bythos

"Major depression", "elements of SPD". This was the evaluation I got in my early twenties. It was quite accurate. I had this darkness in my life from early childhood. I started recovering slowly during my mid twenties. When I was a kid i thought that everyone is more or less like me. Later in life I started noticing the differences. First I realized the "schizoid elements". This was for me more like a social phobia that evolved to the point of me not wanting almost any kind of social contact. I only had 1 or 2 weird friends during childhood. In retrospect, this was my defense, the only viable one I had. Later on I realized my depression. I could see that depression made me an introvert, and introversion made me depressed. An ongoing vicious cycle. The last thing I realized about my situation was the most insidious one. Abysmal self esteem. Each one of these three demons was empowering the other two. Looking inside me for the root cause of all this, I got absolutely nothing. Therapy worked, antidepressants not so much. Meditation helped me in two ways. Silencing the mind eventually turned down the volume of its commentary. And it would commend such nice things to me like "You're thinking of saying hello to this person? Who do you think you are you worthless piece of shit, nobody likes you". The other thing it did, it stopped me from feeling panicky things like "This can't be happening to me, I'm gonna pretend it's not true". I started accepting the facts. And this is the only place from where you can see true solutions. Meditation could have done a lot more for me but my practice was very erratic. I would do 20 hours in a week and then nothing for a month or two. A few years ago I found this place with floating tanks that had just opened in the city i used to live. After the 3rd one-hour session, I returned to my old flat, the place I grew up in, kicked my shoes off, had no other plans for the day, mind went blank. And this memory comes to me that took place in the same house, at the very same spot I was sitting. I was a kid about 7 or 8 years old. Mommy comes in, shouting her usual line that she used to shout at me, while expressing disdain and contempt. I had this memory before, but now for the fist time it was like the memory track kept playing and I also remembered the feelings these incidents gave to me. It was the exact same darkness I would experience during the worst period of my life. I could also remember now, how and why I had buried these feelings, because I felt that i was totally dependent on my parents, and that I really had no other choice but to "suck it up". After that it was like I had unlocked a door to a whole room full of forgotten memories, all of them telling me that i was experiencing my mother's rejection from the earliest childhood up until the age of 13 or 14. The fact that this was her behavior only towards me and not my other siblings, made things so much worse. Among many other things, I also remembered her in my early twenties trying to apologize to me in two different occasions saying something like "I was not appreciative enough of you", "I did not understand you". And I would answer to her "What are you talking about, I remember no such thing", because I really did not. Later on she would even cry a few times while telling me how she wished she had done many things differently. So I got my root cause, when I had already stopped searching for it. The question I'm debating now, is whether I should tell her about this. Should I confront her? I really don't want to, because I know she is in a dark place herself now, and I fear this would crush her, even if i tell her that I have forgiven her.

They live - Those magic sunglasses that negate the TV signal that alters our perception... Dark City - Alien run experiment that puts humans in different lives and identities Devs - Mini series about quantum computers, singularity, quantum mechanics, parallel universes Flatland - How 2d beings perceive reality Instinct (1999)- Professor ditches the games of human society and goes to the jungle, lives with gorillas, but humans do not let him be... Pi (1998) - Explores themes of religion, mysticism, and the relationship of the universe to mathematics In-shadow - Animated short film. Embark on a visionary journey through the fragmented unconscious of our modern times

A silent voice (anime)

@Breakingthewall Wow. Thank you. If she ever asks about it (she has, in the past) I'll tell her the whole truth. Otherwise I'll wait until I feel that she can take it. I didn't describe the damage done to me, but it was really extensive. For a couple of years I was unable to work to sustain myself and I could barely even hang out with friends or family. It was hard for me to even leave my room. There is some habitual behavior that is still with me today. She was there to witness it all. It is a huge deal for her.

I believe this is true. When you ask "Is there such a thing as universal NOW?" You think of the universe as "all space" right? You must also think of it as "all time". So the universal now would be all time, past, present and future.

Yes, but I'm still not as consistent as I'd like to be. Sometimes I'll drive 20 km to the forest, find a good spot, sit down and lean my back to a big oak or fir, and stay at it for hours on end. From early in the morning till the afternoon. It's not as effective for me when I'm at home. All kinds of distractions...

