LastThursday

Sometimes you reconnect with people you haven't seen in months or years or even decades. There's many reasons for a hiatus, such as physical distance or lack of time or an unresolved disagreement or just being focussed on different things. We can feel differently about different people. Some people we miss dearly and others we don't even remember, until they suddenly find us on Facebook and try and befriend us again. There very much feels like an obligation when someone tries to reconnect with you to reciprocate. I say obligation, because sometimes there's an unspoken reason you haven't kept in contact with that person. Maybe you never did much like them in the first place, or some flaw in their character put you off, or they simply didn't add anything to your life or even worse dragged you down. So the first reaction to being reconnected ought to be to just take some time to listen without judgement. If it's been a long time, they could have changed out of all recognition, and the same goes for you. It would take time for both of you to readjust your feelings and attitude towards each other. Give the reconnection a chance. Maybe second time round things will go differently. The second reaction is to go with your intuition. Is the person genuinely reconnecting because they actually missed you or thought more of you than you expected. Is the person doing it out of need and you would be in a happy position to help them? Is the person just nostalgic and wanting to relive a bit of youth, and maybe you do too? You will soon find out. Last is to use some logic. You have so far lived without this person in your life for a reasonable amount of time - so logically you can keep on so doing, it won't really make much difference in the long run if you decide not to reconnect. You don't have to feel guilty or obliged and you can just patiently wait and let the reconnection fizzle out again.

Great suggestion. Half way through, good film so far. Let's see what I get from it. I'm a great music lover both listening and playing. I do compose the odd piece the rare time inspiration takes hold. And I was good at art in school, mostly sketching and working with clay. Both those things are definitely avenues I should explore more - your suggestion is taken onboard. My work is very left brain heavy and I think it distracts me from my more creative side. @Epiphany_Inspired thanks that's a good reminder of how things fit together. I think with masculinity there's a tendency to translate intuition and emotion into logic and and analysis and then work with those (and pretend that intution and emotion don't exist). I'm guessing that maybe femininity cuts out the middle-man (lol) and uses intuition and emotion directly to reason with? What do you think?

Thanks I'll give it a read and Slow Sex too sounds intriguing @aurum. Sort of confused about this. Is feminity and masculinity an identity or are they just ways of being? I don't feel as though I will need to identify with feminity as much as to be feminine in some ways. But you're right, I do identify with masculinity sometimes even consciously so. Maybe I should be less identified with masculinity. Hmm, tricky stuff.

@Leo Nordin no worries it's cool. But are you talking about liberation from physical suffering or just mental suffering or what?

And the elephant in the room: "Why do I keep on being me?" The only solution is to remove "me" out of the question through destroying the ego. Then it's a simple case of answering "Why am?"

Because liberation is just a word. What's the opposite of liberation? Enslavement, restriction, rules, taboo, morality, law, respect, standards, love. It's not so clear that liberation is good. If I were completely liberated, I could walk around naked in the streets killing people and not care at all. I could end up in prison for years and not care at all about being abused every day - that would be true liberation from suffering. You wouldn't mind at all scraping a living on the streets. So being liberated involves treading a careful path and cherry picking how you want to be liberated. Survival and common decency are hard to let go of.

