LastThursday

Integrity is not a straitjacket, it is a guiding principle. Sometimes the bigger picture is more important to consider.

Depends at which level you talking. If you're talking language then "gravity" is just a concept/word overlayed onto experience. My pet pseudo-scientific theory, is that masses break the symmetry of the universe. This causes acceleration in other masses by skewing the probabilities of their positions over time (probably at a quantum level), due to them wanting to decrease the asymmetry. Two masses in one place have more symmetry than two masses in two different places. But what do I know?

On being nerdy. I introduced my friends to the card game Big Two. I played it extensively in my university years, which is now forever ago. Somehow I always manage to just about remember the rules of play and explain it to others. I'm not going to explain it here though. It was taught to me by my two flatmates with a Hong Kong extraction who both studied psychology and despite cultural similarities couldn't have been more different from each other: one a short cigarette smoking leather jacket wearing graphic novel loving dude, the other a tall buffed clean living classical music lover who turned out to be gay in the end. We made an odd trio, I not having any of their affectations. Except the leather jacket. And smoking. And classical music... hang on a minute. Anyway. So my two current friends who I showed the game to recently on holiday, have also become hooked on it. What makes it so appealing is the good mix of luck and strategy needed to get your cards out. Obviously, I like to win. All three of us are programmers (technically developers, but I always think that the average bod would take that to mean real estate), so I took it upon myself to work out the probabilities of getting or being beaten by the various poker hands involved. The rank of poker hands is purely determined by their probability, where less probable hands have a higher rank, simple. So I wrote a quick bit of code to deal a million rounds, and simply count the probabilities involved. Strangely, or perhaps not so, one of the other friends decided to do the same. We used slightly different techniques to scan for the poker hands, but came up with the same answers. It turns out that being dealt flushes is more common than straights, which is flipped from their ranks: so always play a flush if you can. That is what I love about programming in general, you can answer real world problems (!) with it with relative ease. In no other discipline can you do this. In fact all the other disciplines rely on computers to do the answering, such as medicine, logistics, mailing your pay cheque, or DNA analysis of murderers. It is so diffused into modern life, that it's nearly invisible and definitely taken for granted. I think I'm a nerd just simply out of intense curiosity about everything. If something hooks my imagination enough, I go down the rabbit hole of exploration around that topic - maybe it's a slightly autistic trait I have, and I'm only saying that because sometimes I just cannot let go of a thing until I know the answers or the background, although I do like to work things out for myself if I can. I find a lot of people around me just don't have that intensity of wanting to know, they seem to be able to live just as well without it. Obviously at (high) school this nerdy intensity wasn't well received and I was an easy target. Certainly when I was growing up being smart was seen as easy target for derision and bullying, mostly by less smart idiots. The irony was never lost on me, school supposedly being a place of learning, not a camp for breeding psychopaths. But as soon as I went into the world of work, the tables were turned, I suspect I've been one of the more succesful ones, my suspicion being backed up by having all those ex-school people on my Facebook. God I hope nobody ever reads this from Facebook - actually I have more chance of being struck by a meteorite than that happening. Nerdiness should be applauded and encouraged in all realms, especially at school. Although, I have seen the shift in the past few decades and probably due to the internet there's a kind of cool nerdiness culture nowadays. Some of us are even reasonably good socially. Cool. There's another thought to explore: what does it mean to be cool?

That only improves your chances of being right. Anything not happening right now in front of your eyes is an assumption.

God is an American.

No government is doing enough to mitigate climate change. Raising the awareness of anything to do with curbing CO2 emissions is critical. Protesting like this is effective because it gets media attention and eyes on the issues, but how long can it be kept up? If it goes on for too long then it will have negative impact, because after all they're annoying the general public and not the government - who should actually be the target - it's indirectly effective at best.

Some art can be analytical. Take Bach for example, his music is very technical and mathematical to a degree, yet it's still high art. You can have your cake and eat it. Personally I don't think you can be too independent. The reality is that even very independent people are dependent, they just refuse to acknowledge it (i.e. who feeds you and puts a roof over your head?). You can however enter into things that are overwhelming (mostly down to inexperience) and no amount of independence will help with that, so at that point you should definitely acknowledge that you are dependent and get help. A lot of frustration, depression and anxiety, is caused by not getting help from others when it's needed - and getting help should be more normalised.

