@Kub933 Good point, I do see what you are saying.
1 Like
@claudiu I stand corrected. I am changing the word ‘could’ to ‘would’ : " It ‘would’ be different if one is af.
Good! So now you know for a fact that whatever may be happening in the gut, it does not necessarily, causally lead to any emotional turmoil, in the causal way that dropping a ball will lead to it falling to the ground due to gravity.
And you know it for a fact because you see that for an actually free person, it would not cause emotional turmoil.
Now that you know there is not an intrinsic, physical link between a gut sending a signal, and a brain receiving it and triggering emotional issues – you have to look for another answer as to what is causing the emotional issues.
In other words, it does not have to do with the physics and biology of the gut and the brain as it relates to humans. It has something to do with the particular human experiencing the gut issues.
I’ll just re-present what I wrote earlier, now that you see this salient fact:
In other words, the key is to look at how one reacts to and relates to the fact of the gut issues, as there will lie the root cause of the emotional issue – not in the physical fact of the state of the gut.
And the same, of course, applies to any physical ailment or issue.
Which is truly wonderful – we are not fated or doomed to be miserable in this marvelously grand and complex universe of ours!
Cheers,
Claudiu
Thanks @Vineeto @jamesjjoo @claudiu @Kub933 for your replies…I’m feeling additionally inspired now to look deeper into this issue while keeping all the replies in mind
@Vineeto About Richard’s pain medication, I wasn’t planning to take it myself but that was just a curiosity to know his situation…But then now I realise that there is a bit of a danger inherent in revealing those Richard’s pain meds because who knows at some point in time some enthusiastic feeling being may mistakenly take it to be a sort of a “Richard pill” to actual freedom and perhaps even overdose on it 
1 Like
Hey y’all, I might have some anecdotal information on this topic. For my entire life, I was anti-psychiatric medicine. After reading Richard’s writings I realized that I had beliefs in this area. I had made a judgement about SSRIs based on beliefs and factoids. It was this quote in particular:
I am more happy to go direct to the chemist. Researchers have sorted them all out and synthesised what is in the herbs. Live herbs – or dried herbs – are imprecise. It depends upon the growing season, climatic conditions, environmental factors and so forth, for the strength of the herb. There are many incidences of people taking herbs and finding them too strong – or too weak – for their illness … with deleterious effects. Chemists are precise and one can be assured of the correct dosage. I have nothing against herbs per se, of course they have medicinal properties; it is just that the whole business is imprecise and it is easy to over-dose or under-dose.
Western medicine is not perfect, but it is not as bad as those people who object to it make it out to be. What I find interesting is that those rich people who live in countries like China or India who get some particular disease have this remarkable habit of flying to the US or the UK to get the best medicine, the best surgery that Western medicine can provide. They know that that is where they can find a cure. I find that quite indicative. They do not rely upon the traditional healing of their own country – that ‘healing’ that is so revered by those reactionary and disgruntled persons brought up in this land of plenty.
A Lot Of Nonsense Passes For Sagacity
As you can see, this isn’t an endorsement of psychiatric medicine. However, it did cause me to reflect on my attitudes regarding medicine and illuminated that I had beliefs in homeopathic remedies that were unexamined. These manifested as a preference for “natural” remedies and an avoidance of chemical remedies.
This lead me to be open enough to trying an SSRI. The reason being was because for my entire life, as far as I can remember (I think the age of 5), I would wake up with an incredibly intense sense of longing best described as depression. As the day went on, it would subside, but no matter how good I felt at the end of the day, I would wake up in the depths of sadness and longing. This sadness and longing intuitively seemed to have something to do with existential matters - but I could never navigate to the root of the issue. I have theories, and I think I have found out why - - but I mostly want to focus on my experience with SSRIs.
They worked. I stopped waking up incredibly sad. I wasn’t “numb” as some people describe. I still had a full range of emotions and I could still get incredibly sad with the right triggers. But I didn’t start my day in that space. And since I was doing the actualism method at the time, I was able to leverage this space to make progress more rapidly.
I didn’t go in blind, however. I researched my options thoroughly, and I tried to understand how SSRIs work. It helped me have an intelligent relationship with my doctor. I had to try a few different ones, and one in particular, did make me feel “numb.” Side effects of some were more pronounced than others. The side effects of some SSRIs toned down, while other SSRIs did not. But in the end, I found something that was effective.
My current opinion is this: if someone wanted to get the most out of an SSRI, it needs to be combined with CBT, or better yet, the actualism method. They will not, however, “cure” the human condition. It would be nice if we had a somatic answer, and maybe we will one day, but as of now that is wishful thinking.
I don’t recommend Benzodiazepines and I do not think they have much to offer other than a rapid sedative effect - so their usefulness is limited to panic attacks at best. It’s easy to become dependent on them and the withdrawal can be life threatening. They will absolutely make you feel “numb” and “foggy” and “out of it.”
I personally recommend SSRIs with long half-lifes. If you miss a dose you likely won’t notice, and they are much easier to taper off of in my experience. By example, a drug like effexor has a half-life of ~10hrs, so if you miss your morning dose, you may find yourself wanting to puke by the end of the day. Prozac has a half-life of 4-6 days so you could miss doses for weeks before withdrawal symptoms appear.
