Loba

Look, I'm gunna tell you a little bit about me. I have not had the easiest dating life, either. When I was young, I was very naïve about men and dating, and I would get too attached to a guy too quickly, or too hung up on him, just for him to get with some other woman who was usually - in my eyes - not as good. Like, they were prettier, but not as kind, or they had been a loose escort or they had self-admitted BPD and "won" them through the "sad-girl-victim-routine" or some dealbreaker like that. I would watch as these guys I liked get into these relationships right after getting to know me, and they would often last years. Some of them worked out and they started families, or some didn't and they got into better partnerships. But not me. No, never me. I began to wonder if I was just the girl in between, you know? Like the girl guys fuck around with right before they find someone for a long term commitment. It became a bone of contention for a while, where when I did finally get into a relationship - and it lasted 9 years - it was abusive. He used me emotionally, financially, and lied and deflected constantly about his behaviour - he had a personality issue, but I don't know what it was exactly. I took his constant criticism on as something that was genuinely reflective of who I was. He did a lot of drugs, and hit his ex with a hammer. I finally called her to get the whole story on who he was, and we sounded so similar, it was like two kind, sweet soft spoken people with literally the same vocal inflection, like speaking to a mirror. I had always wanted that special connection. I coveted it so much. Ever since I was little. But then I got into my mid 30's and I got super sick, like maybe 10-15 years left of life sick - and I lost all my energy and vitality, and thus everything and anything I could offer someone went right out the window. I lost my dream of being loved by another person. And I got really bitter about it, you know? Like, I would read posts on here sometimes and they would really dig into that wound, just like what is happening to you - and I would lash out. But then I did some self introspection and accepted that this is just the way of things, and I am okay with that now. I'm not bitter - I'm for the most part, a pretty happy and content person. When I see you posting like this, or feeling upset or like "they're all the same", I actually do get it. It's a tough world out there and it's hard to find connection and love. Just don't let yourself get bitter about it. It can really mess with your head if you become jaded. Keep yourself open, don't let previous bad experiences cloud what could be a good connection. You got this dude, don't give up.

I have heard of this state, I believe it is an interim place or holding spot for people who are going to die. Many reports of near death experiences have mentioned this dark place where they are left with nothing but their thoughts, but over a period of time someone eventually comes to get them or they see a light and move towards it. It's possible that you just didn't get that far, but I am not for sure certain. I also had an experience of this in a dream, where I was in a place that was all me and complete black - and I cried out, for some reason, "Why can't I be like you?" and a female presence wrapped me up and said, "You are me, you just need to be calm." It didn't feel like me, but something motherly and much greater. But it was that space of pure, black mind-void that you are describing. This guy talks about this phenomena a bit, I chose this one because he doesn't mention going any farther than the void itself. Some quotes from people: "Having been in the void twice, I can say with certainty that our consciousness is perfectly intact outside the body; and is no way dependent on the body. We're eternal beings and death doesn't actually happen, only a transition into a subtler dimension, far more real than this one. The void is like an entry point. You might need to expand your religious ideas a bit to get the fullness of this sacred event." "Absolutely spot on. I was there 5 years ago. Exactly the same except I heard no voices/ saw no lights. I was the darkness of the void and it felt great! Where as you heard someone ask you if you want to live or die. I asked myself “ shall I stay here all cosy, warm and peaceful or... at that point I too saw my children and summoned all my power to fight the ‘ thickness of the void to ‘move’ back up out of the void and back into body. I said to myself as I went up “no I’ve still got stuff I need to do up there first’!! Thank you for this . It’s nice to hear an account where there is no stereotypical wishy washy white light, greeted by loved ones etc. It almost felt like I had gone down to a holding level/waiting room , a place to be held while the information as to what happens to you gets processed. But unlike a lot of accounts I was completely alone in the vastness of the void. I looked for people but gave up as I knew there was no point, but at no time did I feel sad scared or alone!! It just was . And that’s the amazing thing. It was so real that it’s so normal as well. If that makes sense."

@Tron Dude, you sound triggered/stressed, I'm not the same type of girl who hurt your feelings. Take a breather and then get back to me, okay? Maybe look back on this tomorrow and then see if that's the reaction you wanted to give. I do this sometimes, too, where a post in the dating section triggers an old wound or insecurity and I get frustrated with the words - but you need to understand that what you're writing is tinted with what people have done to you, that you might be putting off on me that probably isn't there. Give it a day, think on it, and see if you still feel the same way tomorrow.

I've been thinking a bit on this thread, on how the assumption that socialization with low-consciousness people can make you stupid, and I wanted to make a post on what I have learned from observing and integrating the affects of such people over the span of many years. They can actually make you very smart! I've learned from toxic partners, old friends and acquaintances through revisiting these situations and building upon what kind of person I want to be long-term. I've been thinking about how they sometimes have a tendency of sapping the creativity and life force of the people around them, but they can also provide a lot of inspiration and opportunities for growth if you know where to look. It literally depends on how you utilize their actions. Are you going to react, and become a "mini-them" in turn, or will you sit back and let the show teach you something valuable about yourself? I've also found a song with lyrics that reflect the concern people can have with this type of socialization and their long-term effects. Let's get into the positives - over time I have learned through "negative" socialization - How to properly treat any future partners that I may have, how to create boundaries, what a lack of boundaries looks like and what it can look like when you don't let people go. Basically, proper relational etiquette, give and take, without emotional sponging. Through observation, I was able to gain key insights into how I might have treated partners in the past, what that looks like, and how I will do so going forward. If you can see it play out without being a part of it, then you can sort of see your own reflection, which in a way makes things easier to pinpoint what and where you went wrong in your own life. How to deal with other people's, and your own emotional outbursts, gaslighting and deflection without becoming inundated with negativity. Generally, you just need to retain your genuine sense of self, and if you can realize that the person is actually pushing their own actions off on you - then this can help to ease the illusion/drama - fools generally do not learn lessons, they just chronically deflect - and when you can see this, and expect it, and not to expect better behaviour but just to accept that this is what the game is, then it is no longer a "personal" thing with them. They're just low consciousness, it would be like expecting a dog to learn algebra, that's not gunna happen. How to not be a chronic follower, and how to create your own genuine sense of self and identity - fools/low consciousness people tend to follow the crowd and pilfer ideas and inspiration from those around them. They're generally not very original. They affix certain trends or labels onto themselves and don't have a solid grasp of what it means to be a "real person". You see this on social media a lot, where people are always following the latest gossip, latest trend, latest label, etc. and want these things to represent themselves. When you learn that you can represent yourself through your own unique creativity, that it is a gift that not everyone has, this can help you see yourself as not just a follower, but someone with their own ideas and preferences. How to be honest and open with yourself and with other people - many times low consciousness people aren't honest with people or themselves. They either don't know how to self reflect or they don't have awareness into their actions. When you see this in others, it can remind you that you need to always be an honest and open and truthful person and you can see the value in that, and what happens to people's inner worlds when they do not accept that as an authentic personal virtue. It turns into a literal mold cavern. How to respect other people and public spaces, not to drink or smoke anymore - watching myself and other people smoke and drink helped me learn that this isn't a good way to socialize. After negative interactions while on substances, I learned to create a boundary for myself not to interact with other people like that - sometimes I can be the repetitive fool, too, and it took me some time to learn this rule. I've learned that public spaces are for everyone and that they should be respected. So I don't share too much drama, I am trying to keep it more light, and I don't let my past affect me in the present day. How to take responsibility for myself - how to not be a chronic victim - I learned that chronic victimhood can be an excuse not to work on yourself. When it's always someone else's fault and when people are always doing things to you, it can make you unable to act in your own best interests. When you take responsibility for your emotional state, your creative space, and that you are now an adult that can make its own decisions without needing to fall down at every inconvenience, this becomes a very empowering psychological shift - one that has been the hardest for me to integrate, as I often tend to resort to returning to the ever-aggressive "it's them". But realistically, if we live in a decent home, with a good source of income, and have a safe homelife, then there's no reason to ever feel like a victim. That's taking the title away from people who are genuinely powerless and they deserve that energy more. So you see, low consciousness people, if you use them as a mirror, they can teach you a lot about yourself - how to react, how to create boundaries - their lack of boundaries and stepping over yours can actually show you where you might have one that you didn't even know you had! They're literal plot hole poppers in the fabric of your own reality, you can take their mistakes, learn from them through osmosis, and boom - you end up being less of a fool, it's great. I highly recommend it. Some warnings though - low consciousness people can be a threat to not only themselves, but other people as well. It's better to observe them from afar and not to get inundated with the nature of their lives. Leave these interactions for high consciousness folks who value truth, creativity and new ideas. I've had the misfortune of dating people who were a roller coaster, or having one-sided leachy-dramatic friendships - one fantastic thing is, if I had never met some of these people, I never would have found spirituality, or God and I would have never had a window into the level of self reflection that I do now. Their actions were literal hidden blessings in disguise. Most of them from the past are still living the same old same old, and they'll never know of God or universal love or any of that. But without them, I wouldn't have been pressured to develop myself. You can indeed learn to feed from the proverbial vampire. I don't have much to say on socialization with high consciousness people as their benefits are already very obvious. You learn new ideas, concepts, ways of viewing the world, and generally they're safe to get close to - they're like walking, living brain massagers. Leo is a good example of this type of person. He offers a lot of intellectual value to as many people as he can. Usually high consciousness people value the growth in others, they are creative, they are a positive for communities and they try to set people free as opposed to stifling their souls. Look at this poor boy All dressed up in white Now how can he smile With a face of all eyes He wonders the night Through smears and words snide Spinning round and round His precious mind Like dizzy neon lights Can anybody find out Any other way It's choking up his throat now And dripping out his mouth Like liquefied dying sparks Like burning butterflies These creatures are vampires They're killing by the night They're falling from the dead trees To sihouette your life He sees this white face Brains lit grey and cold Trees grows in their throats And crystals ignored His cellophane mask has filled with red smoke Look through the holes in his eyes And see his red righteous soul Can anybody find out Any other way It's choking up his throat now And dripping out his mouth These creatures are vampires They're killing by the night They're hanging in the dead trees Like burning butterflies