@soos_mite_ah the locus of control idea is interesting, as you say it's an attachment style or bias, but ultimately it's still you making the judgement. You may blame external circumstances when things go wrong, but it's still you doing the blaming for example. Tangentially, I see it's like difference between the active and passive voice in grammar, the difference between @soos_mite_ah gave @LastThursday the cheese, and @LastThursday received the cheese from @soos_mite_ah. There's always a balance to be struck between the two polarities I reckon, that's the place to be. But sometimes it's both, it seems you affect and control your environment, but it affects and controls you in return, maybe both happen at the same time. Really you are part of the continuum with your environment, you are your environment. Anyway, that's just my musings. I believe with some marginalised communities they band together tightly because that way they can control some of the externalities, say culture and ways of living or religion. So it gives space for those that have an external locus of control to exercise that bias. Of course that banding together can be seen as a threat to or unwillingness to assimilate with mainstream society, as if mainstream society were a static uniform thing. So as a group a marginalised community is often left to fend for itself by the powerful, and as a whole must have an internal locus of control, and maybe you feel that or embody that more keenly than most as a member of a marginalised community? I certainly have an internal locus of control myself (largely) and I think it has come from exactly what you talk about, having been marginalised when I was younger, in my case by having a foot in two identities and cultures: Spanish and British, and having to help myself and prove myself to others that I belong. Saying that my sister has a very external locus of control, so I'm not sure it holds 100%! Anyway.

I have a romantic notion of being a hero. I'm not sure if it's a male desire rooted in biology or if it's just me. Certainly there's a lot of it about in the cinema, mostly of the superhero variety, so it might not be just me - it's not something us men talk about openly. It's all about facing adversity and stepping up and taking decisive action. It's about being a leader and a protector. For me anyway the romantic notion is about being tested and coming out on top. I'm sure this is why many men volunteer for the armed forces. It's not so much the hero's journey - although that's part of it - but just being a "hero". In a sense men want to be looked up to and adored for being strong men, or actualised men. There is an underlying archetype here which the movies and the media unconsciously adhere to because it makes for a gripping story. Why's it gripping? Because being a hero and leading your tribe out of adversity is good for survival. I think probably for most men being a hero is the antithesis of what it means to be a highly consciousness man - all that physicality, simple decisiveness and grim determination lacks nuance. And yet those who have been in the armed forces stand out because they exude the essense of manliness: discipline, courage and strength make the man. And so I got my dream of being in adversity via the pandemic. What did I do? I just went along with the masses, the vector of adversity was too abstract to stand up to or rally against. This is reality; war for example can produce heroes, but most of it is a terrifying, uncertain grind against an abstract enemy hiding and punishing you from behind their machinery and increasingly from an air conditioned room several thousand miles away. So if not war, where else can we be heroes? Maybe in the peacetime efforts of politics or leading in business. Many men throws themselves at this from a sense of needing to express themselves as men and as heroes. I still want to be thrown into difficult circumstances and be tested and show my mettle, but reality may just slap me in the face and show me how unheroic I really am. Maybe my other less heroic qualities are more important?

For me it's all about balance and being a more complete person. I'm very analytical, rational heavy, it's my default mode, but this has a warping effect on my psyche and view of the world. I see myself getting tired of this way of being, and I just need to open up to other ways of being, and art is one such avenue.

@soos_mite_ah totally. Everyone should have access to a better quality life, the systemic problems you mention are not about learning per se and more to do with the organisation and priorities of society. Systemic problems are in the realm of politics and activism I'd say. I suppose my idea was less lofty and more aimed at those already on the self-help treadmill, and is more about "filling in" some of the areas which are sorely lacking in conventional school education, which is geared towards the world of employment and not about actualising yourself and being a fully rounded human being. Really my idea was a counter to Leo's "you must do it all yourself" mantra, some of us would benefit from a more "we can do it together" approach; we can pretend we don't need people to actualise but it's not true, we're heavily dependent on people and we may as well acknowledge it.

@Raphael thanks, that means a lot. It's great that you're following your instincts and intuition at 24. By the time you reach 48, you'll be smashing it ? What are you looking to do?

