LastThursday

Restructuring reminders: doing nothing, coaching, teaching.

Restructuring Life IV It's time to talk to the pragmatic part of me and see if it has any answers about my state of "limbo". By pragmatic I suppose I mean non-emotional. The pragmatist would say that getting lost in the story of emotions is not efficient or productive. In Restructuring III, there is a small amount of pragmatism, in that if I'm going to deal with emotions at all, then I need to do it directly (i.e. the physical sensations and their signals). So what does the pragmatist want out of this? The overall goal here is change. I want to change myself and my circumstances enough that the negative emotions I have are got rid of. However, all the good parts need to be kept as much as possible. The pragmatist is not stupid though, he knows that some good parts will have to go, albeit temporarily, in order to achieve the other goal of having a better life. Take the following as a sort of inner dialogue with my inner pragmatist. There is argument here for changing for change's sake. This can often be enough to disturb the system into a new state, and maybe this state is an easier one to grapple with. What things could I input into my life that would achieve this? Here's a rag bag list: Get a girlfriend - this would go someway to ameliorate the feelings of isolation and lack of intimacy and sex. However, I would have to give up a certain amount of personal freedom (a value high on my list), and also accommodate a whole other world (her stuff) into "our" plans. It's a hugely unpredictable process, with the potential of returning me back to my current state of limbo if it doesn't work out. Finding a girlfriend is also nigh on impossible in my situation, I just don't have the exposure to women to do this. I don't want to go out with someone my age, they're old, they can't have children. I don't want to exclude the possibility of starting a family. Then the question of what is an acceptible age comes to the fore. A twenty year cut off would be 28, but the upper limit is reasonably 38 for children. That is quite a small window. I could go out with someone younger than 28, but then maturity, outlook, and social stigma comes into play. The younger, the less likely. Work for myself - this would remove the drudgery of being a wage slave. I would be able to direct my efforts and talents into doing work that excited me and fit more with my values. However, there is a huge risk here. There would be a longish period of set up for the business, in which income and viability would be unstable - this fills me with dread. I'd still be beholden to clients' needs and wants. I'd have to actively find clients. I would be working seven days a week instead of the now five. Unless I'm well established with guaranteed income, getting a mortgage would be difficult. But, the reward of working on my own terms, may outweigh the risks - it's extremly hard to tell though. My dad has worked for himself for years, and currently, has no income. Buy a home - currently I rent. The money I pay to my landlady is dead money, it goes in her pocket not mine. I would also like more space to store stuff, and to have some sort of workshop area for tinkering with and building things. A garden would be great as well. The elephant in the room though is maintaining a mortgage. Once I'm on the ladder, I have to work to keep up repayments. Although, this point may be moot, I have to work anyway to have a roof over my head. I'd be simply exchange one thing for another similar thing. But rental is more flexible, if my income drops, I can quickly give notice and find somewhere cheaper. I would also have to renovate and upkeep my own home, which comes with a time and money cost. Although any money I'm paying in, stays in my pocket, as I get this back when and if I sell the home. There will be some amount of effort and cost in finding a new home. Emotionally I'm not at all excited by a new home. Build my own home - I'm very attracted by the proposition of building a tiny house. I would get to design and physically build my home, with the sense of satisfaction that comes from it. The idea excites me. I would own the home outright at the end of the process, no rent or mortgage. There are a number of downsides. In the UK land is at a premium, effectively I would have to rent space on someone's land to do it, so there's a regular cost here. The home would have to be well insulated or at least well heated for the winters here. It's unlikely I would be near a town, so I would still be reliant on having a car. It would take a substantial amount of free time to build the home, effectively it would be a full time project. I would be inclined to give up work for the period of the build. That isn't so crazy, if at the end of the process my monthly outgoings drop substantially. The other problem is that I would still be isolated (unless I move in with a girlfriend), in fact it may be harder to meet people. Going travelling - I have dabbled with this plan in the past. Last time I put all my possessions into storage and took off. The big thing here is sustainability. Storage costs money. Reasonably if I was doing this long term, I would sell all my possessions. But there are a fair few things of sentimental value: I'm still attached. Unless I work as I travel, I will have to fund accommodation and food. When I did it before, it was an experiment in viability. The pragmatic question I have to ask is why do it? Two things, meeting and being with people, adventure and exploration. Those are two things I'm greatly lacking currently. And, at the moment the pandemic is putting the brakes on that sort of lifestyle in many parts of the world. I did absolutely enjoy the freedom of travelling about, and hardly missed the luxuries in life: i.e. I was compatible with it. Moving abroad - there are several things I find attractive about this. The primary one is weather. UK weather is tolerable, but cold for most of the year, and very often just grey and washed out. The extrovert part of me wants to be outside all the time, even now as I sit here there are blue skies and I feel like being outdoors, but I know its cold. So moving to somewhere with great weather all year round, will go someway to pandering to a part of me that feels neglected. Second is exposure to a different culture. I'm very much inculcated into British culture. But I do also have a Spanish part of me that needs attention, I miss the Spanish food and way of life (what I remember of it). I would feel proud if I could improve my Spanish speaking. Obviously, I would either have to move to Spain itself or some other Spanish speaking country: the South Americas. I have family in Spain I would like to get to know. Moving to a non-English or non-Spanish speaking country would be a lot more difficult. I could do France, my French is basic but at least workable; it would have to be the South of France weather-wise. Then there is bureaucracy. Moving to any country involves a fair amount of bureaucratic wrangling, paperwork, visas and so on. The language barrier is a huge one, even with complete fluency you are still an outsider. I very much value my ability in the English language, I will never be able to express myself to the same level in any other language, even Spanish. But there are many warm Anglophone countries, Australia springs to mind. Most of Scandinavia speaks English, but it's cold and dark. - Of all the above, buying a home seems the most viable. Indeed if I'm not going to engage with any of the other options, then I should be doing it right now. More ideas to follow with respect to pragmatism.

