tsuki

Writing a response to this paragraph has been unusually difficult for me. This bisexual part of me indeed does want to be seen and accepted for what it is. It is in conflict with my masculine self that tries to shoo-shoo it back to conformity, but it does not feel right to do so. It is scary to come out to your friends and family, but it needs to be recognized that people that are close to you in proximity, aren't necessarily close to you emotionally. The fact that we feel threatened by saying the truth about ourselves indicates that people may not receive it well. Not every part of me is meant for every person in my social circle. Still, it is understandable that my bisexual self wants to be free and I empathize with you and myself in this regard. Pidgeonholing hurts when there is no right box for us. I'm also very easily aroused. It gets on my wife's nerves pretty often. When she first learned that I'm bisexual, she was pissed because now she also has to watch out for men lol. Summer is especially difficult for me with all of the skirts and shorts. I sometimes even catch myself looking away from the road when I'm driving. I wonder if some woman would take my car accident as her badge of beauty. When it comes to men, I noticed that there is a pattern to them. I like men in their early twenties in sportswear, aloof or even lost, with this rebellious vibe to them. Muscular ass helps. Unfortunately, a lot of people can't even wrap their heads around homosexuality. Not in a healthy way at least. I suspect that there are a lot of convert gay or bisexual people that can't even admit it to themselves, not to mention to their friends and family. Of course, this non-heterosexual part gets pissed for being ignored and they take it out on others, ridiculing them. Rejection of alternative sexual orientations is a definite sign of emotional weakness and should be approached as childishness. There is no need to have an adult conversion with a child about things it ridicules. I'm also into kinky stuff, frequently watch BDSM porn and tried some of that with my wife. It was getting out of hand, unfortunately, because my dominant self tends to be emotionally volatile and it was slipping out of the bedroom. I need to grow up before we get back to it.

Even though it's not Japanese, Avatar: the last airbender conveys a lot of wisdom.

I feel like I'm going through a very deep transformation right now. This is nothing like anything I have ever experienced. I feel good about myself, about who I am. Not about my accomplishments - it's about my essence. About my uniqueness. My productivity at work this week has plummeted and I can't get myself to make progress with my current projects, but I know that I need this time to myself. This is the time when I'm looking deeply into who I am, into what I understand myself to be. I feel that my psychological makeup is changing. It feels like a new identity is condensing, but even though I'm semi-conscious of it, I'm not rejecting it. I don't blame myself for "having" an ego anymore. There is this multiplicity of me and I can see it. It is as if it was somewhere out there, as something other than me - and yet - it is very dear, close to my heart. From one point of view, I feel compassion for this struggling creature, as if it was separate, but when I feel this, I feel good, as if someone empathized with me. I really like the analogy of being in a relationship with myself. Very unusual. I could say that this is the proper transition from green to yellow. I exhausted the relishing in the relativity and accepted the survival side of things. The systemic part of yellow is emphasized so much, but I don't think that this is the proper characteristic. I was pretty well versed in systemic thinking as green, but what I did not fully get was, simply put, myself. I was at odds with "having" an ego, it felt like a curse of not being able to live my life they way I wanted haha. The proper characteristic of Yellow is integral. Integral means: unified, in-dividual. Even though this inner structure has its facets, they all serve specific purposes and balance each other in strife for permanence. I accept even the lowest aspects of myself and treat them with care. They are, after all, my most precious children. I will never be as close to any child as I am to my heart. And still, I understand that this structure is conceptual. There is nothing in here I can point my finger towards and say: "AHA! Got you!". I am interpreting my behaviors as they appear and act as if there was a person/s here. My interior does not like being called "illusory" for it implies that it is not important. It is important to me. Ha!

Such a good material on the unique aspects of video games as an art medium.

It's pretty old so my understanding is different now. If you have any questions you can PM me.

@Member I did

It all depends on the general direction that you want your life to go towards. If you want to dive deeper into spirituality, then it's better to focus on awareness. If you just want to run and enjoy yourself, the by all means do so. I don't think that it's possible to dive 100% into one direction. There will be times when you do one thing and times when you do the other. This distinction that some things are more spiritual than other is not accurate. I consider running a spiritual practice where I develop my connection to my body.

I was always seeing a clear pattern of construction-deconstruction, so I find this hypothesis about lack of specimen to create society somewhat unlikely. Deconstruction starts at Green/Pluralist.

