You know this territory, don’t you? I’ll prioritize myself better. I had a mad dash for two weeks trying to figure out what was going on, and all that abstract thinking has put me into tailspin.
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I just don’t feel like I have access to anything even resembling the truth anymore. I can’t make decisions for myself based on facts. I keep falling into propaganda on both sides but I guess the adage about truth being the first victim is true. What’s happening is horrible all around and this was my way of handling it.
It may help in the long run if you accept a few bedrock truths. In no particular order, not an exhaustive list and not every adjective or adverb is perfect but here it goes. Every individual is equally valid. Countries are merely treaties. Nations are merely ideas. Currency is merely an agreement. The social hierarchy is a subliminal agreement. Violence is only justifiable in self-defense, because every individual is as valid as you and any other, though preemptive self-defense can be legitimate. We are all going to die including the species and the planet. The financiers, especially lenders, create paper wealth but they also withhold trillions of it to billions of people who would use it more wisely than they themselves do. No one is in charge of the world. War, poverty, anxiety and addiction are all products that corporations including churches, governments and crime syndicates create then sell. They create war then sell weapons or vice versa. They create poverty by withholding paper wealth, charging more interest than they have to pay to people who have vastly less means to pay it, seizing actual resources and criminalizing normal behavior. They then sell that poverty to corporations in the form of low wages and private prisons. They create anxiety and addiction with their mass advertising campaigns and various products. They then sell products to relieve anxiety and cure addiction. There are no gods. Love is fickle and stressful. This moment is the only moment happening. It is happening everywhere throughout a boundless universe. You are only where you are at. And where you are at is anywhere at all and nowhere in particular.
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Thank you. Modern war is so all-encompassing and grinding. I genuinely see no way out of this right now. The war is on multiple fronts; psychological, physical, monetary. My country, along with most others in Europe, is losing. (And I’m not going to start talking about what’s happening in Ukraine right now, which is senseless already and all on Putin and any other perpetrators) Getting caught in that Russian propaganda loop probably put me on at least a few lists, which was a massive testament to the fact that being contrarian just for the sake of being a contrarian is a dead end. I can’t believe I wasted my time and life on this. The self-own was mine.
Anyway, enough mental agony.
Hyperbole to say you wasted your life? The invasion is only 14 days.
I almost mentioned ‘contrarian’ once when replying to you. I was going to ask if being an actualist is just a part of being a contrarian for you.
I would say the only countries losing are Ukraine and Russia. And Ukraine is getting absolutely pummeled. The Russians are merely losing soldiers, equipment, currency reserves, employment, tax dollars and civil order. What’s the rest of europe losing: Missed meals for the poorest; less spending money for those higher up?
Harsh but correct right now. Jesus. What’s currently happening is me being incredibly selfish while running ahead of things - I have a mental landscape of what’s to come and I’m reacting to that. I absolutely see where you’re coming from right now.
It didn’t use to, but over the years it evolved that way. I see now how I’ve been perpetuating it over the past week.
This is going to sound naive and dumb (perhaps even unhelpful), but there are irrefutable facts around you galore. What the papers, rumors, and Intel say are matters of probability and likelihood as far as their factual nature is concerned. The nature of their credibility is your judgment call. This is always the case. But, to bring this back around to actualism for a bit, you always have access to the truth because it is always there right in front of you. Even when you can’t trust your own eyes and ears – which themselves are also very capable of deceiving – you can always trust that (1) you are alive, (2) you are experiencing, (3) there are always “things” being experienced, and (4) it is this moment in which 1-3 are happening. Those are the only truths you have access to, the only truths you need access to. All else is conjecture, speculation, prediction, evaluation of probabilities – unavoidable operations of the mind which at times bring either benefit or disadvantage. Just be mindful to distinguish between what you can personally vouch for, namely, that which you know to be irrefutably true, however mundane – and which is something you always have access to – and all the rest of what we call “knowledge.”
As ol’ Edgar Poe put it:
"You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.
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I will say this though, as for the situation in Europe: we will have food shortages soon. Italy imports a lot of its wheat from Ukraine. I genuinely don’t think the enormity of it has hit home, that this was a strike right at the heart of Europe. I believe a large piece of the Middle East and Africa are also getting hit, as well as Turkey.
The US, China etc all have big stockpiles. We don’t. I think that affects a lot of the response right now.
Yes, you and those you care about may well be in for a world of shit. Things may end up hurting very, very badly. C’est la vie, no?
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Yes. But it evokes all sorts of emotions for me.
Naturally. Pain does that.