With my masculine analytical head on, these are some of things that have come up so far: Should I have a masc/fem switch, where I embody whichever suits the situation best? Or is it a sliding scale between one or the other. Or, is it a pix 'n mix of masc/fem traits that I can use at any particular time? (I realise the masculine tendency here in trying to see the utility of femininity.) Very much roles I have taken on in my life. Is it enough just to recognise them for what they are, or should I actually let go of these, or just tone them down? Or is it more about making space for more feminine roles? This resonates strongly with me. I feel like I have an aesthetic temperament, but it's not readily expressed outwardly. Paying much attention to my appearance for example seems like effort and vanity, but perhaps I should be doing it for myself than for other people? I love the idea of colourful clothing, my wardrobe is dark and inoffensive (and British). I used to wear brighter, lighter colours when I was younger. I also very much like the idea of flow and grace - flowing summer dresses with flowers - not sure I can pull that off in the heart of middle class England, but maybe in Brighton... That's a lot! And none of those am I particularly strong on. I suppose it's a case of practise and constant awareness of these domains and some bravery in embodying and showing these. I think I know what they mean, but do I really? Even paying close attention to my body seems weird. So far my body is very much a vehicle for "doing" stuff and not particularly something to be pad attention to closely. I have been doing some work with self-hypnosis though and paying more close attention to letting go of bodily tension: I have this image that masculinity is about rigidity, tension, accuracy - and that femininity is more about fluidity, lack of tension and looseness. I don't know I could be wrong. Certainly starting activities which are seen as feminine might be a good starting point. I used to do Tai Chi for a number of years, and liked the gracefulness of it, but I guess it's seen as mostly masculine. Yoga hasn't appealed, yet I haven't investigated it enough to know. But I'm sure there are also other feminine activities. Dancing is good, except I've got two left feet, I'm really bad. I will have to investigate more feminine activities. Very much something I do in private. I've certainly opened myself up to this in the last few years, and it feels great just to be able to let the emotion out. I know that I do have emotions, but because they're hard to analyse I don't know what to do with them, especially around other people. There's also the expectation of friends that expect me to be a certain way, so it's a bit of a game. To break out of my mould would take some courage. Oh very much, I said it to stop the thread degenerating. But certainly embodying and expressing connection, intimacy and presence seems very attractive to me. As @soos_mite_ah says: Prioritize human connection and intimacy. I'm not very forward in connecting with people and I think it stems from being embarrassed about myself (see my journal). Maybe getting in touch with my femininity and body and aesthetic is a way to be less embarrassed. I also feel strongly that I want to avoid neediness and that also stops me connecting with people. It's definitely a thorny problem for me, and maybe there's a feminine solution to it.

Amazing, some beautiful answers here. Too much depth, how do even start? Deep breath.

What isn't reality? Even words are real.

Kraftwerk, futurists:

I thought I would review my learning style as both an example of one and as a meta-analysis of the pros and cons of it (<-- always use punctuation). My innate tendency is that I don't try to force learning or remembering. Instead I graze. I was in the lucky position as a kid that my father was into several different disciplines and hobbies: music, chemistry, electronics, horticulture, maths. I was never forced by my parents into learning anything. Instead my father (mostly) would attempt as best he could to answer to my curiosity: I learned to read Spanish that way. And nor was I restricted from playing with stuff. I remember distinctly playing on my father's new HP21 calculator (which I now have), which would have been an expensive toy for a kid to break! This also taught me to be self sufficient in answering to my curiosity - as well as having respect for things. I do remember having an intense curiosity about everything as a kid. But it was a virtuous circle. I was free to practise that curiosity using the things that were around me and to have all my questions answered. One of my greatest assets as a kid was a dictionary with small illustrations. This made the dictionary accesible to me, and I would often just scan the pages looking at the illustrations and wondering what it all meant: I had to read the text to understand the drawings. This ingrained in me a habit of looking up information to satisfy my curiosity. I've always had a good memory. If I was interested in something deeply enough I would remember it, or at least know where to go if I couldn't remember it. It's not something I had to work at until I started doing A Levels at 16. My A Levels and afterwards degree, required forced learning and went completely against my preferred style. I coped but the results were mediocre (I was also a party animal). My attention has as far back as I remember been scatter-gun. I can focus for long periods, but even now it takes effort and is done out of necessity. Instead left to my own devices I will pick up something, put it down, pick it up some later time and so on. I have some programming projects I have been working on for over ten years which are exactly like this. I do wonder if I have some ADD, but I never really cared enough to investigate it, I also vehemently disklike been labelled. My journal here is scatter-gun. I can't stand schedules, deadlines and organisation, but I can do them if forced at gunpoint. So following my nose has allowed me to organically learn everything, including the very thing my life depends upon: my IT skills. Some things I'm very bad at however. Rote learning and remembering facts and figures requires tedious effort on my part. You'll notice in this journal I don't reference anyone else directly, that's because I'm very bad at it. Instead I remember concepts and ideas and systems extremely well. Also, because I'm very self-directed in my learning, I'd much rather work things out or invent things myself than blindly just trust what someone tells me. That can be inneficient because there's not enough time to re-invent the wheel every time. Can I improve on my learning style? It's obvious to me that my ability to focus on a single area has improved drastically over time. This has allowed me to get depth in my learning. But I also know that there isn't really such a thing as "a single area", everything is connected or is a part of everything else. This is what attracted me to Actualized.org in the first place, everything Leo talks about is just a part of a big whole: like seeing parts of the mountain appear out of the mist. So what I'm getting at, is that synergy is very important for improving my learning. Synergy is just noticing and using connections between disparate areas and pattern matching and coming up with new configurations. Play and fun and humour ought to play a greater role in my learning. It may seem counterintuitive in our culture of rigidly measuring learning with exams and grades. What is play after all? It's self-directed learning! It is scatter-gun and improvised and collaborative. Ah, yes, collaborative. That is one area that I'm very weak on. I'm a loner in terms of learning. I find having to share the learning process with other people excruciating. Collaboration is seemingly always attached to formality and process and systems zzzzzzz I think too fast to either be bothered to explain in slow motion to others or to have the patience to try and decipher someone else's ramblings. Posting on this site has been a big exercise in improving myself in this way, although I still find collaborating with people to be a big PITA. What does humour have to do with learning? A lot of forced learning is very serious: PhDs and law exams and medical exams. Seriousness, whilst functional is the wrong approach and mindset. The best learning happens in a relaxed informal atmosphere. Is learning humourous? Yes, I think so. There is paradox and contradiction in learning which can be funny. Also, there is an inherent joy and reward for learning something novel, which sometimes breaks out into humour. Noticing the odd unexpected connections between things can be suprising and humourous. I think humour can also underpin the approach to learning, to keep it light and informal and interesting. What else? Learning by letting things bubble up. That's completely new to me. Ok, yes, if I'm working on a difficult idea or project, I can have an epiphany as if from nowhere, but that's directed epiphany. What about just letting stuff come up seemingly out of nowhere. I think this does naturally happen all the time, but personally I either don't pay much attention to it or it's too etherial and I forget it straight away. In order to capture this process, I would need to immediately write down the insight. But that doesn't work for me. It could be that simply meditating for the purpose of insight might be the way to go, but that's very odd to me: non-directed learning? Hmm.

One way to peace is getting into a mindset of not giving a sh*t. Anxiety happens because you care about the outcome of your own performance. It's a deep love of thought forms and self preservation. But it's much more peaceful to love the here and now deeply, and use your intuition and wits and confidence to lead you. (To sort of paraphrase what @Leo Gura said).

I don't do it for the views. 10000 views! Whoop whoop!

"Happen" is defined in terms of the "future". Just as "happened" is defined in terms of the "past". So yes, but only because happen belongs to the future.

@Zigzag Idiot even empires come and go. I've probably mentioned sometime before that I'm not into "systems" for living or divining life. That's not to disparage others who do, it's just never been a personal preference of mine - that includes numerology as a system. Although I'm about to contradict myself. Where I think there is value in using a system is if the particular system is loose in its interpretation and has an element of randomness. Something like Tarot, or the I Ching (although I don't know much about it). The randomness allows you to make observations or choices you normally wouldn't have, which is good for pushing us out of our comfort zones or stuck ways of thinking - so it keeps us flexible. The loose interpretation allows our intuition (and by extension potential paranormal abilities) to kick in and override our normal every day thinking. The upshot is to lead better lives. Also, in using some of these systems there is an element of ritual to it. My ritual abilities are very underdeveloped, but they are superb for putting consciousness into altered states and so allow our abilities (intuition etc.) to shine through. So there's my recipe: loose interpretation, randomness and ritual. I ought to actually try it myself! What would you suggest? As far as Gurdjieff goes I think I read that he would inhabit different characters as part of his "method", that really appeals to me. And thanks. I read loads of journals here, including yours and I get something different from each one.