I was thinking about the question asked here by @soos_mite_ah My answer was basically to go actualise yourself. Whilst out on my daily walk, it occurred to me that this was not a particularly obvious answer. One thing that's not obvious is why self-actualisation is needed at all in the first place and why it would give you a fulfilling life. The second thing that struck me was that it's really not at all obvious how to even start the process. So I thought why isn't there some sort of school for self-actualising? My idea is that it would teach you the basics, enough to get the ball rolling. It would be say a residential eight week set of courses. That amount of time seems long enough to get some grounding but not so long that's it's not feasible. The residential aspect would allow you to be fully immersed and focussed on learning. It seems to me that some people find it very difficult (me included) to be self-driven and need a different way to do it. I think the set of courses should interlock with each other and be taught maybe in rotation, rather than exclusively in week chunks say. Since it's only eight weeks and supposed to be basic, then the number of subjects covered should be minimal but provide high long term value. I don't have a real feel for what subjects would be covered, but some that come to mind are: Interpersonal relationships, sexual relationships, self-confidence Meditation and introspection, journaling techniques, listening skills, conversational skills Outdoor activities, walking in and appreciating nature, survival techniques, cooking and nutrition Some form of physical sport/group game playing Dance, light martial arts, making music, singing, making art, story telling Techniques for emotional mastery Techniques for mastery in general, with perhaps some area to start hands-on mastery in the eight weeks Techniques for running your mind Some basic finance, planning and life strategy. Life purpose techniques. Open and/or closed therapy sessions, where problems can be aired and worked through I'm sure there is a much better set of subjects that would mesh well together though. I would feel inclined to try and keep the male and female ratio 50/50 and to encourage all age ranges, but it could be impractical to enforce that. Some inspirational guest speakers peppered in would also be a great boost. What I see with a lot of courses is that they're too short, too narrow in focus, and are easily forgotten after the fact. There needs to be enough synergy that the learning sticks permanently, and allows you to start the self-actualisation process in earnest. Honestly, a school like this I think would be devoured by most of the people on the forums here. I certainly would go for it. So if I were to set something like this up, there would be a long hard slog. Some immediate cons I can think of: Cost, I can't imagine this would cost any less than about $8000 (£6000). This is difficult, because the people that need actualisation most are exactly the people with little money. Location, initially there can only be one location for residence, so it would need to be somewhere most folks can get to. For me personally, setting something like this up would be terrifying, but boy it would certainly give me a purpose in life.

One thing that my recurring quest to give up smoking taught me was that it was possible to do. The other thing is, is that I never really gave up. I was thinking really about shadow work here. One particular shadow I had was smoking. For a long while I was addicted, and for long periods I simply gave into it and gave up worrying about the consequences. Morbidly, when I got depressed, I actually wanted the smoking to kill me and I wilfully smoked as much as I could. I originally took up smoking because I thought it had some coolness factor and to fit in with my peers. Smoking is interesting to me. My Mum smoked probably once a day for many years when I was young, my Dad never did. Whilst I never tried it in my teenaged years full well knowing it was bad for me, I let loose at universtity. I think my Mum smoking kind of normalised it for me, and so when I took up smoking it wasn't really such a big deal. The interesting aspect to it, was that I felt I needed to do it to impress others; and therein lies my shadow. As time went on, smoking became associated with that period of my life and all the good times I'd had - eventually it became a sort of nostalgia or remnant of the life I'd lead. What made it difficult to even contemplate stopping was my long time girlfriend also smoked, but I always smoked more than her. Later I became more and more aware what an expensive and useless activity smoking was, and I became determined to quit. Absurdly, I would stop for very long periods, say six months or a year and then start up again. Cravings are interesting to observe. Like any other type of shadow the impulsion or appearance of a thought or emotion comes out of the blue. Many things to do with the body are this way, there's a staccato quality to these things. When trying to give up, cravings would suddenly come on and crescendo, and then slowly taper off. But actually really thinking about it, there was nothing smooth about the craving "curve", it was more like the craving was made up of repeatedly hitting me in ever increasing frequency and intensity until it decreased again. I think this stacatto thing applies to other types of shadow or trauma. The memory of past abuse suddenly hits us from nowhere, and it keeps hitting us in waves until it decides to go away again. Then there is a period of quiet normality. That period in between bouts or cravings, is as if the trauma or shadow doesn't exist at all. That's a key thing to take in. What happened when giving up smoking, was that the cravings became more and more spread out, until they eventually never came back. And so it is with shadow work, any work you do aims to reduce the frequency of these "shadow attacks". The take away is that the shadow is never cast constantly. If you are depressed you are not constantly depressed. If you are traumatised you are not constantly traumatised. If you are a smoker, you are not constantly craving. No. A better model would be to say that you are a smoker only when you have cravings, you are depressed only when you have a bout of depression, you are traumatised only when the trauma periodically reasserts itself. How else is it that one can have "good days" and "bad days"? This gives hope that we can leave trauma and depression and smoking behind: mostly because we are already doing this. All that really happens is that the frequency reduces with successul shadow work. So I never really gave up smoking, I just haven't smoked in five years. I never really gave up being depressed, I just haven't been depressed in over ten years. And so it goes. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not advocating that it is simple to give up on things that torment us, it really isn't. So I'm not saying just reframing or recontextualising your smoking habit is actually going to work - most probably it's not. You actually have to do work, you have to learn to control your impulses to smoke, you have to learn not to engage too strongly with the emotions of trauma. This learning is really really hard and slippery to master. That is the nature of shadow work.

