soos_mite_ah

Also another thing that I think is important to be mindful of is the effect that telling people that their needs, boundaries, and any amount of self care is selfish because those things are survival. A lot of people don't have strong enough healthy egos to advocate for themselves therefore causing them to be taken advantage of and get into nasty situations. I think someone would have to be in the right place mentally to be able to take the notion that everything they do is for survival/selfish reasons and not turn it into something dangerous and self deprecating. That type of assumption can be very shame inducing. It's not necessarily if the teaching is right or wrong rather it is about how you apply and take in that teaching. There are some insights that you have to be ready for. That's why it's so important to not rush self development. You need to have a solid foundation for meta teachings or else you're going misinterpret it and get disastrous consequences and zen devilry. It's the whole thing with having a strong ego vs. transcending an ego. You have to have the strong ego in the first place before you go try transcending. @Preety_India you're good lol I figured you were joking.

I might be missing the meta point but I mean that seems like a rather extreme example. And by that example, wouldn't literally anything, including breathing, be selfish? Then what would love/ selflessness be? I understand selfishness/survival can be a more crude form of love and in that way all of it is one, but where do we draw the line when it comes to living our lives in the relative? Or I guess the line is completely arbitrary depending our level in consciousness and our desire to live in the relative is also survival I don't know, at that point, the meaning of selfishness would just turn into a blob without much meaning lol

I'm willing to bet that you have some survival desires and needs. And that's perfectly ok. Unless we're perfectly ok with throwing ourselves off a cliff tomorrow because it truly doesn't matter if we life or die, I think it's safe to say that we all have some type of survival instinct or agenda. Even then, some people see survival in death or in not playing this game because it preserves the idea of them. If we didn't have any survival instincts, we wouldn't even physically be here. There wouldn't be a point to do anything. We wouldn't want to do anything.

You can also make the argument that the lack of abundance is an illusion because of hoarding wealth and the interests of groups that employ survival in an unhealthy manner. We have plenty of resources, a lot of it is in the matter or distributing it effectively. That's why I mentioned fixing the problem. While everyone is out for their own survival, people, even what we perceive as the worst of them, aren't inherently selfish. There is only so much you can do when you are put in a situation and a system that incentivizes unethical behavior and doesn't give you an alternative.

Also, in regards to relationships, I know it's best to get your needs met individually as much as possible in order to avoid codependence, but like with most things, can't people take that too far to the point where they have issues with being vulnerable and/or emotionally unavailable since they resorted to minimizing their needs as much as possible instead of meeting them in a constructive way. Like it's good to meet your own needs but just because you can meet your own needs doesn't mean that it would be bad if you let people help out. It could be a way of bringing immense value into your life even if the whole concept of needs is fundamentally survival based.

Ok and what would we even do in that situation? Even if I give up my hospital bed to the next person and people keep doing that to each other, that won't fix the problem. The issue is more so systemic rather than a matter of conscious individual choice. Brings me back to this point: Saying we are unconscious or that we are selfish because we are presented with a situation with limited options, all of which don't do much to produce win win situations can very easily lead to essentialism which then in turn makes us not want to system in the first place. After all, what's the point of fixing a system if all humans are inherently selfish and evil. The reason why I mention evil is not because I think survival is evil, but because I think a lot of people here tend to go in the train of thought where survival > selfishness > unconscious > bad/evil which then leads to a spiritual ego. I did explain an example of healthy emotional survival but emotional survival can be just as ruthless. Just think of all of the manipulative people who have this psychological need to get their egos stroked by exploiting others because they have a gaping hole when it comes to their need for acceptance for example. There are versions of emotional /physical /mental /spiritual survival that are constructive, destructive, and everything in between. It's important to differentiate those things instead of lumping them into one term.

For instance, recognizing your emotional needs and finding ways to meet them consciously, setting boundaries to ensure that you don't get into unhealthy situations that jeopardize your physical and emotional health, and finding a really grounding and conscious life purpose are all forms of survival yet they aren't selfish. Those are some examples. I get what you're talking about. The whole concept of no ethical consumption under capitalism. I know people tend to have a commodified view of self care being face masks and bath bombs, but it isn't limited to those things. Can we build more ethical systems so that we can meet our own needs without harming others, absolutely. But shaming ourselves in the meantime isn't going to get us anywhere. Plus not all competition is inherently bad or ruthless. Can it bring out ugly sides to people, absolutely, but that isn't the whole story. For example when setting boundaries, lets say you're in a conversation with a troll and this conversation isn't going anywhere and is driving you insane. You could set a boundary to quit engaging. That is survival because you're advocating for your self interest and mental health. It might look like a losing situation for the troll who on the surface wants someone to keep engaging because they get validation from the attention and controversy they are sparking. But in the long run, it helps the troll because you setting that boundary sends the message that this type of behavior unacceptable. If that happens enough times socially, they'll see it as a survival mechanism to adjust themselves in order to keep associating with others. You can also replace troll with small child throwing a tantrum as well lol.