If you drop a pebble into a pond, your memories are like the ripples. The memories are part of the original event not separate from it. This is because the original event was pure imagination in the first place. Looking at the ripples in a pond, you believe that a pebble was dropped into it, but the pebble already disappeared into the water.

Put the death date in my diary. Hey wait up where's my diary now...?

Restructuring reminder: motivation, pragmatism.

Restructing Life III Man I'm feeling a great need to get this stuff out. It's half tempting to create another journal just to go through this Restructuring business. However, it goes against my minimalist tendencies and, will fracture my thought processes: two things are harder to maintain than one. This journal is a stream of thought. With respect to my previous post just now on Theory of Meaning, and continuing to looking at the problem from the bottom up, what the hell are my emotions around all this anyway? It's tricky, there's a bunch of them and talking about them makes me feel very exposed. I'm not going to be able to avoid the metaphorical and linguistic layers in the following descriptions (what can I do?). But I'll lay things out as plainly as I can: I'm lonely and isolated and disconnected (probably one emotion) I feel I'm missing out (envy) I want sex and to be touched (to feel loved) I feel neglected or not included (whatever that is) I feel like a failure (for not having progressed further in life) I don't feel attractive or as if I'm particularly interesting to other people I feel very trapped (by work, by indecision, by family, by age) I feel strong disappointment (with myself, with life) I feel some guilt about the way I've treated others in the past I don't feel as if I'm able to get what I want (helplessness) I'm fearful that the cause of my predicament is that I'm fundamentally missing an important piece that others have (I'm broken or not whole) It should be blatantly obvious I've left out all the positive emotions. After all, they don't need action right? Right...? Maybe I should include them. But later. So it's complex insofar as there are many emotions to grapple with. The overarching emotion is that of overwhelm. I'm overwhelmed to the point of inaction. Dealing with or responding to or resolving any of the above appears intractable. They all require me to behave and act differently from what I'm used to. Ok, I'll concede one shadenfreude emotion: I feel comfortable How do I deal with that emotion? It's one of the sources of my inaction, because I don't actually want to ever feel "not comfortable" at all in any way. Ok. Deep breath. I can resolve those above negative emotions, but any lame suggestions like: join a club where you meet others, is just window dressing. The cause of a lot of the emotions I feel is because my life grates against the values I hold dear, the set up is completely wrong: I need to restructure completely. Knock it down and start again. That's a tough ask. (note the building metaphor) But. At least I'm acknowledging those emotions. That's a step in the right direction.

