smd

@Claire Verlyn You need to take care of First Thing's First. WHY are you so tired? Did you tell your Mom yet? Tell her that you're feeling unusually tired & ask her to help you with that. Tell her you think it might be effecting your grades & ability to study. Then she'll be in a position to help you. If you're not tired, your grades will improve, & less doting from your parents. Do you think me being a millionaire would mean that my Dad would just be proud of me all of the time & will no longer scold me if I do something he disapproves of or even the fact that I'm middle-aged? Your parents are going to be the same to you your entire life, no matter what stage you're in. If you have a good relationship with them, then get used to it. My parents advice never bothered me. Sometimes I found it useful as they are cautious onlookers on your life's direction. I've done things they would never approve of, so to spare them of it, I don't tell them about it. I would if it backfired & I needed their support however. Parents love being right & they always forgive.

She doesn't want to hurt your feelings. I'm sure she knows you're still interested. Those thoughts you have for her are like cancer. They just stick around and eat you up inside. I'm not really sure how, if ever, they ever go away entirely. I think for a time they will, but then they come back on a rainy day, which seems to happen to me on my season depression that I seem to get every Winter. Peaks and valleys, man.

For about $1500 (perhaps less if you thrift on hotel & food expenses), you can literally walk down the street of one of those places, pickup a gal, and get laid all night long for say $20 on the same night. I've never (NEV-ERRR) had that experience in the USA. You have to work at it in the States. And right now, with the feminist movement in full swing, and the rising onset of Single Moms, it's probably the driest market for sex in Western civilization than it has ever been. Even if you have a lot of money, it's not enough to convince a gal to sleep with you. They've heard all of that before. They'll even tell other women that money is never important, unless they have 3 kids from 3 other guys before they meet you. Do you have a sister or a female cousin? Ask them if they can set you on any dates. When I was younger, my Mom used to try & fix me up with women, but I always had a gf at the time so never got a chance to try that. You should have a female relative or friend that can play matchmaker. They usually want to play matchmaker. Try dating & see if it works out. Just don't embarrass your friends or relatives (you may need them for to set you up with other dates). I don't have anything else I can think of that could help. I would do all of these things & more if I had to have it. But I'm older now & I don't have to have it. The cravings subside & I'm grateful for that. All you can do is enjoy the frustration of this Dry Period of the 2010s....seems like a decades long span of low sex drive & vaginal dryness. I pity everyone that hasn't got a chance to partake in the bedroom olympics...In my youth, I'd spend 4-6 hours fucking all day or all night long for a few times a week...I could set my watch to it. ;-)

You asked out 1000 women & you didn't get laid?? In my youth, I think I only had to ask out 20 & I'm not as good looking as you are. If I were you, I'd travel to Southeast Asia where the women there might see you as a prize & then you can date as many women as you want. There is all variety of women & personality there to choose from. Any shape you can see in a gal here, you can see there with an asiatic flare. Somewhere in the world, there are women that want you & you just need to go there instead of dealing with the kind of women in your own part of the world, which from what I can tell in America these days, are extremely picky...to the point of which they'd rather do without than settle. What I've learned about beautiful women is how they can treat you very badly if they're broken inside. Some really know how to crush the spirit & those wounds just seem to remain open, never fully closing.