@Bestversionofme There is a book on Leo's booklist about similarities between humans and other primates. If I remember correctly, it says that dry humping among males is not necessarily sexual, but an expression of dominance. For example, homosexual intercourse is common in jails even though inmates consider themselves to be straight. It's about showing who's the boss.

@Bestversionofme First of all, I admire your sincerity and openness to your sexuality. You spent a lot of effort into exploring it and it does not seem like you are hiding it from yourself. That's good. It seems though that you are afraid of being perceived as gay. I don't have any experience with people of your skin complexion, but I imagine that it would be a problem if you came out to your friends and family. I believe that it's important to keep things this important to yourself, if making them public would be threatening to you. The threat is the issue here - not because they are somehow "shameful", or "wrong". If someone is to feel ashamed, it's the people that would ostracize you for whatever reason - being it your sexuality, skin color, or kinks that you enjoy. I took notice that you are afraid of being hypersexual. What does that mean to you? That your sexual drive is too strong? I would be concerned about it only if you feel that you are using sex to distract yourself from something that keeps happening in your life, like unpleasant feelings or thoughts that haunt you. Feeling into that situation and expressing your anger for having your boundaries broken could release some of suppressed emotions that may still be stored in your body. Other than that - I wouldn't be too concerned about that when it comes to sexuality. Orientation is not a disease that can be "rubbed on" to you by someone else. I'm also bisexual and have never had any contact with another man, but it is not a concern for me. It was much more of a shock to my wife when I learned about it during my LSD trip haha. The "family friend" situation may actually be related to some of your kinks. I have a feeling that you may be trying to re-enact this situation in your fantasies - either by having control over someone weaker, or giving control away for some reason. I am not a psychologist though, so I may be wrong - I think that it would be beneficial if you talked to one. Again - not because your kinks are wrong, but because your sexuality is unclear to you. It is really about you deciding what you like and playing with it.

To "know yourself" does not mean that you have a vast body of knowledge, a list, or a taxonomy. An athlete does not know how to run because he has studied books about running, but because he runs well. You want to know how to run yourself and the only way to learn that is by doing it. There is no instruction manual for you because you are totally unique, but thankfully - you have been equipped with a compass called "feelings". The things that feel good, are true to you and tell you important things about you. Keep feeling good and you will find yourself. In my particular case, it was a combination of contemplation, learning through youtube, books and this forum. I'm in my 5th year of psychotherapy and psychedelics helped as well. I can't stress enough how psychotherapy has helped me. Probably would have taken twice as long without it. IQ is something unrelated to self-knowledge. Sometimes it is even an obstacle because it comes with a lot of arrogance, trying to think things through and find "solutions" to "problems". This area is mostly about feelings, about your connection to your body, strong intent to heal and tons and tons of curiosity. If you want to appear as a smart person, self-exploration will not give you any results in this domain. It will give you happiness though. Yes, you are right. I got carried away here. The trainer's purpose is to get you through the day, perform your routine and function on a day-to-day basis. The problem is that it does not look past the surface, past appearances. The child appears broken and insufficient to the trainer because the child lives at the depths of your psyche and it takes conscious attention to understand it. The trainer is not capable of doing that. When you will truly understand the child, then you will see it as something that's been through so much that you will want to hug it and cry for it. Your job as an ego is to fulfill your needs. Transcendence is easier from the place of abundance.