This is a theory of ___ I just came up with. I don't know what it's a theory of exactly. Anyway, here goes: There are three layers to experiencing: Emotion (feeling) Archetypes, story and metaphor Language According to this model emotion is the base of experiencing, decision making and meaning. Aha! The blank is "meaning". Ok LastThursday's theory of meaning (TOM). We start to make sense of the world through emotional reactions. Someone hurts us, and we react emotionally. We lose a family member, and we react emotionally. We are kissed by our loved one, and we react emotionally. Broadly an emotion is either positive or negative, and it comes in a range of intensities. It's basic function is to signal meaning. The principle meaning being conveyed is either toward or away. Someone hurts us, we stay away. Someone loves us, we go toward. The content of the emotion can be different: hunger, anger, disgust, elation etc; they signal different things. The next layer in the cake of meaning, is story telling. Emotions in themselves are simple and disconnected entities. They have meaning insofar that they convey a signal or information to be paid attention to, they are like alarm calls. In order to connect up the different emotions and increase the value of them we create a framework for the emotions to sit in. It may seem odd that language doesn't come in the middle of the cake. After all, how do you create a story without language? I'll elucidate with an example. Say you're a writer. One day you sit down and find that you feel frustration (an emotion). You unconsciously reach for a metaphor for this emotion: I'm trying to scale a wall, but it's too high to get over. Note that this visual metaphor comes in before any notion of language, any linguistic representation comes after. Another example. You want to have sex, but your partner's not in the mood. You feel rejection (an emotion). You automatically reach for the story of a child being scolded by their mother. Again, this is before any linguistic interpretation. Maybe you can hear your mother scolding in in your mind's eye. The role of the metaphor or story is to put the emotion into some sort of context. It also creates cohesion between a set of emotions, say anger and sadness at being treated badly by someone else. Individually the anger and the sadness are simple signals and disconnected from each other. But you may reach for the metaphor of being a precious object being roughly handled and not being respected. The top layer of the cake is language. In order to give structure to the different stories and metaphors we employ the web of meanings inherent in language. This is the next layer of cohesion. It also provides a vehicle for conveying the layers below to other people. It also allows us to reason and use logic about the layers below: to "make sense" of our emotions. Is TOM useful? Yes I think so. Especially with regard to the story and language layers and when they become dysfunctional. So you have been in a long term relationship, and it breaks down (see the metaphor here?). In other words, the base emotion is one of perhaps "I no longer want to be around this person", a strong negative "away" emotion. The next layer is the story: "the relationship is broken". The last layer is the linguistic description: "we were together for so long, but it's just not working out, I don't know what's happening, we used to be so good together, but lately he's just been a pig towards me, the relationship is broken". The dysfunction in this example is that the emotion itself has been subsumed into the larger framework of a narrative. The simple emotion has been unfairly elaborated upon. In the linguistic process, other ideas and emotions have been brought in that potentially are not relevant to the immediate sensation of the emotion. Talking therapies or "getting it out" are not necessarily helpful because the ensuing narrative doesn't acknowledge the original emotion(s) that triggered it. Indeed, the sufferer themselves may have no conscious knowledge of their emotions, they are simply lost in the story and talking layers. What a is functional way of approaching TOM? The first is to work with just the layer of emotion. Acknowledge the emotion for what it is: a feeling. Acknowledge its positivity or negativity. Act on the emotion: if you're hungry, eat; if you're scared, run; if you're tired, sleep. If the emotion keeps returning, then seek to find the cause and change that. Of course some circumstances can be extremely complex, but emotions themselves are simple creatures. And there may be competing emotions: I love them, but they betrayed me - towards, away. This antagonism between different emotions is actually what is meant by having a "complex situation" or things being "messy". It's the fact that the opposing emotions are triggered by different parts of the situation or psyche. Emotions are not static. Like thoughts, they come and they go, and they may repeat over and over, until their cause is resolved, until their signal is paid attention to.

Restructuring Life II To continue the theme of what excites me in order to restructure life: I am excited by exploration of all persuasions, whether that's mental or bodily or of locality. This I know is driven by novelty, but also by a sense of mystery, and never quite knowing what I'm going to find. I like to be surprised, I like shiny new things. I suspect that's why I like the semi-chaotic nature of crowds in outdoor concerts or events. The idea of travelling around the world does attract me very much, and I have done a comfortable version of this. But it's hardly a purpose to jack everything in, plus I'm not artistic enough within myself to use it as leverage in my next great canon. There is more leverage in exploring ideas and coming up with new ones. If there's anything the 21st century is in short supply of, it's big ideas to solve some of the worlds problems (as well as the will to implement them). I would say that creatively this way of exploring fits me like a glove: I can do ideas. I can also do abstraction, complexity and systems like thinking. There is money to be had here - with a view to living a comfortable life. I also like the idea of restoration. In the information technology sphere, equipment, software and data become obsolete in ever decreasing intervals. I have dabbled with restoring old equipment and software, and get great satisfaction from seeing ancient technology come back to life. There's definitely a niche market for this sort of activity. I could definitely do this as a full time job - exciting though? That's a stretch. Lastly, I have minor talents that could be brought to the fore. I'm excited by making music, writing and the arts. Even at my late age, ten years of dedication to any one of these areas could give me enough to live the sort of life I want. Yet I'm not excited enough (yet) about those things. This journal is somewhat an attempt to have a regular writing habit - I believe I have a talent for it. People and Connection Despite having a bunch of friends collected from various stages in my life, I sort of became incompatible with them. Foolishly perhaps, but also perhaps because of my wanderlust, I moved far enough away from them that maintaining connection became more difficult. The incompatibility arose because I refused to take the expected path of having my own family and buying my own home. My feelings around those two areas are strongly ambivalent with no clear resolution (I haven't engaged with either, but that's by default, not by choice as such). I moved away precisely because I wanted to be closer to someone I thought I loved. In the end it didn't pan out. But I was also terrifically bored with having lived in Brighton for twenty years. The things that used to excite me there eventually dried up, as all my friends started their families and became very "boring". At least, that's how I felt at the time. I'm also ambivalent at having moved, to only basically end up isolating myself. What I really wanted was to move away from myself as I was and to start a "new me" closer to someone else. I think what I yearn for more than anything is intimacy. This is just regularly sharing life my life with another person who wants to do likewise. I'm not hard to live with, but I do need a lot of thinking and alone time - typically introvert behaviours - and this has definitely caused previous girlfriends to become impatient with me at times. This is something I've come to understand deeply about myself: I'm both introvert and extrovert and there's a strong tension between the two. It is that extrovert who wants to break out of this rut I'm in, but the introvert is stronger at the moment. When the extrovert shifts into gear, I can get things done. I think whatever I do to escape limbo, intimacy in whatever guise that comes in is very important. And by extension, being part of some sort of community, where I'm known and loved. To a degree that's why I hang about here and I'm not embarrassed about saying so. Why Limbo? If there is a puppetmaster pulling the strings of my life, then I would say I've been in limbo for this amount of time because I needed to be. I've needed to work myself out in detail and take stock of my life before. Despite not feeling different, I know logically I have changed hugely. I remember being very anxious and nervous in being able to do what it took to run my self and my life; I had always relied on others to do the heavy lifting, a trope I copied from my mum. I've been trying to scrub that earlier programming vigorously away, but it's seems to be very slow work. I've needed all this time to re-factor my programming. Soon, maybe now, I'm impatient for change. But my directionless attitude and fear of commitment is further programming that I need to scrub. However, the only thing I can see that will help with this, is excitement and being driven towards something: I need to spy a beautiful island in the vast featurless ocean.

