LastThursday

I'm loving the Gandalf beard. I'm unable to grow such a lush beard, my facial follicles just won't do it. I'm envious man. Reminds me of when I tried a round of 18 holes of golf. I hit dirt every other swing, it was exhausting. It needs some sort of skill that.

I dream myself alive. Yep, you're right. It is an A-Ha song circa some 80's date, not actually an existential questioning act. Nevertheless, good lyric, but I refuse to believe any of A-Ha (as they were/are) are awake in any sense, but what the bleep do I know? Reminds me of row your boat. I've been questioning my own addiction to this site and what it really stands for. Most normal folk would just carry on regardless in spite of themselves. I'm a lapsed contrarian so here I am. Why so deep and questioning? What's the bleeping point? Be a bleeping man and I should just act; think lightly, then act. Don't reverse the acts you do man, just go forward, forward, forward. Going back is inappropriate, weak. Revisiting is weak and worthless and bleeping pointless. I'm only beeping for those of you with a weak disposition. So now for something different. What's special about this little ditty? here, there, now and then, to, fro, and back again clock, strikes, a-quarter to three, in, out, and thoughts of ye coin, note, time and motion, queue, wait, and love's devotion push, jump, before and after, hold, hurt, and then some laughter Hint: think quick, think fox, think brown. Anyone who wants to try, just PM me, if you get it right then you'll get a date with me through a medium of your chosing (I'm straight BTW if it helps and believe it or not I'm suprisingly normal IRL - except for an occasional penchant for nail varnish). Yeah, I know it's not a dating site. Anyway, enough frippery, to the post proper... MEMORY Ever smelt something, or heard a song that just triggers something deep within you? Some earlier younger incantation of you? Something emotional that surfaces that you can't logically control. Consciousness asserts herself. You are rendered paralysed in-so-far that you can't dismiss the triggered emotion outright. Instead you try to closer inspect the thing, and find that actually it's a part of your DNA. That song, that smell, that morose imposition of some 'other' past. You can't extricate yourself from it. You may become Leo's version of God and yet, still these stupid smells and songs and whatnot still trigger you. So, what do they point to? I'd go so far as to say God her/him/itself is nostalgic and idiotic. It wants to remember, remembering is all there is. How else do you "Dream Yourself Alive"? Remember, remember, remember. That's all there is. Ego, is just a bunch of remembering. God is a just a bunch of change. Which one are you really?

The nature of mind is the constant tussle between unfettered impulse and rational restraint.

I have a strong tendency to want to do my own thing. This manifests in any number of ways, but in my experience it's a double-edged sword. One of the best ways of bonding with people is to do what they do, say what they say and so on. That way, two people become one system where the parts are in harmony with each other. When you think about it copying each other is weird and also there's no proper rationale as to why it should make a better system or better able to survive (in a Darwinian sense) or why it's better in any sense. If you have a society of people, even two people, there's sense in both copying each other and not copying each other. If you both copy each other's language, then yes you can communicate more effectively, or if you use the same tools, it's more efficient. The ability to share is of great survival value, because it reduces the cost of producing the shared items: they are made once and used many times. But copying each other comes at a cost. That cost is the time it takes to learn to copy someone else. Look at how long a young child takes to be fluent in language, it's certainly not overnight: years. The other cost is that because copying is so costly in itself, you are locked in to just those behaviours that you've mimicked. This is because there's not enough time to learn anything more (in a certain timespan). The copying behaviours crowd out the non-copying behaviours. You become a sheep incapable of novelty. So what about not copying others? This also has its benefits. The main one being novelty. Novelty is important because it allows a person to find more efficient or effective ways of doing things, i.e. discovery. Some people are extremely curious or at least nosey. This curiosity is what drives the seeking of novelty. It's obvious that other animals can also be very curious, cats and monkeys come to mind. In the modern world, it can help you find a better coffee to drink in the morning, find a mate, or find a more fulfilling job. Novelty is also what drives self-development; it's not about being better, but about finding novel ways to be different from your current self. Novelty too comes with a cost. There is danger in novelty seeking. Maybe you walk into a dangerous neighbourhood out of curiosity, or you attempt a new activity that you don't realise may harm you. Or you try out a new way of doing things, and are met with derision from the non-novelty seekers, and are ostracised for it. Again there is also a cost in time spent, looking for novelty takes effort and resources, which may be better spent by just copying others: why re-invent the wheel? So, it really makes sense from a Darwinian perspective that there should be a range of behaviours, even within one person. There should be a strong tendency to copy others, but there should also be a strong undercurrent of novelty seeking. And so it is, people's genetic makeup make them either more risk averse (less novelty seeking), more wanting to be part of a group (copying each other), or more curious (more novelty seeking). Any society of people needs a good mix of sheep and lone wolves. I think the dice of chance have made me into a novelty seeker, but not the risk taking type. I'd be an idiot if I said I didn't copy others at all, after all I'm speaking English and wearing jeans. But I very much enjoy thinking for myself and coming up with unique ways of doing things and expressing myself. This can leave some people to look at me as if I have two heads, or as a quirky person to kept away from, or even a dangerous subversive with no respect for others. I've rubbed many managers up the wrong way, not because I want to, but because I'm not a robot sheep. Long live novelty!