I'm not reading other fibers of this thread, but I don't think that this advice is conflicting to a large extent . When you were a child, your mental capacity was not enough so that you could understand yourself. You were just developing and you needed your parents to regulate your emotions, to tell you that you are okay when you were frustrated, to help you get up on your feet when you fell, to encourage you to take on a challenge when you were overwhelmed. This "rejected child" that seeks attention from others is a set of coping behaviors that you developed when your parents didn't take good care of you. This aspect of you is actually no longer needed because now, as a grown man, you can be good to yourself. This is why the advice is not conflicting at all - by all means do spend some time in solitude, but for the sake of being nice to yourself! Get back up on your feet, find the things that make you feel good about being you. Learn what makes you tick, what you need to hear to feel happy. This is the rejected child that wants love from another person. Feelings cannot be silenced, put aside, because they communicate genuine needs that you have. Fulfill those needs by being good to yourself. Judging yourself for not having sex with women is the circus trainer at work, that tries to evict the rejected child. The child will not be evicted because it is your heart. You don't want to evict your heart, trust me. Starting an intimate relationship with unmet needs is a recipe for disaster. It is not just two times more difficult than being alone because there are two children with unmet needs. These two children also start fighting for power over the other person, release their circus trainers upon each other and things get unbelievably nasty real quick. The way you relate to this girl (and to yourself) is already very nasty, but I don't blame you. I know how it's like to be this way and why it happens. That being said, sex is still a need so it will have to be addressed. Porn addiction is difficult because it's hard to draw a line between something you truly need and are addicted to, but it can be managed. All of the aspects other than "the rejected child" are the by-product of Circus trainer's working. Circus trainer is there because you believed that there is something inherently wrong with you. Circus trainer belongs in a cage, not you. You are not an animal. Connect to your feelings and actively silence the trainer. It will take some time to attain clarity, but it can be done. I've done it. It is tempting to use the circus trainer's power to train him. Don't give into that temptation. He is still a part of you so be gentle, but firm. Working on yourself for the sake of change, being something else because this thing right here is unbearable, is not the right approach. Change must be merely a mean to meet the goal, which is happiness. Realize the you are not happy right now. You are not happy because you are confused. There is nothing inherently wrong with you, nobody simply taught you how to take good care of yourself. This needs to change, not you. You are a wonderful person and you deserve the best life you can possibly imagine, so start acting like it! Your parents were not serious enough about you to teach you any of this. Realize how difficult it is to have no roots. How difficult it was to be left alone with no instructions, with no help. This will be painful, but it will also, at some point, help you feel how amazing you are to have gone through all of this on your own. Go back to this rejected child and make it feel accepted. I'm very glad to hear that! This is genuine progress! Your energy is not consumed by unmet needs - you were given your energy to fulfill them! Your energy is dissipated by the circus trainer hurting yourself.

Your avatar looks pretty busy for something that depicts "nothing" .

@Tim R I sympathize with you. Seeing people that are dear to us stuck in hell is painful to experience. It gets easier when you realize that this place still exists as a part of you and decide to welcome it as integral to your existence.

@tatsumaru No human that has gone through the work of exploring their depths and discovered the exquisite joy of being truly unique would take another person's life for mere entertainment, or gratification. Taking another's life to validate your own existence is the polar opposite of truly understanding your own uniqueness. The true self is always enough. Psychopathy is a mental disorder for a reason (other than the whims of the scientific community). Severe early childhood trauma can leave you unable to reach down to your depths because of the amount of pain that you have to process. Especially if you deliberately killed your emotional sensitivity and you took that pain out on every single person in your life that dared to love you. Especially if you grew up in an environment where violence was normalized, or even encouraged. Especially if ignoring the social norms was a badge of honor, wit, or group identity. Especially if you told yourself for the whole life that seeking help is a sign of weakness. Going through all of these statements in reverse order and actually feeling them just to get to the bottom where you were abused and feeling that abuse to process it is too much to ask from any human. This is why society contains these sorts of people in jails. Serial killers are not authentic. They are who they are because it is impossible for them to acknowledge themselves.

So for example, if I don't see systemic racism it doesn't exist? "You" is a very malleable world that can encompass a single mind, a group, whole society, or the world. It all depends on the extent of responsibility that you decide to take.

Mine was: I am absolutely nothing and I spend my life trying to shove things into this bottomless pit.

I don't think that looking for ideal (like-minded, etc) people is the right approach to relationships so I was never too interested in developing a strategy for "acquiring" them. There is so much depth to humans that trying to deliberately find one that is similar to you seems absurd to me. Yet, similar people exist and are attracted to each other, huh? I think that a much better strategy would be to develop your own fluidity and go through life with variety of people. This way, shared experiences are what makes you similar, even if structure remains different. So, my strategy is simply to stick to it until it gets better.

I don't think that it does. Psychological makeup of a person changes (even rapidly like here), but consciousness remains. Well, maybe it does to some degree. It helps me to answer the question: who is the one that gets enlightened? Lets imagine that one of her personalities became a monk and started meditating like crazy. Would this personality become enlightened? Would each of her personalities become enlightened? Or would the monk become aware of his illusory nature and consciousness became aware of itself?

Yes, reality works through magic. Plain and simple.

Books by Alice Miller. The Drama of the Gifted Child is very short and packs a punch.