@puporing Thanks again. You've been really helpful. I don't have interference issues from her because I live far away. But when she gets a chance, she is so subtle and insidious at it...

Hey all. I’d like to share something. It is a mystical experience as I came to realize, but it did not involve any substance, so I must describe the conditions that brought it about. Bear with me. I know it’s a long read, I made it as compact as possible. It is autumn of 95, probably September, I am 19 years old. I don’t have the slightest clue about enlightenment, and if I have heard something about it, I have definitely labeled it in my mind as “one of many kinds of religious delusions”. I knew a few things about psychedelics, never tried anything other than marijuana. There is no internet for me yet, so no easy access to information. I am very introverted, and I like to distract my mind with philosophical issues that usually arise from my daily life and human relationships. A story from greek mythology, the one that in the beginning of his life, Hercules had to choose between the path of virtue or the path of vice, comes to my attention, and thus started my next philosophical undertaking. {Mycenaean period}*, I think to myself, {a culture that is ancient even to the ancients of classical Greece, very much different and alien to us, yet there is a concept of good and evil that is pretty much the same today}. {And if you look at modern times, in all different cultures, there is always this same concept of good and evil. As if it is part of our instincts}. {But what exactly is good and evil?} {Why should anyone be good and not evil and what is the meaning and the value of such a choice?}. *I’ll put my thoughts from the past in curly brackets{}. The answer that the evolutionary pressure led humans to become social animals and develop a code of ethics, was not good enough for me. I was looking for the essence of the matter. And I had to understand it using only logic, if possible even express it using math formulas. I used to believe that logic is the best tool to check and guide feelings, and feelings is the best tool to check and guide logic, and that they always had to validate each other. So this concept that I could very easily dismiss sentimentally, in order to have a holistic view and a deep understanding, I had to approach it logically and pragmatically. And, of course, I would do that from an objective third person perspective. So I began examining various cases in my memories, looking for intents and motives, trying to interpret thoughts and deeds, mostly in other persons, because I feared that I could not be objective in judging myself. This must have been in my mind for 2-3 weeks, I would ponder it before I would sleep, and then the first thing in the morning, and whenever I got a chance during the day. I was trying to keep it alive in the back of my head all the time. I would observe people and their behavior, trying to find something that would give me food for new thoughts. I remember at some point I had come to a conclusion that {good and evil are two ways for one to organize his relationship with the outside world}, {Different viewing angles of the same object}, {like the two sides of a coin}. But still I was not at all satisfied. At this point I was feeling overwhelmed. Although I knew I would not let it be, I had to change tactic, maybe define my questions more accurately and limit their scope. So I would be content if I could find the mechanism and the exact reasoning behind my mind’s labeling of things as “good” or “evil”. I started a process of introspection that was familiar to me from my dabbling with computer programming: To write my code, I would usually examine how my own mind worked to reach the solution. I would play my thoughts in slow motion, trying to fully analyze any conclusion that was already formed and summed up in my mind as fact. I spent a few more days contemplating, watching my own mind and its judgments on each and every situation that it found itself in, until the answer found me instead, and it literally came to me out of nowhere. I was walking on the sidewalk with my sister, next to a small park. We were going to a kind of prep school that we have here. I started having a bodily sensation like goosebumps but I knew right away that what was coming to me was something out of the ordinary. If I describe the goosebumps as a wave that comes and wets my feet as I’m standing on the beach, what I was feeling was such a wave, but instead of it crashing and receding back to the sea, it kept coming and rising, and before I knew it, it had already taken control, carrying me wherever it intended. I remember struggling to focus on putting one leg in front of the other and keep walking. If my sister was not next to me, I’d just stand there motionless. I didn’t want her to know that I was someplace else and spoil this experience for me, so I tilted