Since last Friday, I've been thinking about an old flame. She's a singer & usually they put together some event at this time of year. However, I haven't heard from her in the past few months & have not actually seen her in, I think, a full year now. After awhile of thinking about it, I felt like a stitched wound in my body just reopened & started gushing out raw emotions. As if the downfall of that relationship happened yesterday, instead of two years ago. I went back to the chat forum on the phone system that her & her friends use to see if they were putting together any event this year. From last year & the years before, they chatted all the time on that forum & it was blowing up my phone. So much so, that I had to disable notification. I rarely paid attention to it until now, when these lamentations popped up & made me wonder if I would see her & her friends this year sing their recital & do a meet & greet. But there was near silence on their chat forum now. As if their chat system was dead or replaced. I did see a screenshot of local newspaper showing there was going to be a recital at a church coming up & she was going to be in it, but no invitations were sent out & nobody said anything about it. It's almost as if there is any chatting going on, it is happening on another chat group & not hers. There's no information, even though there are nearly 300 members on the group. I'd feel really weird about just showing up uninvited. In the past, they would put together lists to find out who would attend in advance. And now there doesn't appear to be anything. I thought I was over all of this but I guess the nostalgia of the event, that sense of belonging, has me in its grip again. It'll pass after some time, if I can get lost in something else, perhaps a story on TV or working. But once I'm alone again, having to live with my silent thoughts, that crushing sorrow rears its ugly head. Sometimes, I get some morning anxiety right before I wake up & I had a thought about planning my suicide. Writing up the will & getting everything ready for my exit. Morning anxiety always plants the most horrible thoughts that my brain can think of. There's not any real reason for these such negative thoughts. And then I also remembered that I probably suffer from Seasonal depression disorder (I think it's called SAD) as I always feel a bit gruesome this time of year. I was just curious about these waves & why it would appear now, after all of this time. Perhaps they were simply repressed & not fully handled at the time. It hadn't bothered me all year until I started to think about it & the upcoming singing recital that I'd attended every year for the past 5 years. There's no grudges from this woman against me, she just drifted away, as women do. She had called me a few months ago about asking me to help her with her resume, but I was caught by surprise & probably talked her out of it. I all I had to do was ask her to arrange a time & then I could talk in person & find out what was going on with her & figuring out my own feelings, since everything I'm going through is just inside me & not happening to her or anyone else. Just an ebb & flow of some old emotions, which I thought were long behind me.

I'm sure it's all kinds of interesting for Law Enforcement. You know what's really funny is that I'm seeing a bandwagon effect with Bitcoin in just the past week. Have you seen that Tai Lopez is putting together large YouTube videos to study Bitcoin & even charging people for a course to speak to these Bitcoin experts, who have been giving away their knowledge for free up to this point. I guess now that they're speaking to Tai, they'll put an end to that...hahah. I've even found one guy who does nothing but talk about Magic the Gathering bought 3 video cards to mine some type of cryptocurrency & using that energy to heat his home (because the power consumed by the encryption really jacks up that electric bill). Overall, I'm losing interest in it since Tai Lopez is getting into it. We need a rant against it...hahah.

@Source_Mystic It looks like a First-Guy Bank/Ponzi Scheme to me. They say it's new tech but it's just a scam. So why do people dump so many tens of thousands into this crap to practice the Greater Fool Theory? Someone has to be a greater fool than me to pay such high prices for this crap. It doesn't have any value & block chain tech stocks are worthless. People want to gamble & watch their cash go up in smoke for an endorphin rush.