To certain degree I'd say you can force inspiration, by laying the groundwork. That is, get to know your subject very well. I find this very often with coding problems, which are typically super abstract and sometimes seemingly intractable. But examining the ideas and concepts from all angles can often result in inspiration, sometimes quickly, sometimes after a good night's rest, sometimes after leaving it a few weeks. Priming, is a good word for it; the more depth, the faster the inspiration. I am a genius! If you've got it why not flaunt it? Isn't that what some beautiful looking people do? Ok, alright, it's not actually my personal style - joking aside, but I think the sentiment is fine in others. I'd much rather let others work out if I'm a genius, far more fun (I'm not though).

Restructuring Life I wouldn't say I'm super satisfied with how I live my life at the moment. I'd say for the last decade I've lived in a kind of limbo, the no-mans-land between youth and old age, between vigour and possibility, and acceptance and restrospection. It makes me feel constantly uneasy, but I'm slowly feeling better about it - and that's bad. I'm completely free I keep telling myself, not being answerable to anyone except myself. In that way, it's prime time to use that to springboard myself into the life I actually want or at least away from all this. I don't know what I want. The sensation of not having a clear direction, is no different than it was when I was 20 say. My compass never settled for a true North. I'm loath to just do something experientially for the sake of it, I don't have the luxury of potentially wasting a decade - I now know what little time a decade is, even two. No, if I'm to escape this undercurrent of limbo I need to have a ten-thousand-foot view of the situation. I need to look at the all the sticking points of my personality and aspect, and unstick them. Or maybe I need a purpose in life or more like a way of living that circumvents all those sticky parts of myself. I need to know the enemy in order to win the battle. My preferred way of problem solving (limbo is a problem) is to gather up all the pieces, look them over, and then re-arrange them into something that works, drop stuff, pick up stuff. What are the pieces? Meta meta and vague: Have love and connection with people To live without anxiety or worry To wake up every day excited for what's ahead That gives me the idea to know the enemy from both ends. Top down and bottom up. Bottom up then, cons: I fucking hate working for someone else I've lost the love for the career I fell into I feel mostly isolated and I don't feel close or intimate to anyone in particular I'm too much in my head I don't like organising, administering or chasing people or myself I very much live moment to moment, which stops me from having vision I'm reluctant to commit to anything long term, I don't want to trap myself I'm stuck in a valley of comfort, and reluctant to climb out of it Bottom up, some pros: I live in the moment, and I'm "present", I'm not lost in my head in fantasy land - if I chose not to be Very little fear or anxiety in general I'm confident, intelligent, well off, laid back, and grounded My work set up is as ideal as it could be being employed by someone else, I'm more than capable of dealing with anything thrown at me I'm extremely observant and don't take or accept bulllshit, except to make my life easier I understand myself extremely well, or at least I like to think I do Despite not feeling connected, I do have a lot of friends and acquaintencies and regular contact with my work colleagues I'm not currently tied down by having to bring up kids or maintain a relationship - I'm free in those respects I appear to be very healthy, both physically and mentally There's a million other pieces I could go over, but that gives me a flavour. So what's my bloody problem? I already seem to, at least partially, have the people connection and lack of worry installed in my life. Excitement is definitely lacking. What is exciting for me? Good question! That's extremely hard to pin down. Maybe I can attack that from anecdotal experience. Not so much excitement, but satisfaction (let's start off easy). Some of my most satisfying moments have been working on group projects. I remember doing a work related volunteering-for-a-day kind of thing, where we cleared and made fencing for an allotment for disabled users. The group work and cameraderie really struck a chord with me. Equally, helping a friend of mine making a wooden climbing frame and swings for his kid, I really enjoyed. So, problem solving and making things with my hands in collaboration with other people - big tick. I used to get excited by going out to pubs and clubs in my twenties. It's hard to know what it is exactly that excited me. I definitely enjoyed gawping at the opposite sex and occasionally engaging. I like the visceral sense of thumping music, so clubs were good, outdoor concerts too. I actively like crowds. I enjoy a certain level of drunkenness and the social freedom that brings. I like the semi-chaotic nature of those sorts of places. In pubs I like small talk and sometimes interacting with other people. In short, lots of people, women and music and being out of my head. I've tried plenty of marijuana in my time. Excitement here is too strong a word. I do very much enjoy feeling different however, but it's pretty much the same need as for alcohol. I could have the same feeling of being out of my head on a strong caffeinated coffee or by using self-hypnosis. I don't miss marijuana in any way, but if offered it, even now, I would. I'm not at all excited by adrenaline. Fairground rides, quad biking, ski-dooing, sky diving, bungee jumping, shooting (inanimate things); I've done them all, I can take it or leave it. Big cross. I like beaches and water. I'm very much a thermophile, so a beach atmosphere with decent weather is great. Exciting? Certainly fun and relaxing. Which segues into holidays in general. I like the routine of holiday: up, breakfast, beach, pool or sightseeing, late afternoon snooze, shower, dinner, evening drinks and lounging about, rinse and repeat. It would be a dream to live in a little village not far from a beach, but it's not possible to live life like you're permanently on holiday - or is it? So routine...hmm. To be continued... Reminder to self: exploration, adventure.

