LastThursday

BTW, since I'm practising this: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201123-the-psychology-behind-revenge-bedtime-procrastination I thought I would offer some titles for self-help books that could have been (or might actually be) (yes I'm utterly random): On Pain - yellow thunderbolt on the cover The No Way Way - greyish white cover with person walking away on a straight track, all slightly blured and greyscale Fundamental Personhood - partially built brick wall half way up, then blue sky above The Handbook of Death - showing street scene from Mexico's Day of the Dead One Rule For Acing Life - green chalboard on cover with ten rules nine of which have been crossed out Quantum Decision Making - interference fringes looking like a blurred barcode on it's side, greyscale The Manifestation Manifesto - deep purple cover no graphics Forty Days And Forty Nights At Home - large picture of Covid-19 virus, mostly dark reddish colour Son of Buddha - mostly white with stylised mountain scenery in charcoal Circadia - sun on front cover on cyan, moon on back cover on very dark grey Alice in Suburbia - a red curtain with a hand just about to pull it away framed by a white window That's all folks!

I don't know this guy. I don't follow him. I don't know why the YouTube algorithm recommended this. I don't know why I even clicked on it. I don't know why he has more subscribers than Actualized.org. But at least I do know that all corporations are interested in is taking your money. And, this guy explains it all in clear language: Interestingly, I feel temped to go no shampoo. Can I do one month? If I do, then I'll journal all about it.

And it's just as easy to believe that your body is 'inside' consciousness - it's so obvious, here I am having a conscious experience of a body. But then again, with consciousness 'inside' is the wrong word. The body is not really inside consciousness, the body is consciousness (along with everything else).