I would say that highly intelligent people can be an asset for sure, but so can emotionally unintelligent, obtuse and abusive low IQ/EQ people. They can show you areas where you need to work on yourself. Highly intelligent socialization offers you new perspectives, new ideas to develop, and helps you expand your worldview, but low IQ/EQ people generally teach you how to not be a fool. You can learn a lot from their repetitive actions that they never gain any traction with. I used to get a lot more triggered by people like this, but after a few weeks/months I've been learning to pity their behaviours and to realize that they will generally never grow as people, there will only be the illusion of growth. Narcissistically oriented socialization can teach you a lot about where your trigger points are and how to not react, where people might be testing your boundaries or exploiting your vulnerabilities, it can teach you that people can be downright messed up. I would say, if you have not had this realization about low consciousness people, and how to utilize their nonsense for personal gain, that they can actually lower the intelligence of the people and the value of communities that they frequent by quite a lot. If you don't have a way of buffering yourself, or using their actions as a gateway to self introspection, then they will bring you, and everyone else they come into contact with, down a notch. So in that sense, Leo is right. Socialization with people like this can indeed be harmful. I suppose then the question begs, once you have learned to no longer act like a fool by watching the fool beat its head against a wall, and there isn't much more to gain from them, but they still have not learned to self-moderate their own actions, at which point does this become a destructive force for a community? This form of socialization can become like an infectious mold. You can see prime examples of this all across social media. I have this same fear. I view myself as somewhat of a creative. Mid-tier level, room for improvement, and if the outside world barrages me with too much toxicity, this can actually damage my creative process. I imagine he is the same way. It is true, if you are highly creative, that you need to keep people who value creativity above low-level stuff - like drama - in your circle. Fools of all sorts do have a corruptive nature to them. They can, completely unaware, and without care, bring you down. But the fool, only being concerned about it's own little self, couldn't care less. So my take is - use high-level socialization as a means of boosting your creativity. Use low-level socialization as a means of seeing where you need to work on yourself, but once you're past that, let the low-level go, if at all possible. Just my 2c take or leave.

Goes hand in hand with Trisha naming her baby Elizabeth (apparently a funny rumour)... had me in stitches, esp. the part when she pops out a baby and a corgi.

I think this could be more indicative of a waking dream. When children's minds are still developing they can actually hallucinate a lot of things that adults can't. I remember having dreams or even waking moments where aspects of the dream were still prevalent at that young of an age. I would also have dreams that were in my room that felt so real, it seemed like I was awake, only to see something completely out of context, like a demon or a leprechaun or something. Normally I take people's paranormal experiences into account, but when you're young it has been shown that more often than not it is a side affect of having a growing brain, on top of this memories from this age can be easily distorted and are so flexible. I have had two experiences as an adult where I woke up to something that was seemingly paranormal, but I am open to it being the remnant of a dream as well. The first time, I woke up and there was a pitch black alien, with skin as shiny and smooth as an orca. It had high cheek bones, grey eyes with a gradient, a calm expression, a mouth, bald, female, and the sheen that illuminated off of the skin looked pure white and seemed to be coming from an energy source inside of the body. As if it was a pitch black entity that was running of of a core of pure white energy. It was resting, mirroring me on my bed on its own little pillow. The bed had extended for this hallucination, as I was actually resting at the very end and there was no more space for another creature, so it was basically watching me sleep on its own materialized portion of my mattress. I didn't react. I blinked three times, each time it got less noticeable and after the third blink, it was gone. A few weeks later, it appeared again. It was standing in the middle of my room and was about seven feet tall and was illuminated by the moon in my window. It had a black robe with a collar that also had the white sheen to it, and a very long neck with a big head, it almost looked like an African deity or something, combined with an alien. It was watching out of my window, until I stood up and yelled "Go away!" in a panic, then it turned to look at me with its big grey eyes and telepathically spoke into my mind, I could feel it's surprise as its emotions permeated me, "You can see me?!" And then, again after three blinks, it was gone. I later made a work of art, using this creature in mind, with a pitch black face from an African mask superimposed over a large sun, and within the pure white lines of sheen, I added extra detail there. I was able to influence an entity to speak to me from this picture somehow during a period of sickness. tl;dr - Childhood experiences are more likely the product of a growing brain - hallucination and it can be hard to know because you were so young. I also give experiences of meeting what looked to be like an alien twice after waking up in the middle of the night. It could have just been a dream, I have no clue.

I wouldn't do that. I used to smoke a lot of weed, daily, and so I was high all the time and some of the posts that I made in this state were not ones that I would have made sober. I also used to get very drunk, this was a problem for me for about three months earlier in the year that I managed to curtail, but I found each and every time I got drunk is when I would get surly or overtly rude. Any time I can think of where I was out of my mind with anger in a very obvious way, i.e. wall-of-text barrage of nonsensical rudeness, was due to being drunk and unable to handle how much I had. Now, I always cut it off at three drinks, no more. And these issues have not risen since. The last time I got drunk was when my dog was sick and I was stressing out about her, and the same symptom happened - delusional anger directed outwards. I snapped at someone on my journal for something that wasn't even important, or reflective of the reality of the circumstances, in an effort to curtail my anxiety about what was happening with my dog. If I were sober, this would not have happened. I left the forum for a month in embarrassment and then came back later, deleted the comments and moved on. But that was the last straw with my drinking, it let me see that I simply couldn't hold it together, no matter how much I wanted to and the negative effects - including hangover - were not worth the few hours of having a buzz. So, from my experiences, what this tells me is that, either high on drugs or drunk on alcohol, you cannot properly gauge how you're coming across to others in that state. Even with drugs that increase your consciousness, this removes your boundaries, which you need in order to interact with people normally. Aside from my experiences, we have had people occasionally post while high and their insights aren't as well developed as they would be if they had written them down in a notepad and then come back to them while sober to hash out any details, maybe write the sentences a bit more structurally sound. I mean, nothing is stopping you from sharing your insights that you get from tripping, but it would be better for you to do so offsite, create a rough draft, and then go over it sober, and then post it. On top of that, if you're high or tripping and interacting with people online, this can harsh your mellow, or they can interrupt your process. tl;dr - I've experienced posting while drunk and high and have witnessed other people posting while tripping and it never ends well - just write what you experience offsite, and then go over it while you are sober to see if it makes sense and then share it with us, easy peasy.

It's okay, I have made peace with it. Despite all of that, I don't have to work, so my life is pretty easy and calm - I live with family, so I am not alone. It could be so much worse, there are homeless people, sick people who have no one - I get to at least live life comfortably and safely and so I count my blessings for sure. As for you, let's see here. Some words for you - don't let the negativity of other people get to you so harshly. I know it's easier said than done, but the dating game is difficult for most normal people. It does take some work to find the right one. Try taking it as this: if a woman gives you a bad reaction, then it is a sign that she is absolutely not the one for you, and it is actually a blessing, because that reaction could come up later in life rather than sooner, it's so much better to get that stuff out of the way immediately. When you do find the right partner, you will be so glad for all the ones that didn't work out, because it will have allowed you to find who is best for you. Keep your heart open, don't let it become jaded. If you want a partner and some kids in the future, never close yourself off from that, you deserve to have a good life filled with things that make you happy.

