Hi @jwhooper, welcome!
What’s wrong with ending sorrow?
Nothing is wrong. The sorrow of an imaginary “self” is just more imagination. All dream problems are solved by waking up.
How does one go about waking up?
Dreaming of one who seeks the process by which to awaken is still the dream.
What do you think about ‘awakening’ via the actualism method of enjoying & appreciating this moment of being alive to make apparent the pure & perfect actual world?
I’ve been thinking a lot about hierarchy the last week or so because I’m interested in a girl and I’ve realized that the normal way to try to attract someone is via proving that one is ‘worthy’ aka in a high position in the psychic hierarchy. Basically the way it works in my psychic imagination is that the hottest and coolest women will go for the most popular/most powerful men, so then it’s in my interest to be as powerful as possible. This has proven a pickle for me for multiple reasons, one of them being that I don’t feel especially powerful at the moment, and the other being that I want to become free of the human condition.
I can see that my intentions are currently crossed, with on the one hand wanting to become free and on the other not ready to let go of this belief that if I’m not powerful, this girl won’t be interested in me.
I’m not sure what it’s going to take to crack all this, but it’s been interesting to get into lately. It feels like a more sincere and experiential investigation than I’ve gotten into so far. That’s encouraging.
One thought I’ve connected has been that in trying to attract a human, I’m attempting to communicate an image of an illusion to another illusion. If I’m free I don’t believe in the illusion, so that doesn’t happen. It’s just about caring about the actual person, which may or may not be attractive to that particular human. This has a lot to do with an individual’s beliefs about what’s attractive too, and I can see that someone who is relatively happy + harmless wouldn’t be as seduced by the power games, and any actual/practical considerations have more and more weight.
So then by trying to project images (that I believe in), then I’m attracting others who believe that those same images & power games are important, so in other words people who are in the same place as me.
And by being happy & harmless & not playing such games then… ??? Well… I haven’t done such a thing in a long, long time…
Yes, I find that things ultimately boil down to this thing - for someone to get attracted to me, I have to pass certain basic qualifications depending upon what they are looking for…it could be money, looks, rebound relationship etc and even this can change for the person from time to time…its really not under my control what they’re looking for
Like this recent interaction with the girl went great for few days and now all of a sudden things fell apart…nothing is guaranteed about how the feeler will tick in another lol
Its more n more interesting to have an increasing foundation from the actual side of things because its more reliable, enduring and unconditionally present…
Coincidentally I just listened to a podcast episode very relevant to this. It’s real world, romantic advice, but I say give it a listen as it can help you recalibrate some ingrained preconceptions on how all this really is and manifests. At least helped me rebalance a bit and add nuance to mine. Two key salient points mentioned there are:
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PUAs’ strategies ultimately fail because, even if they work, the game evidences a gap between the authentic real personality of the PUA and the one he pretends to be as a tactic to show himself as traditionally powerful, etc. The result is the impression that women won’t like them for who they actually are. So lesson is if with this framework in mind you go out of your way and construct alternative personalities instead of using your authentic self to seduce, that won’t end well no matter the outcome.
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The interviewee adds valuable context as to what’s actually on women’s radars when trying to detect such high status and male competence; he refers that the best way to approach this is subtly (not directly) and going for the long, meaningful game (not the hookup short one). This means actively telling substantial stories about yourself that paint you as a capable man (stories that tell that you have a mission, you have allies, good habits, good behaviors, etc.), rather than going for shortcuts (direct statements about money, possessions, dominance, joking around without substance, etc.), as women usually can see through it all. In other words, you may be underestimating yourself by judging you from a reductionistic framework of what power means, when you do have particular strengths that just need to be shown in better, authentic ways.
tl;dr. I think lately we are bombarded with red pill/black pill stuff and misconceptions of pop evolutionary psychology that make us men to make caricatures of women’s wants and needs, and then feel inadequate ourselves in the process. At least it’s been my reflection after listening to this.
I would say as an actualist , just bring up PCEs on your first date , if she is intrigued then keep going haha. If there’s no room to introduce it into the convo then you probably won’t have a meaningful reaction. If she is put off by it , it wouldn’t have worked out anyway. If she seems indifferent then up to you what type of partner you want !
And you don’t have to say you’re an “actualist” and it’s a “PCE”, just describe it without the jargon. Moment of perfection , universe is benign etc
I always hated the way dating seems to be. The sort of reality now with things such as apps like Tinder would have been horrendous to me. They hadn’t quite become so normalised when I was still dating.
It just seems a minefield of awkwardness lol. Every girl I ever asked out said no lol. The thought of constant negative interactions on a platform just sounds so depressing. The only relationships I have had have been when the woman has engaged and asked me out. Most of the times it has been more nerdy women such as myself, my wife being an exception to the rule really.
I noticed a lot of younger people I have worked with (female and male) now seem to have multiple people they are sorting of testing the waters with, I struggled to maintain a single female relationship, the idea of multiple interactions sounds exhausting to me. I was always fascinated by charismatic people who seem to enjoy human interaction and excel at it. It is like they feed off of it. I find people drain me, that has sort of being the litmus test with the AF method to see how interactions can go without feeling that drained.
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Oh, it is indeed a drain.
I was reflecting that much of what Richard, Peter and Vineeto wrote about relationships is now only applicable in a very loose sense.
It was written pre-apps. Which has no easy simile.
The fractured, shifting, fluid, convoluted and recursive game which is modern “dating” defies easy categories and generalisations.
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I just came back from a 1hr rather fruitless coffee date with a girl from the app…the girl had mentioned something like “dating app fatigue” 
I also realized a part of these remaining “problems” in dating are related to a diminishing sense of which role to play anymore and a part of me still playing all the learned roles throughout life…the dates are fruitless in the sense that they are not leading anywhere, but still it feels like some fun activity to go out and do…anything can happen…kinda reminds me of what Vineeto says :
Vineeto : Chiselling away my psychological and psychic entity has made emotions and feelings redundant and has left me increasingly free to enjoy every person I meet, every situation that happens and everything that this abundant universe offers. In my ‘role-play’ I am neither a ‘woman’ nor a ‘man’, but simply a human being …a female, of course!
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That’s good! Kinda reminds me of Peter writing about virtual freedom, that it’s a period of becoming accustomed to a happy and harmless life with none of the normal ways of relating having any substance.
Now for me looking back it makes a lot of sense, I had a lot of these periods of something like a crisis, of not knowing ‘what I am meant to do’, as in not knowing how to fit into society anymore. Trying to navigate these weird situations where I don’t know which role to play anymore, this would often bring up fear and other emotions. It’s funny that it always makes sense looking back but in that place where there’s no longer a pre-laid out structure in which I can operate it can get pretty weird, ultimately for an actualist it seems the only way forward is to continue demolishing haha because the only alternative is to go back to being ‘normal’.
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This is so damn true !