Not exactly what I had in mind, Elon 
Oh, Elon. And when the old man wipes the floor with you, what will be the response from Ukrainians? “Well, fair is fair. Which concentration camp do we report to?” 
I am all for it Elon. Hopefully both get knocked out, but especially Elon. Hmm, maybe just Elon.
The guy is a train wreck waiting to happen.
Oh, my.
My money is on Putin’s bear.
Instinctual Individualism™. @emp invented this term the other day.
It’s an amazing thing when Putin can be called all manner of things, whilst otherwise being pretty good for a dictator, whilst Elon is universally praised, but is nothing but a rich spoilt brat who lied about everything he ever “achieved”.
And millions will laugh at his meme.
The majority is always wrong.
Today’s realization; trying to stay alive sucks. The survival instinct sucks and makes things worse. I’d been able to act much more rationally had I not been driven in circles.
Anyway, having a calm night tonight with this realization after a couple of days of dread.
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Wow two things I read today stood out
1- a bunch of planes flown by Russian airlines are owned by foreign companies. $10 billion worth. These would all be repossessed if the lease isn’t paid. It looks like the Kremlin is allowing Russian airlines to fly them even if the lease isn’t paid, and they won’t be flown abroad so they can’t be repossessed… so they are basically stealing the planes lol (Putin allows Russian airlines to fly $10 billion worth of foreign-owned planes)
2- kremlin signed executive order that their foreign debts can be paid in rubles using the Russian central bank’s official exchange rate, and this will consider the debt paid … so they can basically pay back whatever they want and claim it’s done. (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68015)
I guess not surprising there will be some response to all the sanctions. Total shitshow …
@claudiu I think it’s just the start of unintended consequences to come. It’s weird to just see events unfold like this and not be able to do anything.
It’s probably easier for others who are further along the AF path, but I’ve had to drop and deconstruct a heck of a lot of myself and my beliefs in very short time in order to stay somewhat peaceful. I haven’t managed to crack my fear of death or, to be honest, the fear of the even worse prospect of a slow, drawn-out degeneration of matters. I’ve had to drop all news for now as it tends to be all what I expected and all “bad”.
Currently still trying to externalize and “tribalize” a lot of what I should probably file under the human condition instead. It’s disconcerting to see it laid out so bare at the moment. Previously I’ve always been able to escape it and into perceived safety.
Apart from the raw survival instinct, I’ve had a lot of issues dealing with my own exceptionalism (as in, I’ve survived everything else up until now so ofc I’ll survive this too. Or: everything bad will happen to me and everyone else will be somewhat spared). Also, strangely, a bitterness about everyone who lives their lives better and/or in places I’ve deemed strategically “better” once this whole thing escalates. So, technically, I’m pissed at y’all because of my own (bad) choices. And I’m royally pissed at humanity at large. I can see why a lot of people are in a weird extinction spiral right now - without seeing a way out by pure intent it’s easy to consider humanity a massive failure.
I’m considering dropping everything for a couple of days to enjoy whatever peace is left before all hell breaks loose. I should be able to do this while running my life normally as well, but at the moment this induces a lot of cognitive dissonance.
It’s funny how nothing really matters once you actually put things in perspective. I’ve been trying to figure out what I really want and all that pops up is this hard center yelling “survive!”. But for what? And why? Why is my individual survival so darned important? When I relax I see that it isn’t important that I survive over anyone else. It’s weirdly comforting to know that death is always there.
Anyway, not painting a particularly charming picture of myself but I’d rather confront what’s there than to keep pulling the wool over my own eyes. It’s as if I’ve been living on two parallel channels my whole life, who I think I am and who I actually am. No matter if I’m exaggerating or not, the current situation has made it very clear that whatever was overlaid was pretty insubstantial when the rubber met the road.
Also apologies for the stream of thought. Lots of things to unpack.
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I recognize that distress.