Don't force yourself to do anything. Don't you want to get past that? Don't you want to be happy and fulfilled? Don't imagine that you will have to do some difficult task, with a lot of complicated steps, or a boring mundane chore. You need this shit. This is the whole point! You thought that you can neglect this part of you and that it is fine, but it is telling you that it is not! Take this seriously! Being serious is not about having a stern face and grinding it against concrete (I kid you not!). It is about feeling that something is really fucking important. Like, imagine yourself when you want to fap and that there is this urge to have an orgasm. THEN you are being serious about having an orgasm. I want you to be as serious about having your emotional needs met. Meeting your emotional needs is not about following an instruction manual from a book. It is about asking yourself friendly, curious, questions and honestly answering them. Start small, drink a glass of water, do something good for yourself. Go buy a plant and smile to it. The more you become interested in yourself, the more you will grow and need less instructions. Your parents were never serious about you and I know how it fucking hurts man. It hurts like having a hole ripped in your chest, like having an ax struck in the sternum. It feels like wildfire with smoke, like an implosion. It feels like being absolutely unlovable and worthless. Feeling this is awful and it is no wonder that we want to use all sorts of tactics to avoid it. Masturbation, lashing out, denial, self-manipulation and first and foremost: being disconnected from our hearts. Believe me, despite how difficult it is: you want to feel this and understand it. If you keep avoiding your heart, it will fetter. Being disconnected from your feelings, not feeling and not understanding them is the gateway through which shadow aspects of you take control. They are always announced by difficult feelings. Not stroking your dick is not a cure for porn addiction. You are addicted to porn because you have unfulfilled needs that you do not acknowledge and are trying to distract yourself away from feeling them. Don't think that you are some inferior omega male for doing this. Understand how difficult for you it is already. Feel it. This is the best you can do for now, but this will get better over time as you become connected to your heart. It will tell you what it needs.

Also, you are dismissing morality as "nothing more than a few human made rules" as if they were completely arbitrary and self-serving in a very unconscious way. Not all morality is like that, granted - it is still a thought process - but at least a high quality one if you dare to look in the right places. The main difference is that highly conscious people have the access to the origin of morality, as opposed to having it memorized and "acted out" under the threat of eternal hell.

More conscious humans tend to have better connection with their body and feelings which oftentimes increases the capacity for empathy, which makes morality mostly obsolete on a day-to-day basis.

This is not acceptance. To accept a shadow aspect of you, it means that you genuinely become interested in it. There is a part of you that wants you to act like an asshole towards a girl that withholds pussy from you. This part of you wants control, it wants the steering wheel and it knows that you give in to emotions, so it rocks the boat. Now, to accept it, you ask yourself what needs does this part of you actually have and recognize that they are really fucking important. Then, you promise to yourself that you will strive to fulfill these needs, but you will not let this part of you control the whole of you. This part of you is not evil, it has no ill intent. It just wants its needs met, like a little baby that is crying. And this part is you, and your needs are really fucking important. You get that? Then you can ask yourself a lot of questions and try to honestly answer them. With a pen and a piece of paper. It is okay if you don't know the answers yet, but recognize that they are important. Spend some time with that part. You can give it a name if it makes you feel good. This is the key here: this inquiry is supposed to feel good. You want to take care of that part of you, like it were your baby. Be gentle with it. You are not doing a vivisection, you ought to recognize that this part of you is precious, that it communicates something that is very important to you. So important that it is willing to throw a fit because you are not listening to it properly. It may not want to talk to you at first, but if you spend some time with it each time it appears, then it will open up to you eventually. When it appeared, you gave up control and let a small part of you take the steering wheel. You are smarter than that small part and you will be able to fulfill its needs better than it otherwise would autonomously. Being an asshole will not get you the kind of pussy you need. Letting go does not mean that this small part is unimportant and that you will be immune to its influence. To sweep its needs under the rug is to reject it and we are not doing that. Letting go is seeing the emotions for what they are and waiting through the storm to act intelligently and with integrity. Integrity means the whole of you, as one being, with clarity. After you let go of emotions, you still remember the promise you made with yourself, right? That is a good sign. Tears are good. This is a good place to start the inquiry. Remember: be gentle. Trust me, porn is not the issue here. It is an issue to some degree, but you haven't faced these issues yet. Stop guilting yourself for watching porn. Sex is really fucking important and you are trying to fulfill these needs in whatever ways you can. This part that keeps talking things that make you feel guilty needs a name. I named mine "trainer" because it tries to train you as if you were a circus animal. You are not an animal and you should silence that part whenever you can. Therapy will help you. I highly encourage it. These thoughts are how the trainer keeps you on the leash. Don't pay any attention to them.