LastThursday

The laws of nature are stories the grown ups told us. Reality is a lot looser and glitchier than people think.

@Javfly33 looking for purpose comes from the dream not outside of it. There is no outside. Can the dream explain itself, is that possible?

Agreed you can't control others' reactions. Many people will be in your shoes and they also want to be authentic, but are are afraid to be. What's the best thing that can happen to them? That someone authentic, gives them the space and encouragement to also be authentic themselves. It's infectious, win win.

Neither. It's the nature of conscious reality that things and thoughts suddenly appear, only to disappear again. The present moment is full of such discontinuities. You can weave any story or theory around it you like, but it's fundamentally mysterious and unknowable.

I confess that I do feel people's pain. I want to help. But I can't fix everyone's problems, I can't even fix my own a lot of the time. The best way to help a person is to show them how to help themselves. Occasionally this works, but most of the time there's confusion or anger at this approach. People want their problems solved practically and immediately and on their level - it's understandable. But examining themselves and learning is painful and slow work. I could give a homeless guy a thousand pounds, but it would probably be useless, yes they can buy food and cigarettes for a few months, but what then? What the homeless guy needs is for their problems and context to be understood, and then they need to be taught how to help themselves - that's more help than most people are willing to give. Sometimes it pains me that I'm unwilling to help most people. It pains me that I have to pick and choose who to help and when. It pains me that despite my efforts, some people can't be helped or actively resist it. It pains me that I don't show more compassion. I helped my mum for most of my life. I made her life bearable and stopped her from living a nightmare; she could never have done it alone. But I only relieved her symptoms not her causes. Only she could have done that and she was unable to.

Why do you think that? Just questioning for the sake of curiosity to explore the topic. Not judging Sure. What's the purpose behind being authentic? It seems like it's about removing the barriers you normally have, that stop you thinking and doing the things you desire. The barriers are things like fear of rejection, anxiety, guilt, lack of confidence, uncertainty, fear of being ridiculed and so on. So what's it like to think authentically? In that case you would just think thoughts without any judgement (barrier) from yourself and let them play out. But just thinking like this isn't the whole story. The other half of the story is acting on those unrestricted thoughts - this is the outward expression of authenticity. People will admire you for being free to act out what you wanted in the moment. What's the purpose behind being vulnerable? It's about showing parts of yourself that you consider painful or unpleasant or that you could be judged on; putting yourself in a position of being at the mercy of other people. And normally people will empathise with you. Again, it's an outward expression of openness and invitation to intimacy.

You could just be super pragmatic about it. I have a briefcase full of my stamp collection (nerd). Despite that briefcase only taking up a small corner of my study, I could easily spend the next month looking at the detail of each stamp and sorting them by country etc. Or, I could go into my friend's modest garden and start examining every blade of grass with a magnifying glass and each would be different, and spend the next year doing just that. That is reality, there's just so much damn stuff out there. It's moot whether it's infinite or not, your life isn't long enough to see it all.

Exactly. NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is essentially this. All thought and memory is neutral, but emotions get tied to those memories as a case of conditioning. Often, the conditioning is constantly reinforced by sheer mental repetition. The bell rings, and the emotions kick in. It's stimulus/response. It's a tragedy that people are unable to disengage stimulus (memory, thought) from response (traumatic emotion). NLP tries to do this with via a process of interference, one stimulus, two responses. The premise being that the nervous system or subconscious will prefer a strongly positive stimulus over a negative one. It's different than other therapies in that it doesn't reinforce the original conditioning by constantly replaying the memory (i.e. talking therapies), it's not lost in content and interpretation.

If it's good enough for Bruce Lee... Systems and techniques are the scaffolding not the house.

No person is an island. Being authentic and vulnerable is an outward expression, not a thought in your head; it is for other people to admire and recognise. If you're not fearless about expressing yourself, then you are not being authentic. It's about breaking out of the role others expect you to have, but also not behaving out of neediness. Being authentic or vulnerable is a two way communication that flows freely.

Who needs a book when you've got the forum? Somewhere to start would be to read the two recent threads on this, if you haven't already: There are some very intelligent and coherent answers in those threads. But I agree a booklist of some sort on this topic would be wonderous. Oh, and this thread:

Alice: My new mantra is "Just do it!" Bob: But you're not doing anything. Alice: I am. I'm doing laziness.