What past? Does/did the past exist? What is the past? Is it just memories or something else? Is that a blind belief you hold? Maybe we don't do anything in the first place? We invent context so that we pretend to do things within that context? Dunno, more questions than answers.

The truth is always there in plain sight. You just have to look long enough. Yup. All our beliefs are blind faith. I wonder what would happen if you gave up the blind faith? @Holygrail you should definitely start here: Nearly missed it in the YouTube comments is embedded homework as well: https://www.actualized.org/downloads/the_mechanics_of_belief_worksheet.pdf

How do you know that? How do you know it was a direct experience that you had in the past? Do you think you've had direct experiences that you can't remember now?

If you can't trust your mother, can you trust yourself? Did all your memories really happen?

Yes, but the idea of being "smart" comes from people not experience (as if they're different!). It's a very good point about experience or smartness in our DNA. The body has had 4 billion years to accumulate knowledge. It is way smarter than we give it credit for. I'm sure I've seen a Sadhguru video about this very thing.

Sorry I was being a drama queen. What I meant was that people can and will believe anything they like, including thinking that they're are now more smart than they used to be, even though it's not true. Otherwise known as self-delusion. It's trouble because you think you're getting somewhere when you're not.

I'm into numbers and maths. I'm definitely not into numerology. For me it's like a see-saw with maths on one side and numerology on the other. Here's an elaborate example I cooked up one day, just to show how a numerologist's mind works and why a knowledge of maths undermines it. 19: I am a child of the moon The Metonic cycle is 19 years in length which is 235 lunations (full moons if you like) nearly exactly. After which the sequence repeats. It can be used to predict eclipses (nothing weird here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonic_cycle) My year of birth is 1972. Adding the digits we get 19 (getting weirder, but there's loads of these sorts of numbers). When I was 19 the year was 1991 (nice, a palindromic number. Adding the digits gives 20: go figure out why). Lets multiply: 19x91 = 1729 (more weirdness, the digits are rearranged, it must mean something right?), obviously still adds to 19. 1729 is a very famous number, it's a taxi cab number. It's the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)). Or for a numerology angel, I mean angle: http://sacredscribesangelnumbers.blogspot.com/2014/06/angel-number-1729.html Multiply again 17x29 = 493. So? Then multiply by 4 again = 1972. Lovely. Total coincidence, mathematically though. For all those riddlers and numerologists out there, when was my birthday? And other than my birth, what was momentous about that day? What phase of the moon is it? Numerology: just say no. You can find any patterns you like in numbers to justify your beliefs. Numbers are just that, a way of counting things.

By whose standard? I suppose you could compare your new self to your old self and use that as a standard, but it's asking for trouble and delusion.

If it were to suddenly happen, they would probably call it enlightenment.

The circularity makes me feel queasy. Adults teaching children who become adults teaching children... I guess the idea of being smart must come from somewhere though right? Although, it's totally possible that my thought that I'm smarter than a child is actually bogus and I'm utterly deluded. Although, I was using the analogy, so that @rnd could get a handle on what it's like to think you're smarter than someone else, the sensation of it. The potential for smartness is already there in the open awareness. The only thing that changes is that the open awareness gets to know itself, in ever more intricate ways and actually becomes smart in the process? Maybe smartness is mostly just a cultural phenomenon and not real in any sense? Dunno, all just ideas.