Predicting the future is a fun excercise to do. I'm no Ray Kurweil, but I have a few ideas that I entertain, some of them seem like near certainties. I have no idea about timescales in general, but you can judge for yourself how long it might be before it happens. Anyway, here's a list of things that I find interesting: Nuclear Fusion - seems to always perpetually be 30 years off. But nonetheless it will happen. Once it really takes hold, it will probably supercede all types of fission reactor, as the waste products (Helium, Tritium) wil be politically and environmentally less sensitive. Also it will complement mainly green energy sources to provide constant output, when the sun doesn't shine. Driverless Vehicles - this is coming soon, and once accepted and deemed as safe as a human driver, will be everywhere. The change will be swift and seemingly overnight. There will be a rapid decline in car ownership, as driverless vehicles will be used more like a taxi or Uber. Electric Vehicles - battery technology will just keep on improving. The infrastructure for electric vehicles will also massively increase. Again I reckon in the next 10 years more than 50% of cars will be electric or hybrid. Hydrogen Aeroplanes - the first hydrogen powered aeroplane will be produced in 10-15 years, and the industry will never look back. Tailored Gene Therapy - gene therapy will be a lot more readily available, cheaper and safer. A large number of genetic diseases will be curable or at least controllable. Smaller and less debilitating genetic conditions, will also be treatable. Fast Vaccine Rollout and Turnaround - the current pandemic will hugely increase our ability to create and rollout new vaccines, as new viruses take hold. The length of time needed to create vaccines will allow us to keep many diseases in check, quickly and effectively. A.I will help create new vaccines. Age Reversal - this nut will be cracked and damage caused by age to most cells will be reversible, giving people more youthful appearances and allowing most people to hugely extend their lifespan. If this can be done for all parts the of the body, then indefinite lifespans will become normal. In the very long term, this will be made available to everybody. This will have complex and unknown ramifications for society. Biological 3D Printing - this will continue to evolve to the point where most major organs (except the brain), will be replaceable and grown from your own stem cells. This will complement and be part of the Age Reversal process. To a degree this technology is already here. Bone, cartilage and muscle will be printed for reconstructive surgery, and perhaps for cosmetic plastic surgery. There will be fringe groups practising self body augmentation. People with organ damage such as heart disease will have new organs printed, and be fully compatible with their bodies. Automation - artificial intelligence will continue to evolve and will infiltrate the work place. Whilst this is just a trend that's been happening since the Industrial Revolution began, it will accelerate over the next 10-30 years. Whilst it may seem that large numbers of people will be out of work, capitalism is inherently greedy and will want to put all those "spare" people to work on the things A.I. can't do. It won't be an end to wage slavery. The range of things to which A.I. will be put to use will surprise everyone. Universal Basic Income - whilst there's a lot of wrangling about this at the moment, it will become acceptible eventually as different countries compete with each other to put this in place. If automation increases unemployment, UBI will help people lead poverty free lives. There will be constant downward pressure on UBI as this is not compatible with free market capitalism. But UBI will increase over time as people see the benefits of it. UBI will not be a panacea however, most people will still want to work because they are not able to provide a purpose for themselves. Hyperrealistic Androids - the different strands of robotics will converge to create an artificial human. There will be a huge range of other robots in many different areas - they will be widespread and accepted in society. But humanoid robots will create the most disruption to society. They will initially be rare, but become common place especially in care and hospital settings, but also for the sex industry (this already happens), and dangerous situations or jobs (e.g. riot police or military). Facial gestures, mannerisms and voice will be extremely lifelike. There may be measures put in place so that androids can be readily distinguished from humans. Androids will have special laws around safety, legal responsibility, status as people. You will be able to marry an android, or adopt an android child. Virtual Reality - directly interfacing with the brain, will become more common, but not universal. This may be especially so for amputees with synthetic limbs (although these may well be biologically 3D printed in future) that need to be finely controlled. But this technique will also be used to directly stimulate vision, sound, and touch areas of the brain, giving full immersion. Computer graphics capabilities will become so advanced that it will be nearly indistiguishable from reality (albeit of a possibly fantasy world). The first Brain VR game will appear in the next 30 years. Virtual People and CGI - with advances in A.I. and computer graphics, it will be possible to create fully realistic intelligent characters for computer games, as avatars for work meetings, and as stand ins for you, allowing you to effectively clone your online presence. Laws will need to be put in place to allow your virtual doppelganger to transact on your behalf. Your virtual persona will do your biding as a proxy for you. You could also choose to be a completely different person, under your complete control. This will be used for instances where complete anonymity is needed, but still allow you to express yourself (even as someone of a different or neutral gender, ethnicity and so on). Video for consumption (such as YouTube) will be able to be completely realistic CGI freeing up content creators. Capturing 3D spaces will be very common, and will nearly eliminate the need to film on location. Eventually, video will not be admissable as evidence, as it can't be trusted. Impersonation will be rife. The porn industry will employ very few actors, CGI will be the norm. Dream and Thought Capture - people's innermost thoughts will be captured by computer. It will be possible to record sounds and visual images being imagined by a person, using sophisticated A.I. (this is already being done) and potentially direct brain interfacing . This will have implications for security and passwords will be phased out in favour of biometric log in for most things. You may eventually have a device (some sort of evolved smart phone), that records everything and allows you to review and remember what was said and done. This will be useable legally by authorities. Super Smart Phones - it's hard to know how smart phones will evolve, but form factor will become a lot slimmer (possibly credit card thin), batteries will last for weeks (solid state batteries are coming), and computing power will rise exponentially. You will be able to walk around a room with your phone, create a 3D virtual scene instantly and populate it with completely realistic CGI people (maybe of yourself), automatically create a video and post it on social media. Smart phones may also monitor your vital signs and automatically alert authorities of impending medical conditions. They will monitor absolutely every aspect of your life and be able to organise and assist you when necessary. Every smart phone will have a sophisticated and completely general A.I. built into them, it will function like a human in a credit card form factor. Talking of which, credit cards and money will completely disappear be replaced by these phones. You'll still be able to make calls, but people will laugh at you for being "ancient".