I have such a strong connection with some songs. This is one of the vinyl record (a tautology) albums my parents had. It just reminds me of being with my family around the late seventies in Spain as a very small kid. It's just as good as the original song in my opinion: This song was played incessantly late night on TV at my girlfriend's parents' place around 1990. I was foolishly given a key so I would crash there after going to the nightclub across the park and up the hill. Sweaty and drunk and tired: I just love this song for it's etherial, crisp quality and beautiful voice (2021). And looking back in another thirty years will remind of now: Boy, I've lived a long time.

I agree up to a point. There are a million actions that would be good for you, but require effort to do. Implicit in being referred to as lazy, is that you should be doing something. But who's to judge what you should be doing or even if you should be doing anything at all? Where does this judgement come from? It's a societal thing, we're obsessed with doing. If you're not doing then somehow you're deficient in some way or wasting your time. Time is treated as a commodity to be filled with doing stuff; progressing, advancing. Maybe conserving energy or having down time is actually good for you?

To call someone lazy is a judgement. Mostly when people say it, it's because they want to say "look how good I am, I'm not lazy like you", virtue signalling. Sometimes, it's used as genuine encouragement, but it's hardly ever as effective as positive encouragement. What would you rather hear: "Your so lazy you'll never amount to anything" or "You have so much talent, it'll be amazing if you used it"? Anyway, laziness is useful for conserving energy so it's probably an adaptive evolutionary trait. Lastly, most people are very good at telling you you're lazy, but not any good at telling you how not to be lazy - mostly because they don't have a clue themselves or they themselves are too lazy to really help you.

@Preety_India naturally, bad behaviour shouldn't ever be rewarded. But it wouldn't be judgemental to tell a person directly that they've hurt you by their actions. That's enforcing boundaries. If they continue to hurt you knowingly, then you should remove them from your life as painlessly as possible. I agree that ghosting is crappy behaviour.

That doesn't diminish the sweetness and supportiveness you gave and any help they received from you. You are no lesser person. Sometimes people just don't have the skills, empathy or level of experience to acknowledge what you have done for them, or to reciprocate, or even just to say thank you. Just let them go, and if they come back, just accept them for who they are without judgement.

Interesting observation. You can do this process on steroids (not actual steroids). The way is to strongly associate a physical sensation to a calm meditative state. For example say get into deep meditation and touch your left earlobe. Do this for several sessions. After a while you'll get the Pavlovian response to touching your left earlobe - it will immediately put you into a calm meditative state. Hypnotists use this technique all the time, to "induce" you quickly. Next, you induce the state by touching your earlobe and keeping it there, and immediately start mentally reliving the traumatic memory. This will reprogram the emotional response to the memory, as you mentioned about reconsolidation. Don't hold the earlobe for too long however or it could get associated with the traumatic memory. Each time through this exercise should greatly and permanently change the emotional response to the memory. The anchors (i.e. earlobe touching) can be physical, words, sounds, smells or visualisation or combination of those. Often it's best that someone else anchors the state, which leaves you free to concentrate on just the trauma. The anchored states can be any positive or afirming emotion: confidence, calmness, excitement, emptiness etc.