I appear to have found myself in a quagmire about this topic. I'm on my way to being financially free & I got this app on my phone that will show me my bottom line at the flick of a button. I'm really excited about it & the first thing I want to do is talk about it. The reactions are mixed, but it feels that majority of reactions are that people resent me & I get froze out in social situations. I'm trying to build a social group & make more friends when I go out, but nothing appears to be working. I can't really figure it out with other people. Nobody is interested in talking. If I do manage to strike up a conversation with someone, they're not interested in self-development or financial freedom. I can't get others to talk. Maybe it's my age. I'm not really sure. Last night, I was having a pretty good conversation with this large woman & one of her friends. Though while I was drinking my mind was thinking about ways I could bring up my money (I'm so proud of it..lol). When I had broached the subject of self-development with these two people, I felt it was being made the subject of ridicule. So I quit talking about that & went back to giving praise to the woman (she's a cover-tunes singer). The bar was closing & I went to take a piss before coming back to the bar's patio to wrap things up. I was only gone five fucking minutes & when I got back, her other friends that were hanging around nearby stole my seat & surrounded her. The wagons had been circled. My initial reaction was that I just got froze out by a bunch of assholes. And I hadn't said anything about my money. I said goodbye to the singer & embraced hands, kept the tight grin on my face & drove home in the early morning darkness, with the usual shit-feeling I have when trying to engage in social situations...and failing at it. But I was curious as to why nobody can talk about success with money without being given a sneer? My manager, who is also my friend, when I told him, he wanted to help make it a realization. One of my other friends who is wealthy was the same way. Then others I've known for a long time, when I told them, they seem to have become cold & distant. Even one at work, who has worked as long as I have in the same career & is not wealthy, seems to be giving a lot of extra edge in his sarcasm towards me. Saying shit like "Pride cometh before the fall" or pissed that I'll complain about work one day & then be happy the next. I suppose he's trying to figure out why I'm not perpetually miserable. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing wrong here & can't put my finger on it. Even if I don't talk about my money, perhaps I still can't get people to open up to me & I don't know why. Do age demographics matter? I feel the people I talk to are many years younger than myself, although I look younger...well I used to, not sure anymore, perhaps the genetics are catching up. I wonder why there is so much judgment about money? If someone told me they were a millionaire or came from a wealthy family, I'd be proud to be their friend. But others...nothing but bitter resentment. Help me understand. I appreciate any & all comments. Best, SMD

@JoJo Yeah it's a tough topic to work with, but that's why I wanted to post it & get my thoughts on paper & I'm glad that you took the time to respond. I've thought about it all weekend & I feel let down that it appears I can't say anything about my cash & will probably just let that topic go as a conversation starter or opener at this point. The thing is, you pointed out some interesting things such as someone talking about what happened at the pub last Friday or just any general conversation. I can't even get that! I just feel like I'm not there & I can't seem to get anyone to open up. And others that I know, it seems they like me to be seen but not heard. When people do open up, it's usually in a strange place, like a nurse helper in a doctor's office for instance. You ever watch the TV show Cheers? I've not once come across any such group of people that talk friendly & hang out in a bar. Usually, the music is so damn loud you can't hear anything. So how can anyone talk? I believe when I was younger, I didn't have any problems with this, but nowadays, it seems my social skills have become severely retarded & I can't seem to find any way out of it. I keep learning & trying different things. I just found out about an NLP trick in which you slow down your sentences to draw people in. I'll have to try that out, if I can find a way to get into some conversations. Perhaps I need some voice training. I can excel at certain things, but not this one thing. I wish I could put my finger on what it might be. I've had some good outings & bad outings, probably more bad outings than good & I haven't been able to build any Cheers-type environment where you meet & get to know a group of people at a certain situation & have simple conversations about anything. I'll have to spend some time in contemplation on this over the Thanksgiving holidays. Maybe I need to re-investigate my personality type. There was a book I was going to buy about my personality type but I never got it, so I guess it's time to get that & start reading about my type immediately. It's from 16 Personalities & based on the answers I gave, it said my personality is such, that it's very hard to have or make friends & that I would only have a few, long-term friends at any one time & nobody else. The personality descriptor has been spot on with how my life has been for the past few decades. I'll have to see what that book says about me & see if it can give me some useful pointers on how to interact with others.

@JoJo Thanks for the reply. I always feel if I'm trying to make new friends, if I ask too many questions, I'm giving them an interview. Some, though barely few people, have any general interest in getting to know you very well. Other times, they will talk about themselves for a little bit & switch off. If someone told me about their approaching financial freedom, I'd want to ask how it was done. But like you said, others just find it off-putting. I guess it's a show me, don't tell me sort of thing & seeing the bottom line balance isn't enough. I don't go around wearing fancy clothes or driving luxury cars. If I did that, then it would speak for itself. I'm not really trying to hook up with anyone, nor settle down or have kids. I'm just trying to create or join a social group. For one reason or another, it seems tough to do. For instance, when I went to the restroom & returned, why didn't anyone bother to save my seat? They just took it, without any explanation or care. They probably knew it was a dick move & they did it anyway. I was very tempted to call them out on it, but restrained myself. You know my friend at work never talked to me like that before he found out about my cash. Now I have a condescending & superior attitude all the time on some of the things I bring up. I feel I've talked the exact same way I've talked before, so I suspect he's embittered by my financial freedom. I told him everything I was doing when I was doing it, over the past several years too.