Novel openers: "Too much time had passed, I had forgotten how beautiful she was..." "There was only one thing more grey than that December in England..." "Red lipstick always made me feel sluttish, but tonight was special..." "The room was dark and dirty. Not two days had passed since Clarissa had died..." "Johan had introduced me not five minutes ago. Already, my heart thumped harder, my palms moist.." "Time had stood still. Seamus barely breathed. Above him the lights blinked and swirled chaotically..." "I forced open my eyes. Through the anaesthetic haze I could tell I was in a large hall with chandeliers..." "Kaiko was in the bed next to me, asleep, breathing lightly. Kathryn stood over me, crying gently..." "Yesterday Maria had passed the church without a thought, Today it stood there ruined and smouldering..." "How much longer would I endure this? If only I had known at the time, I would have chosen differently..."

You still have a desire for meaning, no? A desire for transformation over improvement? A desire for desire itself?

Nice. As far as perception goes, there's no difference (in quality) between a brain and a chair. All a scientist does is look at a brain, says: damn that's complicated and mysterously grey, it must be doing something complicated. They poke around, find it affects perception and conclude that the brain produces perception. But so does being hungry, yet we don't conclude our stomachs cause perception. I find it weird.

Here are some thoughts on thought itself. I've talked elsewhere in my journal about what is and isn't thought. Suffice to say that thought can be visual, auditory, verbal and so on. One of the principle characteristics of thought is that it is spontaneous. Until a thought arises: "damn I've left the cooker on", there is nothing there. Thoughts don't creep up on us slowly, they come into our awareness fully formed and ready to go. Maybe in the cooker example, you just have a visual flash of your cooker being on fire. In that sense, thought has breadth, it isn't as if a thought slowly emerges and builds itself up. If any "building up" is to be done, then this is done serially, with one thought giving way to the next thought. This is especially the case with language based thought. Thoughts are clearly not completely random. Yes, the way in which they arise may be at random times and places, but there is mostly a useful relevance to them. This implies that thoughts are contigent on your circumstances. They are in the main not haphazard and useless. Although, thoughts that aren't relevant or useful or those that cause unwanted distress, do occur and these are labelled as intrusive. That label is interesting, it's as if those type of thoughts come from a source external to oneself. There is a sense here of not having free will to control those thoughts. This is absolutely the nub of the free will argument: do you, or do you not control thought? I would completely expand out that intrusive label and say that all thought is intrusive, with respect to it not being in your control. You do not control thought, it controls you: that is a radical shift in perspective for some. So the immediate question is, where do thoughts come from, and what does control thought? That would take several posts to elaborate on, so I'll just point back to the observation that thoughts are relevant to circumstances. Largely it's the environment you find yourself in that provokes thoughts. A lot of mental health problems stem from this. The sufferer is medicated and told to somehow break free of their intrusive thoughts, when all along it's their environment and circumstances causing the thoughts. I repeat, we don't control thought. So why does it seem that we have at least a modicum of control over what we think? One observation is that thought comes in ones. That is, we don't hold several thoughts simultaneously. There seems to be limited space for individual thoughts, and instead we are forced to have a stream of thoughts (or more popularly, stream of consciousness). Here is where it gets more interesting. Not only are thoughts provoked by environment, but they are also provoked by other thoughts. So, you may have a visual flash of your cooker, then followed by some internal monologue, then followed by a sensation of panic. This is in very rapid succession, thought trains can be rapid. It gives the illusion of having a unified thought, but it's not true. The thought train can be interrupted at any point by another thought (that is a crucial insight for therapy). It is a feature of thought that it is repetitive. Some thoughts arise throughout the day for example. For example if you are very depressed, you may have recurring thoughts of suicide. Or, if the self help book you read triggers thoughts that you should affirm positivity at 10am each morning. That is how we regain control of thought, we simply instill repetitive thoughts that interrupt (maybe negative) thought trains. The actual source of those repetitive thoughts is still largely the same as for other thoughts: the environment. You still need to read a self-help book for example, in order to start thinking differently. Yes, although, some thoughts install themselves without any prompting