What is the best way to play the game of intent and consent in sexual attraction? I don't have definite answers, but I'm going to try my best to explore this in a rational way in what follows. Let's lay the groundwork. I'm asuming that these are given: It's impossible to read someone's mind directly. The only way of proceeding in a situation is with information. Are these two things related to each other? In order to proceed in a sexual scenario, decisions have to be made on whether to act or not to act, to escalate or not. All good decisions are based on having enough information to work with. If there isn't enough information, there is a risk the decisions may end up being a bad ones. By bad decision, I mean the whole spectrum of outcomes from not achieving your intention, to potential trouble with authorities, and to causing prolonged suffering for all involved. The first point indicates quite clearly that you should be extremely suspicious of "I know what they are thinking" type of ideation, or "I just know they feel the same way". It is in fact not possible to know this at all. The only thing that can be relied upon is the information being communicated by the other person. Most of the time the signals (information) given by another a person are ambiguous or lacking. No form of communication is perfect. Information can be ignored, badly communicated, or misinterpreted. Acting on imperfect information risks a bad outcome. We also rely on a personal mental model of attraction to fill in the blanks in information. Perhaps we're taught that information about reciprocal sexual interest is often held back deliberately: "she's playing hard to get". And that, for example, this is simply a way of testing your persistence or ability to follow through? There are a thousand and one other ways to "fill in" missing information. This modelling is both useful and a distraction at the same time. Both parties may have dysfunctions in the way they communicate intent and consent, and having a mental model of what should happen "on average" in a situation can help here. On average, women and men behave differently within sexual attraction, and that can help in making decisions on escalating. However, everyone is different, and it can be impossible to know one person's particular way of presenting their intent or consent. To a large degree, some risk has to be taken in order to obtain good information. But this requires the person taking the risk to be very mindful of the reaction to their risk taking. A sexual scenario can proceed in fits and starts until both parties have enough information to work with, until they are certain of each other's intent and consent. One important part of mental modelling is empathy, that is, seeing the situation from the other person's point of view. This may involve taking into consideration other people outside of the immediate situation, and whether the person is in fact able to escalate in any meaningful way. Another, is whether both your intents mesh well together. Maybe you simply want sex, but the other person wants a family. There may be clues, or you might have suspicions about intent. There will be a large amount of non-verbal signalling within sexual attraction, and maybe even more so than with verbal signalling. Signals can be subtle and overlooked or misinterpreted. Again a risk has to be taken, but the reaction read as clearly as possible and paid attention to. Broadly, the reaction is either good or bad, proceed or stop. If the reaction is verbal, then take it at face value and act on it immediately. Being that gathering information is key to starting a sexual relationship, one strategy is to simply ask up front for information. That is, when enough signals of interest are given, and before escalating further. Obviously, in the heat of the moment, if things are escalating quickly, then no more information is needed. But in more ambiguous and drawn out situations, it may be prudent to outwardly ask for more information. Now, it could be that doing so will upset the dynamic in an established but ambiguous relationship, but it servers two purposes. Firstly, it gives you information on which to make better decisions by, perhaps by both sides. Secondly, it forces the other person to think about what they want and to resolve the ambiguity. Both parties should be "grown up" enough to take the consequences. If the relationship doesn't survive this, then no more needs to be done - open communication is critical for ongoing relationship in any case. What does consent mean? It simply means "yes proceed". But consent may not be given verbally, so either experience is needed or some amount of risk taking is necessary to establish if consent is given. By risk, I mean a small amount of escalation, but that's highly dependent on the situation, there's no one rule for it. But, touching escalates more than talking for example. Maybe a verbal risk can be taken, or a very light and quick physical touch can, it depends on context. If the reaction is neutral, and not negative, then care can be taken to see if furher escalation is possible. There may be a limit of escalation at which the other person simply says "no" or reacts negatively, in which case you should de-escalate immediately and perhaps disengage from the situation entirely if appropriate. Or if other positive signals were given, to give space to the other person to make a decision for themselves if they consent or not. It may be they have other concerns and you're not fully aware of their context. By giving consent, they themselves may be taking a risk. Patience is needed. Ok that's enough. It's good to get my thoughts out. A lot of this happens very quickly and instinctively in a "live" situation, it takes practice to embody it fully.

