Shank's Journal

“They treat you like it’s a sin to be alive, and make you out what they want when you die”

Unknown Australian songwriter. :face_with_peeking_eye::sweat_smile:

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One distinct thing I noticed in my recent relationships and relationship attempts is that despite knowing that the love route is bound to create a ton of nonsense(as I’ve already seen in the past) and delightful naive feelings are much better, I let those loving feelings only because the feeling is that the partner will run away…i.e I have to sell myself by having loving feelings in order to keep the partner.

Its like those people who cut their hand or behead and sacrifice a lamb or something and endure pain to please a God in order to get some benefit…similarly it feels like I must sacrifice naive delightful feelings and allow the pain of love in order to please and keep a partner lol

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Oh boi, yep.

Richard mentioned something like taking 3 weeks to end full blown anger but other minor forms such as irritation etc took a while

So I was at a fruit seller and its the season of amazing Alphonso mangoes here. While picking up the fruits, the seller was throwing in his own selection and from my past experience, I’ve found that many times they end up giving the bad ones…so I told him in an irritated stern tone “You don’t pickup…I’ll pickup myself”

Now the action that I took(picking fruits myself) was correct because one can’t be gullible while wanting to be naive otherwise one can get cheated having learnt from experience but the feeling underneath(irritation) is of malicious tone…but the thing I realized is that I could do the same action whilst having an underlying friendly feeling tone like “haha…hey I’ll pick it myself” perhaps with a smile lol

Its this day to day moment to moment interactions where I also have to consistently keep upgrading…

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A quick note - the amount of “traitoring” by remaining happy - no matter what - whist others are unhappy brings up this wall of fear…but nobody has to know about this traitoring because it’s not some sort of a physically observable traitoring

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Actually I have found in some instances that certain behaviours ‘slip’. Especially working in customer service, I ended up having a very slight chuckle at the hilarity of the situation that a customer was trying to paint. Let’s just say this did not end well :joy: Not being solemn together with them was taken as a sign of unprofessionalism. So that’s a little riddle I have been exploring - essentially what to do when the world expects me to me serious.

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Lip service, babyyyyy

It’s been an interesting one to figure out for me too, because I think I’ve paid lip service in some situations where looking backward, I could have said what I really thought. I think the main thing is that it doesn’t matter much, whereas from the human point of view these are matters of extreme moral importance

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Yeah it’s an interesting one, I seem to oscillate between being candid and paying lip service, although it seems I am less and less inclined to pay lip service these days, it is a nice freedom actually to allow people to get upset if they so wish, to stop this constant moulding of myself to other peoples emotional demands.

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It comes down to what are the explicit instructions of your employer. Then, having clearly understood them and the practical application of them, making the decision to continue in that line of work, or not continue.

Yeah I agree…it’s an oscillation between paying lip service and somewhat like this :

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Reminds me of this as well…

RICHARD: Aye … many years ago the identity inhabiting this body was conversing with ‘his’ then mother-in-law, painstakingly explaining why’ he’ was no longer able to do something – something which eludes memory nowadays – and was both surprised and pleased to hear the following words ‘he’ spoke in response to her reproachful ‘oh, you have hurt my feelings’ (manipulative) reply to ‘his’ carefully explicated account:

• ‘Then why carry [harbour/ nurse] such feelings … surely you leave yourself open to all manner of hurt by doing so?’

Needless is it to add that ‘he’ was to ask himself that very question on many an occasion from that day forwards?

It’s got to be moment to moment consistency…My bro just made a visibly very irritated face n tone whilst having some conversation about bike insurance claim where he was speaking about something when I interrupted him with a bit of a somewhat tangential but related thing about insurance

I realized my immediate tendency was also to get irritated and there was a bubbling up of that irritation but with the latest intent to do the actualism method each moment and to take it as a challenge(as Richard recently clarified) helped to not escalate things further :sweat_smile:

Moment to moment consistency…and “no matter what”

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Thought I should journal a bit about this bugger - medical issues and the fears associated with it

So things were at a pretty decently good place from a while until an incident occurred…I was doing some shopping when a puppy(who had entered with it’s owner) rushed towards me…I generally never entertain petting, but this was very sudden and some part of the pup’s face touched my toe for perhaps 1/3rd of a second - it could be a tongue…snout…paws…not really sure.