Lol "voyager fetish" - that's probably one of Leo's fetishes tbh. As someone with odd sexual tastes, I personally think that it is a form of the soul's expression - that if it is your genuine orientation, that you are loving your partner in the same manner through these various actions. I don't think it is strictly a form of gratification, I think that we have energetic polarities and modes of expression that allow the right souls to find one another. This just tells me that this isn't what you find sexually appealing deep down inside, and that is perfectly okay, too. Kink isn't for everyone, some people just want to make love to their partner and connect in that way. But for those of us who are into kink, it is actually a very deeply spiritual process. First of all, to admit it, or to realize it about one's self takes a lot of self exploration, bravery and work. It often isn't that someone just knows what they want, they have to go on a journey, much like with self development or spiritual development. It's all tied together. With things like kink, it's also about having a level of trust with your partner. You're letting them into your world, basically, your imagination, your body, your desires, the things that make up some of the core of your personality and psychology. People that practice these things with a trusted partner are often able to connect in the same way that love making connects them, maybe even moreso on some levels. If someone is a sub, or a dom, they can go into states that are very spiritual and unify them in beautiful ways. The sub will go into a state that is almost like a high, where she submits to the pain, or whatever she is experiencing and the body produces chemicals that put her in an almost egoless, floaty-like state - while the dom gets a charge from the control and the intense focus that it takes to work through a scene together. They both work together, like yin and yang, each person becoming almost a cohesive unit, a beautiful dance, in how they orchestrate their act. Just like with vanilla sex, you have to know the person very well to unify with them like this, to the level that it takes, you almost predict one another's state and it becomes like its own little world in a way... and when they are done, there is aftercare, which is more vanilla. You snuggle, eat food, watch a movie, take a bath together, you know, basic couple stuff. When I move towards kink, and add it into my spiritual and personal development, it makes for a beautiful triad. I love synthesizing it all together. I think, being open and truthful about who you are at your deepest level is how you find the person you are meant to be with. The soul is meant to express this energy in a unique way, it's like the key to creativity, passion, happiness, all that good stuff. Sexual fantasies are important.

It depends. My situation might be different from other people. I have bipolar 1, autism, a bad heart and an autoimmune disease, I'm already 34 and I don't fully know when my time will be up. Probably in the middle of my life, if not sooner. I'm frequently sick with this. I also come from a background where healthy communication was not encouraged, and I am only partially healed from my childhood. I rarely ever leave the house, and am very codependent on people in a relationship setting. I can do friendships very well, and have had many very deep and loving friendships without problems, but when it comes to relationships, I am not able to accomplish this. The thing is, I respect people's time and energy, and their ability and willingness to go the extra mile for their partner. If I were a healthy person, who was a bit younger with more going for me, then this would be a different story. And if I were that healthy person, and I saw someone that I loved get involved with the current me with all these problems, I would be concerned for that partner. It would be too much for them, and I wouldn't be able to contribute in a healthy way that allowed for a properly functioning flow of give and take. If you are someone stuck in the take too much bin, even if you are a good person with good intentions, you can end up draining another person of their time, energy and resources. I would feel like garbage if I did that to someone who deserves a chance with a healthy, happy, vibrant individual. I'm also so sick most of the time, that I wouldn't be able to have sex very often, which is a deal breaker. Men need sex. My coping mechanism is to write stories of an alternative timeline where I am reborn into a healthier body in a different world. I find that working on this project helps me to work through fantasies that I couldn't try, eases any bitterness that I may have, and lets me feel a sense of creativity. I also believe in life after death. I think that when we die, we either become an orb of light and meet with our soul families and partner, or we move on to another plane of existence with a fresh start and can continue with our desires there. I've had a spiritual awakening where I met someone who told me that they were my partner, that I was "mutually curating" aspects of them, as they were with me, and it almost felt like I was caught in the spiritual net of a masculine presence that made up the background of the things in my life, just outside of spacetime and just beyond the narrative of my human life. Now for you, if you are a healthy person who is relatively young without too many mental problems and can offer something kind and genuine to another person, you wouldn't be in the same boat. You would be someone who is stepping out for other reasons. I literally cannot offer at this time what it would take to make another person happy - and respect people too much to put them through dealing with a chronically sick person with limited time. If you have a chance at building a happy life for yourself and there are no barriers that can't be fixed, like health and age, then you should go for it. What are your circumstances that are preventing you from finding a wife and starting a family? If that's too personal, just let me know.

I think what you need to do is work on having your own personal genuine awakening before getting into these texts. They are best used when you have a previous experience to go off of because they were written by man, and no one is infallible. Once you get into the territory of trying to apply these things before having your own understanding, then you can get stuck in belief systems that are hard to get out of. The best way to have an awakening is to just open up a notepad on your computer and start getting very personal and very honest about every aspect of your ego, whatever feels disingenuous, pathological or unhealthy - and don't judge it - just dissect it. After some time of doing this, look into new ways that you want to relate to the world. Some other ingredients that can help are to practice compassion for the collective suffering of mankind, to see this as a connecting energy it itself, that we all suffer to some degree and to offer love to those who suffer. You can do this by coming to understand the consequence of war, poverty, abuse, etc. Try looking people in the eyes and seeing that we are all connected. When you come across the fear of death, don't avoid it - look right into it, feel it fully and face it as best as you can without creating any ideas on what it means. Don't think of heaven or hell. Just focus on what is real right now, and allow your senses to permeate into everything that you do, fill yourself with appreciation for being alive. This is key - going through the fear of death, but not allowing any narrative to decide what your death will be. The reasoning for this recipe is that God is underneath your ego, all the things you have put over it, by finding new ways to relate you open your mind to new possibilities, when you come to understand the pain of mankind, you can see that we are all connected through love, and when you accept death as an unknown and get very present with it - this wipes your slate clean so that you can actually "see" God right behind all of this. When you find God, in whatever you see or feel, there will be an illuminating quality to it and your awakening will be tailored to just you. You will get personal insights that are just for your life. When we take these books and apply them to our lives without first witnessing God - it is like giving a name to someone that you do not yet know. You must get to know them first, in your own special way. My personal experiences and insights on the nature of heaven and hell - tread lightly with this - your personal experience will ALWAYS trump anything I say: There is an expanding nature to God, it forever moves forward just outside of time and space. When you have a revelation of God, it can feel like getting off of a spinning carnival ride, where everything still sightly feels like it is moving forward just a bit. You might feel connected to the Love of everyone and everything that ever was or will be - and there is an order to it, a plan, a divine symphony in how it orchestrates itself that is very genuine and welcoming. It is all connected through this one universal singularity of Love, everything, which lets me believe that hell is not a real thing. If this divine phenomena is creating everything with a plan in mind, then your actions would already be considered and would be taken into account as a part of the process. It is like a natural feedback loop where every action that you or everyone else takes contributes to this massive play, that the divine purpose of it is to eventually allow itself to awaken to the reality of itself, while also still getting to be You. So you get to be God, and yourself at the same time, the universe gets to watch all that it is through your vessel. Hell implies that mistakes are made. That people are sent here onto this planet to learn lessons with no guidance from a higher power and then punished when they do something wrong, and this goes against what I have experienced. If hell was real, then why is it that when I woke up, everyone who ever was was a part of this grand process? Not a single living creature was left out. Not a single action unaccounted for. Don't let the revelations of other people cloud what you can have for yourself, even what I write is just a pointer. Dig deep into your own psychology and try your best to awaken to what God has to say to you specifically, the individual, unique person. This was the big message that I got from God, was that each person has their own special path and process to get there - a person can kind of guide another individual, but it is up to them to remove the dirt from their lens. Some things that can help are the arts. Music, poetry, stories, things that can draw your consciousness forward instead of backwards, things that captivate your imagination. Once you have an awakening or two, then you are able to have an easier time picking apart these books without taking them on as dogma or personal belief. You can kind of read in between the lines to see what is really being said. Hope this helps in some way.