And the fact that nobody is coming to save us. Once society breaks down I guess I’ll know what we’re really made of. I’ve been trying to get sympathy on here so that I could maybe, somehow, get saved. I think I’m going to have to take some time to process and prepare. The whole chain of events that led me here, to where I’d just be a burden on anyone else if I ran away, and in a sense always have been. If I’d seriously done anything with my life and ambitions instead of posturing and escaping I’d have had a different way of dealing with this. My selfishness and inability to change has well and truly come home to roost.
And there I went right back into selfishness. I really am what I am.
You’re hurting tremendously, emp, it’s evident. Wish I could wave the wand and it make it go away for you. Best I can do is tell you it won’t last forever (the pain, that is). Best I can say is that this is what you get for being alive. You get to experience this amazing thing called life! It comes with Big Macs and cancer, grand sunsets and starvation.
All kinds of delights and indignities.
If you don’t like the trip, fear not, it’ll be over soon enough. Meanwhile, best I can say is what the military boys around here say, “Embrace the suck!”
Or as Richard says, say “Yes!” to being alive.
Richard (1999): … which is why I say ‘embrace’ (as in unreservedly saying !YES! to being alive as this flesh and blood body) as a full-blooded approval and endorsement. Those peoples who say that they ‘accept’ … um … a rapist, for just one example, never for one moment are approving and endorsing … let alone unreservedly saying !YES! to the rapist.
Mailing List 'B' Respondent No. 37
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You certainly are. You are whatever this infinite universe has made you to be, and is currently making you to be. Ain’t that grand!
… until you find out all this time you have been and currently are simply missing out on the actuality of what is happening 
But it is okay, you will see it when you see it (or not).
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I figured I’d put my real name on my posts, so username updated. I don’t have anything to hide anymore.
ETA: back to anonymity. I’ve been psychotic, for real.
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A network of memories comes to mind that is closely related to all of this.
I was 11 years old during the Malvinas/Falklands war. Being carried out by a military government that had come to power through a coup d’état 6 years before, we lived much more than the usual quota of:
-
Disinformation.
So I listen every night to a radio station in Uruguay that told the war in a different way than the local media. -
Patriotism and compulsory patriotism
To the sudden and unexpected demonstrations in favor of the military government for having “recovered” the Malvinas/Falklands, the next day we were expected at school with the lyrics of the hymn to the Malvinas that we had to sing every morning; the use of cockade was mandatory; the dominant topic of study became the history of the islands -why they were Argentine, the history of British piracy-; the name of the Italian dessert “zuppa Inglese” had to be changed to “zuppa Argentine” in every restaurant; etc. -
Punishments
The media were prohibited from commenting against the war -my teacher was fired shortly after for doing so-. -
Family problems
My parents suffered the pain of not only being against the war, but of having to be in favor of NATO because an Argentine victory “would keep the military in power indefinitely”; however, my mother being a Peronist and my father a Marxist (both anti-Anglo-Saxon) it was not exactly easy for them to be in favor of NATO…
In my home these sufferings were added to the usual sufferings of the other homes because young argentines were being compulsively sent to die in terrible conditions, the fear of war coming to the continent, etc. (once a British bomber flew over Buenos Aires and we were instructed by TV to turn off all lights and wait for instructions -UK later revealed that it was to test Buenos Aires reaction capacity and to test trip times in case they had to bomb the city-).
So unlike other homes, none of the usual bad feelings associated with war were lessened by the good feelings of patriotism, eagerness for victory, optimism in the face of every British casualty, and so on. Quite the contrary. -
Ideology and human rights: all that must be added to the serious political, economic, legal and violence problems that Argentina had been experiencing on a daily basis for 6 years due to the internal armed conflict, with the suspension not only of democratic mechanisms but also of human rights guarantees that led the military to kidnap, torture and murder thousands of civilians without trial (the military government did not fight other militaries, as in a war). For example, the military entered our home because of a false accusation made by a neighbor who was unhappy with the noises my father sometimes made while fixing things (my grandfather finally contacted one of the military men who had been against the coup, so that they would stop persecuting us).
As I commented elsewhere, my family and I knew at that time or came to know later on (directly and indirectly) many of those who have participated and even killed and/or died in the name of various idiologies (my family was/is quite politicized -my aforementioned grandfather was an emploee and later and advisor in labor matters to four democratic governments; government representative of labor matters in the ILO after the fall of the military regime; etc.-).
I’ve also mentioned that I know the “side and long lasting effects” of fighting for and against those ideologies: my best female friend was raised by her grandparents after recovering her from the kidnapping suffered together with her parents, both “disappeared” thereafter (a few years ago, I attended the funeral of her mother, whose remains were found in one of the concentration camps); another good friend of mine was born in captivity and given up for illegal adoption just before her mother and father were tortured and killed (he learned his true identity 5 years ago, after other biological relatives -among them his brother- searched for him for 40 years); one of my best older friends -now deceased- sometime cried when he got drunk for having killed two military men in the name of “the failed revolution”; my future father-in-law (a psychoanalyst who also taught history and sociology privately) was kidnapped in Buenos Aires, disappeared for months, tortured, then reappeared and imprisoned for a year (my future mother-in-law -now 92, living with us- would come to Buenos Aires to visit him -they lived in another province- and bring him the letters that my future wife and her brother wrote to him as kids).