I ignored this for a while until I reached home n it occured - what if this pup was rabid ? As a kid I’ve played with dogs n cats and never cared because I was ignorant hehe, but recently I’d read how horrible and 100% fatal rabies is. This “brush” with the pup was too much of a low risk event, but rushed n checked with a doc who looked at it and said there is no biting n bleeding…so nothing to worry…asked him if there could be minor holes in the skin from where saliva could go in and he said nothing to worry

But but…wasn’t convinced yet…so rushed to another doc who examined and said she couldn’t see any kinda bite, scratch etc…so doesn’t look like anything to worry about but for my peace of mind, I could take anti rabies vaccine course…Doc convinced that there is absolutely no disadvantage to take the vaccine… I thought the virus may proceed to do its shit and time may run out so in a rush got 1 dose…

but but…later I came to know rabies vaccines use the Inactivated viruses…basically they have the whole virus which is killed so it can’t replicate but still builds immune response…but the worry came up - what if say out of 100 viruses, 90 are dead and 10 weren’t dead lol…later came to know of the Cutter polio virus tragedy that had happened in the 1950s in the US due to exactly this issue but since then there are more stringent checks in place

Anyways, there is a lot more I uncovered about rabies to share here…but in the end I decided that I’m 42 yrs now and have experienced quite some cool stuff in life so dying at this age isn’t too much of a bad deal…this has made me more relaxed about dying out of medical issues and their associated fears…I can still keep enjoying

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This brings me to the experiential realization that I’ve had often - that dying is easily embraced/ accepted as a very agreeable occurence if I’ve enjoyed being alive. Often times while experiencing something really satisfying, the thought goes “Heck I could drop dead just now without a trace of dissatisfaction n resentment”

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This is what I found so incredible last weekend when I found myself feeling felicitous and innocuous each moment again for that whole evening. If I was to continue in that condition my life would be complete, I could die happy.

I guess that is all that needs to happen to self immolate too! :grin:

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In the word’s of John Rambo “When you’re pushed, killing’s as easy as breathing.”

I say…“When you’re enjoying each moment, dying is as easy as breathing” :smile:

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This is a pretty cool quote applicable to all the solutions within the Human Condition:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results

I’ve come to realize one thing for sure…that I could continue this feeling good thing for the rest of my life but fundamentally speaking it will still be a still in control same way of being …at some point more/ something different has to come in or else nothing fundamentally different will happen…which has to come via sensuousness

So at this stage I often find myself fueling my affective energy into resenting reality because that energy has nowhere to go…

Instead of becoming more n more of a Resenter of Reality, I must divert that affective energy more towards becoming a Sucker for Sensuousness(pardon this alliteration attempt because couldn’t find something better lol)

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@Shashank Yes, this rings a bell. The key is sensuousness.

Reminded me on how I used to think about it as anchoring happiness in sensuousness. A message from 2014 (almost a decade ago, yikes):

Basically it depends on noticing where your attention is turning to. If you’re absorbed in your internal life or if you are involved in what’s actually happening right now in the world. That intuitive internal life is so predominant and default that it requires a lot of work to undo via intelligence. And that’s a very difficult task, according to Daniel Kahneman, for instance[1]. I think that I understand where you are coming from when you write about the changes that happen with a felicity with no sensuousness. I’ve noticed that it’s pretty malleable: sometimes it happens by serendipity, sometimes by a sensuous happening or by a fortunate event or saying. The thing is that it can quickly dilute/confuse in the affective soup or morph into a higher state such as bliss or positive thinking or hope or whatever. In any case, that kind of happiness is very contingent, unstable and dependent. So, there’s no better anchor to sustain felicity than sensuousness[…]

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