This journal seems to be two things. A place of ideas swirling around in my head. A place of retrospective in the hope of understanding myself now. What's missing is future orientation (note to self). Now with that teaser, I'm going to do some more retrospective... Back in 2006 I did a month's set of courses at the NLP Academy in London. For some context, my dad has been into basically self development practices in a business setting. So since teenagehood I had been surrounded by this stuff and because I used to be a big reader, I would just delve into all his books on the subject. So (as mentioned in my learning styles post), I learnt a lot of stuff by osmosis rather than specifically being interested in it. Mostly, I thought it was faddish and I would inwardly roll my eyes when my dad talked enthusiastically about it. He never has been good at noticing body language, but maybe I'm good at hiding it. Anyway. I knew all about NLP before I did the courses, but never really had any context for it, and never was that interested. But around 2006 I was languishing after a break up and my dad firmly insisted I do the courses to which he was attached as he assisted or ran some of them himself. So I relented - at great expense - and partially to please him and let him enjoy collaborating with his son. And, maybe to get something out of it. For the basic introductory course my dad also took part as a pupil himself. There was plenty of material I was already aware of, and plenty of exercises mostly in pairs. Because we were novices the techniques were probably not as effective as they could have been. Also NLP techniques are always focussed on noddy things like smoking cessation and phobias etc. I say noddy, they can be quite debilitating for some. But I personally didn't find them that interesting. Although I did start to realise the power of what was being taught. What I really wanted was solutions to my own problems: anxiety, bitter resentment about the collapse of my family, apathy and so on. Pretty much what I talk about here still on this journal (sigh). The strong irony of my dad wanting to help me but being the actual source of the problems was not lost on me. The irony of him being on the course with me. In fact I found it a relief once the basic course had finished and my dad had left. Was my dad trolling me albeit in an unconscious manner? Was he actually trying to assuage his own guilt - a selfish endeavour? The remainder of the courses were different in character. But there were a couple of particularly powerful experiences I had on the basic course. One involving moving and blending submodalities around - I was with a partner but failing at getting any effect, when one of the instructors spoke to us and said "do it this way", and bam! I was in a daze for the rest of the day, my vision became slightly desaturated, and I felt dreamlike. Another exercise had me slowly bringing my hands together to squash two sets of emotions into one, at the end of which I cried uncontrollably, for half an hour. What I actually found more interesting were the more hypnotic side of NLP and the more visually orientated techniques. I was intrigued that specially tailored language could be used to solve personal problems. So I learned Ericksonian hypnosis. By lunchtime most days, due to early starts but also being completely spaced out by the exercises, there were sleeping bodies strewn in the meeting room, mine included. I really enjoyed this communal aspect to learning. And the range of people were interesting, I especially got on with an Ecuadorian woman (fancied rather), and layed back Portugese bloke. The timeline therapy exercises I particularly enjoyed with Ms Ecuador. It had me floating up into space, to drift slowly back along my "timeline" to a moment before the unpleasantness occured, which was then anchored to (associated with) a strongly positive emotion, and then we are told to rerun the event, all the time experiencing the positive emotion. A lot of the power of NLP revolves around the idea of simultaneously holding two feelings or emotions or mental states, in order that they interfere with each and producing lasting change. All the different exercises are just various ways in which this "collapsing" of states can be encouraged. So it's straightforward to come up with new techniques around this idea. I found visualisation strongly affected me, but that's my main submodality (sense). But physical techniques (e.g. bring hands together) can be quite powerful - for example marking out different floor areas and anchoring different sets of states, to them, and then have the person hold one state whilst walking to a different area on the floor. I came out of those courses a changed person. My anxiety decreased tremendously, my confidence was sky high, I felt relaxed in every day life for the first time in my life. It was night and day. A lot of it stuck and was integrated over time. I also mark that as the start of my spiritual journey, albeit in a completely unintended and unconcious way. Perhaps I do owe my dad something?

Why are you asking this question?