my head downwards and away from her and my gaze fell on the wheel of a parked car. What was going on inside me I could not describe in language. Only after the peak of this wave had ended I could find words that would approximate it. {This wheel is me, I am this wheel} {I am all the people} {There is nothing different between me and the next person, such distinctions are silly} {Doesn’t matter if I cry and others laugh or if I laugh and others cry} {What I feel now is true love, whenever I thought I’ve felt love before, it was only a shadow of this true one}. I felt like a creature that had spent its whole life in a swamp and now for the first time it raised its head out of the muddy waters and looked at the sun on the horizon… The question I had on my mind for so many days, now felt “cute”. I know the answer as if it had always been part of me. But I have to work in order to describe it in terms of language, so that I can remember it. {I absolutely have to remember this}. I can feel that this wave is going to recede eventually, and indeed its echoes lasted as long as it took for us to walk the remaining 150 meters to our destination. The answer I managed to express out of it was that the root of all evil is always some kind of egoism. It’s the idea that there’s me and there are others, over there, different, separate. {All evil comes from the ego. There can be no evil that does not come from an ego}. The set with the label “evil” is fully contained in the set with the label “ego”. As for the opposite, no matter how much I wanted to say it, I couldn’t be certain that ego is only evil, and that these sets are equal. So here’s the formula: Evil ⊆ Ego. Ask yourself this: Why steal? Consider all the plausible reasons. Why kill? Why rape? Why deceive? {The absence of ego is true “good”, pure, effortless, consistent, independent of external or internal circumstances}. {According to this definition, from a universal perspective} I thought, {We are all evil. Just some of us more, some less}. I did not wonder back then about the possibility of no ego, or about a method of achieving it. I imagined that as something that humankind might conquer in the distant future. As for the second part of my question “why should someone be good and not evil and what is the point and the value of such a choice” I managed to express the answer like so: {Evil is lack of information. The kind of information that is beyond the borders of the self. In most cases, the information that is missing is what is in another person’s mind. Thoughts, feelings, perspectives, experiences. One that has access to this information, cannot be evil. So since the existence of evil relies upon lack of information, it cannot be considered a valid choice. It is only a silly misunderstanding, an illusion, and in no way equal or opposite to good}. {An evil person is is more like a child that has a lot to learn and to grow up}. The conclusions that this experience brought to me, did not feel like a product of my intellect. Only the “translation into language” part maybe. But there was a huge gap. I could not find my own thought patterns anywhere. I remember being very perplexed because of this. I could not even be proud of my achievement, It didn’t feel like my own, but more like something bigger than me, something that was accommodating me as a guest. Pride and achievement… My mind certainly went there, but then I had this feeling that I’m selling out this “great ideal” by being proud. This was, and still is, one of the most important moments of my life. {But why did this happen to me now and not earlier?} {It definitely came as a result of my intense philosophical seeking} I thought. {Oh, and then there’s this that might have played a part}. During this time and since about a month before that, I had been meditating for 1 to 2 hours every day. I started doing this for a reason one could never imagine. I knew back then that meditation was a practice in some eastern traditions like yoga, and that it had positive effects on the health of both mind and body, but the real reason that made me take it on was that my Dungeons and Dragons character would meditate to regain his psionic strength points and even to unlock new powers. And I found that super cool. Many years later, I was casually watching youtube videos and I stumbled upon one that, if I remember correctly, had the word “consciousness” in its title, and this was what made me click it. This guy at some point said in very plain language that enlightenment, like the kind that the Buddha had, is actually shedding one’s ego and escaping its prison. Well, I was in shock, trying to digest what he just said and the fact that I understood it perfectly well. {Fuck me, is this what the buddhists and the yogis always been mumbling about?} I thought. The guy in the video was Leo, and this is the reason why I wanted to post this story here. Many thanks for this heads up.

