LastThursday

Planning. It's a word that both wants me to roll my eyes and fills me with anxiety. As a consequence I try to do it very little if I can. As alluded to in my earlier posts about directions of perspective (past, present, future, inward, outward), I'm very much inward and past/present. I have to actively work against my natural tendencies to dwell on the past and myself, i.e. looking to the future and planning (outward perspective) is unnatural for me. The mix of anxieties I have about planning, is centred around commitment and communication. Making a plan requires a certain amount of commitment, carrying it out requires a larger amount of commitment, and nearly always other people. The other people aspect is where I come unstuck. I have a natural aversion to asking for help, asking for stuff to be done or just generally asking. I know this to be a deep seated anxiety with me, and has taken a huge amount of work to even get to a reasonable place with "asking". It's still a work in progress (it's one of the things I absolutely hate about myself). I'm sure it's rooted in my past and character... hang on, here I go off on past and inward... back on track now... Also, other people can be a pain in the posterior, in terms of just plain being unhelpful when being asked questions (and my personal discomfort which goes along with that) or when trying to get them to do things in a timely manner. Managing people is definitely something I try to avoid like the plague. However. I am very good at communicating (look at the evidence...), so some of that stigma I used to feel about looking dumb in front of other people when I was younger, has largely evaporated, and I'm relieved. But there's still a residual of that in interactions. I also used to be a lot worse at thinking on my feet. I'm a kind of mull things over kind of guy, especially if it's in an area I don't have a perfect understanding of; being asked to make instant decisions I find paralysing. I have improved on this also, through sheer weight of practice. Anyway, so much for people. When it comes to simpler types of planning, the type that doesn't involve people or just one other person perhaps (and I know them well), I'm a lot more comfortable with. If can do everything online without having to interact with people at all then woo hoo! The 21st century was made for people like me. So I actually find mentally planning activities quite easy: it's so much like programming, step by step, B follows A. I find myself being extremely good at my time planning and being punctual to events. So there is a bit of me that sort of enjoys planning stuff for myself, I can commit to that sort of planning quite easily. But if I start to need to write stuff down and use a calendar then forget it! I'm allergic to calendars and schedules. I'd rather wing it and keep it all in my head (yes I'm a sadist, but it's good practice for the memory). As you can imagine I'm shit at remembering birthdays. Execution of a plan can be problematic. Any lengthy plan that isn't a one-shot process (happens in one block of time), can go off the rails. This is for several reasons, but mostly I get bored and and distracted very easily. For example at work stuff can take weeks or months to complete. I find it a real grind to constantly work against my tendencies. The only half-solution I've find is to work on several different projects at once to stop the boredom. Distraction is a lot harder to fix. The only two things that have any effect is self-hypnosis and using the Pomodoro method (30 minute chunks of work) and lots of music. Maybe the 21st century wasn't made for me (Internet I'm looking at your distracting ways). I don't have proper solutions to either my boredom or distraction (supposing they are actual real problems, after all, the nature of my work imposes certain ways of working on me so perhaps the problem lies there, in a word the problems are: systemic). I suggested on a post on the forum today for someone to effectively make a 25 year plan so they can get a handle of how much luxury of time they have to fulfill their dreams (punctuation?). Of course I'm a total hypochrite and I apologise, but it's still good advice. Anyone is allowed to give good advice right? In fact; one of the things that helps to keep me on track and give my mind something to latch on to is precisely what I don't do: write stuff down in a calendar. I absolutely detest being nagged to do something - a friend of mine does it incessantly and I ignore him mostly. But it's a lot harder to ignore your slightly younger self nagging your slightly older self, I ignore myself at my own peril. I think I don't do will with that guilt and so avoid calendars altogether. What strange beings we are! Another problem I have with more complex planning is research. All reasonably complex plans needs a bit of time to research stuff, because generally you have holes in your knowledge. Either you fill in your knowledge by asking other people (big red cross) or you go to the internet (better). I generally don't like the scanning type of research. Say I want plan a cheap journey to France for a holiday. My idea of hell would be to scour the cheap flights for hours looking for that one bargain. Just, no. However, I'm happy to read about spin in quantum particles for hours on end. One is mindless scanning, the other active reading. It seems to me that there are certain types of people who seem to love just scanning for hours on end. Why? What is wrong with them? All this comes down to one thing: I don't enjoy being coralled into something long term, especially if it requires unwanted exertion and/or is something I find uninteresting. Call me a commitmentphobe. My lack of planning desire is to my detriment though and I'm feeling it intensely. Ah well.

This was the natural order. Although, I would argue that change (in society) is happening ever more rapidly mostly because of technology. And the Elon Musks of the world are not that young.