I wasn't trying to create that perception and I apologize if it came off that way. It wasn't my intention to idealize survival. Survival can be pretty gruesome but it doesn't have to be taken to that extremes. Not every act of survival is part of some zero sum game with a winner or loser. A lot of survival can be self care. My point is that survival can be a blanket statement for a lot of things, many of which are just fine or even healthy. We can't see survival as some monolith in black and white terms where you are selfish or selfless with nothing in between.

Yeah, I'm trying to challenge that view of survival. I feel like survival often gets a bad connotation on this forum and gets painted as not conscious. Everything that you mentioned as being harmonious you can argue has to do with survival because you are doing those things for your benefit and so you aren't going to die before your time, physically or emotionally. And of course you can survive without harming other things. You can have symbiotic, win win, reciprocal relationships that takes the needs and the consent of multiple parties into consideration in order to create a situation that best serves everyone. I started thinking about this more after I looked into the dating section of this forum. I get the impression that a lot of people have a very cynical view of dating and relationships and write it off as "it's all survival" without differentiating between types of survival or seeing survival as a constructive thing that can aid growth. Instead, I sense this undertone of survival being this thing that only those with low consciousness seek after. If anything, survival can be one of the biggest motivators of growth. When you realize the limitations of one system and way of thinking, it is in you best survival interests to expand further into a better system or way of thinking. Sometimes you need your ass to catch on fire to realize you need to move forward instead of sitting and stagnating in the same place all your life. Of course that isn't the ideal model of growth but if one subconsciously does a cost benefit analysis, they might come to the conclusion that what they are doing isn't working and that they need to do better. Or they might feel fearful of changing causing their survival instincts go into self preservation mode and cause them to stay in a bad situation or worse they might backslide. Again, not the best model since growth, stagnation, or backlashes are all possible survival instincts in a difficult situation. Ideally, you would want to learn before you get put in a difficult situation and before your survival instincts play wheel of fortune on your prospects of growing as a person.

Interfere with other peoples agency to pursue happiness as well as their own survival through manipulation, degradation, deception, physically, emotionally, and mentally harming others, etc.

I don't think Leo, or just a man in general, is the best person to answer that question That's like me defining what it means to be a man. Sure I might have some ideas but ultimately, it isn't my place to say because of my lack of experience.