How would you ever grow if your daddy always makes all the optimum decisions for you? If you have never suffered your bad choices and your delusions? How would you ever truly learn anything? No matter the form of government, the people will always be the cogs that make the machine run. If the people are corrupt and they are always looking for a chance to bend or break the law, it does not matter how well oiled the machine is or how the designer of the machine has done a perfect job. Who is going to enforce the law on the corrupt people anyway? The autocrat alone?

There is a very good documentary by national geographic that is called "Going Ape" It shows that a big part of our social behavior comes from an instinctual need to determine who is alpha and who is beta in a group. We watch the monkeys do this so blatantly and we think that it is silly. We are the same. Sometimes I find myself playing this game but when I become conscious of it, it sickens me. If you want to understand human social instincts, look at the monkeys. No need for further analysis.

@Nivsch This one perspective might be of some value to you. Consider this diagram Think of molecules that form cells, single-cell organisms that cooperate on some level and eventually they evolve into multicellular animals, animals that form societies, herds, packs, clans, nations. Lets leave the human herd alone, because it is a loaded question. Think of the cells in your body. If one gets damaged and stops seeing past its own borders, that it is actually a whole larger organism, you, the bigger picture, will call that cancer. And an even bigger picture might call that something else entirely. On each of these steps, there are borders that an ego imagines. The next step transcends those borders.

Thank you for your response. Confronting her was not the first thing that came to mind. I'm leaning towards not telling her. I've asked two friends about this and they both said the same thing. "How would you feel if your mother passes on and you still carry that burden?". I value their opinion on this, one of them is a therapist even. But I don't think I care about that. The pros in my mind are these: "It would be unfair for her to not know. It is truth and it involves her directly. She might grow from this knowledge." The cons are that I'm not so sure she can handle it in her current state. She has to be a nurse for my father 24/7. He had a car accident that caused brain damage and he can barely communicate from now on. She can't even leave the house without making arrangements and planning things ahead. My sis that was living next door to her, left because her husband found a good job abroad. So my mom now keeps complaining that she has no one to talk to, that she feels alone and abandoned, that her life is over. She is clearly getting depressed.

Same for me. I'd do it right now if I was not married, or if my relationship was unhealthy. If not in a monastery, then in 10 years I'll have a cabin in the woods. Somewhere deep in the silver fir forest.

@Breakingthewall Ok, I don't think this is an important point, but, having said that, I believe that it is a duality if you're looking at it though an ego, but an absolute if your ego is gone, even for a moment. And that's why, for the life of me, I could not see it before that experience, but it was so clear afterwards. But then it does feel like a different concept, like you need new words to describe it. Those you mentioned work just fine. Division and unity.

@Octagram Eye At first I didn't think I'll read your whole text but I did, because I can relate on so many levels. I know you're in a place where any advice is unlikely to get through to you and have any meaningful impact, but do try and listen to what you've been told so far in this thread. I just want to add one thing. I feel like you need to start a meditation practice, in parallel to whatever else you decide to do with your life. Don't roll your eyes, don't think this is a waste of time, and don't think that you can't or that you're not good at it. There is no such thing. Even if you think it has no effect on you, I promise you that it does. Keep it up for a full month and you'll start seeing that where you thought you were drowning in your troubles, it will now feel like there is actually solid ground beneath your feet that you can stand on. That's how it worked for me. Make that practice a habit. While you're at work, no matter how much it sucks, for the love of god do not start thinking about all the other places you'd rather be and all the other things you'd rather do. Be there, body and mind, like there's no other thing in all of spacetime. Not even Leo and his videos, not even this forum.

@Inliytened1 Yes! I understand this, on a philosophical level, and when I am on some peak experience, but I do not embody it. I do not know it's true every waking moment of my life. That's where I am now. I don't want to skip ahead and start repeating this as a mantra. It would be empty words. Road signs that point to make-believe destinations. That's how the monster of organized religion came to be. It was the "pretentious understanding" at first, and the next generations kept building upon that. So you get further and further from the truth.

Not just nationalism, but beware of a national identity even. It is this kind of identities and labels that the ego likes to pull out of its ass and cling to like "mmyyyy prrreciousss", and then it will smother the label on it's face and wear it like a mask, to pretend that it's something special. Then in the end it will look at the world through this distorting mask. I'd try to flush it down if I had it on me.

As a kid I got nothing. There was a source of great toxicity in my family. But something came up from my late teens. My father once told me that he trusts me completely, even with stuff that he wouldn't dare mention to my mother, and that he would stick his neck out for me. That was right after he had realized that my worldview is quite antithetical to his own. His worldview was a big deal to him but he managed to put it aside for me. Acceptance is the keyword for me here. In bright shining letters.