I'd say recognising our immense potential and then using that potential. Most of us are like Ferraris being used to just go to the grocery store, and then being parked back in the garage for another week. Put a different way living a full life is self-actualisation. How do you know that we're living a full life? It's incremental. As we actualise more and more we lead fuller lives. Living a full life is about everything: good relationships, material wealth, experiences, spirituality, nature, life purpose, direction, joy, fun, work, everything. It's the entire human condition. In terms of milestones we could do worse than follow the Stages of Ego Development model by Cook-Greuter and pin ourselves against that as we progress. But I'd say the very basics of actualisation should be learning: Good impulse control Good decision making Mood control The ability to introspect and step outside ourselves

Good post @aurum. It seems that in relationships it's not so much the level of needs that need to be met on either side, but if each partner is able or willing to service (for want of a better word) their loved one's needs. There's kind of a three-way neediness going on. There are your own needs and whether they're serviced by your partner, there is your partner's needs and if you are able to service them, and then there is underlying (perhaps social) expectation that your partner service certain needs that you could well meet yourself. So there are needs you can't meet by yourself, and needs you can but don't. As another layer there are other needs coming out of expectation, which are at a higher level: for example the need for a partner to be a high flyer or socially capable or have X quality. Most of my relationships I would say have failed because the neediness of expectations haven't been met in the long run (from both sides). I'm not sure if commitment is neediness, although it can come out of neediness, because you may have needs that can't be met without being committed to someone. I think most needs are recurring and so being committed helps with that. It's a reassurance that my needs will continue to be satisfied and that you just won't run off whenever you feel unwilling to meet my needs for whatever reason. Whether a relationship is fundamentally coming out of neediness, that seems a bit more fuzzy. I think at a higher level people are drawn towards unity and completion, so there's a spiritual aspect to being in a relationship - although that way of thinking about a relationship could be too difficult to align with for most - there's a sense that two people become one entity or system, with it's own emergent needs.

