UnbornTao

Thank you. I've actually never baked cookies before.

That's an Elden Ring boss.

The purpose of this journal is to share questions, humor, miscellaneous creative content, and raw reflections on personal empowerment and consciousness. My goals are to deepen my experiential understanding of these topics, improve my communication skills, have fun, and help others see things in a new light.

焚くほどは風もて来る落ち葉かな (takuhodo wa / kaze ga motekuru / ochiba kana) - the wind has brought enough fallen leaves to make a fire - Ryokan

Eating chocolate. (So good).

Euphemisms.

I should water my houseplants.

Yeah I was aware that wasn't the best example. It was about the music and all that preceded the scene, the context. Evaluate the story once you've finished it. What you're evaluating is likely the first couple of chapters.

You are obsessed with the model

I can understand that sentiment. I've experienced similar feelings with games like Skyrim and Souls-like games, though my issue went the other way. Those medieval fantasy themes felt overused and lacking in originality to me, almost childish, in a sense. But at some point I decided they were worth trying. I've heard that less than half a percent of players who bought the game actually finished it. I can see why - the early chapters can feel slow and tedious. The game relies heavily on story as the foundation for its setting and gameplay, which means you may need to invest considerable time in the narrative before it becomes truly exciting. I think expecting to "play through an excellent Western movie" is the right mindset. The first few chapters deliberately build tension to make the final acts more satisfying. Without that story investment, it's sort of like an impressive life simulation or sandbox.

😁

😅 It's not like the session lasts half and hour, it's more like five minutes.

I think Vernon Howard has a quote that goes something like this: "The first thing to do when pursuing the truth is to notice and admit to yourself that you don't give a hoot about it." (Paraphrased) Also, just because a person, group, or practice claims truth as its goal doesn't mean that's actually the goal. More often than not, it amounts to some kind of fantasy or worldview validation - like psychedelic drugs, religion, Jehovah's Witnesses, Buddhism, philosophy, psychology, or any other conceptual structure that supposedly aims at uncovering what is true about existence.

Definitely. I tend to stretch a bit while showering. After the practice, you could also lie on your back on the floor, with one palm on top of the other just below your navel, focusing on your breath and breathing from the center, almost like a meditation. You might even start the whole routine with a cold shower - could become a nice sequence of habits.

The main tool I liked using to decrapify Windows was this one: https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

@Basman tell me this isn't art I'm a real pain in the ass By the way, do not read the comments if you plan on playing it. In fact, don't search for anything about it.

But this thinking still operates from "language." It takes it for granted as an objective reality.

To me it is about the exchange and the probing themselves. Language exists and is something in its own right, so it is possible to have insight into it. Language is whatever it is, regardless of one's state. And the possibility that it is grasped through one's experience does not mean that we, as selves, are the deciding factor who can simply declare that language is x or y. As for your second paragraph, yeah, that's mostly what I was trying to allude to with the term insight. I think it is better left open-ended, in the sense that it will be known when each of us personally grasps what it is. Funnily enough, it could be spoken - using language. That's what language is for. That doesn't mean that what is expressed will be an exact representation, but something will be gotten across. As hard as it is to actually reproduce, I think pretending or imagining what life was like prior to the existence of language can help open up our inquiry. At the very least, it can be a fun little meditation exercise. Also, I like to bring up Helen Keller in these conversations. In her lessons, we may be able to appreciate how earth-shattering this whole business can be. Her case might provide a contrast to our already established "language world." She also said: Which is interesting to consider.

I like the way you put it. To add a bit to it, it might turn out that, more often than not, the truth is unknown, and so, in order to be authentic, an opening or a search has to occur - if becoming increasingly real with yourself is the goal. In your example, are you disappointed or not? If you are, but you express something that's inconsistent with your internal state, we might call that being inauthentic - with oneself and/or with others. Even in that example, is that the whole story? If you were to look into the disappointment, you might find deeper doorways to authenticity by uncovering what's behind it. If you discover that there's a sense of hurt behind the disappointment, then being authentic would require experiencing the hurt rather than the disappointment. And maybe, at some point, you find that the pain isn't true in itself, but something that's activity-generated. But this is speculation - we'll find whatever we find.

@Shermaningeorgia Are you a past user trying to stir up drama?

This is trickier than throwing spiritual platitudes around, it seems to me. This is where questioning comes in, since it's likely that we think we already know what it is, or else we settle for an intellectual conclusion to believe in and call it a day. And distraction - relative to what? If the goal is to find out what this whole language business is about, then this line of questioning is appropriate, if only as a starting point. I like to start with my experience of language and the way I relate to it, and proceed from there. This provides a more authentic footing from which to inquire more deeply.

Essentially: Can one be authentic without knowing the truth? Can you be authentic in an emotional expression, for example, when you're not aware of its source - of what the emotion is based on? I'm just using emotion as an example.