I always assumed it wasn't LOA that popular people get more critics, but simply because they are more well known and many people don't have a life - like celebrity gossip and such things, never been one to get on board with that to any great degree. I do agree with interconnection and from my awakenings understand this on a moderate level. The thing is, when you think of LOA in this sense, on a larger scale - that works, because it is including the entire human race and the actions that stem from one thing to the next, but when you start whittling it down to small scale things, like individuals thinking they can manifest very herculean endeavors, this starts to get into the territory of delusion. When I think about it how you have written it, what comes to mind is more like a feedback loop, which is a natural process in nature as well, and it's the fuel of evolution and consciousness itself. But when you start thinking of the individual - say, someone who has had to flee Ukraine into a neighboring country, they were given no choice, and they couldn't simply attract a different outcome, as we all work together as a species and the individual has less power than the collective. Or if you think of a young girl being sold off by her parents into the sex trade at 12, this person didn't bring this situation into their lives, they were powerless in that instance. If we use LOA and view it as more of the universal nature of things, where x affects y and so forth, I think one could gain more understanding of this through knowing about the nature of positive and negative feedback loops. But when people get into "well, I want to create this situation out of thin air, despite the entire human race having it's own agenda - you see where I'm going? I'm glad that you made this in mind with people who don't agree with LOA, I wouldn't say you manifested me here, but it does go to show that you have differing views in mind when making posts, which is a good thing in and of itself.

I had a hard time in school, too. From middle school until high school. I failed most of my classes, when I managed to do well, the teachers wouldn't see the work I did or they would say that it was too good, that I must have stolen it. I finally started to do work from home and got 6 months done in 2 months at home, and they lost the whole notebook and never told me that they did - just basically waited until I got my report card and none of the credits were there. I totally understand why students hate school. There's bullying, you're basically herded around like a cow, there are too many students in each classroom to get the attention you need, most teachers shouldn't actually be in that line of work and can be as big of bullies as the students themselves. My suggestion is this - finish your classes online. If it isn't the work, and it's just going to school itself, try doing it that way. You might have a much easier time. If that doesn't work, you could try you GED. That's what I ended up doing after my class teacher lost my work, she basically forced me to fail an entire grade and wouldn't fess up. I realized I was getting nowhere here, and that the system was not designed for a person such as myself. Later in life, as I started learning things on my own and developed a new curiosity for the world, I realized that the problem was that I can't learn via auditory - so teachers giving lectures did nothing for me. I need both reading and muscle memory combined to remember what I'm doing. Schools often don't have the skills to teach a student a better way of learning, the entire system is quite abusive, destroys your creativity, treats human beings as statistics, etc. If you can go at your own pace in the comfort of your own home doing online courses, you might have an easier time. Ask your school if they have that, or what resources they know of that can allow you to do this.

Honestly, if you don't know the girl very well and are not already in a relationship that is moving forward or a friendship, then I would just let it go. It's not disrespect, it's just the nature of human communication. People flake, people ghost, people have their own lives. They may not want to, or are able to answer some of your questions. When you put pressure or boundaries on someone you just met to do all these things for you, when they aren't even showing much interest to begin with, it's not going to get better for you. They'll just leave even quicker than they would have before. Dude, I'm gunna tell you something. Dating is hard. It takes a long time to find someone that you are mutually attracted to that ticks off all the boxes, and on top of that, developing healthy communication is a whole different realm. If I were in your shoes, I would do some study on how to build on healthy communication with people - not saying that you don't have that, I don't know you, but if you have good skills in this department, it is much easier to connect with women that might not initially give you a second glance. They aren't trying to disrespect you - disrespect is more like flat out calling you names, or treating you in a rude way - which could sometimes be indicative of them liking you depending on the circumstance, but usually if someone is giving you no emotional response - not even disrespect, this says that it's just not a compatible connection. Women generally have a decent radar for what they like and what they don't, and it isn't a visual thing, like it usually is for men. They can tell within a short period of time if you are someone that they want to get close to. If a woman wants to hold space for you, and get to know you, they will absolutely keep tabs on you, they will communicate with you, it will be pretty easy to tell once you start rapport. But if you're getting nothing at all, they aren't even disrespecting you, you're just literally not on the radar, you're as good as dead tbh. They don't think of you, they don't care. Women can forget someone they don't like in an instant, no problem. I would just focus on women who are showing you that they want to know you. Don't even stress it when women bail. It's in our nature not to be so forthright about these things, because we don't always know how men are going to take it. When I was in my early 20's, I let down guys just to have the strangest, most aggressive reactions and this sort of trained me into ghosting people because I don't want to deal with those sorts of things. So if you send bitter messages to these women, who are already not interested in the first place, they aren't going to come to you with understanding, they're just gunna block and move on. The dating game sucks. It's best not to take anything personally at all, because it isn't personal.

I used to do this when I was younger, I would check up on old friends and relationships - I think it becomes more of a habit than anything else. Like, seeing something hits a dopamine spike. I recently checked on some friends a few weeks ago after not doing it for years and it gave me such a bad feeling. I would just ween yourself off of the habit. What made me stop was that I felt like I was looking into someone's life when I didn't belong there. I mean, we would never reconnect, so what was the point in knowing what they were doing? None. I started to think about how I would feel if someone did that to me, it would weird me out a lot, and so I took how I would feel about that situation and applied it to them. People generally don't like being watched by folks that they are never going to have in their lives again, most people want to move on. When I stopped doing this, I became a much healthier and happier person. I was no longer worried about them doing better than me, comparing myself or still having any feelings. Now, I'll check up maybe once every three years, if that, for many of them, I probably never will again because I feel like such a dirty person for snooping. I have a tendency to be someone who can get very obsessive like that, and so I have to take extra precautions not to allow that to happen. I kind of have to force boundaries by putting myself in the shoes of the people that I am watching. I know that no one likes that shit, it's creepy, weird, obsessive and especially for women, it can really make them feel unsafe. We are given free access into people's lives through the internet like we have not had before, but we should try to take steps not to become obsessive or invasive, even if the options are there. This is what good, healthy people do. They let the people in their lives who have moved on finally get their closure. Life is like this, people come and go, we aren't always meant to stay in one another's lives forever, and I see this happen with a lot of people, where they try to hold onto people that they should have let go a long time ago and this not only makes you look pathetic in some instances, but also mentally unstable. I'm saying this as someone who, maybe five years ago used to chronically watch people's stuff just out of habit, it's not a good thing to do. It is unhealthy, I hope my words have allowed you to move on from this habit. Good luck.

I think he goes into states where he does a lot of psychedelics, and then makes posts like these. You can see the difference in how he writes, the quality of it when he is high vs. when he is not. I mean, it's probably not the best move if you're a semi-famous spiritual teacher who's trying to lead people towards a sense of balance/a great life and whatnot, but the fact of the matter is this, he isn't wrong, you know? Right-wing MAGA idiots do kind of suck. They're like literal parasites in this country. And for anyone with a decent ethical sense, it can be triggering and infuriating to see so many people fall into the trap of thinking that these people know what's best for the country. It's so glaringly obvious, that it's difficult not to want to just shout out, "You're a literal waste of space in every sense of the word and it makes me sad." Because it is sad, these people are destroying not only themselves, I mean, they don't vote for what's best for them, but they are destroying progress for millions of other people. So I see why Leo, who's entire "thing" is growth and progress, would be annoyed with people who are so against the human race moving forward, who are literally helping to facilitate our very extinction due to their own stupidity and greed. But it doesn't translate well when you have built up your image to not be someone who gets triggered about these things. Goes both ways. This stuff doesn't bother me, what bothers me is when he posts something like, "I got close to suicide" or something like that on a video, that worries me, because I value this community and if he is sick or dead, then this community will no longer exist. It's kind of like a selfish form of valuing someone. I get value from the space he allows for other people, and so I want him to be healthy and happy, but seeing as I don't know him personally and he has expressed a boundary multiple times over the years that he likes to have a bit of distance from his followers, I just let him do his own thing, unless the behaviour is really, really unusual, then I might speak up about it. But this is actually pretty normal for him, it seems. To get high on something, and either make an awakening video, or post a bunch of out of the blue blogs or weird pictures. My personal advice for him would be to wait until you're sober. Write it all up, sure, or take the picture, the video, etc, but just wait and see if you still agree with its vibe later on down the road. I say this as someone who used to smoke a lot of weed, or would sometimes browse the internet while drunk as a skunk - I don't do either anymore, but I would say things or do things that I would never say or do in a sober state, and it's like, once you do it, you can't really take it back - it's out there, or the pattern is set. And if you're a public figure and people have some weird expectation of you to behave in a certain way, sometimes it's not the worst thing in the world to entertain that for the sake of keeping your image clean. Expression is great, but if it comes at a cost, then it's best to put at least some personal boundaries on what you choose to show about yourself, and I don't think that if you're high that you'll know for certain where that boundary is - especially considering psychedelics remove those for you. Just my 2c. Take or leave.