So I watched the video for the second time just now (after a 4 year hiatus). To make up for my egoic shortfalls and devilish behaviour, here's my summary of the video: Success You need: Spirit, engagement and connect directly with survival To seize control for your life back, live on the edge To Study diverse perspectives Trust in: Truth, unconditional love, beauty Existential investigation Passion, focus, direction, vision A hard work ethic Commitment Mastery Spiral Dynamics Re/connect emotions strongly with vision, so much it makes you cry. Practise extreme ownership. Learn and read hundreds of books. The steps to success are: Vision Learning and research Building momentum and focus Hard work It's dumb to believe that there's "nothing to do". It's dumb to believe there's "nothing to chase". You should challenge yourself deliberately. Passion and consciousness should be like the oxygen you breathe. When you feel like quitting, double down and work harder no matter what. Stop looking for shortcuts. Don't outsource your decision making. And at 46:43: "What does matter is that you're playing the game with seriousness. And yet at the same time you can joke about it." My take away? It's a good video. But Leo missed out one crucial ingredient: play; not in the sense of playing the game, but in the sense of curiosity and playing with ideas and techniques. Why do I think it's important? Because seriousness can lock you into a singleminded rut. Only play can continually bounce you out of it.

Ok. Sorry.

I'll feed my obsession with age: Don't ever worry about being old(er). For two reasons mainly. Worrying about being old one day, spoils being young - just enjoy being young it only happens once. And, when you get old, you'll realise that it feels exactly the same as being young, and just how badass you are now in comparison to your younger self

Man you've so hit the nail on the head. All truth is pure faith, how can you ever know if a truth is going to vary in future? If you did, then you would know it wasn't truth.

@Dodo your future self is always stronger, and more wise than you, trust that person. Don't trust neurosis, we can find fear everywhere if we let it, and we become paralysised. That's no way to lead life.

Good point. How prepared can you be for death or hell? I suppose I can prepare myself against a hurricane or tsunami maybe. But death and hell? Perhaps I can take out an insurance policy by taking up religion or spirituality? How do I prepare myself against my own fear of the future? Even for a tsunami or hurricane you can only prepare so much, and then you forget about it once it's done. You let your future self worry about the details when it comes.

I was talking about play, love and laughter for myself. I wasn't aware that @Logan was talking about becoming rich and famous, he didn't actually mention it? He actually seems to be talking about motivation. Motivation for what exactly I don't know. Maybe motivation for play, love and laughter perhaps (I hope)?

Ah yes free will. Free Will™ is nothing but ownership of action. For as long as you believe in a "you" then "your" actions belong to you, and so were freely dictated by you. When the smokescreen of a "you" clears, then action belongs to no-one and so free will evaporates.

Hell is being terrified of death right now. What's needed is realisation that things just carry on whether you're terrified or not. Worry about hell and death when and if they come, trust that your future self will take care of it.

Caveat emptor. What about play, love and laughing?