Plenty of the things I talk about I haven't investigated in depth (spoiler). Mostly it's scraps of learning I've picked up here and there and then a bunch of observation and intuition. That means that I'm probably wrong at times, but that's just fine, you'd be kidding yourself if you think you have a perfect understanding of the world; nobody does. Our knowledge and understanding is a constant work in progress. How solid is reality? This would seem like a non-question. Reality is reality right? There's the ethereal world of thought and emotion and then there's stuff you can throw around and it hurts if it hits you. It's a binary world if anything. What about the stuff in between, is there anything there? I would say yes, but it's uncommon. There is a kind of semi-world of not quite thought and not quite solid. This makes perfect sense if we regard thought and solid reality as a continuum, two parts of the same thing: a unity. The solid world of reality is thought in the last analysis, and that goes in both directions; it's then just left to philosophy to decide whose thought it is. What kinds of things fall into this semi-real category? Ghosts, daemons, UFOs, other dimensions, timeslips, tulpas, Bigfoot, Electronic Voice Phenomena, telepathy. These are the staple of paranormal investigations. They're unscientific, mostly because they are not fully solid and therefore experiments can't be performed on them. They can be highly personal experiences, but they may also be shared with other people. But largely they're one off events or at least very prone to very specific circumstances and set ups. I say they can't be dismissed. We want to believe. Can any of this be forced in some way? Can we turn thought into a wispy reality, or even go so far as to let others see our creations? If we put aside whether thought is under our control or not, we are talking here about ambiguity and belief: is it thought or is it solid? Both. How to even start? Take the art of tulpamancy (https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas/), here we set up a thoughtform from scratch. This is very much like building up a character in a novel say, where we imbue them with attributes and characteristics of their own. Eventually, they become autonomous. This may seem fanciful, but the people in your dreams behave this way, they recoil when you try and kiss them (say, lol), they have autonomy. Once a tulpa is autonomous then s/he can then take the next step and become solid - obviously with their blessing. This semi-reality of thoughtforms overlaps with areas such as bi-location: seeing people in two places at once (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilocation). In this case the thoughtform (of the bi-locator) has become real enough to be experienced by other people. Or take the Scandinavian experience of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardøger. I expect that if you force a tulpa ("forcing" is putting time and energy into its creation), and then maybe share this tulpa with someone else, then the chances of it manifesting into semi-solid reality would be higher. The idea that strong belief (thought) can create forms "out there", has legs. Are UFOs for example real or not? Are they thought or reality? I would say it sits right in that point between the two. They are brought into existence by thought. Again, don't get confused, thought probably doesn't belong to you. The source of thought is the same source that creates UFOs, they are both manifestations of the same source, thought is then only correlated to reality - cause and effect is woolly here. This is why it's dismissed by science, which deals with hard cause and effect, or at least with mathematically provable cause and effect: probability theory. Probability theory requires a large number of events to get any juice out of it: https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider. UFOs can't be cracked by probability theory, there aren't enough events. What all this is touching on is that thought influences or at least is correlated to some sort of solid reality. This is both stupidly obvious - I think about moving my arm and it moves - and also extremely subtle - I knew that you'd call me and you did. The Law of Attraction is simply an extension of arm moving, I have a thought and then three months down the line, it becomes solidly real. We don't quite believe it when it happens, because the intervening three months has made us forget and the cause and effect is ambiguous and ill defined. There is even hard scientific evidence that at least on the quantum level that thought influences reality (https://www.originsofconsciousness.com/origins-of-consciousness/new-evidence-of-mind-over-matter2). Even more mind blowing is that observation (a.k.a. thought) affects the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed-choice_quantum_eraser, at least on the quantum scale. The meta view of all this, is that at some level, thought is indistinguishable from solid reality. And also, that there is a whole spectrum between pure thought and pure solid reality. Be careful what you wish for.

I often think back to those three short years I spent at university. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but it really was a sharp change in my circumstances. I had managed to escape the misery and loneliness of being a teenager of effectively a one parent family: and I was welcomed with loving arms into a new family of like minded individuals. I gradually learned to be an adult and self sufficient over my time there. One other thing that nearly escaped my attention was how diverse my immediate set of friends were. Growing up in inner London, I had been exposed to different ethnicities and cultures early on, indeed having a foot in two cultures myself, this never felt unnatural to me. However, at university this was taken to another level, and I felt very at home with it. I'm really not sure if I naturally gravitated to having friends of different cultural backgrounds, or if with hindsight it was simply my openness and willingness to speak to anybody who would listen to me. It became a running joke at one point that our immediate clump of friends were like the Benetton adverts going around at the time. I personally went out with a Dutch/Nigerian (who gave me a run for my money in intelligence and only 17 at the time!). There were two Hong Kong Chinese mates doing psychology - a discipline that couldn't be any further from the engineering I was doing - turns out right at the end of university one of them was gay. There was a gaggle of Pakistani girls who were a good fun, and one of the them married the other Chinese bloke after he converted to Islam. My other good friend was a Ugandan Asian who eventually conceded that I was better than him at maths, when I did his final year computer graphics project for him (!) That guy also new Libyans, other Ugandans and a shy Mauritian who I variously hung out with. I used to play pool regularly with a black Ugandan (doing computer science) who always had an eye for the women and would regularly turn up to try and woo one of the few white Anglo women I had as a friend (she was another super intelligent engineer, and I fancied the pants of her too). In my final year I frequented with a Sri Lankan, and Indian, and a London Asian (Pakistani extraction I think?), oh yes and a couple more Nigerians. Anyway, I really do miss that diversity of experiences and the many Asian weddings I went to were great fun! Middle class suburbia is just so staid in comparison: I need more cultural excitement in my life. This was us, but we were waaaay less trendy:

That's 100% correct. However, a normie wouldn't see it that way, they would think they were normal.