and that is the nature of insight. Insight is interesting because it seems different from other types of thought. It is not. An insight is just another type of "intrusive" thought. But if we have a positive reaction to it, then that sets up an environment in which that insightful thought will be repeated in future. In other words, the insight becomes relevant to us in some way, and that relevance is pegged to our bodily reaction to it (i.e. emotion). It's like thoughts have a rating system based on relevance and importance, in turned hooked into emotion: the stronger the emotion, the higher the rating; the higher the rating the more likely the thought will be repeated again in future. It's not relevant whether the emotion is negative or positive, just its strength. Both negative and positive feedback can result: depression or elation. Free will is gained only by modulating thought, but thought is modulated haphazardly and out of our control. If you have a thought that you will finally work your way out of depression, that thought wasn't in your control. In a very strong sense, we are all out at sea at the mercy of the waves and weather. This shouldn't be scary or unfamiliar to us, our bodies work and function completely out of "our" control too. Our thoughts and our bodies work in very similar ways.

Reminder to self: what is thought; restructuring life.

It's been twelve hours. So... Is there magic left in the world? For me there are moments of minor magic. For a number of years I used to get up on the summer solstice, go down to the beach at 4am and sit in the silence and chill and slowly watch it get light. There's always a surprise and secret delight at the new day coming into being. Equally, sat with friends on holiday watching the sun go down, and being blanketed by the stillness and warmth, and feeling a strong connection to the earth and each other. Does magic have to be sought? It does, because we forget. We are creatures of novelty, it's a very few things that can repeatedly hit us with magic. The sight of my ex-girlfriend's behind in tight jeans (!) The laptop in front of me is pure repeatable magic: the younger me read about things like this in science fiction stories. People are endlessly fascinating and magical (but also annoying in equal measure). But my table is not magical, nearly everything is functional and unexceptional. We have to increasingly go further and further to find the magic. But that sensation of magic can be stirred inside of us. Because magic is a sensation of wonderment at how a thing can be. A car ceases to be magic when we realise that it's a machine for turning gasoline into motion. A car ceases to be magic when we have to sit in traffic twice a day, every day. But when you actually walk the same route, you start to appreciate again the magic of your car. And that's the anwer, we have to bring magic back by shifting out perspective. If we can shift our perspective on the entire world, then it all becomes magic again. Another way to bring magic back, is to pay attention. There is so much in the world to see, that we easily miss nearly everything. Curiosity is key. With curiosity we are pushed to explore the nooks and crannies of reality. And, when we come across something new, we sit still and observe and in that moment we can see magic. That should be the pursuit of spirituality to reach a state of magic.

@modmyth the enjoyment is mutual, your journals are great! I'm doing this in reverse order. I realised I was fairly intolerant to caffeine in my late twenties. It takes an age to clear my system. Mostly it gives me a kind of lightheaded detached sensation (I guess it is a psychoactive substance), and makes me sweat, which I find unpleasant. Those two bodily reactions indicates that it's doing no good at all. The last effect is insomnia, which is also sucks. Realistically I can only get away with one cup of caffeinated coffee first thing in the morning or suffer the consequences. The video was informative. He talks about inspiration as if it were separate from ideas, but I'm not so sure. It strikes my that inspiration is just an idea that gains momentum or that particularly captures the attention. The source of both is the same. The genius in this case is not the inspiration itself, but the application of skill and effort to execute on it. For a piece to be moving, either it is crafted that way through having a good understanding of emotion (a skill), or it's blind luck. Especially with art, the emotional reaction to it depends greatly on the person experiencing it. Take Jackson Pollock, is his work moving, to me? No. Is it exceptionally inspired, yes, because he had the ability to break out of tradition and create unique experiences in his artwork. Genius is also thinking out of the box, but that's synthesis or creativity, which everyone has to a greater or lesser degree. Maybe genius just comes along with a confluence of the things the guy mentions in the video: talent, skill, turning up every day, creativity, inspiration and ideas. But also genius especially in the arts comes through consensus. Bach was disregarded until Mendelssohn came along and made him a genius by consensus. In that sense, genius is conferred not innate.