Marriage - I think other people can get married if they want. Doesn't matter what sex, either. Straight, gay, trans, whatever. But for me personally, I like my freedom. I love the idea of pair bonding with someone, but not if it comes with a contract that prevents either one of us from ending it - if it doesn't work out in the long term. I view allowing other people the option to leave or stay to be very important. I want them to stay because they can choose to leave, not because there is a law preventing them, and that would cost a lot of money in order to remove. Divorce is expensive. I also don't like the idea that my partner has to get up in front of their entire family and say their vows, give me a kiss and some silly ring - that I will probably lose because I have a hard time holding onto jewelry - in order to prove to everyone that we know that our relationship is "legit". I hate that shit. Plus, rings to me, are uncomfortable. I like the idea of having my own personalized ceremony that means something special to me. I like the idea of a collaring ceremony, just for the couple, where the woman wears a thin gold or silver band around her neck that can be unlocked if the connection doesn't work anymore. It has the same spirit of marriage, but without the permanency and getting other people involved who have no business sticking their nose into my relationship. Plus, I have no emotional connection or desire for some big party or ceremony centered around just me - this is why I avoid birthdays as well - I like traditions where it is centered around everyone so that the focus isn't on my shit. That stuff weirds me out. Kids - Unless you are financially stable, genetically healthy and still viable, mentally sound, you and no one else should be bringing more people into this overpopulated world. The thing is, there is no ethical way to prevent stupid people from breeding. And in some cases, there is no access to contraceptives or sex education, or having large families is what is considered appropriate for that culture - but for people who have a choice in the matter and can think their options through, if you're not someone who has everything together in order to raise the best person possible, then you shouldn't be doing it. Life is rough. Children need the right circumstances to succeed in this world, to turn into healthy adults. We have enough dysfunction and genetically unsound people because evolution is no longer culling weaklings, so everyone is allowed to reproduce. But you can't ethically just force people to stop, either, so I don't know what the solution is for this, other than for people who can make intelligent choices for themselves, if they have the right morality, they will understand that we don't need more people on the planet. Unless your genes are so outstanding that actually creating another person would be a benefit to the human race, most people don't really need to be having kids. I have autism, bipolar, a bad heart and an autoimmune disease, plus I am in my mid-30's. I also, fortunately, don't really have the desire for children. None of these things deserve to be passed down to future generations. It seems cruel to have a child when they could end up having a mental disorder or disease that cuts their life. On top of that, I come from a dysfunctional family and am not fully healed from it. I get frustrated easily, I lack flexibility and I tend to worry about my needs first. I child absolutely deserves someone who is over these hurdles in life. It's fine to have these issues as a standalone, but once you add another dependent person into your world, if you can't give them the very best of you, how fucking fair is that? It's not. There are also many children in the world who would love to be adopted, who need a home, why aren't these valuable homes scooping these kids up? What is it that makes people think that their genetics are even worthy of creating the next generation of humans? My view is that until people start to actually think about these things, and take ethical approaches into who they are bringing into this crazy, underdeveloped and cold world, that we will eventually cause our own extinction. There won't be enough to go around. As it is, disaster in the next few generations for some of these poor and overpopulated countries is looming on the horizon. Just because it isn't here right now doesn't mean it won't be soon, and people seem to only think about what is happening for them right now and not about the future of mankind. On top of that, with what we have done to the planet, do we even deserve to go on as a species? What makes us more deserving than the animals that we destroy? We don't even care for our planet or our own species. Unless we can make changes to the way we do things, which I don't ever see happening, then I question the validity of humanity's right to even exist. Abortion - I am in the middle on this. I am pro-life in the sense, that if you can find a family for that baby who will adopt it, if you were just irresponsible and had the means to prevent the pregnancy from happening, that you should seek alternatives. There are a lot of families looking to adopt newborns. I had a friend in highschool who was too young to keep her baby and she did this. But I don't think that people should be banned from having abortions, even if I don't agree with them. Because I am not that person myself, I will never fully know what it is like to be in their shoes and so I don't have the right to tell them what they should be doing with their own body. There are also circumstances, like where the child would come out so disabled that the parent's life is essentially turned into that of a caretaker until they die, or where the mother could die if she keeps the child, to rape and incest and if you make laws preventing abortions from happening, then you're going to be killing people or forcing people to have children that they can't care for, or can't afford. When you make abortion laws, there will be dangerous underground abortions, women trying to do it on their own, or children being abandoned in odd places and you can only hope that someone finds them in time. There is a solution to this, that pro-lifers also, stupidly prevent from happening, which is allowing well funded and detailed sex education to youth in school, so that they understand their bodies, the ramifications of sex, how to prevent pregnancy and STD's, so they can make the right choice - and access to free contraceptives for any woman who needs them. When you give people the tools and the education to make proactive choices for themselves, most will take it, and this literally solves the abortion problem. Abortions would become a lot less common if education and contraceptives were made widely available. But what pro-lifers want to do is prevent people from getting the education they need, prevent them from getting the contraceptives to help them plan out their families, force them to keep the children, and then offer little to no help at all once these babies are born, and then you wonder why these children end up messed up when they are raised in poor households to mothers who never even wanted them in the first place. Can you imagine, being a child of a parent who didn't want you? That must be horrible.

I would never do something like this. You can't gauge compatibility from handing out a resume. The guy might look attractive, he might even call, but that feels like a recipe for accidentally inviting a weirdo into my life. Granted, to be completely honest, I have taken myself off the dating market permanently. I gave it a good month of thought, should I seek someone out in the future, or just remain single? And I've been single for so long, and have my own way of doing things, I love not having to follow in line with another person's plans, on top of that I'm getting older and I have some problems - both health and mental - that I feel would be disrespectful to ever bring into another person's life - that dating and relationships just don't seem like a feasible option. My views are that relationships should make life more connected and easier for a person and if I can't offer that to someone, then the loving thing to do would be to allow them to find someone who can do these things for them. But, assuming that I was actively looking - this would not be the way I would go about it. It takes me a little while to build attraction to someone, I need to get a general feel for their vibe, their essence, and this can take years. Any time I have randomly gone out of my way to allow a stranger into my life without any backstory into who they are, this has ended in incompatibility or abuse. Realistically, if I were to do everything over again, I would have dated my high school friend who had a crush on me back when I was young and started something with them. If I knew what I knew now. When you're young and flexible in life, it's easier to bring all the pieces together to build on something great, but as you get older, you get used to your routines and a certain way of life, it can be hard to change for someone even if you want to. Also, from what I know about guys, a woman handing a dating resume to them out in the open like that would be a turn off for many. Any time I have been the one to initiate a relationship, this has gone sour. Guys just do not like it when women try to take the lead in any way. They may say, "Oh yes, this makes things easier for us." But when you go and do that, it gives them the impression that you're desperate for them, and not that maybe you just kinda like them and want to speed things up. I've had warm connections go completely cold from taking that first step. It's best to let the guy decide who he is interested in, and allow him to chase you, the woman for a while until he "wins", for some reason this is what seems to make men happy. Nothing screams desperation more than handing out a literal job application to would-be suitors. It's taking the chase away from the guy, which makes a good chunk of what attracts them to you work. Also, when you hand out personal stuff like this to complete strangers, and then give them an open into your life, it allows abusers and predators to mold a personality to draw you into their web. You literally have no idea who you are approaching. Someone could go over your likes, your personality, your info, and try to recreate your dream person to lure you in, just to turn into a Jekyll and Hyde at the last minute. When you're too open with people right off the bat, without getting a feel for their character, this is a recipe for disaster on so many levels.

This is coming from someone who thinks that dog barks mean something extra special. Of course if you believe in something like that you don't want to hear someone else's experiences or to question if you're wrong. I'm telling you what happened to me when I got sucked into that nonsense, and what happens to people who use these things to try to create false narratives about their world. I mean, you could prove me wrong by offering a better explanation, but it seems to me like you want a safe echo chamber, which is fine, who doesn't want their reality to be mirrored in the way they prefer? Not really. You attracted someone who disagrees with your spiritual views, who has had experience with this line of thinking and that it did more harm than good. My intentions are pure - I don't want anyone to get stuck with this modality when it can backfire and create problems for people in the real world. When you look at LOA from the outside in, it looks like borderline narcissistic delusional fantasy land. And when you try to tell people that this stuff can really mess with you, and when you have experience to back it up, people who are too far gone don't want to see that. I observe people. Closely. I take note of not only what happens to people who get into this stuff, but the problems they have, the line of thinking they have, where it ultimately fits into their lives - and many of the people who get on board with this stuff are sick. And they get sicker when they add this to their worldviews. And when you try to point out flaws in this stuff, it's like, like any stubborn person who thinks they know better than you, they don't wanna hear it. Not much you can do about that, at that point the question begs - are people purposefully delusional? In some sense, probably yes. I mean, have you ever tried to tell a schizophrenic that their delusions are false? They get into a snit about it.