I think writing this journal is actually starting to impinge on my normal waking life. I found this morning on my walk thinking about various things and how I would get it down in my journal. This is most unusual for me. Generally I just have what I call "light thinking", thoughts arise and I don't pay them too much conscious attention, it's a bit like that state just after waking up. I've been like that for years, although rarely I do go back to my old ways of rumination, it allows me to be "present" no bad thing. What was on my mind? Some keywords: passion, femininity, humour, wage slavery. I've probably talked about at least three of those things before, but I'll elaborate on passion. I'll do the reversal trick and show an example first and then discuss: Rick Beato is a phenomenon, he's extremely passionate about music although he mainly concentrates on rock/pop. The way passion is talked about normally is as some kind of inner drive which leads to ambition and achieving goals. It's a bit like fuel you put into an engine. Personally, it's never clicked with me, you may as well be speaking Martian. I mean, I'm good at stuff yeah and I enjoy doing stuff, ok, but what the hell does passion have to do with it? But watching the above video yesterday something finally clicked. At first I just thought Rick was gushing about Seal unnecessarily. It's a good song no doubt but come on it's not that amazing, I've never really cared for it anyway. But Rick just kept on being excited about it. Then suddenly, bam, I realised what was happening. Rick was expressing his love and it was as clear as day; his love of music, his love of a good song, his love of deconstruction. He interviews Seal, and then Seal himself expresses his love of song. There was also a mutual admiration (love) between the two men. Now to me that makes much more sense. The way the word "passion" is used is normally in a kind of SD Stage Orange context, that is one of goal orientation and drive and work ethic, passion being the fuel for all that. I'm decidedly not of that persuasion, I've always been more exploratory and driven by curiosity and understanding how things work: it's why I'm on this forum at all. But passion is just love. Yes ok it's not that revelatory after all, if you really love what you do then most people would label you as passionate. It's about emphasis, passion is not work ethic, it is all love. There are lots of things I love for their own sake: abstract ideas, maths, information technology, walking, socialising, people, music, the list is endless. There are many things I don't love (which I can't bring myself to list). What life purpose is about, if anything, is simply channeling all that love and dovetailing into survival. Survival is love, love of being alive and love of the body; so it's not wholly incompatible with passion. The big question for someone like me who loves many things, is can I bring myself to channel my love into a few particular areas and make money from it? That's a big NOPE. It's not that I'm averse to making money, I love money as much as the next person. I'm just against putting all my love eggs into one basket (sounds kinky). If anything if I'm going to be "passionate" enough to base my survival on it, then I'm going to have to synergise all my different loves and then use that synthesis as a basis for survival. So it's all back-to-front. It's not that I need to somehow magic up some passion and that this will automatically set me off on a course of being super driven and focused to achieve greatness. No no no, that's all wrong, just no. All I need is love. I need to learn to really notice what I love, instead of just half-heartedly being pulled this way and that by it. Just by noticing and being more aware of what I love, it can be amplified and brought to the fore. I can then let that love take me to wherever it leads me. It's effectively what I've been doing since I was ten: I've been led by my love of computers; it's served me well and I live a life of comfort and security. But really it's run its course, I know that deep down. It's time to pay attention to all the other things I love and make them grow. Forget passion.

Indeed being lighthearted can smother the need for complaint. Everything is absurd and to be laughed at, and the most absurd being one's own righteous indignation. If I ever take on a way for living life it would be to be lighthearted at all times, even in the face of seriousness.