The essence of telling you all this is: as a child, from 1976 to 1983 I couldn’t isolate myself from what I was experiencing at school, on the streets, interacting with friends (much less during the 1982 war -speaking of vibes…-).
Unfortunately, I could not isolate myself from my parents either: my early tendency to anxiety, fear and violence (clearly different from my sister’s from birth) were greatly exacerbated by my parents’ recklessness in exposing me to their conversations, to TV, to radios, to newspapers (I was a precocious and voracious reader). So, for example, throughout my childhood I checked every night to make sure that those whom the media called terrorists had not placed a bomb under my bed… My parents could have made a big difference with the suffering portion fueled at home. But they were after all common people dominated mostly by strong and uncontrolled feelings and thoughts.
If they had had tools like those of AF, things might have been different (as fortunately they were for me much later). You are an adult and you have those tools to begin to experience in a different way the external events that you have to face. Take advantage of them.
This is why I had wondered about what activities you do hour to hour, minute to minute.
It does not generate the same state of concern/anxiety/fear to listen and watch news, as it does to work, play or do physical repairs/improvements. In other words, as Srinath said, you should try to
It does not mean that invasive thoughts will not be generated trying to predict future scenarios while doing those activities; it does not mean that you will not go back to ruminating on what you could/should have done or could/should do with a certain aspect of your life. But your condition will improve little by little even if you don’t manage to practice better HAIETMOBA and EAATMOBA. But if reaching both IS your purpose, that very “non-actualist” improvement -feeling good mostly through good feelings instead of felicitous feelings- will allow you to gradually practice HAIETMOBA and reach EAATMOBA felicitously more often.
I know more than one or two things about intrusive thoughts, rumination, anxiety, obsessions and depression in ordinary and in many extraordinary situations; but also about how to get better and get out of there.
One of the first problems I have to face in those moments is that I don’t really want to feel better by changing my way of interpreting and experiencing external conditions; I want to achieve it by changing those external conditions; to make them different. When that is not possible, and given that practicing HAIETMOBA and reaching EAATMOBA in those moments can be very difficult, “I” tend to prefer/want (and eventually find myself trapped in) leaving my life in suspense while suffering, until the external facts change (waiting for them to change “to start living again”).
But as Richard pointed out: “All one gets by waiting is yet more waiting. Patience may be a virtue, but procrastination is an abomination”.
So in bad and very bad times I have learned to try to feel good through good feelings (or a neutral state) first, even obtained from “non-productive” activities (because I know the trick of my-self to keep doing productive activities while still feeling bad). Then, as @Srinath pointed out, try to feel good through felicitous feelings, enjoing and appreciating.
Of course, this may last for a short time, returning to feeling bad and not being able to enjoy and appreciate. But then I choose to try to feel good again through activities that generate at least good feelings (or a neutral state). This comings and goings can last a really long time! It doesn’t matter as long as your purpose is to get to enjoy and appreciate.
But you must be vigilant and honest about whether you really want to feel better despite the external facts you are facing, or whether you still want to change those facts. But this is not solved once and for all! The attitude changes again and again (sometimes in a matter of minutes if desperation, sadness, etc., is strong). It is a mental and sensitive dialectic that I must face with facts and concrete activities that interrupt the tendency to want to solve the problem intellectually, because in fact this is another way of waiting, of looking for external facts to change.
This has become too long a commentary! Hope it helps
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Always does. Thank you @Miguel
I’m not being a “good actualist” right now, but I’m getting to know the rest of you at the same time. It’s very nice having experiences to the names and faces.
I realized over family dinner tonight that I had weaponized my contrarianism in order to never have to engage with life and actually do something. The fog I’d experienced over the past couple of weeks has lifted, at least for tonight. Finally tired.
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A few days ago there was some nuclear scare, with images of some trigger-happy madman ready to blow the world up. I was reminded of a film I saw years ago: “Fail Safe”.
I just watched it again (the 2000 remake, with George Clooney 
)
There is no shortage of supporting characters in the film who would, on various identity-related grounds, get the world to end. But the final decision-makers being rational actors (which is quite the rare occurrence in modern films), and as such ready to follow game-theoretical optimal scenarios, provide the best possible outcome (or the least catastrophic), even though at great cost.
Just an illustration… that it appears to me that the other party’s rationality has to be assumed, if decisions are to be made which provide the best possible outcome in situations of uncertainty.
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