It's the normies running the asylum. I count myself lucky to have strayed on to the path, even if it's hard sometimes.

I can see it now, all black, with ominous large white letters: "KNOWING" "Leo" "Gura".

Just the idea of tiny houses appeals very much to my minimalist tendencies. The following shows that you don't need to have complex skills to build a house, just banging and screwing:

So @LastThursday what style of music do you like? ?

Stop thinking, Start Living by Richard Carlson. Does what it says on the tin.

Certainly go with Tom Bilyeu's channel on YouTube. He seems open minded, curious and courteous.

Restructuring Life IX How intelligent is impulse? Judging by personal anecdote it is both highly intelligent and highly dumb. Some of the more dumb impulses I've followed have hurt people and caused a great level of negative emotion all round. Some of the more intelligent impulses have allowed me to make friends, find a partner, and remove myself from miserable situations. In the final analysis, impulse has tempered the person I am today. My fundamental nature is impulsive and scatter brained. I don't think this is especially different from anyone else: this is the natural state of most children anyway. We all learn to filter our impulses one way or the other - eventually - and try and apply reason and good judgement to them. It works to a lesser or greater degree. I've got it off pat by now, I've restrained my impulses largely. The restraints are only loosened either when I drink alcohol (which is rare) or if I'm particularly tired (in which case I'm less likely to act anyway). Is there a different way to use the intelligence of impulse to improve my life? It's not at all obvious from where I'm standing. It would seem like there always has to be some sort of filter on impulse, even just to stop any dumbness in it's tracks. How do I just let through the good stuff? In a way, that's an unanswerable question. What I'm hinting at here is that there is an underlying intelligence outside of rationality and analysis. Some call it intuition. The problem with impulse is that it always seems intuitively good in the moment. Maybe impulse wants to teach you a lesson, by triggering off drama and pain? I've certainly learned a lot about empathy and emotion through crappy impulse. It's possible to learn from any situation both negative and positive. It's funny that intuition is always seen a positive force, as if it were pure in intention and had total foresight. My thought is that intuition is only ever seen in contrast to logic and reason, and usually as a counterintuitive force. The times when intuition lines up with thought, thought is seen as the winner and intuition is dismissed. As ever, intuition is just an emotion or sensation or non-verbal thought. Ok, let's for argument's sake agree that intuition is a real and benign thing. In that case instead of mostly using analysis to temper impulse, I rely on intuition instead. It would go something like this: stimulus > emotion > impulse > (insert intuition) > action. The interesting thing here is, is that even if intuition is completely fictitious and/or random, then this will still break me out of the stalemate I'm in. In other words any level of randomness will allow me to explore other avenues. Either way it's a win. It's very akin to Pascal's wager: you may as well believe in God, just in case it's true (because the cost is small). I may as well believe in intuition. One very important aspect of impulse is its energy. Reason and logic is anti-energy, it sucks the life blood out of that very human need for movement and energy. For example running a marathon has nothing to do with reason and logic, it is pure energy - left to reason no-one would do such a stupid thing. I'm a very energetic person and if I examine it closely, some of my emotions around my situation is about lack of energy. The introvert me is all about reason and logic and nothing about energy. The extrovert side is pure energy and impulse. Hmm. I think my pickaxing through the strata of Restructuring Life has finally reached the mother lode of my listlessness and state of limbo: lack of energy. That feels right! More accurately, it's my entrenched inability to express the energy I have within me that is hurting me. It's like constantly having to hold my breath under water, only to surface occasionally and gasp in relief, but to sink quickly again into the murky suffocating depths (what a pretty picture eh?). What is energy for me? It is precisely following my nose: impulse. Energy is human interaction of any persuasion. Energy is creativity. Energy is living beautifully. Expressing my energy is ultimate freedom. Damn, I'm on to something. More in the next post about that. Lastly, doing without doing. That's a bit Zen. Since doing is constant: I'm always moving, thinking, emoting; there's is no doing outside of that. If I choose to sit still or to run a marathon, both are doing. Even if I don't have a choice, such as having to sleep, it is still doing. So whenever I think I need to do something, really I'm just playing a game of emphasis. I'm emphasising some acts of doing over everything else. The flipside of doing, is that once an act is finished, it is immutable and has the same status as all the other doing that's passed. In other words once finished, a particular doing is no longer special. Really, what I'm getting at here is changing perspective on what doing actually means. Rather than thinking, oh God I have to run a marathon today, you simply start, do it, and then it's done. Hardly ever do I think, oh God I have to sit on the sofa all day, no, I simply just start. This is how to flow in life, you don't a priori emphasise certain doings over others, instead you set an intention (I will run a marathon) and let your future self take care of it. Doing without doing. So, this mindset of doing without doing, can dovetail with impulse quite nicely. You let impulse loose, and let your future self take care of it. That doesn't mean that impulse has to ruin your life, it simply means future you will have further impulses which may well stop the negative ones from taking hold. In this way, the energy of impulse is not wicked away by unreasonable thoughts. Life flows, driven by impulse, intuition, energy and Zen calmness.