What is my morning routine? It varies. There are elements that I like to incorporate if I can, some are non-negotiable. Very roughly an ideal morning for me is: 7:30 Wake up 7:40 Shower + Clothe 7:50 Take supplements and water 8:00 Meditation/self hypnosis 8:30 Qi Gong stretching excersises 8:40 Walk at least 30 mins 9:10 Work 10:00 Breakfast Naturally this doesn't pan out every day. Shower, supplements and breakfast must happen. Most of the variation is due to waking up times. I'm not super strict with waking up and it can vary within a window of an hour - and is largely dependent on the time I go to sleep, which hovers around midnight. I'm better in the spring than the middle of winter and this is soley to do with lighter mornings. However, during lockdown I've been fairly disciplined about getting walks in, just not always at the ideal time and not every single day. Pre-lockdown I would have walked about 40 minutes to and from work, but I tend to get 45 to 60 minutes or more in now. The other things can also be done out of order and at different times. Walking does triple duty: exercise, light exposure (body clock alignment), meditation. I often don't do formal meditation and I'm not particularly invested in it. I've never been a gym bunny it just doesn't fit my character. I used to run regularly and long distance, and it was still good as a way to kill the internal monologue, a kind of meditation. But it requires a lot of concentration to run well and I was always competing against myself - a completely different mindset from walking. Pre-pandemic I played badminton once a week, for fun, exercise and a different way to engage the body. I've never been a strong enough swimmer to enjoy it as exercise, although I do enjoy being in the water. I used to do Tai Chi for many years. But I'm out of practice and I don't have the space to practise the forms. It was excellent for calming the mind and for poise and posture and having a base level of muscle tone. The Qi Gong stretching, really is just stretching exercises, but I find I feel very much looser and less physically tense afterwards. The meditation does the same thing, except for my mind. The two in combination are ideal. In this country (UK) the levels of UV vary greatly and most folks don't get enough daily exposure on their skin - we are wrapped up against the cold. Vitamin D supplements are a must. I also take Omega 3 as a matter of course, as intake of this tends to be low in diet and so is out of balance with Omega 6, which is higher in diet. There is also some evidence that it improves brain function, although it's not often touted for that function in adults. Anecdotally, I haven't been ill at all for at least three years, not even a sniffle and I put that down to vitamin D - but also having good sleep hygiene. I'm not particularly fussy about what food I eat. I wouldn't say I eat unhealthily: I very rarely have takeaways, and I don't drink much alcohol, caffeine intake is barely above zero (decaff coffee or tea). But, I could improve definitely in this area. I do have pre-packaged meals and I know these are less than ideal and my vegetable and fruit intake is inadequate. I'm not sure of the solution, some days I just don't want to prepare a meal completely from scratch (it takes a lot more time and energy), and fruit and vegetables don't keep (I shop every fortnight). I should completely quite caffeine, I know for certain that it disrupts my sleep and intuitively know it is bad for my body. Even decaffeinated coffee and tea has small amounts. I very seldom eat chocolate as that contains caffeine. But I like a hot drink with some flavour and fruit teas etc, just don't do it for me. I stay away from alcohol as this also affects the quality of my sleep and again is bad for my body - and can reduce immunity. Right! Time to start the day.

