind with her very easily. However I don’t know at what point continuing to cry over it becomes unnecessary.
While it is beneficial to understand that your mother (like many others) had a difficult childhood, there is no reason why you should suffer yourself (feel sad and cry) because of it – this only perpetuates suffering but does never resolve it. “To cry over it” is entirely “unnecessary”, particularly as it already has “helped me break a habitual callousness”. There may perhaps be another reason why you are still crying for something that happened a long time ago – perhaps what I said above applies here – “the identity is endeavouring to retain/ regain control by swinging from one side to the opposite of the emotional spectrum”. And all this to avoid you feeling good! It’s a natural survival tactic of ‘you’, the identity to stay in situ, but it can be recognized with fascinated attentiveness and intelligence.
Scout: The same is true of many of my tears inspired by compassion: it leads me to operate with less selfishness, more awareness of others, more attention to those who deal with painful disadvantages in life who I would have previously overlooked. But of course there’s a limit to the utility, and the tears certainly aren’t useful if they are contributing to stressing my system and thus keeping me ill and largely bedridden.
Ha, indeed, it’s as if you are doing penance for a previously discovered “selfishness” instead of appreciating that you were able to identify it and leave it behind. Again, a cunning trick of ‘you’, the identity, to ensure that the cycle of suffering (and malice, in this case against yourself) never ends. The only way to escape the cycle of malice and sorrow is to channel all your affective energy into the felicitous and innocuous feelings. Btw, tears are a common way to fritter away affective energy which is more beneficially used to enjoy and appreciate being alive.
Scout: I have more thoughts and observations that I will share at another point. Thank you for you input and for the link you shared, they were helpful reads. (link)
I am looking forward to it, Scout.
Cheers Vineeto
