LastThursday

Why not go detective and keep a simple diary of when and where the negative feelings occur? Just keep it to a bare minium: time, date, location, what the feeling was. Maybe some sort of note taking phone app would be useful. Do it for several weeks, maybe a month. Then see what turns up?

Without a doubt smoking. But guess which one I've quit? Maybe I'm just very deluded. Maybe I should get a partner and have kids, but that's waaay higher investment that Porn***. Being an older bloke, my hormone levels are way lower, so not so much pressure build up anyway, my gratification is manageable, but it's still a low consciousness activity that I should definitely quit.

This is just the cycle I mentioned above. You are fooled, because you think the emotion comes first and then the thoughts after, because it all happens very suddenly. But it's always thought and bodily sensations first, emotions next. You can still break the cycle. The other thing to notice, is that emotions also come and go, just like thoughts. They may last longer, but they're never permanent (they just seem that way). What happens in practice, is that emotions keep being triggered over and over again by thoughts. Is a depressed person really depressed 24/7? No, they're just depressed over and over again many times a day, otherwise how do you explain when they have a 'good' day? In a way, an emotion is itself just another thought. What's the difference between anger and excitement? Both produce adrenaline in your body, your body may tremble, and you feel hot and your muscles tense - what's the difference between the two? It's all just context and how you label it. What's the best thing to do with emotions? Pay attention, take action if needed, otherwise just let them subside and go away. Break the cycle.

Not give up? Just let the feedback sink in over the coming days and weeks, that's all. Don't overthink it at this point. Examining yourself and getting to know yourself, the good and even the shitty parts is always painful and can be brutal (I know). The ego will want to push back and make you feel like shit or weird, so you stop doing it. Don't stop. But do take it easy on yourself, just a bit at a time, not too much.

Naturally. Anything you can say for a man, you can say for a woman and vice-versa. But pragmatically most of us live in a gender biased society - males and females are 'programmed' or 'indoctrinated' to fit different moulds from a very young age. Don't underestimate the power of that programming, it's not so easy to escape with just words. Since the bias is there already, the idea of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' can be generalised into archetypes - which is really what @Shin is referring to. If his post read 'What being the archetype of masculinity means' then that would be closer to his gist. It doesn't mean all men should be like that, just that if you aspire to be archetypically masculine, then follow those rules.

@Mikael89 a man follows the rules when he needs to, and breaks rules when he needs to - without regret or fear of judgement from others. @Shin superb post.

@Harikrishnan there is a belief that we are like vessels full of past emotions and fears and anxieties. And if we dip into the vessel that we can somehow 'fix' our problems or have some form of relief or resolution. This belief is not useful. Psychiatrists have it wrong. A more useful belief is to know that thoughts and bodily sensations arise of their own accord. We then out of habit, 'attach' an emotion to that thought or bodily sensation and call it something like 'anxiety'. The thoughts and bodily sensations will also disappear of their own accord - and this is crucial - if we let them. Sometimes the emotion we attach to a thought, makes the thought keep coming back, because we have given it importance. And a vicious cycle is set up. To break the cycle, we need to get out of the habit of 'attaching' emotions to thoughts. You have to do this consciously and very deliberately and trust that the thought or sensation will go of it's own accord. At first it will seem extremely difficult not to react out of habit. But it can be done. Here's an example: I have given up smoking many times. I have clearly observed the cycle when trying to give up. I would be minding my own business, when a thought to have a cigarette suddenly appeared. This 'caused' me to have an emotional reaction, something like a mix between anxiety and hunger in terms of intensity. This emotion kept the thought alive, which in turn kept the emotion alive, until I succumbed to a smoke. To break the cycle I had to realise that the thought would naturally go away if I paid no attention to it. In other words I made the thought less important over time, and eventually my emotional reaction would not get triggered - the cycle was broken. See, this is much better than dipping into stories of my childhood and why I took up smoking in the first place and talking and thinking about it endlessly with no resolution! That didn't work.

You're are right of course I don't need theories to bring me into existence, my beingness is 'evident', with or without thought. But, my contemplation of being IS a thought. And if being exists it surely must be contemplating itself, otherwise it wouldn't know it existed. Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud. I'll carry on down the path... What is the misconception BTW?

And so they were, and yet here I am. Are all distinctions in thought? Or are all thoughts distinctions? Is being distinct in itself or is it formless?

@winterknight do you think (eherm) that being is everything else that is NOT thought? Or does being include thought? Or does thought include being?

Exactly that. We don't have a past, or memories of the past, we just have memories. Can the memories be trusted? If they can, what do they represent exactly?

Think to yourself: how lucky I am for doing this now instead of next year.

Like beauty, being offended is in the eye of the beholder. It also works both ways, if you want to offend others then be prepared to be offended yourself; after all maybe they're just being honest?

@flowboy you're most welcome. Thanks for the approval too! Give me more, more, more....!

@flowboy maybe a different way to look at it (yes that's my contrary nature), is not to judge your behaviours as either good or bad as such. Instead what you should aim for is to have more flexibility in how you express yourself. That means in practice having a larger range of behaviours to choose from. When you have a larger range of options, then naturally the less effective behaviours will fall away. For example: Say you've had a really good insight you want to share with others. You might perhaps go to the nearest person and do a 'brain dump' in the hope of getting approval or whatever, to validate your idea. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. But what other options do you have? Here are some ideas: Blog/podcast about your insight. Find the right people to tell your insight to - i.e. ones who will find it interesting from the outset. Let the insight stew, in the hope of further insight. Examine the insight and see whether it's worth telling - not all insights are good insights. Only give out a small part of the insight, to see how other people react. And so on... The idea here is to expand as much as possible how you react and behave in different situations. Experimentation and imagination is key. Over time, the more effective strategies will stick.

I've just read 'The Mind Is Flat'. Here's a vid for further investigation: The guy's an out and out materialist, BUT, I think he has some startling ideas that may make you think differently about mind. Anyway, tell me your thoughts. If you want the short version: you have no subconcious processing.

No. The guy is saying that the subconcious doesn't exist full stop. All you have is the concious mind, and past memories that direct the consciousness, and nothing else. All the conscious experiences you have are created on the fly.

@Aakash rambling is good

Interesting. How do I go about trusting what you say, if you yourself agree that you are deluded? How can I recognise that I'm deluded also? Where is this "past" you speak of? Does it exist? If so, what is it?

You don't have a choice. Even a hermit is part of society and so are you. You will have to expend effort just to "stay afloat" in society. Wouldn't you say it's more beneficial to use your intelligence and efforts in a direction that benefits both you and your society? Shouldn't the love you get from society also be given back to society?

I definitely follow. So my consciousness is the autopoietic structure? There are a lot of "yous" in your reply, can you help me by telling me what you mean by each different usage of the word "you" and "self" etc.?

Is being better or best one dimensional? What does being better mean to you? What does average mean anyway? Is it average height or weight or intellect or what? Or do really mean that you want to be part of the group and to feel you belong somewhere?

@Norbert Lennartz who is doing the observing? Is the light on the screen observing itself? What is the screen actually? Why is the structure preserving itself? Do we care about the structure itself or just the manifestation of the structure? Sorry, I have more questions than answers today

@now is forever if you have nothing interesting to say, then say nothing.

Some nice theories there. What about actual direct experience?