Yeah, I remember you getting into that a few years back, you must have gotten burned from it, too, and learned that there's probably more going on than LOA. What made me realize that LOA was fake was that there are people in the world who have little to no control over their lives. War refugees, victims of violence, women in the sex trafficking trade, people who deserve to have their dreams come true much more than someone like me and yet they are stuck in completely powerless positions in the world. If LOA was real, then the people who deserve it the most would be able to manifest the lives that they deserve. On top of this, my spiritual awakenings have never once pointed me towards the idea that LOA was a thing, in fact, when I added on things that I wanted for myself, it became a partition into the truth of God's nature. It was more like, you had to remove what you wanted, what you thought about yourself and the world and completely clean the slate and then whatever was left over from that was the awakening that you get. On top of that, these awakenings gave insight into a mixture of both free will and the lack thereof. One was given the illusion that they were doing things of their own volition, but it is all part of some grand plan outside of what most humans can access. So this tells me that the universe is going to grow in a way that it thinks is best for its purposes and less so what the individual wants for their own life. I did learn a lot about LOA, siddhis, and all that stuff and it's fun to use creatively, but if I were to get real honest with myself and throw out all the garbage and just focus on the purity of what I learned, it's that you kind of have to go through the things that you don't want, such as disease, poverty and death, and accept that, and then what remains under it all is the real deal. But adding onto "well I want this or this" like the world operated like a buffet or something, that's just adding on more hopes and ideals when that's exactly what you need to be working to get rid of to see what's in front of you. When I got into LOA hardcore, about a year and a half ago, it made me sick in the head. It made me think things about reality that weren't true. I would think everything was a "sign" of some sort and follow it like a puzzle, and I would create these grand narratives about what was happening to me, what I was bringing into my world, that ultimately fell apart when my disease progressed. It wasn't until I took a step back from all of that for about a year that I was able to untangle myself from it and to see reality clearly. I was able to hold onto my main awakenings, the ones where I actually found something genuine, and could see that there was a stark difference between a genuine awakening, where I removed my desires, and a psychotic awakening, where I was trying to control some sort of outcome. You literally can't control this stuff. Like the guy who thinks that dogs are barking to a certain frequency, that's a delusion. Dog barks are pretty random. They might have a few certain ways they bark that allow them to communicate with one another, but that isn't something from LOA, or some divine phenomenon. Animals just naturally have a small variant in how they vocalize, just enough to get basic intentions across. Once you start affixing certain meanings to things that aren't genuinely there, that's when you're swimming in dangerous mental waters, for sure. Tread carefully with this LOA stuff. Be sure that if you want to take it on, that you can drop it on a dime if it isn't working well for you, that you aren't basing a large portion of your life, your mental state, your beliefs on what is happening to you, on so called paranormal phenomenon. My advice is to approach spirituality from a less is more perspective, where you actively seek to remove desires for certain things, for certain situations happening in a particular way and get more used to just allowing what is naturally going to unfold, to happen in that manner. One could probably, if they are so inclined, vacillate between these two perspectives and see which one offers a more clear understanding of reality. I've noticed some people say, "Oh you're just not doing it right, and so and so." But most of these people still have not actively created for themselves the life that they want to the level that they are trying to manifest. It seems to be more like cherry picking, where certain things stand out, but don't ultimately move a person any closer, it just gives someone the illusion that they are making progress, like a hamster on a wheel. Like, that shit got me really fucking messed up. To the point where I was seeing "signs" everywhere, to where I was thinking really strange things were paranormal coincidences, and completely sidestepped perfectly normal phenomenon without looking into it to see if what I was experiencing was real or if I was just going crazy. You can literally build for yourself a narrative that seems so real, and so true and it can take you for the wildest of rides. Everything can line up in just the right way so that it's almost like divinity itself is feeding you that narrative, only for it to ultimately collapse under its own weight and you find yourself in a mental hospital trying to piece together some sense of genuine reality. Do not underestimate the mind's ability to create false realities. It can seem so real, you can fully convince yourself that you have more control than you do, and it can crumble right from under your feet in no time at all. This is how you end up with people who develop really strange belief systems. They can get very elaborate if a person has no way to test the validity of their reality, to the point where other people can get sucked into it as well. You can see the phenomena of how this works throughout human history. These stories can take on a life of their own if you don't set some boundaries down for how things are gunna work.

I don't believe in it personally. My experiences have lead me to believe there is already a plan in place in some form, and that it is selfish and ridiculous to assume that the universe moves all of that aside for little old you. People that get super into LOA, if you look closely enough at them, many have mental problems that lead them to believe that they are more powerful people than they really are, like schizophrenia, narcissism, psychopathy and the like. If you delve deep enough into the psychology of people like this, you find that for the most part, they don't attract what they're looking for beyond just more delusion. I like to use these concepts when creating stories, or if I am in a super unhealthy state of mind then I might be so stupid as to believe in the law of attraction, but as a much healthier person now, who actively chooses not to entertain illness of any form by cherry picking things that I think are happening to me, by making assumption about so-called signs and whatnot, I'm a much happier person. LOA - fun for fiction, not so helpful for dealing with the real world. I would say, go ask a survivor of war or extreme poverty what they think about the ability to manifest things into your life. It's kind of a kick in the face to anyone who lives in the world with extremely limited options. LOA is a first world phenomena, for sure. And kind of a borderline insulting one at that. Just my 2c, but if y'all wanna be delusional, have at it, no skin off my nose. Been there, done that. No thanks.