@UDT just take the bull by the horns. Do the maths. Say you want everything done by age 50. That's (50-25)*365.25 = 9131.25 days. What can you do with that many days? You could break out a spreadsheet, with each day on each row, and then start planning your future. Look at the spreadsheet once a month and update it, mark off your achievements as you go. Then stop worrying about how much time you have left.

Your knowledge should be like a mountain range, wide and impressive with some high peaks. The high peaks are there because you were interested in climbing them. To come back down to earth. It's useful to get a basic grounding in many different areas of knowledge. This allows you to get a more informed feel for what interests you so you can look into certain areas in more depth. Also you start noticing connections between different areas such as music and mathematics, biology and spirituality, art and chemistry and so on. Those connections themselves are interesting for their own sakes. Behind it all is just plain curiosity about how the world works.

Consciousness is all contrast, left is not right, blue is not red, high pitch is not low pitch. Consciousness is all similarity too, green is like red, low pitch is like high pitch, right is like left. The contrasts only sit within the things being contrasted, the contrasts themselves have no existence of their own. It's very tempting to say consciousness is only the infinite interplay between difference and sameness - in ever increasing complexity. In fact I will: "Consciousness is just the infinite interplay between difference and sameness." Sameness is a kind of echo of the non-dual nature of consciousness, difference is its creative spirit or prediliction to evolution. Consciousness evolves because it is groundless, contrasts are a pointer to its absolute relativity: it defines itself with reference to itself.

Not looking after your health in your earlier years. Not keeping fit and eating healthily in your later years. Not keeping an eye on your health to catch things early. Doing things that will affect your prospects of getting work or getting finance: convictions, prison time, upsetting influencial people. Getting into debt by living beyond your means.

How do you stop yourself from becoming the centre of the universe? There's always a tug-of-war between the collective and the individual. We want to both belong, and to be recognised for our uniqueness. This two-faceted reality expresses itself in many ways. At its base it's really down to aspect. If you are the collective then it would seem the individual is insignificant and perhaps powerless. If you are the individual then the collective is less important and brainwashed and restricted. Which is right? One model for existence is to invert the big bang idea and make you ground zero. It goes like this: here I am, what has to be true for me to be here? Then a wave of inference crystalises out from the fact of your existence. Out of this wave of inference the whole universe is created. You are the big bang, but it isn't matter, time and space that is created but subjective experience. This squares up with our tendency to solipsism, and perhaps narcisism, we have the intense sensation that we are at the centre of our universe. Right at the heart of that universe is the sensation that we are invisibly observing everything unfold before us, and all perhaps just for our amusement. That idea of observation is our unravelling however. That observation is happening at all presupposes that there is the universe and then an observer separate from it. That idea is individualism at its core, that we are separate from everything else and somehow special and privileged. What is the observer exactly? Since it is not part of the universe, it has none of its qualities: no mass, no time, no space. It hangs in its own platonic realm. What happens when the universe is removed, what is being observed then? This is actually a non-question. It seems like one needs the other, a universe without an observer is not a universe at all. An observer without a universe is not an observer in any sense. What is more productive is to fuse the universe and observer together into a universe/observer. In fact the two are one thing, one needing the other, like the two faces of a coin. But now since the observer doesn't exist independently of the universe, there is no longer a ground zero and there is no special place removed from the universe. Equally with the collective/individualist dichotomy. Neither are true, it is one entity with aspects of both depending on how you divide things up. Even individuals must bow to the collective (even if just to survive) and the collective is nothing without individuals (it needs variety and originality to survive).

When I said the aliens didn't land again in my last post. I did kind of slap my head. Who could forget Portishead? (me obviously) Arguably they started the whole trip hop genre. This sounded really different from everything else in the 90's. But somehow it had less of a long-term impact than synth music in general did. I'd say it still stands the test of time for originality in any case.

Maybe, but @Nahm says the same: My justification for not believing the "bottled-up" theory doesn't come from nowhere. But it's too long for me go into without derailing the post. Although I'm not trying to be dismissive of people's problems: Same.

Pretty much I'd say. Awareness is nine tenths of the law so to speak, that's the way you cope effectively with any problem (of any size) in the long run. You've got your head screwed on so any neurotic impulses you may have now will just a be blip for your future self I've never been a fan of the container-full-of-stuff-needing-to-get-out idea. We're nothing like that. This should be dropped for a more I-am-me-expressing-myself-moment-by-moment idea. It's closer to the truth. Identifying with yourself in the moment is less prone to being neurotic. You don't get stuck on being this or being that so much. Anyway that's my prognosis ?

It's longer than a Leo video, yes!