Are there any books on Spiral Dynamics? I can't find anything on Amazon. I get pointed to Ken Wilbur's work but I have those books & it doesn't seem like it's there or just a small piece of it. Is Ken Wilbur's Theory of Everything the only thing there is for Spiral Dynamics?

I see it now. It's for branding & marketing, at least that's what Google tells me. If you're out to sell & your name is something horrible, then changing it might help. Actors do this all the time. I sometimes wonder about the mental state of actors...I mean making an alter ego is what they're doing when they get into their roles.

If anything, you still have to pay the bills if you want to eat, have shelter, & any basic creature comforts while you yet live, such as having a computer or cellphone to post into the forum say....first world problems.

Where did this concept come from? I've never heard of an alter ego being encouraged for self-development.

I guess it depends on what it is. For instance, I could not fathom how someone could leave their husband/wife if their spouse had gotten cancer or even if it went into remission. Can you imagine what it takes to leave someone while they're sick or even recovered? Doesn't that sound like an emotionally difficult thing to do? To leave them during their time of need? Everyone would call it a dick move if you did that. And yet, some people will do it anyway. Another one might be: quitting your job when you're at your peak & making the most money you've ever made. I can't imagine what it would take to quit that either, but others have done it. There are some really tough situations people find themselves in & in my current experience, I've not been able to move the big rocks in my life. I just let them be & see if I can work around them or leave them there...I guess like where you leave a tree where it is.

Isn't a play land of my own making a complete mindfuck though? I think it is. I didn't know what it was & I couldn't turn it off either. It was a rank amateur move that I thought I had "solved" in my twenties. Move on from which chick? The more recent one that turned my world upside down & thrust me into self-development? I keep in contact with her & think about her on occasion, but we've all moved on. Everything I've studied about friendships with women I read it, then I experienced it. What was read from a few of the best love doctors matched the experience I had to a T. At the start of 2016, I had finally given up, after a few years of mental torture, while at the same time using self-deveopment to get myself out of it. I currently don't have a powerful lock, as I once had with that one woman, to anyone in particular, so meeting other women or getting my jollies with them doesn't faze me or have any substantial impact to my psyche. But I also pay closer attention to what I'm feeling & what may be causing it. For instance, I feel a bit melancholy today & lament some of the past romantic passions. However, I also know that I didn't get very much sleep last night & when I lack sleep, my mind becomes moody & thinks such thoughts. If I sleep well tonight, those emotions will be gone tomorrow. It really makes you appreciate how much a good night's rest is, without it, your mind will push annoying, negative distractions on you...or at least it does for me.

You know people can tell when you're smiling over the phone. Another mind-fuck for me in this regard is always seeing duplicate numbers 11:11, 2:22, 4:44, and also just numbers in general not always on the clock. I don't know how or why I do it, but I'll usually look at the clock to see 11:11 multiple times per week. It used to freak me out, but now I just sort of smile & say "There it is again." There were many times over the last couple of years that I would also notice things around me would be standing on their edges instead of lying flat. Somehow my hands or the way I touched something would put it in just a position that it would be on its side, without me even realizing it & then coming back to see it that way & being startled by it. I even took a few photographs of them. I haven't noticed it this year however...it seems to have gone away (or gone unnoticed).