Just met you on a roof downtown Took shots until they kicked us out Just blinked and the sun went down I wish I could stick around Did twenty minutes really just go by? Part of me wants to miss my flight Maybe it's already over now So I'll keep runnin runnin to you The both of us had gotten home late the previous night and had to wake up early so that Matt could go to work. We sleepily rolled out of bed to start our routine. Bathe, dress, breakfast. When we were done, I climbed onto his wolf's back and he made his way through the now familiar neighborhood to Maya and Wyatt's. When we got there, we were brought inside and said our goodbyes, a hug and kiss, before Matt left on his own to resume work at the Broadview location. Wyatt had left earlier, as his main office in Heartford was on the other side of the city and it took longer to get there. When Matt left, Maya brought me over to her workspace in the corner of the livingroom and gave me a few supplies to start another project. "If you manage to keep with the pace you're at, I could perhaps use you as an artist's assistant in a few year's time." She told me. "It would be a way of paying me back for watching over you." "That sounds like a great idea, Maya!" I chimed. "I would love that." I sat down and took a small canvas that she had stacked up for me, and a book that contained instructions on how to create each brush stroke and began to study with her. As I worked on the wolf's anatomy, I had a few questions churning from my first encounter with Matt that had been on my mind for the past few days that I felt she could offer answers to. "So..." I started. "Do demons change forms sometimes... before or during... intercourse?" I added a perfect stroke for the eye and began to work my way to the muzzle, creating elegant little swirls for the nostrils of the nose. I thought of Matt's face. I thought of the time he caught me in his basement on his bridge at the waterfall and how it didn't feel that there was a man over me. "Oh, is this something you're thinking of trying?" Maya asked me and winked while taking a half-completed work of art and sitting down next to me. She reached over the table to grab a thin lined brush and some golden paint. "No, I was just curious about it, humans don't do these sorts of things... well, not the good ones anyways..." I responded. "I just wanted to know what your culture thought about it." "Sure." She stated plainly. "It's not uncommon. It can be a great way to bond with one another... you remain connected for a while." "Do you and Wyatt ever do that?" After finishing the muzzle, I began the single stroke that created the top of the head, the ears and the back. "Sometimes... If a cord has thinned out over the years, it can be a way to thicken it as well." I looked over at Maya to see her project. It was a pack of six wolves circling around a wild light boar. The wolves were baring their teeth and the terrified, fleeing boar had a set of glorious tusks. "That looks amazing!" I told her. "So, do you guys have other forms, or is it just men and wolves?" "We have three. Our demon form, which looks like a human. Our hunting form, which looks like a wolf, and sometimes when we are hunting a light bird, we will take the form of birds of prey. But the effort to catch light birds is generally not considered worth the energy. It takes a group to break down reality within a hunting room, and for an entire group to chase down a single light bird is hardly feasible, so we rarely use these forms. Some species of light bird flock together in migratory patterns, but with six demons flying around, going after them, we have learned there is no way to hunt in a unified manner and it just becomes a bundle of chaos, with birds flying in all sorts of directions and the men trying to keep track of the rest of the pack." Maya took a brush to her artwork and began to finish the legs and lower half of the hunting wolves. "Can you farm any of these animals?" "We farm some of them outside of the city. Mostly just light goats and chickens, for eggs, cheese, butter and milk. They don't require a lot of space or food to keep them. It's hard to bring the light back from source and so maintaining these farms is a delicate process. We would keep larger animals if we could." "What about dark oriented animals? Or the produce that you guys eat, that is dark oriented." "We gain no sustenance from dark oriented prey. There is no food value to them, nor is there food value to the produce that we use. It's strictly filler to add flavour and variety. Because our planet is created from a unified collective imagination, when we eat something that is dark oriented from our planet, we are essentially eating a piece of ourselves. The produce simply becomes a part of our miasma, but offers nothing in return. It would be like eating something from yourself that your own body produces. The light, however, is an energy source that we can use as fuel." "Do female wolves hunt or is it just the men?" "Just the men. They are faster and stronger, and are more connected to the yin chaos than females are. We have an equal workplace, where every demon has the option of contributing in any way that they choose, except for hunting. This is strictly male dominated. You need to have a license for it and you need to pass a test that you are a capable packmate. The reason being is that it takes precious energy to deconstruct the reality in the hunting room, to catch and make a kill, and only the fittest and most competent hunters are allowed access to the miasma where migratory prey frequents." Maya finished her artwork and stood up to get a good look at it from a distance before setting it on a designated shelf to dry. I had made my way to painting the paws of the wolf, and was having a hard time with the details. It would take me many tries before I managed to make another decent foot. I would paint over the mistake in red, wait a few minutes before retrying the golden calligraphy movement. "Maya?" I asked. "What does my cord look like? Is it a strong one?" "Well..." She admitted. "It fluctuates a bit more than the average cord, from what I've seen. At times it looks as though the both of you have a very strong connection, and then at other times it seems a bit thinner. It takes time to build a properly working lock and key. Years. I wouldn't worry about it, especially considering your differences. Just enjoy the process." "You're right. Thank you, Maya." She smiled at me and nodded, then went into her kitchen to bring us both something to eat. When she got back I had curled up on her couch and fallen asleep, making up for lost time from the previous night. When Matt arrived at the restaurant the first thing he had to manage was Sophia, who had gotten there a half an hour before him. She brought Matt into the back room, which still contained all of the items from the previous nights adventure sitting on the desktop. "What the fuck is this?" She asked. "What do you think it is?" He asked. "I can smell you in here!" Sophia glared, grabbing a stapler and tossing it at Matt's head, who casually ducked out of the way. "You brought someone in here and you fucked them on my desk, you fucking bastard!" "I fucking love my little gutter rats, Sophia..." Matt chuckled. "Could you blame me for that?" "What are you talking about?" Sophia was confused. "I like making them squeak, you know?" She started to catch onto what he was getting at. "You didn't!" Sophia was completely floored. "I did." Matt grinned at her, she was caught in his game. He walked over to the end of the room and picked up the stapler, placing it gently back on the desk. "So that's what that strange smell is! You went against neutrality!" Sophia, at this point, wasn't even upset. She was alarmed that he had done something that no other demon had managed to do. It wasn't normal. She didn't know how to react to him knowing that he had been with something completely foreign to her. "How?" She questioned, tossing the vegetable into the trash can next to her desk, and handing Matt the bowl, whisk, and bottle of oil. "Take this, I think these are yours..." "The Mother gave her to me." He explained, grabbing the items. "The cord was an accident. I didn't intend for it to happen, but it did and it's good, you know?" Matt looked her in the eyes, speaking in a serious tone. "Now, I uh, I'm telling you this as a warning Sophia... I don't want you snooping into my life, getting involved in any way with my partner, spreading this information around, or doing anything that is going to harm my connection. If you try, even once, I'm going to have you removed from my restaurant. You're done." "Once it gets out there, how will you save face?" She asked. "Look, Sophia... We got off on a bad start, you know?" Matt replied, easing his tone down a little while being completely honest and vulnerable with her. "I'm sorry that things didn't work out between us. It just wasn't the right connection. No demon would be the right connection. You, uh, you developed feelings for the one man who can't reciprocate and I'm sorry for that. I wanted to, you know? To have a partnership with someone of my own kind, but that's not what was in store for me. I know you took it personally when my lock didn't open for you. You're beautiful and any man would be lucky to have you, but that man isn't me and you shouldn't punish me for things that I can't control. Do you understand? I'm gunna head out, I wanna make sure my station is in good shape before my shift starts. It was nice talking with you..." Matt walked out of the office, gently closing the door behind him and leaving Sophia alone with her thoughts, and with the scent from the night before to remind her that Matt was not going to become a willing victim of her behaviour. Matt returned to his station and wiped everything down, took inventory of the meat in stock and checked all of his tools to make sure he had what he needed. When he was done with this, he sat down on a bar stool and waited for his day to start. Before long, everyone pooled in and the shift began. This day was very similar to the previous one. He worked on the stove, while order after order piled in, avoiding is co-workers during his breaks until the end of his shift. He cleaned up his area, let Sophia know that he was leaving, and headed back home on the passenger train with some leftovers to take for us to eat later in the evening. He picked me up from Maya and Wyatt's, brought us both home, made our meal and we sat in his dining space for a while. The food was, as usual, absolutely fantastic. It was a rare meal, considering that demon wolves don't hunt wild birds very often. A light pheasant that was cooked in fruits and various herbs, seasoned to absolute perfection. After dinner, I set my plate down on the table in front of the couch and decided now would be as good of a time as ever to discuss with him the events that took place on the day that we first met. "Matt, there have been some things running around in my head that I wanted to discuss with you..." I admitted to him. Matt turned around to look me square in the eyes. "What is it?" He asked, setting his empty plate down next to mine. "When I first met you, when I manifested all of that water in the sleep room down in the basement... I was... wondering..." I didn't know how to ask him the question. "When the door busted open and I ran out and... you caught me on the waterfall... you weren't in a man's form, were you? I couldn't really see, there was so much water coming down all around us. But I remember when you chased me through the house and I could hear you behind me, you didn't sound like a man." "Oh... I, uh, no... I wasn't." He looked at me with concern and confusion. "Would you like to discuss that night, is there something that's bothering you?" "Yeah. I... well... I spoke with Maya about this and she said that demons don't culturally have a problem with shifting forms, but for a human that's a very taboo thing to have experienced." I looked at the ground, rubbed my nose anxiously and then clasped my hands together. "In my human culture, things of that nature are rooted in deviancy and abuse." "Oh, I, uh... I... I didn't know." Matt confessed, slipping on his words. "I am so sorry for everything that happened that night... I'll tell you... well, um, you, you wanted me sexually and I didn't stop it... You reminded me so much of Violet before I knew anything about you. And when you poured out of the room like that, I... I was afraid that you would get away from me and I felt disrespected. Like, you'd opened something latent in me and then decided to fucking run away." He swallowed heavily, running a hand through his hair. "But I shouldn't have done what I did, you know? I didn't know that those five hundred years alone had gotten to me in that way. I would never willingly do something like that to you, I wasn't myself." He looked down to meet my eyes and reached over to take my face into his hand and brought it to match his gaze. "But such things aren't wrong here in regards to your concern. I'm not a mindless animal with the brain the size of a small fucking fruit. I am a demon man. You know? Everything is the same ingredient no matter what shape I'm in." Matt stood up and changed into his hunting form. When a demon does this, they revert back into the miasma that they are created from and they temporarily look like a ball of dark smoke. Then through manifestation, they rearrange their shape into either a humanoid demon or a black wolf. "You don't have to feel that you did something wrong because of my actions. And if um, if something like that ever came up and you did want to try it again in... that way... that would be okay, too, you know? Don't, don't feel wrong about yourself because of my shape, okay?" He gave me a strong look, with his deep blue wolf's eyes. "Reality isn't so black and white." I nodded, speaking softly, wanting to change the subject. "Okay... I feel reassured... also, Matt?" "Yes?" "I have another question..." "What's that?" "Well, you know how you said that you feed from the light and that I am representative of the light and you are of the dark, like yin and yang?" I asked. "Yeah?" "So why don't you eat me? Why am I not your food?" "Oh!" Matt laughed. "You are from a light source which is higher up in density, but as your soul is lowered back down into a heavily physical reality, you are given free will, thus you're grey oriented. Still grey; even here. And you remain grey for a few more densities. This, um, this density is right after your time on Earth, so you do lose your memories but you retain your emotions. Things kind of sluff off as you go through the different levels. If you, uh, if you were to continue on the band of souls back to your light source, you would be purified and given the memories of all of your previous lives. In which case you would then be light. You're technically a light oriented soul, but due to your place in the energetic hierarchy, you're not fully light right now. But, you are to me... I view you this way." "So... if I were higher up in this hierarchy then I would be a source of food for you?" "Yes. You would. But demon kind doesn't reach that level, we're a heavier energy." "What would you do to me? If I were your food?" Matt's eyes looked anxious. He didn't want to share with me his more aggressive demon side unless it was in a controlled environment. His hunting and his desire for killing and slaughtering the animals of the light were a part of him that he had hoped he could partition away from me forever. "Well..." He spoke honestly. "I would chase you down in a pack of six. Two on each side, and three in the front. We would circle you. You would hear our howls in the pitch black darkness, but you wouldn't be able to see a thing. At the right time, I would make the kill, you know? I would, uh, I would go right under your body and go for the neck. Grab you there... you would bleed out. I would drink from it as it spilled into my mouth. But I might still physically want you, too. If it were you, then I might... I would take your body sexually as I felt your life drain in my grip. And then when I was done with you and you were dead, I would take you into a special hunting room and chop you up with my packmates. I'd take my favourite portion of you... your heart... I'd, uh, I'd bring it home, add it to a pastry dish... and eat it. Still alone in my mansion without a partner, with just the taste of you in between my teeth and the memory of your body on my cock... You don't ever want to see that side of me... You wouldn't love me anymore, you know?" He turned back into a man and sat at the edge of the couch, tapping the ends of his fingers on his knees. I looked to see if he was joking. Not at all. "How do you know that I wouldn't love you anymore?" I inquired. "Could you stand it, to know how much I love it? To snuff out the light in between my jaws. Their little screams are music to my ears. Chasing them through the pitch black smoke. I live for it, it's such a thrill, you know? You would see that I'm not just your sweet partner, but something also intangibly violent underneath all of that." "I forget that in some ways we're very different... you look so much like a human..." I bit the inside of my lip. Things were getting heavy. "Yeah... we are. That can be a good thing, you know?" He smiled at me. "Humans are just as violent as demons." He continued. "But it's less choreographed; you repress it and pretend that it isn't a part of your psychology and so it finds itself manifesting in unruly ways. Your people deny your intrinsic nature and you suffer greatly for it." I agreed with him. "That's true... We don't even hunt things that are free, we enslave innocent creatures. There's no sport to it. Humans make things suffer in unimaginably horrible ways and then we pretend that we are good and decent. We deny that we've done harmful things to others and we ignore that part of humanity until it boils over. And then when it does we slaughter and enslave our own kind in the name of arbitrary purification from the hideous so-called other." I had more questions. "...Matt?" "Hmmn?" "Our orientations are like two trains in the night that almost collide in a brutal way, but they just miss each other and everything manages to stay on track." I mused. "Do you think you would ever show that side of yourself to me?" "I could... Someday... perhaps. In some certain way, when you're more open to it..." As I wondered what he meant by that, Matt thought of how I could accept him fully as a hunter and as a demon. If I would ever allow him to come up to me and to willingly place my neck into his open jaws and stay there until the nature of his body gave permission for me to separate from his need. What would that mean for him and for me, if that barrier could be broken and accepted, tamed and embraced? "My good girl, please let me devour you..." He thought to himself. "Give yourself to every part of me... don't run from me anymore. Don't feel any fear for who and what I am; for whatever shape I may choose to take...let's be devious in good spirit." He sighed. "In time... I'll warm you up to it I'm sure, and I'll convert you." "More questions..." I pressed on. "How do you view me? What do you think of me? This isn't a very even relationship. You're so much older than me and you know this society in and out. I'm just a stranger here." "I view you... as..." He sucked on his upper fang, and thoughtfully addressed me. "As a child in some sense. Ultimately innocent when to comes to the reality of things. And as a pet... I care for you and tend to you... You are my partner. My love. My obsession, my redemption, my passion... and my salvation... And I can be your rock because I have all of these years on you, but you must know that I'm still a broken man in some regards. It's going to take time for me to realize that you're here. That I have you. Truly, you know? That this is permanent. That this isn't a fleeting one-sided experience like it was with all the others." "Would it have been any human who could cord with you?" "Yes. And no." Matt admitted. "The Mother gave you to me for a reason, and I trust her judgement that destiny had a hand in this. It would have been anyone initially, if the lock opened for the right girl, and it's not always something that a demon can consciously control... it just happens. We meet someone, and it opens. But... if I had a lineup of every human's history that I've come across, I would have picked you out personally, you know?" "Why me?" "Because you were a wounded girl..." Matt spoke softly, almost inaudibly. "And your soldier is a wounded son." It’s no wonder you got demons Everything you did is coming... It’s no wonder you got demons I can’t help you if I’m weaker No wonder you’re so stubborn Nobody ever made you dig deeper No wonder you got demons Everything you ever did is coming back around No wonder... Nobody ever made you dig deeper No wonder... Sharpest swords Darkest softest wounds Hardened world Your soldiers are wounded sons