I often sit here feeling like I've lost an important part of myself over the years. It's pretty difficult to dissect what's been lost exactly, but I'll try my best. Here's a list of nouns I think I've lost or that have diminished and what they mean to me: Energy, vibrancy, excititability: I suppose this comes with age, except that I'm not infirm or in any way unhealthy, I'm fit enough to walk 15 miles in a day. So what gives? Social expectation? Lack of opportunity to express this energy? It just feels like I do still have this, but no outlet for it. I think especially most of the things I do are because I have to do and none of it switches me on. Fun, joy: Again no opportunity to engage with these. Fun and joy are often expressed with other people, especially in intimate situations (not necessarily sexual). I'm quite a humorous and at times sarcastic person and sometimes it works with people (not on a forum full of Americans however - dig). But I find most adults around me just have a humour by-pass, life is serious serious serious. Also, people are just incapable of laughing at themselves or their misfortunes. Connection, people: Maybe the root cause of my loss. As my friends have got married, had kids and maintain mortages, the level of connection has dramatically reduced. Ironically, this connection has increased during lockdown, go figure. I was very close to my sister for most of my childhood, but we have become disconnected as adults - although I'm working on this. I'm not close to my family, we keep each other at a respectable distance. I don't currently have a girlfriend - but I feel strongly ambivalent about having one. I don't do pets or plants. Sheesh. Experimentation: This is a tricky one. Experimentation is kind of a one shot process. Once alcohol, staying awake all night, nightclubs, sex, weed, other stuff, have meet experimented on, that's it. I am experimenting heavily with hypnosis and associated activities. But more of this please Me. Novelty: Again another difficult one, a sort of sister to experimentation. Most experimentation is about novelty, most novelty comes from experimentation. I think some new activites are needed. I have variously done creative writing, acting, song writing, Tai Chi, Badminton (still am). I have a strong interest in running and walking. Problem is none of those activies are novel. How do I turn on the novelty tap. Kindness, gratitude, helping others: It's not that I don't do these things, it's that I don't feel comfortable expressing these as much I want to. Brits are reserved and very sincere about all this stuff. I would just love it to be casual and informal. The way I currently show gratitude is by being physically present and attentive for the people I love. I'm also prepared to go out of my way to help my friends and family. However, I'm not particular verbal about expressing these things. I feel as though my exterior facade doesn't match my interior feelings around kidness and gratitude. Purpose: I've drifted ever since left University now over 25 years ago FFS. Before that my purpose was to escape the confines of London and to get educated as highly as possible and then to earn loads of dosh. I did all that and somewhere along the line gave up striving for anything much at all. Saying that, my scattergun attention doesn't help in this respect, nothing sticks long enough to stick to one purpose. There's no simple solution for this. It's quite possible, that I will never pick up a purpose until I pop my clogs. Optimism: I was an extremely happy go lucky young person. Despite all the odds of parents divorcing, lonely teenagehood, and being poor, I was still optimistic that things would go right and about the future. This has given way to a very pragmatic and grounded person however - which is fine but without optimism all the energy and motivation is sucked out of me. Pragmatism is great for weathering the storm of every day drudgery: working, paying bills and doing the rounds with friends and family, being adult. Pragmatism has also helped kill the anxious young adult I was - for that I'm very thankful. But without optimism life is nothing special. Hmm. What's the theme? People, people, people... How do I square getting to know more people with my lone wolf character? Kill the wolf.

And...? Sorry, just nosey.

Start counting from 1, and keep going to infinity and beyond. Notice that no number ever repeats.

We live in three worlds. The world of the public. The world of the private. The world of our thoughts, desires and fantasies. Each world is governed by it's own rules and code of conduct. The public space has to be shared with people and is therefore designed so that people get on with each other civilly. It's a world of lowest common denominators, not everything goes: nakedness, drug use, most sorts of deviancy from the norm are frowned upon. It's police and politics and politeness. It's the real world of weather and burning sun, concrete and highways; cars. The private space is looser in all those public taboos just mentioned. The only agreement needed is from your (un)loved ones who share your space. Whenever the outside public world intrudes an air of public normalcy pretended, or at least usual private practices are toned down. Recreational drug use is rife, the law doesn't apply. The private space is one of relaxation and letting loose and protection from the rigid public world just outside those windows. It is a place of sleep and dreams and sexual conduct. In a non-pandemic world it is an escape from the public workplace and its codes of conduct. It's a place to eat and shit comfortably. It is a place of deviancy and kink, where some of our fantasies are enacted and a space for getting lost in games both computerised and otherwise. The inner world of thought is the last refuge. If we choose to, it is a perfect place to keep secrets and lock away unpleasant things, even if they often poke us with their ugliness. It is the action centre, and the nerve centre of our sense of self. Here, the three worlds come together to be sorted and sifted into their respective zones. Here no laws apply, and we are unrestricted in our freedom, except for any self imposed imprisonment. We can become others at a moment's notice and then revert to ourselves when finished. We can travel back in time and far into the future. This is the space we use to learn about the other worlds and ourselves. It is a space to secretly hate others or secretly love them.

I wouldn't get too hung up on phrasing. Substitute any other empty abstract noun for energy: essence, vibration, type, orientation, flavour or whatever. I would agree that it can't be easily distentangled from socialization, so by that token the primality would seem contrived (by people). Maybe by analogy works: what is feline energy and canine energy? It would be tricky to put your finger on exactly what makes one or the other, but you know there's a difference and they're not arrived at through socialization. If you're playing charades you could mimic (embody) one or the other easily enough. Is cattiness and dogginess primal in the universe? Erm, no, but it is primal for those two groups of mamals. Can you embody both an essence of masculinity and feminity? The answer would seem to be yes and it's primal for humans at least. Universally? Dunno.