Turning Competence into an Identity Part 1: The Desire to "Get My Life Together" This series is going to be all over the place because there are so many intersections between different issues in my life. I feel like my issues with competence as an identity is the linchpin to a lot of problems. There are so many layers and contributing factors to this so there's a lot to unpack. I really got into self development back when I turned 16. My 16th birthday marked me being depressed and anxious for half my life because of my household. I wanted to die because I'm like, the majority of my life is just pain, what's left to look forward to. I mean, it's never going to get better." But I decided to try to get better anyway. I researched the best ways to deal with my anxiety and depression and later on I made an effort to understand the abuse that happened to me as well as how that has impacted me and my mental state. I know plenty of people who didn't unpack their trauma from their childhood only to suffer more consequences when they grew up. My childhood was a mess and I didn't want my adulthood to be the same. So I made it a priority to clear out any trauma I had, build a solid life for myself etc. I also had anxiety with turning 18 and being considered an adult. I felt like I had this pressure on me to have everything figured out from where I was going to school, what I was going to study, what kind of job and life style I wanted to lead, etc. There is a variety of factors that went into this anxiety: Firstly, you have my parents and the whole model minority myth. I feel like in brown communities, people scrutinize your every move and you can'td make a mistake without being judged by an army of uncles and aunties. Even if that mistake didn't hurt anyone and is just a part of the learning process into becoming a more developed person, the community won't see that and will basically hold it against you for god knows how long. There is a this emphasis of saving face. There was no "learn by making your own mistakes." Instead I got the message that if I mess up, my life is basically ruined. Instead there was a lot of shame and a lot of "what will people say?" Next, I experienced the death of someone close to me. My grandmother passed away in February 2016. While I wasn't close with her, she did live with my and my parents so when she died, there was this constant reminder of her not being there anymore. I also don't have family in the U.S. other than my parents so essentially when she died, it was like losing a third of my family. While the grief did eventually pass, for me, the bigger issue was the existential crisis. I'm not that good with dealing with death. I especially wasn't good at that back then because of limited life experience and a lack of tools from my parents of how to deal with difficult emotions. Being confronted with death, as cliché as it may be, made me reevaluate my life and what I wanted to do. I wanted to make sure that I had a solid life plan and a solid set of values so that I wouldn't put myself in a position where I feel like I'm regretting or wasting my life in misery. I try to be very well thought out when it comes to life decisions. Then finally, you have late capitalism. I'm sure I have touched on this in previous posts in this journal. I'm probably going to go into talking about my anxiety about finances and money in a different post after I'm done with this series. The whole notion that at 18 I have to make the decision to go to college and go into debt or not go to college and settle for a low paying job that won't let me live a decent quality of life (and by decent quality of life I mean one without financial struggle) hung over me growing up. In my mind, I had to get straight A's, got to an amazing school with a good scholarship, network my ass off when I'm there, and be this super powered machine that doesn't get tired or have emotions in order to not go into poverty. I can't mess up or else I'm going to be financially ruined, won't have a home, or won't be able to go to the doctor when I'm sick because of a lack of health care. I remember calculating what the standard of living I wanted to achieve was going to cost so that I could take that into consideration, along with my skills, interests, values, and goals in life in order to decide on a career path. I also taught myself basic financial literacy and how to do my taxes. Mind you, this was all when I was 16. I feel kind of bad for my 16 year old self for feeling so pressed about the future and resorting to all this ruminating and researching that was largely fueled by anxiety. 16 year old me saw that the system wasn't working but still wanted to do everything in her power to build the foundation to one day live a life of peace and fulfillment. I found my tumblr account from like 2017 and I was expecting it to be cringe from where I am at now, but instead I saw a lot of cynicism because of the 2016 election and Charlottesville, anxieties around racism/fascism, and a lot of liberal naiveite. I didn't understand the complexity of the systems I was upset about but looking back, I had a valid reason to be angsty. I wish I felt like I could make mistakes when I was younger. Sure I'm glad that in my anxiety fueled madness I compelled myself to figure my life out, but I wish that I could have been more carefree and more self assured that everything was going to be ok. I wish that I could have that attitude now. I'm working on it.

The Illusion of Memory I had a dream last night where I was searching for a nose ring. I was 26 years old and living in my own apartment. I was feeling really nostalgic and I wanted to recreate a look from my teens. I drove to my parents house and dug through my things. Everything looks very futuristic. It was like a mix between the aesthetics of Tron Legacy and Meet the Robinsons (now that I think about it a lot of my dreams have a futuristic aesthetic, I wonder what that might mean). But while I was in this dream, I didn't think anything of it. This was my reality in this state of consciousness. My parents' house in my dream and my parents' house in real life look very different but I wasn't aware of that when I was in this dream. I dug through old makeup palettes and started thinking of all of the memories I had of giving my friends makeovers and how I was really into costume design. I was looking for this nose ring because it felt so quintessential to my teenage years. As I searched for this nose ring I started thinking of how I spontaneously decided to get my nose pierced when I was hanging out with my friends, how my family was generally supportive of this decision and thought I looked badass. Then, when I found the nose ring, I tried to put it on. There was a hole in my nose to where I could do that but it was difficult because it closed up a little from me not wearing nose rings all the time any more. Then I woke up. I still remember the dream clearly to where I can point out not only what I saw and experienced in my dream but also what my thoughts and feelings were amidst the dream. The memories I talked about were all an illusion. In my real life none of those things happened. I was never into makeup, my parents house looks completely different, I sure as hell don't have a nose piercing, and if I got one spontaneously (which I know I wouldn't do because I'm scared of sharp things) my parents wouldn't have been supportive. But when I was in this dream, all of these memories felt so natural, so real. I have encountered this idea of our memories being an illusion in other places. In spiritual topics, there is this concept of all memories and future planning being an illusion because the only thing that exists is the present. The rest is simply your imagination and you telling stories about yourself to preserve the idea that there is a you. In psychology I learned about how the brain can distort memories for self interest, how false memories can be implanted through manipulation, and how memories can erode with time because when we remember something, we don't remember the actual thing rather we think back to the last time we thought about such a thing. There was also the concept of how we don't remember things as they happened rather we only remember them as they relate to us. So in other words, intellectually I came to the conclusion that it's important to be critical of your own experiences because the way we perceive and remember direct experiences can be skewed even when they feel so real. But emotionally, I guess it didn't click until this morning when I woke up. My "dream reality" and my "real reality" feel much more subjective, much more illusory. The lines have blurred for me. This was an interesting experience. I guess I'm going to go and have an existential crisis now