I currently take 20mg of Prozac and 300mg of Bupropion (a dopamine reuptake inhibitor). I’ve quit both of these cold turkey at one point - and symptoms were easily managed by taking a dose whenever I noticed withdrawal symptoms (vertigo, weakness, nausea). It was a cakewalk to manage compared to coming off Benzodiazepines in my 20s. (also cold-turkey)
I also believe that this combination has helped me learn more rapidly than I ever have. Though if you’re of a normal disposition, I cannot recommend using them for this purpose. And it’s entirely likely that being able to learn more quickly is due to the clarity that the actualism method affords. (It’s much easier to read, listen, observe, reflect…)
I’d be happy to elaborate more in a separate thread if there be interest. For now, I wanted to offer a perspective from personal experience.
Fundamentally, however, medication cannot resolve issues with the human condition. And I often wonder if I was somehow born deficient, or if my existential sadness was caused by my upbringing in the Christian faith as that will retard someone’s development in my opinion.
I just got back from a long flight, so apologies for any grammatical errors as I do not have the energy at the moment to re-read this.
This phrase I’m finding good to instantly pull me back here because I find that often the mind just wants to fall into lower feeling places by default and get stuck in endless thought loops aka the inner dream world which lives in past n the future…It isn’t a present moment mindfulness thing though but a quick jab of sorts…
“And then I’m back here…where things are actually happening”
4 Likes
Why should there be a point ? This is a good point 
So a while back I had 2 bigger breakthroughs in my sense of national identity…As I’ve found out often that sometimes it takes more “hits” to remove some particular identity
Its very obvious that belonging and being patriotic to one’s country would mean to be forever at a psychological war with someone from another country(which in turn can and does lead to physical wars with horrible consequences) but this simple observation didn’t do it for me
The first dent came about quite interestingly because of the Russia-Ukraine war…It occurred to me that what a country actually needs to have a good chance at winning is the weapons and the tech and the intelligence and surveillance and such…Just an emotionally charged chest-thumping jingoism won’t work…or in other words, more than the tribalistic feelings of patriotism, its intelligence and tech that raises the odds of winning…so there it goes - I don’t need to have patriotic passions to defend the land if it really comes to that…intelligence and tech can do a much superior job at that.
The next one came about in a bit of a deep flash of insight a few weeks back - there is this body and the national identity…and without that sense of national identity, this body will be directly with the actual universe…its a fictitious blocking presence that is felt and it has to go if this body has to be with the universe directly !
Nationalism is software organic technology after all, and it is important to get both the numbers and the talent behind the creation and execution of the IT synthetic technology. This will be less and less important though, as synthetic software (AI) and hardware (robotics) take those places in calling all the shots.
By then, war could be even more ridiculous. Could get to a point that the campaigns are so far removed from human actors, that wars might as well be played in MMORPG games and virtual realities to avoid all the costs, lol. I mean, if there are already war conventions, treaties and protocols, making war effectively some kind of game, let’s take it to the next level already. 
Identity-smashing is the game in town these days…so I was thinking on the fundamental question - why give up one’s identity ? An identity is apparently one’s protector, so here are the reasons that came up…I’ve found that there are 2 main reasons - the first angle is the ending of a delusion as in a santa-claus and the second is the removal of the suffering angle.
1). Without identity, the illusion ends
2). Without identity’s blocking presence, the purity of actual is visible
3). Without identity, suffering ends for me
4). Without identity, I have no potential to cause suffering for others
All theory and no practicals makes an identity a cunning one 
…so from my personal experience, I’ve seen that the major one that took a good blow was my belief in eating vegetarian food…and recently, the sense of national identity took a hit(but only time will tell if this comes back)
The next 2 major ones are the gender identity and vocational identity…the vocational identity is somewhat lesser nowadays once the passion I had for programming games for a living was replaced over the years with more practical considerations such as putting food on the table and saving for retirement 
… gender identity on the other hand is tied in with the belief in fairness and thats why its taking longer…for example, thinking “oh the other gender has this n that advantage, its unfair !”…took me a while to see this unfairness angle…
Richard, Peter and Vineeto - all of them have spoken a lot about the gender identity and for a good reason…Its something that cant be taken lightly when it actually shapes a large part of me and my thoughts, feelings and behaviours…but its all good fun discovering and dismantling it…its amazing to see an innocent actual body talking and interacting the very rare few brief times I could experience that…an intrinsic liking and appreciation comes for another !
1 Like
My identity at this point seems like that of an old white man.
Aah the age factor…thats an interesting one…being old, young etc…That itself can make one tied up to a certain power based hierarchy
I’m trying to recollect how age is experienced in a PCE…There wasn’t anything like age at that time…brain being aware of itself and there was no age to experience
1 Like
Yes, I don’t recall any age factor in a pce. Age is definitely a factor now. I just signed a contract for a prepaid cremation about an hour ago. I have to make payments for two years before it will pay to get me toasted. lol