Well, I do recall you saying in one of your videos about the irritations that can come from meditating in the long term. I had a septoplasty at the start of this year. The whole point was to breathe better so that I could meditate better. I can breathe really deep now & I dream deeply most of the time, breathing only through my nose when I sleep & never the mouth (as I had been for decades before). However, I had a counter-intuitive experience afterwards. I no longer wanted to meditate, my empathy or feelings have dulled out, almost no emotions at all, just indifference. If I have emotions, they are brief & then I go back to an indifferent state. My sense of smell isn't as strong as it was. And the pursuit of enlightenment soured. It looks like nihilism to me now. I'm not really sure what happened & sometimes I wonder if being put under anesthesia & coming back from that has rebooted my brain in some odd way. I don't know what it is but I just can't care....I wonder if it's zen devilry? Sure, if there is a psychiatry practice that offers guided LSD or 5MEO therapy, I'd look into it. But as you know, LE isn't going to stand for that. Everything else is comparable to playing with electricity without understanding safety. But hasn't it ever made you wonder why something that we think is very new, like 5Meo is actually very ancient & was entirely forgotten for so long? There might be valid reasons it was forgotten. I'll try some self-inquiry on this little vacation I'm doing here, if I can muster up any feeling to self-inquire...lol. I have no idea what's wrong with me in that regard. Maybe it's just work burnout. If he can get his Mom to do it, then I'll do it too.

haha. Someone needs to write a book on how to read it. Maybe I'll try this week. I took some time off from work to re-center myself...everything has gone to shit..

Did you notice the retreat-ants were all women?

I have the Book of Not Knowing sitting on my table & it scares the shit out of me to read it. It's daunting at hell!! Looks like a thousand pages...All I can think is: holy shit, when am I going to read this?? That's a cool photo of Sting on meditation. Man that looks uncomfortable too. I don't think I can get my legs in that position...lol. Man. He really went hardcore with that position. My legs would probably cramp up.

I've spent the past couple years looking at non-duality, Zen, & enlightenment, etc. I'm tired of it & haven't found it to be useful. When 5Meo arrived on the scene last year, I wondered about it, but after a year of study, it all seems like organic video games. It doesn't lead to anything. People did it & came back to describe it in words. They're still themselves other than the changing words. What is the actionable part? I find it terribly disturbing that a self-help recommendation is to do these drugs that will scare the living shit right out of you & being told that _that_ is what I need. And also to be told that I'm missing out on some 90% chunk of self-development if I don't do it. It's discouraging to say the least. Plus all the riddles & bs surrounding it, makes me feel like I'm just chasing my own ass to figure it out. It appears they want you to drive yourself insane in order to come out the other side, which doesn't give any guarantee that this is actually a healthy thing to do. And _not_ everybody can do that. And so, I'm tired of the scene. I still meditate & dabble in Zen a little bit, but it's not actionable. It has to be something I can do fairly easily, with the tools I have at my disposal. Not the stuff LE is tracking or hunting down dosages of spiked-crap from drug dealers & so on. If they had LSD psychiatry as they had in the late 50s that Carey Grant was doing, I'd be interested in signing up for that. At any rate, I wouldn't feel bad about not having to look at. What are you really missing out on anyway? I've grown more skeptical of it as the years have piled on. It's great if you're into alienation or having to find a cult or group of like-minded individuals to communicate with....who else would there be but believers & non-believers? Non-believers would call you a crack-pot & you can't talk about it. But I digress...my fall from grace on this topic... haha.