Honestly, I'm not going to keep up this level of posting. Even once a day is a lot. But somehow writing is becoming easier, is it just practice, habit, or energetic need, channelling something, attention? Hm. Next subject: figure and ground. The conceptual framework for this is nearly the same as my last post (bas/relief, ground/figure). But in a completely different context. I find the underlying commonality interesting. Today, something that I do regularly came into sharp relief. One version is about interacting with people. The normal sensation is that here I am, and there you are, and there is this exchange of information between us. I have a strong sensation that you are this separate being with your own troubles and thoughts and ways of doing. We both share this space of the material world and can agree on things happening within it. On occasion, and because of much spiritual work, I get the figure and ground flip. I get this equally strong sensation that all that is happening is an interpretation. The only thing I have to go on is the information that I get from you. I literally have to construct an idea of you in my space of awareness. I know this construction is mostly not done consciously (although maybe this is a belief rather than truth), nevertheless the feeling is unsettling. It's as if everyone is a character in a novel, and what I deem as normal, is actually just getting lost in my own interpretations. Then of course, I have to go meta, and realise that I myself am just another character in a novel. Awareness is interpreting me. Just as I'm "fleshing out" the uncommunicated details of other people's lives, am also doing the same thing to myself. As a previous post alluded to, I'm confabulating a narrative on my own life, and the life of others. And then the figure flips back into place, and everything is normal again. The other instance where this happens regularly is believing in a past. The normal state of affairs is to emphatically live in a timeline and where stuff happened (you remember it with memories). Then sometimes, again, the figure and ground flip. I realise the past is complete fantasy, and that I'm completely free of it, and I sit there suddenly unchained and liberated. The sensation is like playing hide and seek and hiding in a cupboard. I know I've found a great hiding place, and I could hide there indefinitely without being found by the past or the future. I, the character in the novel have learned to hide from the author. These two things often combine. I'll get together with friends and have a good time. During the event I'm fully present, but loosely attached so to speak, I don't think about anything that will happen in the future, or think much about the past, I'm just there. After the event I don't feel a need to go over things in any way, I simply move on to the next activity, the past becomes fantasy and the characters that I call my friends go into hibernation. I may pull them out and give them some thought, but it's rare. One big side effect of all this ground and figure flipping, is that sometimes I'm so detached from worry, that I can't bring myself to act, I simply shelve it and it doesn't occur to me. I'm very much just in the moment mostly. I then get a rude awakening when some deadline has passed, or I realise weeks or months have passed and I haven't maintainted some thing or other. It's very much like time has concertinaed into the present moment, there's no depth to it as such. This state of affairs is completely counter to how I was, say ten years ago, when I felt very much conventional. I wouldn't say there's a sense of unrealness per se, in fact I'm more in flow and connected than I ever was and I'm very much at peace most of the "time". Where's this headed? I suspect that at some point the ground will permanently be switched with the figure. Or more likely they will blend into one. I will simply stop existing as a character of my own making and I'll be the ground of existence, in a timeless dimension. Other people will also stop existing as characters and there will be no difference between me and you. That day will be soon: says the author.

Any form of response can be taken as one-upmanship, even agreement. In any situation you have to carefully consider if saying nothing at all is the more conscious response.

Narcissism is about people and an unwillingness to acknowledge that they are the same as you. That inequality must be maintainted by the narcissistic ego at all costs, it's the only way it survives. We all need to be special at times, some more than others.

One thing I learned from the way I was taught NLP (see a previous post) was to do first and explain after. That is teach by example not by theory. So in my quest to explain self-referencing questions, I'll talk about words, of course, using words. Words have a dual nature. If you run your hands lightly over a bas-relief, you feel the most prominent aspects of the sculpture. That prominent aspect is the dictionary definition of a word, with its web of familial attachments to other words. When words are used in conjunction with each other they create the sense of the sculpture beneath your fingers. A word is the relief of the sculpture the bit that is mutually agreed upon by its users. The unspoken side of words is the bas, the shadows. It's the unagreed upon tacit context of words. If I say "red fox" immediately an animal is produced with its russet fur, white underside and black socks; it skits and jumps and smells the air. That's my context, my bas, the relief is just the plain web of words relating to "red" and "fox": what the dictionary says. So it's clear that a web of written or spoken words defining each other can only ever be a relative enterprise. Any system of relative relations cannot have an absolute base, the system is untethered and free floating and finite and enclosed. The conclusion is that a word has no absolute meaning; indeed words themselves change over time and new languages are born and evolve. But this relative layer of relief is grounded absolutely by the bas, the parts the dictionary doesn't define: the living red fox. When someone asks the impertinent question "What is God?", they are looking for the bas by using the relief. Responders can only describe the sculpture of God with reference to the reliefed parts they can touch: the words on the screen. The questioner still has the job of filling in the bas around that relief, it must be a completely personal venture and completely silent because words are not enough. "God" has no absolute meaning other than the one we discover for ourselves.

@Corpus I was just expanding the definition of thought subtle or not. If thought is not tethered to dialogue then thought can't be said to be about language. The word "mind" is obviously a language construct, so to give a definition of mind and it's substance as the OP wants, you can't get away from using words. The word "substance" also has it's own definition in language. Naturally words can explain things that are not words but only by reference and pointing. But that's all just mansplaining. @Onecirrus So what is the non-verbal part of the substance of mind? To find that you need to sit and examine your own mind, nobody else's mind will do. You need to examine the boundaries of mind and if it is actually just thoughts and conceptualising or more than than all that. How far does mind push out to? Is mind everything in it's extreme?

@Corpus I agree. Except for the bit about inner dialogue, even without it you still have a mind, you could just use your outer dialogue as a surrogate. Have you ever used your mind to complete a jigsaw puzzle? Did you have to talk to yourself about it?