The animalistic distress is not presently coursing through me, but when it was, it was doing so because it seemed (on its own) to sense impending catastrophe and annihilation. Mercifully, circumstances eventuated where the body no longer perceived imminent danger whereupon the distress subsided accordingly. For the duration of its possession over my body, it was clear that fighting or running was pointless. It could at best be endured. Resistance was futile, anyway. No movement internally or externally could avoid it. Wherever I moved, it was there. No escape. When it mercifully dissipated, there was relief, naturally. All that was left was a deep impression that I am nothing compared to whatever that was. Unfortunately, I sense this “distress” has unfinished business with me. It lingers in the peripheral, at the fringes, waiting. There is a sense that it will return full-force when least expected, at the worst possible time – when I am least ready for it – to finish off what it started.
My prayer now is, for when it returns, that my eyes will light up; that I will see the hilarity in its barbarity, and that I will have a last laugh at its silly face. I pray that I will welcome its blind, relentless, and inevitable destruction to my body and mind.
You are there right now. Others are as well. I am not, for now. That’s all.
This conversation reminded me again about this quote posted by @henryyyyyyyyyy in the quotes thread recently:
• [Richard]: A deep feeling of dread, the abject intuition of impending doom, is fraught with foreboding, be it a grim, dire, or awful presage, and this intensely apprehensive trepidation is symptomatic of the existential angst (the anguish of the essential insecurity of being a contingent ‘being’) which underpins all suffering.
As such an occasion of profound dread is an opportune moment to plumb the depths of ‘being’ itself (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being) rather than avoidance through realisation of the portentous event as all manner of phantasmagoria can be manifested by such evasion.
With pure intent one can enable a movement into the existential angst, rather than despairingly grasping at doomsday straws, which movement facilitates the bright light of awareness being shone into the innermost recesses of ‘my’ presence … which is ‘presence’ itself.
I’m pondering if I’ve actually let my internal horror stories fuel being. All I’ve done these past three weeks is reinforce myself. I’m thinking this is actually what this quote is aiming at. Or am I reading it wrong? I’ve been trying to navigate the survival instinct for quite a while now and I’m tired to the bone.
Like you @rick I’d like to face this with some kind of dignity. Or at least not cowering.
Fuel, perhaps, but not ignition. I remember taking notice that the “apprehensive trepidation” and “abject intuition of impending doom,” as Richard so well describes it, was initiated by something pre-cognition, something prior to my narratives and imaginings. It was more that this “profound dread” was fueling the “internal horror stories” and not the other way around. Of course, the internal horror stories create a vicious feedback loop that does fuel whatever it is that is already ignited and burning.
The source of the ignition is something I recognized as pre-conscious, purely animal-instinctive, and in that sense, bodily. Like how a flock of wild birds will get an instinctive sense of an incoming storm and will fly away. Or how deer in the forest will be struck with a sense of danger close by. For us, the thinking-based narratives become active, rumination sets in, perhaps as an evolved mechanism to force us to analyze the situation until a resolution (an escape) is found.
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I sympathize with the exhaustion you must be experiencing from this unending distress. Perhaps – if you get desperate enough – see if you can dedicate time to do nothing but sit with it, in whatever way it is manifesting (it may be just buzzing or at fever pitch), without any distractions. Just let it have its way with you, so to speak, until it either wears itself out or it wears you out completely (and puts you to sleep or sends you in another direction entirely).
You may have to make repeated attempts.
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Yes. Reading @emp regarding fuelling, I was thinking along the lines of expressing or repressing, because when we experience strong instinctive fear repeatedly, observing it that way is very important. For example, to be able to experience/observe who vs. what feels threatened and why; who vs. what wants to survive, why and for what.
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Aye , me at the core of my being is these instinctual passions themselves. Who I feel and who I think myself to be is all built on top of this core. We think we choose how our identity is structured, what beliefs we follow etc, and in times of normality we do in a sense… but largely we are shaped by our circumstances - the genes we we born with and the events that shaped our lives. When the deep instinctual passions that ‘I’ ultimately am are triggered , the ‘I’ I only feel or think myself to be is easily wiped away in their throes.
I experienced this with grief last year when my mother passed away. Nothing I could do but go into it , with a clear eye and a clear mind , and allow myself to fully feel it.
Of course it must be said that this animalistic distress is not an external force. It is not something that happens to me / to us. Rather, it is who I am at the core of my being. I am this animalistic distress. It is not something other than ‘me’.