One aspect I like about music is that it allows you to time travel. You can sort of get yourself back into an earlier version of yourself. It doesn't even have to be music you actually listened to, just the musical genre can be enough: This is modern stuff, but in a very early 80's style, which was very prevalent here in the UK, mostly from about 1979 to 1983. When I first heard this type of music in 1979: it was like aliens had landed and taken over music. I was hooked even at the age of six or seven and I've liked electronic music ever since. It is very much a part of me. Of course all pop music is electronic nowadays, it's just morphed itself and become so sophisticated it just seems so natural and normal. I'm still waiting for the aliens to land again though!

I wouldn't say that the doomer spirals are latent within you. It's just that when you give them energy and attention they are self sustaining. Some problems are just too big for any one of us to tackle, so there isn't a clear reaction to what we should be doing about climate change, capitalism or the pandemic. We can only do our small bit - within our capabilities - and that should be good enough. There's only so much bandwidth we have allotted with our attention, so if the big things concern you then increase your future leverage by focusing on other areas of your life first. Personally living in the UK I'm terrified of the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation), but there's personally not much I can do about it, so I think about other things!

No problem. I'm not accusing you of being racist at all. Apologies if you took it that way. My intention was just to give an example of where being prescriptive with word usage, is actually for the benefit of all; everyone agrees not to use racist language.

I know. But you have to assume that @Jennjenn is referring to strangers, she's talking about women in general - and so am I. Definitely context has to be taken into account, personally I'm not against using "girl" in the right situations.

I think you completely misunderstand how words work. Using language is part of culture not separate from it. All nouns and verbs have "weight" to them. To say it's simple or neutral is a misunderstanding. Well apologised. I'm sure your need to not insult or attack is happening "inside you" and inner work is needed? This is an overreaction. Language is flexible, we can all change the way we speak without it causing us much pain and in the process improve the lives of others: I'm sure you don't use racist language in every day life? I'm sure you don't see not being able to use racist language an imposition?

So it's not neutral? Using girl implies some amount of familiarity or closeness - that is one of its connotations. I would argue that using woman is more neutral because it doesn't imply closeness, it has less baggage. When you are referring to strangers, implied closeness should be seen as weird.

@Preety_India fair enough you're entitled to what you feel. But I'm basically arguing from the same position as you: Using the word "girl" deeply impacts the way we view women (negatively), that's my entire argument.

It's far from simple. It's not about you. It's not. I'm sure @Jennjenn is an intelligent woman who knows her own mind. Stop gaslighting and insulting her. That's your prerogative and I would respect that.

Not really. Words are powerful. They shape our perceptions. The word "woman" means something different from the word "girl". There's differences in connotations of maturity, age, formality, familiarity, slang, achievement and so on. Both have their contexts and uses. Use the most appropriate word in the context. But, the most neutral term to use for an adult female is "woman" - especially ones you are not familiar with. Using the word "girl" can give the impression that a woman is immature (and by implication not to be taken seriously or needs protection or mollycoddling or doesn't know her own mind); that you believe her to be more familiar than she actually is or wants to be with you; (as a man) that you have or believe you have some sort of dominance relationship with a woman. None of these senses are empowering for women. I suspect the discomfort or reluctance to use the word woman, or denial that there's even a problem, is ultimately all to do with how women are perceived. If the two words were really interchangeable, then why would @Jennjenn even have bothered posting?

Here in the UK "mate" is nearly gaining gender neutrality. I've heard "dude" used with women here, although more so between women. "Thanks Sista" maybe, but only between women also. "Fam" is becoming popular with either sex, but has more of an urban feel. I'm out. Then there's a load if you're very familiar with them: love, darling, chick, lover, princess, gorgeous, and so on.

@At awe no man. Context. Context. Context. The word "man" or "woman" is only ever used third person. You don't go up to a person you don't know and say "Hey woman! My name's LastThursday, what's yours?" or even worse "Hey girl! My name's LastThursday, what's yours?" (my stomach's churning already). And in a group situation you should already have enough information to know whether woman or girl, man or boy is acceptable. Nothing wrong with saying "Hey boys let's go out on the town and smash it.", because you know each other and it's ok. Context. If in doubt use man or woman.

It's not complicated. In a group of strangers, the default word when describing females should be: women. If a woman wants to be called a girl or anything else, then she should say so. Otherwise, refer to her as a woman. If you know she's legally a child, then call her a girl. Exactly the same logic applies to men and boys. In the UK you are a 17 year old girl and an 18 year old woman. Simple.

I'm not Leo. I have my own open mind. He may or may not be right. I think you'll find many open minded people here, using their own brain. Don't reject them. Yes. Are you not part of this forum? I hope you're not a sheep too that would be a shame.

Because what s/he says has been said before. And you already understand what is being said and reject it. But the rejection comes from an informed point of view - because you (or collectively) have already open mindedly contemplated it. It isn't blind rejection.