Awareness

@Leo Gura I think in situations like this it is crucial to mind the context of the situation and whether we are talking in the absolute sense or relative sense. In the absolute sense, survival is survival. But in the relative sense, there is a lot of degrees that need to be considered. I'm pretty sure you already know this. But some people on this forum will take that as a blanket statement and run with it without looking at context and nuance. That's my concern because that can lead to some nasty results for both men and women.

Videos That Spark Joy

Like @Forestluv said it wouldnt be the same type of trauma. Degree of extremity of trauma is important to take into consideration. And with the movie example, when you are watching a movie, you know it's fake. But I dont think you can say the same thing if you witnessed a rape in real life. It's not going to be the same type of trauma as if you were the person being raped but even witnessing that is going to mess you up. There are a variety of factors that would have to be considered to determine how much one could distance themselves from that experience ranging from the age you witnessed the traumatic event as well as your relationship to the person directly suffering the trauma.

I like this metaphor. I honestly feel similarly when I'm in this section of the forum.

Dating Cynicism I really crave and want a guy who will be emotionally available, supportive, gentle, and all around just not an asshole. And sometimes I feel like I'm asking for too much because the men around me are absolute messes. The bar is on the floor. I try to avoid the dating and relationship section because for some reason this site attracts a bunch of insecure and misogynistic "nice guys." It just makes me feel cynical about dating. Like, damn.... this is the pool I'm dealing with. Sometimes I hate that I have the audacity to be romantically attracted to a man. And in addition to being tired of dating because of the priorities I had growing up, on second thought, I don't think I get tired of dating because I lack discipline and grit rather I get tired of dating because I have to exert emotional labor into screening guys to make sure they aren't trash. There is a thread on this site that I contributed to recently and initially started with a few women talking about a Teal Swan video and how they felt it represented what a woman wants in a relationship. That thread devolved into a "nice guy" fiasco and strayed far from the original topic. I will admit that I had a hand in this because of a few salty comments. But I just felt exhausted at the end of that conversation. As of now, the topic is still open but I decided to not read anymore or comment because I'm just done. There is also a variety of men on this site from a range of ages. I always naively believed in middle school and high school that once I grow up, the men around me will mature and I'll find some decent options. I was told that I'll have a better time dating when I get older. Nah, men are immature and misogynistic throughout all ages. Some of them simply don't grow up. As much as I want to be in a loving and supporting relationship, I'm so tired of screening guys only to find that they ain't shit. I'm tired of dealing with the bs that men spout out especially on the topic of female sexuality. I hate being mansplained on my own tastes and experiences as a woman. I wish men were decent so I wouldn't have to put in all this effort into screening to ensure that I don't end up in the claws of someone who will mistreat me. I hate feeling like I have to be on guard like this because all I wanted was to surrender and feel safe in the first place.