We can poetically say that it wipes me away , as I did in the first paragraph, but it’s more accurate to say that who I feel and who I think myself to be are just parts of ‘me’, and the animalistic distress is another part of ‘me’. Ultimately it is ‘me’.
And yet it’s not inevitable. If it were an external force it would be - something terrible that happens , like a tiger attack , that we can do nothing about.
Yet as it’s ultimately up to ‘me’ to choose how to experience being alive … and the PCE shows that all of ‘me’ (including this animalistic distress) can vanish in the blink of an eye … then this reveals that I am not helpless , I am not trapped (as in a cage), but rather ‘stuck’ (as in not sure how to proceed but without something external binding me).
It feels very real, very impossible to do anything about … but that is not a fact. We can do something about it.
Of course if one fervently believes this animalistic distress is actual , of equal existential status to the birds and the trees etc., then that will hinder such efforts 
.
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Well, the cynic in me would recommend existential distress to anyone with a sleeping problem. It’ll make you sleep at least 12 hours daily.
Currently I’ve shuttled myself into an alternate reality where I don’t have to think about it, which comes with its own set of problems. I’m trying to use the weirdness thread to shake myself loose, but I think I’d need hard psychedelics by now, heh.
I’ve been reminiscing a bit about how I sort of “lost” my connection to the weird over the years. I had no problem swimming in psychic phenomena when I was younger, but currently it all feels vitrified. Not sure what bearing this has on anything but I’m doing my best (hardest?) to get into a better spot. Current search terms, “how to break reality” and “how to save the world”. Maybe the trick is just to sit still. Fuck this turn of events sideways with a spiked broomstick, and fuck me for being so tardy with everything in my life.
Ps. Sorry about the early morning frustration. I keep hearing @geoffrey in my head going “what’s happening man!” while laughing at me. It’s funny and sad at the same time.
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Following the war news more or less continually since the beginning of March I’ve seen numerous narratives and predictions arise, as well as arguments from both sides about ‘what is going on’ and ‘what should happen’ and what things are ‘insane,’ ‘reprehensible,’ etc.
Clear that no one really knows what’s going on, or what will happen next, including various heads of state and intelligence agencies.
All pushing very hard for their version of things and their version of how it should go, played out and predicted in their minds - and in their minds, ‘obvious’
And it’s increasingly clear how the emotional-imaginative self creates such a situation… each individual’s self dictating the view, the stakes, the priorities, and the ‘correct actions.’
Somehow it always seems to break into two evenly-matched polarized positions… perhaps because a deadlock is the most sustainable/stable/lasting position. Any inequality, and the weaker side is quickly overwhelmed and wiped from existence.
I’ve justified following all this closely because it felt ‘important,’ but I’m increasingly seeing that most of what I’m following is a dream, not very related to whatever events are happening on the ground.
Strange happenings.
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Something occurred to me regarding the Russian army. I think that it’s possible they suffer from a similar problem that the Chinese PLA does; loyalty is promoted over competence.
I was watching a video which confirms a extensive talk previously watched about the state of the Chinese PLA. Basically, support for the Party is everything , which means wide spread systematic corruption is the majority of what is happening everyday in the PLA. Ranks are bought and sold. Bribing is like breathing, hoarding wealth meant for training and weapons etc. Basically, the army is a ponzie scheme.
The Russian army seems to be in the same state of affairs. Those at the bottom are national service conscripts, the training in military joint operations non-existent, the equipment is all poorly maintained and the money went to the pockets of the “loyal” and not to the tyres.
As Jon pointed out, i had “daddy issues” over this war. I wanted there to be someone in control. Some master plan, cleverly calculated to bring a swift end to the conflict.
What i am seeing is the hubris of an old man and his cronies throwing young men and civilians into the meat crusher of a absurd fraternicide, when it was clearly best to fight this the old fashioned way; poison, propaganda and bribes.
Atleast when the ruling classes are being clandestine and robbing the treasury and resources through the time honoured methods of brown paper bags, sex tape scandals, and inflationary debt, the rest of us can live without war.