I like to look in places where muse has already struck, so old memories from childhood, old dreams, and if I can build something from that, that's great. I will also look for people that inspire me. I don't really want to invade their life or anything like that, but if they have a general persona that I find appealing, then I will gain a lot from that just through osmosis. I like to have a few of these inspiring people around to cycle through - one may have a general demeanor, one may be sexually interesting, one may have a talent that I want to understand better. I like to use sexuality as well, so if there's something I have not tried then this can be a vehicle for exploration. Music is great for this - just spending a few hours a day listening to inspiring music and going over some ideas is great. Basically, inspiration tends to just hit out of the blue, but you can kind of feel around for it in the dark by bringing things to you that you find appealing.

That's a good question. I used to not really be very into sex, only masturbating maybe once every other month, but in the past few weeks I've been feeling especially horny for some reason. It started around the time I got a cold, and I began to write my own world to imagine to cope with the effects of being sick - but the more I got into it, the more I visualized the character I was creating for myself, the more sexual I've become. This tells me that at least for women, sexuality goes hand in hand with creativity. Maybe for men, too, if they can learn to use it in that way. Now I feel sexual maybe every day, to every other day, and it's quite nice. I enjoy it. I remember, last year, I had gotten into a manic spell - which is what I'm on the lookout for right now as hyper sexuality can be a symptom of this coming on - and it felt like there were paranormal experiences tied in with my sexuality, like as I brought it up from the bottom to the top, it was like I had more understanding of what was happening just outside of reality. But whatever that was kind of co-mingled with my mental illness and I ended up really getting freaked out and having to go to the hospital. It felt like there was a living energy within me, as though it was kundalini perhaps. I was at the time interacting with Kali and my partner on the other side - but this could be delusion. It's still hard to know sometimes with these things. Sexuality, though, if you can harness it, I believe it can be a gift. I've been trying to be less repressive against myself and my desires and with this comes a plethora of new ideas that seem to hit me out of the blue everyday, but it's completely fueled by the desire not just for sex, but for the closeness and companionship that comes with it. It's something I've had to throw away as a real possibility due to illness, but being able to express it in a fantasy setting has been extremely healthy for me. I don't know if it is the same for men, but for me my sexual desire is linked closely with pair bonding with another person, really getting to know them very intimately and loving all of them and being loved in the same way, so perhaps the reason why sexual desire never ends isn't just because of hormones, but also because we are wired to want to share our most intimate selves with that of another. It's love. If love is the meaning of life, then sexuality can be a gateway to that. You're literally sharing your body with another person to make them happy, it's mutually gratifying pleasure. Through sex, you can actively say things to another person that you can't through words, your actions, your touch, how you hold them, how you give yourself to them, it can mean so much, and for a time it allows people to actually genuinely be one with another being. Just my 2c. But if you have an addiction to it, you could probably seek to cut back, like if it's making it so that the stimuli isn't as good - over indulgence, you know? Maybe, instead of just watching porn you could seek other avenues to express your sexuality?