Those all sound like mini-fucks. My first big mind-fuck, probably happens to a lot of people, was that first time you have a gal liking you, you become too needy & then they run away or even send your emails to campus security because they think you're a stalker. Can you imagine? One day you have this gal making you a sandwich & she's putting your head on her lap, while she's wearing shorts, or using her leg to stroke yours. Three short months later, she has nothing to do with you & telling campus security about your emails and making you look like a total stalker. It was an emotional rollercoaster that lasted for several months after that, with even years where I would still think about her....a constant range of feelings. Just a complete mind-fuck based on my expectations of what I had expected from reality and what I actually received. It was all upside down & backwards. So I turned to work, my career, got a gf, & then forgot about it for a goodly 15-16 years. The thought process, the problems, everything about the above ordeal with that woman went dormant. No rhyme or reason..."She's a ding dong." I thought to myself and so I went my merry way into Corporate America. But then I reach middle-age & the same thing happens again! This time, I was used by this one gal to fuck up her own marriage because she wanted to dump her husband. I thought it was so she could be with me, but surprise(!), I was just a theatrical prop that had outlived its usefulness. Yet again, that full range of emotions & issues came swirling back. I never figured it out back in college 15-16 years ago & I still hadn't figured it out!! And now I was in the same obsessive, emotional rollercoaster ride that I thought died in my 20s. How could this come back & bite me in the ass now?? Unlike the first time, I didn't get myself in trouble. I turned to some of my friends & they told me that I needed to back-off or she would freak out. So I followed instruction. Eventually, I turned to trying to get answers this time, try to figure out women, & why all this shit was happening. I grabbed a couple of books during this emotionally trying time: The Power of Positive Thinking & The Way of the Superior Man. Which opened the door for me into self-development. I'm still friends with this woman, but it took me nearly 2-3 years to get her out of my mind. She was just stuck in my head for what seemed like forever. Just an utter & complete, total mind-fuck. She isn't in my head anymore & even if I willed it, I could not think about her that way again. I think only the above two times is when I've had a woman stuck in my brain for such a long period of time, punishing myself. But it's clear now. I'm not really sure it could happen again. I know too much about human behavior now...I have better expectations than I did the last two times when I was still blind to the world.

1) What is your personal experience with this? Can you pinpoint why exactly you get drained? Does it happen when everything is totally fine? Or is there something that if it was different, you wouldn't get drained? If you keep in mind what you've read here and take a look at why you get drained the next time it happens, what do you find? Answer: When I feel tired of being around my friends. Annoyed at what they're saying or just feeling uncomfortable in their presence, as if they were invading my personal space, or even in crowds, that is when I've reached the draining point. Everything can be totally fine, but my mind will find some annoyance somewhere to turn it off. For instance, I might be talking to someone & they start talking about something work-related. So I'll start thinking "We're not at work. Why the hell is he talking about work? He must live there. I need to cut this conversation & leave." Another point of draining is that I stop talking. I ain't got nothing to say so I just dummy up, which can go on for hours. 2) What could be some general explanations of why introverts/extraverts get drained/energized? I mean, stated as it usually is, this idea is just a mere description. And, at least to me, it doesn't seem like a very useful one. Because it tells you little about what is actually going on there. Merely putting labels at people's behaviour doesn't explain it. So what are the actual mechanisms which determine the emotional landscape and the behaviour of so-called introverts and extraverts respectively? Answer: I read a lot & surf the web. No reason to be around people to do that. When I go out, I try to engage & be social, but it doesn't always work. I can be hanging around at crowds and barely get out but a few sentences of conversation & then there is no talk. Just me looking around at the crowds trying to figure out what to do next, if anything. Perhaps drink a few beers & remain quiet, just like when I'm alone. Unlike some that have mentioned here, I'm not sure I always have empathy for others. Usually in a social context my thoughts turn to the immediate such as, "Why is this guy/gal not talking to me? Hell with them, I'll just stare off in this direction or watch the crowd. Maybe something will happen." Or "If nothing happens, I'll try this other venue in about 30 minutes to see if it's more interesting." As an introvert, I think I can get burned out from going out & wonder if I need to stay indoors even longer so that I can make going out feel more refreshing when I get around to it. If the process of going out & socializing loses its newness or gets boring, then I'll stop doing it. I'd say five years ago, it used to feel new, scary, & a lot of fun. Nowadays, it feels stale & it never escalated to anything worthwhile, except 3 times last year. Nothing this year. But I also think that, when it feels like it's stale, when the friends & love interests you've made have moved on, that sticking to it will make help bring more friends & love interests your way from just showing up & being there now, rather than thinking about the past.

But couldn't some people be stuck in a relationship because they don't have any better option? In some ways, I think people in relationships band together simply because there is nobody else & they're not interested in going through the process of building a new relationship over the long years, in which they will find themselves in yet another long-term, failed relationship...