Relatability Humor: Making Fun of People in Your Community and Perpetuating Stereotypes I really liked this video and I feel like it can also apply to South Asian communities as well mainly on the internet but in different ways. I've been reflecting that lately I think for me when it comes to relatability humor, I tend to fall back on making fun of the aunties I have had to deal with, I know a lot of my other brown friends have a tendency of doing the same thing and I'm sure we use humor as a way to cope. A lot of older Indian women who have immigrated from India including my own mother tend to be rather regressive around women's rights and tend to put other women down. And it can be difficult to have to see the woman who is supposed to teach you how to be a woman in a conscious way criticize you over petty things and doubling down on patriarchal notions of what it means to be a woman. Most of the humor that I notice with brown people poking fun at their own communities comes with a critique about social issues as well as the double standards that are present between men and women. While humor can be a more constructive way to address our issues and laugh at them instead of dismissing them, I think it's also important to think about context as well in regards to why some people are the way they are and what social expectations and structures contributed to it. A lot of these stereotypical aunties are gossipy because they don't have much going on in their lives. Why? Because some didn't get much of an opportunity to figure themselves out and explore life as a whole because I mean you can't have a woman run wild "what will people say???" I think a lack of life experiences has a major role in being judgmental and anxious about seemingly trivial things. Then you have South Asian Americans also making fun of FOBs (Fresh of the Boats) when it come to different attitudes and cultural differences. Some of it is funny like the time when my uncle was pressed about drinking sweet tea because why tf would tea be served cold and with no milk lol. But some of it can be pretty racist. Like I remember back in high school there was the whole "send bobs and vagene" memes that were going around making fun of indian guys who are creepy and awkward. While I know brown people can make fun of it because those people do exist, albeit they few and far between, it feels hella racist when white people jump on the band wagon. There is this whole trope of brown men being emasculated and seen as a laughing stock that can't get a girlfriend. It's a common media stereotype to portray Asian men like this. The Big Bang Theory and how they portray Raj is a good example of this. And because of this, I think that's why you have the brown fuckboys that try to act black (I swear we all know that one brown guy who thinks it's ok to say the n-word). Asian men are typically emasculated while black people as a whole tend to be portrayed in a hype masculine light. This can especially be seen with black women and how they are routinely seen as less feminine but that's a whole nother topic. I'd imagine that if you are in the position where you are emasculated for whatever reason, there is the temptation to swing in the other direction and try to portray this hyper masculine image. And to a lot of brown guys, curating that hyper masculine image comes with appropriating black culture which isn't ok in the slightest. There is also a lot to be said about anti-black sentiments in Asian communities due to the whole model minority myth that pits Asian people against Black and Latino people as a way to invalidate the institutionalized racism that BIPOC experience. Then there is the whole colonial narrative of brown men being creeps and predators and them being more of a threat to brown women than the Europeans were. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the "send bobs and vagene" trope isn't something new from a historical sense. And of course there are people who think that brown people are more sophisticated and less backwards than people back in India. I didn't see that type of humor that much growing up but I did talk to older brown people (roughly 10-15 years older than me) and they told me stories of how they were more insecure about their South Asian identity because when their families immigrated to the U.S. in the mid-late 80s and early 90s, there wasn't as much of a brown community in the U.S. then so there was more of a pressure to conform to whatever their white peers were doing because you didn't find as many people to relate to. Finally, we have the non-South Asian people who think it's ok to make fun of South Asian people. I feel like racism against Asian Americans socially is less addressed. Part of it goes back to the whole model minority myth as well as Asian people having less representation in terms of population size. I remember people in my school would do an impression of an Indian accent to make fun of a teacher and I tried to brush it off as oh they are making fun of this particular teacher, not brown people as a whole. Looking back I'm just like *that waaaasn't okkkkk......* Again, a lot of it probably has to with Asian issues not being taken seriously because most of our issues aren't to the same extremes as BIPOC. It's true, we don't face the same struggles that BIPOC typically face. Comparing the issues and the circumstances of Asian Americas and BIPOC are like comparing apples to oranges. But in the end of the day, racism is still racism, there is no need to play the who is the most oppressed olympics, and I shouldn't have let that type of thing slide. I was complicit. Hell, I don't even feel comfortable doing an Indian accent when I'm engaging in relatability humor because I'm afraid of doing the accent wrong and making a caricature out of brown people and because that's not how I talk. So my non-brown friends sure as hell shouldn't have been doing that.

I honestly feel like this thread needs to be locked up at this point. We strayed away from the main subject for a while now. I dont think it's going anywhere.

Or maybe she does it because she enjoys those things for herself and she wants to express herself through her appearance..... Not everything revolves around men

If I were to think of a perfect guy I would want an amazing personality that meshes with me well. Looks wise, I don't care if other women wants to be with him or not as long as I'm somewhat attracted to him. He doesn't have to be attractive to everyone for me to like him. Women don't care about status in that way. Especially when it comes to physical attraction, women have so many specific types and tastes it' impossible to appeal to majority of them. I want him to treat me right and be loyal but that's also part of personality so I don't think it need reiterating

That's because we don't see women as valuable human beings in the first place and instead view them as objects that erode with time. Why don't we value older women for their wisdom and life experience the way that we do with men? Men like you don't do that because they see a woman's value in her malleability and her naivety because that means men can have more control to use her as the object they perceive her to be. Those men aren't after intimacy or respect, they crave control over a woman in order to prove their weak egos to other men for validation. The fact that you see Teal Swan as having a small amount of value just because of her age is disgusting. She's waaaaay out of your league anyway because of your poor attitude.