Restructuring reminder: impulse and just doing it. Doing without doing. Energy.

Restructuring Life VIII This is making me laugh, at what set of roman numerals will I start to take action? To expand out the subject of excitement I spoke about in Restructuring Life II; excitement is couched within motivation in general. Being excited is motivating. Motivation is driven either as an away or toward process; carrot or stick. It's not as easy as to just dumbly label these processes as positive or negative: they are not opposites. Generally, away motivation is intrinsic to a situation. By intrinsic I mean that the outside world has conspired to put you in a position of negativity, or you yourself have through unconscious choices and behaviours. However, most towards motivation is extrinsic, in that it is consciously set up and planned: a holiday abroad, or finding a partner. Naturally, that's not to say that all towards motivation is extrinsic; just that some of the bigger drivers of positive motivation tend to be extrinsic. Motivation comes in a sliding scale of intensity, for both toward and away versions. For any particular type of motivation there will always be a threshold of intensity at which you will take action. Below that you will suffer the cognitive dissonance of being emotional, but without taking action. Say you are motivated to change change jobs, but the intensity is not enough to actually spend time doing it, for example. The base of motivation is always emotion. In fact emotional signalling is simply a means of motivation. When I say that motivation has intensity, what's really being said is that emotions have intensity. Emotions are the driver. However, motivation is not just emotion, the other component of motivation is narrative. A narrative is built up either around your own circumstances or some fantasy about the future you wish would occur. You can see how important my model of Theory of Meaning is I talked about previously (yes I'm selling my own product). Any narrative you have is completely neutral, but the emotions give it colour and meaning. But the narrative definitely informs the emotions. So just like in advertising, where a compelling (strongly emotional) story is always sought for to sell a product; the same is true of motivation. The layer of archetype is important here, for having ready made tropes that are easy to latch on to. Maybe you can see yourself as the hero in your own story? So being that most compelling towards motivation is extrinsic, and built up by design, how is it possible to "advertise" to yourself? This is no easy task, how can you fool yourself to sell yourself a dream, and then forget that you've fooled yourself straight after? This is something I struggle with excessively. I'm not easy to sell to, even when someone else tries to do it. Selling to myself just plain doesn't work, I can see through my own facade. I also don't seem to have been able to garner enough intensity of emotion to cross that threshold of action. I was never particularly emotional in the past, I'm more so now, but not by orders of magnitude. Equally, my intrinsic away motivation (I hate my life type ideation...) doesn't have strong enough intensity of emotion for me to cross that motivational threshold. I'm stuck in that valley of low emotion (because realistically my life's just fine survival-wise), but still have the cognitive suffering which accompanies wanting to be motivated and have change, but not doing it. So what to do? Can I simply just turn the knobs of emotions up far enough to kick start motivation? It seems outlandish, I can only say that it's an avenue of investigation for me, I have no idea of where I would get started. Maybe I can become a better story teller and self-salesman? There may be some mileage in that (see Restructuring Life VI), but so far I haven't hit the magic story formula to get my emotional hooks into. Maybe the key is existentialism? To realise that wanting change and wanting motivation to change is already a story I've fallen for, and that it is actually possible to fall for my own stories. Maybe external motivation is what's needed? I could then engage with someone else's story which then engages my emotions - since I don't have to fight my own facade in that case. This is in fact what I've relied on in the past, especially with girlfriends: going along with their flow. I must say I can be more strongly motivated by other people than by myself, so this can work. But, this process is hit and miss, and currently I'm not in a position to do this. Shall I just throw my hands up? Almost certainly. Change will happen when it happens, regardless of whether I cogitate over it or not.