I'm going back to the question of what to do with my life. These are the emotions/questions I have right now with regards to this: People are not attracted to drifters and dreamers, people are attracted to go getters. I think I'm really talking sexual relationships here. Most of the women I find attractive have exactly the qualities I want to have in myself. But that puts me in a bind, as I myself don't have those qualities. Put it this way, if you had a choice of a man that was sure what he wanted and how he wanted it, compared to a bloke that was unsure and really didn't seem to care either way, which would you go for? I mean some women would find the latter attractive, but they'd be in a minority. Appearing unsure, breeds insecurity, which is unattractive. There is a sense in which there are only two paths to be taken. Either you take the path of purpose and constantly move towards something, or you take the path of acceptance and just be in the moment. It feels to me as though both paths are equally valid, but it is made out (by society) that unless you're constantly heading somewhere you are not worth or valued as much. Whereas the point above is more geared to reproduction and biology (a go-getting man is more valuable for raising healthy kids), this second point is more about the way society is structured in the West. The setup appears to be that we're in constant competition with each other, and that is what gives dynamism to society: and if you opt out of that you're shunned, or thought of as weird at least; you are less valuable. But I do lead my life very much in the moment, and accept the good and the bad. I should leave something for posterity. So when the day comes for me to die, then I have a legacy that I'm proud of; I can point to something and tell everyone who wants to listen, "I did that, I changed the world for the better". I feel very ambivalent about that. I have a certain pride in myself and my achievements that I'd like to boast about to others - although I'm happy with the lesser pride of not boasting. Given where I came from and my family circumstances, I have achieved greatness already, despite absolutely nobody (I care about) openly acknowledging that. So if I'm on my deathbed and boasting about my legacy, will anyone actually say the words "you did good" and mean it? I mean why bother trying to have a legacy? The more "pragmatic" or even "mean spirited" part of my just doesn't give a fuck: I die, end of, what's this legacy nonsense? It's possible that I'm actually just kidding myself, and I'm very much an "external" person. What I mean by this is that all my motivation comes from other people. It's like the introvert saying I'm party animal, when everyone else clearly sees through the delusion. The delusion in my case is that I can be self-driven. I suffered greatly when I drifted away from my core group of friends - albeit the drift was in a sense natural, they changed, I changed. But being more isolated has been a double-edged sword. I have grown immensely in terms of my self-development from it, but on the flip-side it has done nothing for my sense of worth, optimism and motivation. The issue is is that I identify so strongly with being self-sufficient and self-driven, that openly and consistently admitting (to myself) that I need other people to thrive feels wrong. But hey, I'm doing it here, now. Planning. Like it or not stuff needs planning, I mean big stuff. I may not care about a legacy, but I need to care about survival. When I'm actually an old geezer and I need to stop working (dear God can I stop working tomorrow please?), how will I take care of myself? The older I get the more into sharp relief this problem becomes. I don't believe my pension as it is will support me very well in old age. Nobody is going to take care of me, I just don't have that sort of family. I don't have my own family, no spouse or kids to lean on. To a degree I think that there is some selfishness in parents, were there's an unspoken expectation that their children will be their saviour when it's needed. I have saved my parents many many times. Largely, I have shied away from having kids purely to not expose them to my selfishness, why should I have children just so that I can lean on them when times get tough? It's unlikely that I'm going to get some sort of windfall. My father has a property that will be split three ways that I will inherit - that's it. That share would probably keep me going for about four years perhaps without working. Family. It's not rocket science, there are pregnant women everywhere I look, everyone's at it. Why should I be so special as to not have a family? I seem to salve myself with the thought that I just haven't been lucky yet. But if I examine myself frankly, I don't see much excitement in it. It's twenty years of slog and grind and an endless money pit. If I have a long term partner the likelihood is high that we'll have kids. I badly want the company and intimacy of having a girlfriend, and I know that it would be better overall for my mental health and wellbeing, it's just a normal human need. But people are fucking complicated, and I just don't want complication at the moment. Damn it, I need a simple girlfriend with simple needs, with a bit of a spark for life. It's just a shame that I'm so fucking complicated. Anyway, back to family. I do feel an underlying need to have a family, and just be "normal" and fit in with everyone else. I do feel acutely that I'm wasting my talents and abilities. More than any of the above this is what is driving me insane at the moment. It's like I simply want to shake my world upside down and go do and be someone completely different. Unfortunately, either through choice or luck, I'm typecast as the current version of me. It's like I'm stuck in a spider's web of geography, friends, family, work, age, social norms. More prudently I'm stuck in a spider's web of my own thoughts and insecurities and ignorance. For example I'm insanely good at programming computers, so I'm typecast as a programmer, that's where the money to live comes from. Yet, I feel as though after nearly forty years of doing it, I've exhausted it. I just want to stop thinking that way. What other talents do I have? I'm musical, and if I were to plough time into it, I could be a very good pianist. Is that the sort of life I want, is it acceptable for a man my age to start a career in this now? I'm very good at maths, I have the sort of logical mind to be a very good mathematician. But, how many well off mathematician friends do you have? I have a very strong physics and engineering background. But more than anything nowadays, I find myself being interested in people. I feel this strong compulsion to understand people, connect with people and have a group to belong to. It's partially why I'm writing here. I feel as though I have a pretty good understanding of what makes people tick - to that end I could do coaching or perhaps even be a therapist. Maybe that will fulfill me more going forward? But more than anything I have a deep need for expressing myself in whatever ways present themselves, and I find the arts very attractive - I wouldn't be a Picasso or Tolstoy or Beethoven, but I could make a good go of it. I do see the balance shifting in myself to a more people and arts centric way of doing things - more right brained. If so, how do I even tackle the transition, when will the threshold be reached were I just say "goodbye programming, hello self-expression"? How the hell will I live that way? That is all.

The thing is you can't have your cake and eat it. What is a billion years? It's something in the past and therefore in our imaginations. The past leaves clues and scraps of information about itself in the present, and we conjure up the rest of the story. For example we see the Colosseum in Rome and read about it in Latin and we imagine gladiators and make films about it.

It's true!! Ok, not strictly. The past is not what you think, it exists but it is completly concertinaed into the now (there's no time), only our imaginations reinflate it.

Sponsorship deals skew truth in science educational YouTube videos:

From the worst of times springs hope. The winter was one of despair and darkness, and incredulity. It was my belief then that age should have bestowed wisdom upon me, but no, I was still in an age of foolishness. And yet now it seems the best of times and a season of light has shone from within; as I have moved from a city of devilry to one of saintliness. A tale indeed if I were to tell it.

What is going on???

How mind bogglingly complex existence is, it's so absurd it makes me laugh sometimes. The other is people, I'm in constant awe and amazement at what people are capable of creating and the sheer diversity of mastery; and how "ordinary" people are constantly doing extraordinary things without giving it a second thought.

One more for luck

Quirky but I like it