Missing Cat Syndrome This is going to be another observational post and I'll try and be clever about it and give it some sort of punchline, maybe. So: I got a flyer this morning in my mailbox (physical one) and it was the usual "my cat is mising" with a nice picture of the tabby on the front. Underneath was a "please please look for my cat in your sheds and stuff". I mean, the person actually went to the trouble of making and then posting the flyer, I'm sure it was posted to everyone. That's one up from the usual ones stuck to lampposts, generally with washed out colours and happy looking cats. I'm not an animal person, I couldn't be bothered enough about looking after a pet. But I do understand the distress that pet owners feel when their pets wander off. The bond can be strong. My ex made me search the streets high and low for her kitty when it wandered off one day. Eventually it was found drowned in the small pond in the garden which had a tarp over it. With cats especially wandering off is what they do for a living. My personal view is that cat owners should be more realistic about what they're getting themselves into. The operative word here being "owners". It's blatantly obvious to me that a cat has no idea about ownership of anything, it does what it likes and it has been proven that cats will "live" in multiple people's homes - essentially anyone who's prepared to feed it. In that sense a cat is more sensible than its owner. The owner is unfortunately locked into a game of ownership and bonding; the cat isn't. The cut suffers less as a result. Of course, I think the Missing Cat Syndrome is also largely about parents appeasing their children, who are more prone to getting upset and not understanding how cats work. In that sense, it's fine, there are lessons to be learnt for the children, and children shouldn't be made to suffer unnecessarily - putting a flyer out helps with the suffering. Realistically if a cat goes missing it's for two reasons: either it's found a new "owner", or it's dead. Cat's don't get lost. In some ways people are much the same as cats: they are also prone to wandering off and doing their own thing. People go missing too, and I suspect in a very small percentage of cases they've simply had enough and decide to disappear, that being their only option. I thought about doing the same myself in the depths of my depression, France was looking tempting. It wasn't rational but it was what I felt at the time. In a real way choosing to just let go of everything and starting again as an anonymous person somewhere else is freedom. And, in another way it is like being born again. We all of us should be able to wander off - metaphorically or actually - and be reborn as someone else; or at least do it the way a cat does it, and that's by being a cat. EDIT The thought did occur that cats are territorial. There is a cost involved for them in defending their territories, so in an odd way they "own" their territories. Perhaps cats see their owners as their territory? I have no idea if that is anthropomorphising though.

Reminds me of Saturday mornings at my grandparents, happy days they were. Don't worry I'm like a dog with a bone sometimes, I like to run with things to see where it leads. I only take things personally if it's personal which in this case it isn't. I am basically in agreeance with you. If we encounter someone who is complaining, then we can try and undestand their position completely, and then that emotional transference of negativity doesn't occur. Instead it's replaced by some sort of compassion or solidarity or a least a utilitarian need to help. On the flip side, if we have a complete understanding of where our negativity is stemming from, as well a meta-view of how our view fits into the greater whole, then we have a choice about how to express ourselves to others. I think I was commenting from that point of having a grasp of the meta-view. For example I can get upset that my neighbours overflow the communal bins every week and complain bitterly about it to them. Or I can take the meta-view, that the bins should be emptied more frequently by the local council. So I have a choice about if and how I complain: it becomes strategic. And I think there's room for that sort of strategic complaining. Is this negative? It's hard to tell, yes and no. It's still manipulation and transferring negativity, but also overflowing bins are a health hazard and ultimately I will suffer less in a healthy environment and so will my neighbours. The big question is, do I have the time or inclination to understand a thing thoroughly? Is my interest in the removal of rubbish from my premises enough for me to have a deep understanding of the problem? Probably not in this case or even most other cases. So the default is to fall back on complaining as a tool to get what I want: I'm no Jesus Christ. The other thing that springs to mind is: is being mechanical authentic? And is authentic good in all cases? I think you're saying no, and we should be getting away from being mechanical and instead apply some sort of awareness and understanding and this will ease suffering all round. I need to go off and contemplate that. My immediate reaction is no, but I could be wrong, probably am.

Sounds like a bad joke: How do you awaken a fool...? You don't, let the fool awaken you.

You can impose any framework you like on reality, it doesn't mean a thing. Reality is always bigger and more complex. Reasons and purposes are just logic like cause and effect. A reason is just the first cause, and a purpose is the final effect. But cause and effect are just mental constructs, we're in a timeless void (more constructs but closer to the truth perhaps), cause and effect are meaningless without time.

Learn to be present as much as possible. Rumination and over analysis is not being present. The greatest tool for doing this is learning to stop that inner voice (subvocalisation); meditation is a good way to do this, as well as hypnosis. It can also be done through distraction, but that's less effective. Notice that there are times when you're not mentally preparing things, what's special about those times? What triggers the need to mentally prepare? I have been there, I used to do this chronically and it used to cause me a lot of anxiety. But it's definitely a habit that you can unlearn.

Do different things on different days. Make a schedule.

Tell a story. People love stories. Just before I made this comment, I was contemplating eating lunch early. I think it's because I got up earlier than normal, who knows why I woke up at 5:30? Has that ever happened to you...

It helps to read a lot of different material. But also just write a lot. Find complex ideas to write about, just trying to get them down will improve your English grammar, the same for German. Being able to write and communicate properly is incredibly important in everyday life.

I must remember that for next time ARSS. Maybe Ejaculation at the end of it. Sorry, ignore me, carry on.