Two places: Attention Having something you have to do By attention I mean having attention taken away from the task at hand. You can't really control attention, but you can control the sources that grab attention (i.e. distraction). So the aim here is to reduce or remove all those things in your environment that distract you. But the worst offender is thinking. You can't control thinking either - which is why it seems impossible to break out of procrastination. But again, you can control the triggers of thinking: so meditate, have peaceful surroundings, use music and so on. And make sure the body is satisfied: get sleep, eat properly, sit comfortably etc - otherwise it will grab too much attention or not allow you to focus. Be aware you will be more focused at certain times of the day, use that to your advantage. The second point is less obvious. The only reason for procrastination is thinking you're being forced to do something. Sometimes that in itself can get your defences up, and make it hard to start. You always have a choice not to do something and just drop it, maybe you can live with the consequences? Here's some tips that I use to reduce procrastination: Have a routine - work on the task at the same times each day, this primes the mind to be ready for action Start small - aim to do the task in chunks, just half an hour at a time, the chunks don't have to be consecutive, but the Pomodoro technique can also help here. Have a plan - if it's a big task, break the task down and plan out times and dates, having a deadline and timeline can sometimes help. Seeing the extent of the task can make it seem less daunting. Reduce all distractions - meditate if possible beforehand to quiet the mind. Block the web: Facebook, YouTube etc. Switch off and put away your mobile somewhere inconvenient. Distract the thinking mind with music (works for me). Make sure you're not contactable or can be physically found by people. Have a reward system - if you do the task or a bit of the task, then reward yourself with food, coffee, a walk, showering, stretching, a break whatever. Keep the rewards as non-distracting as possible - i.e. they don't take a long time and don't engage the attention too much. Have a variety of tasks to work on - you'll probably get bored just working on one thing all day, find a range of different things to do in rotation. This will keep up the focus and stop the mind wandering.

Restructuring Life VII I haven't exhausted the other areas, but I am moving on to another angle: existentialism. The bottom of my existential barrel is should I be or should I do? Let's go meta already: being and doing are one and the same. Doing is only different from being with regards to the mental net that's cast over it (q: what is it)? Ok. So, I cannot not be. I am constantly being whether I pay attention to it or not, whether I like it or not. By extension I am always doing: moving, breathing, thinking, passing time. So any existential angst I feel about being/doing, is purely generated by emotion and thought. In their turn, emotion and thought are simply an aspect of being. I'm beholden to the inherent programming of being and unable to escape that. There is nowhere to escape to. So much so dense. Let's try and go lighter: If I am to cast a net over being and emphasise certain aspects of it over others, then what is the "best" way to do that? Being itself has no answers here, because it's all being being being. No. Only thought has the answers. What does thought think? LOL, see previous Restructuring Life I to VI. In other words I'm going round in circles here (from an existential POV). Doing nothing and doing something are equivalent to each other. Inaction and action, who cares, what cares? There's nothing really to grab on to here. This being, @LastThursday, wants to create meaning so it can feel self-satisfied in some way. That's still dense. Maybe I can't do it lighter. Right erm... meaning... meaning... meaning... Ok. So if I don't go question why I want meaning in the first place (too Alice in Wonderland), then @LastThursday will deem to create meaning out of nothing and then "do" something towards obtaining that meaning. It would be meaningful to have some of the things that I'm envious that other people have. Yes, that's sort of it, maybe. Or I can create meaning relative to my current circumstances, swim the ocean of relativity by pushing against its water. Yes yes! I know exactly what I don't want, that's it, that's exactly the resistance I need in order to push away. But I need a beacon of meaning to point my pushing towards. Why not just push randomly somewhere?: because I'm danger of going round in circles. So what? Being itself doesn't care. And, the mind is entertained because it thinks it's going somewhere. The body only cares as long as its fed and used nicely. Why is that so unsatisfactory? What is it that exactly cares that I'm going in a straight line to somewhere else? Also, my emotions will be whatever my circumstances dictate, they're just the waves on the ocean; in the end they tell me nothing, except to give me undulating nausea. All this existentialism is the source of my so called inaction. My thought and emotions are like little children who don't understand why they feel tired, all they can do is cry. My being is the patient parent, waiting for the kids to grow up or go to sleep.

@Preety_India I'm interested to know what your list is.

Happy birthday old chap. Have a spiffing day.

Some of mine: Introspection and questioning yourself Going constantly meta Imagination and being open to possibility Examining things from many angles, stepping into other people's shoes Understanding your emotions / growing emotional intelligence Improving executive functioning: decision making, impulse control, attention span and focus Clear communication with people (and with yourself as well) Being open minded and non-judgemental Being able to commit long term to achieve goals Loving people for being themselves

Gotta keep churning and not let myself off the hook and to keep up the energy. I need good stories to bypass the thinking mind. Restructuring Life VI+ March 23 2030 It's been nine years since I've looked at this journal. Boy, a lot's happened in that time. I remember back then when I felt lost and listless. Never would I have dreamt that the Restructing entries would lead to the life I have now. I decided that I would gather up all my ideas that I'd had in this journal, and write a short book. I knew that I could synthesise something fresh in the self-help domain. That book was key in helping me get known. From there I started doing short YouTube videos. I found that there were many people that just needed basic self-development, but that conventional advice just didn't click for them, they needed something different. I got my first few coaching clients through YouTube and I took the plunge. Eventually, I gave up my wage slavery and went with coaching full time. Strangely, once I did that, even though it was hard hard work, everything else fell into place. All those things that I'd been yearning for back then happened. I have a set of like minded friends which I talk to and see regularly, I help people which gives me a nice warm glow and financially things are looking good: I have even paid off my home outright. I have two homes in fact. One in the UK and one here Barcelona and spend half a year in each. And I finally sorted out dual citizenship. I've also gotten to know my family in Spain very well which is great. August 9 2025 I had my first piano concert today. It truly is a dream come true. I didn't think it would be possible all those years ago to get to a good enough standard to knock out Bach and Chopin to an audience. It felt amazing to be appreciated for my skill, I sure have put in a huge amount of concentrated time and effort into it. When I'd moved house, I decided to by myself a baby grand beforhand, the house had to fit the piano or else it was a no go. Over the space of a year I hugely improved my music reading and learnt all of the Well Tempered Clavier. That in itself gave me the confidence and level of skill I needed. From there I picked up other popular and less popular pieces, learning one every week or so. I have a good repetoire now. I just enjoy so much, it beats programming hands down, and it speaks to my heart rather than my head. Don't get me wrong though, it's hugely demanding, but immensely rewarding. Hopefully more concerts to come! Edit It's an odd sensation writing these little story snippets out. It feels extremely unnatural and awkard to do, and that's a sign of how underdeveloped my imagination is with respect to what I want. I'm very much a go-with-the-flow kind of guy, which is fine, but I need to get excited and to have goals and things to work towards: LIFE PURPOSE, PURPOSE IN LIFE. I have to re-purpose my imagination into developing good stories for myself. This sort of thing has to become more natural and fluid for me. Practice practice practice.

Restructuring Life VI I've covered top down, bottom up, emotion, pragmastism. Now it's fantasy's turn. This covers the "WTF do I actually want?" question. Maybe I do know, but I think it's silly, unattainable, unreasonable, unacceptible, un, un, un. June 13 2023 It was wam last night and I woke up a couple of times, but I got back to sleep easily enough. When I opened the wooden shutters, the sun blazed in, it looks like it's going to be another great day. I'll put on my straw hat - an affectation I've taken on to remind me that I could be on holiday - and get a small and intense coffee in the little cafe bar in the village. The owner knows me well and I try my broken Italian out on him, he's not really that much older than me. After that I'll walk down to the nice stretch of beach outside the village and take a swim. I rarely take showers any more. I think a late breakfast after that. Then on to the serious part of the day, working on my book. December 18 2022 I've been in New Zealand a few weeks now. It's great place, stunning scenery. The locals here are friendly and I've become acquainted with this beautiful woman, she sings in a bar for part time work. When I first heard her I was just so taken with her talent, she was like a songbird. Something inside me stirred and I stayed there all night, and built up some Dutch courage. When the place emptied out a bit, I told her how beautiful her singing was, to my suprise she was really interested in me and what it's like back in the UK. That was a month ago, and now tomorrow she's told me meet her at a certain venue I've never been to. Secretly, I think she's got a birthday surprise lined up for me. I hope. My birthday in Summer I must be dreaming. April 24 2021 After a 12 mile walk through the countryside my friend and I decided to drive back to a big pub we'd passed on the way. We shared stats about the walk and our amazement at the all day sunshine we were having. A few tables away a couple of women friends talked quietly together. I liked the look of one of them and she glanced over to me occasionally. After I bit I could tell they were about to leave. I just had to take my chance. "Sorry Alex, hang on..." I went over, just as they were getting up and asked the blonde, "Hi. Sorry. Do you mind if I ask you a very personal question." she looked slightly taken aback, but said "Ok?". "Do you have a boyfriend?", they both laughed and she said "no". I said, "Would you like to have one? What's your number?". And that was that, we exchanged numbers. She's very spiritual.