jjer94

the darkness. The Darkness is your boogeyman. It's all of the things you're afraid of. It's all of the things you don't want to feel. It's all of the existential truths you don't want to face. Your entire life is arranged around protecting you from the Darkness. One of the themes within my Darkness is guilt. Not the kind of guilt you get from committing a crime. It's the guilt that's more existential in nature. The guilt that makes you feel as if you don't deserve to be alive. The guilt that suggests there's something wrong with being yourself. The guilt that says everyone else is deserving of love, but you're not. The following is a showcase of how the Guardian has protected me from this guilt: My minimalistic tendencies: Become a miser and have an easy day job so that you don't have to face the fact that you feel undeserving of higher income. My people pleasing: Become a doormat and acquire external approval so that you don't have to face the fact that you feel defective. My lack of social connections: Be more introverted because you feel undeserving of other people's time and love. My type-a personality: Graduate with straight A's, become enlightened, have a life purpose, produce an album all by yourself, and make no mistakes. Oh, and create a blog. Do all of these things to cover up the feeling that you are an undeserving nobody. I suspect that my revealing all of this to you is reassuring. Yes, don't worry. You're not the only one that's avoiding the Darkness.

Poop

@Simon Håkansson Maybe your competitiveness is a quality you picked up early in life to deal with feelings of inadequacy or "being a nobody". The external approval of winning a game makes you feel adequate. If you lose a game, your old feelings of inadequacy are exposed. To cover them up, you lash out and/or blame the externals. I would avoid calling it a problem. Trying to solve it like a problem will only exacerbate it. What your competitiveness is, is just a way you've protected yourself against bad feelings. Understanding this mechanism better will diminish its power. But you also have to face the feelings you've been running from. Easier said than done. You may want to explore your situation with these questions: What do I feel about myself, deep down? Do I like myself? Or do I see myself as a nobody? Beyond the anger, how do I really feel after losing a game? What do I do directly after losing a game? What was life like before I was ultra-competitive? How did I feel? At what specific point(s) in time did I decide to become competitive? Cheers!

@Prabhaker You make some really eloquent remarks. I'm theorizing though, not complaining. I don't plan on staying in this job much longer anyways.

I hear ya, sister. Currently working a soul-sucking job in retail. Does it feel like: you're expending energy in this job as opposed to gaining it? a chore most of the time? you forgot what happened the past eight hours you've worked? you feel disconnected from your co-workers? you'd rather be doing something else? If so, chances are you're working a soul-sucking job. Or, as you put it, a consciousness-sucking job. Yes, it does seem that the more soul-sucking work you do, you're less creative and more indulgent. That donut looks much more appetizing after hours of frustration. Or you just happen to be horny right when you get home. Or how about you give yourself permission to sit down and watch TV after "a long, hard day of work"? In my experience, these mechanisms are a way to protect you from feeling what you really want to feel about the job. I have a theory about soul-sucking jobs, especially here in America. I feel like the whole 9-5 system has purposely rigged you into having your soul sucked. Short-term gratifications like porn, TV, internet, video games, drinking, and drugs (which happen to be the largest industries here) are all ways to cope with your hatred towards the job. As long as you can get your fix to cover up your feelings, you can keep working at your soul-sucking job without becoming too discontent. And then, the corporations get what they really want: expendable grunts. But who knows. I hope it all gets sorted out for you!

the guardian. There is a Guardian deep within you. He protects you from the Darkness. In order to protect you, he takes extreme measures. He may cause an addiction, have you stay in your comfort zone, or make you backslide on your goals. And for that, you hate him. Your hatred for the Guardian only makes him more vigilant. He sabotages your life until it's nearly in shambles. When you've had enough, you finally turn inward and listen to what the Guardian has to say. "I've been trying to protect you from the Darkness since you were little," he says. "I'm not your enemy, even if it seems that way. Please understand that." A surge of compassion flows within you. You understand now. Ever since early childhood, the Guardian has worked tirelessly. He's the invisible hand behind all of your cravings, your neuroses, your physical ailments, your fears. These are the Guardian's methods for protecting you from the Darkness. You feel tremendous respect for his amazing power. You hug the Guardian. He smiles in your embrace. "Thank you so much for protecting me," you say. "You've done an amazing job. But now I am willing to taste some of the Darkness." He steps aside and lets you taste the Darkness. It tastes like death. However, your presence and willingness to taste the Darkness has made it a little less dark. Nowadays, your relationship with the Guardian has transformed from a cold tug-of-war into a warm friendship. You work with him to continually taste the Darkness. The Guardian is no longer so desperate to protect you. Your cravings, neuroses, physical ailments, and fears have diminished greatly. But whenever the Guardian does bring out your old conditioning, you remember to smile and listen.

I tried to be spider-man. In third grade, I learned that I couldn't choose "superhero" as a career path. At the time, Sam Raimi's Spider-man had been out for a couple years. It was my favorite movie. I watched it more than thirty times. I wanted to be Peter Parker, so I began to emulate his nerdy introverted persona while secretly touting acrobatic badassery. I would dry my hands and feet and prop myself up on a doorframe in the playroom at home, pretending that I had his climbing abilities. Come Halloween, I knew exactly what costume I wanted to wear. The spidey suit I bought at the costume store was abysmal. It had fake pecs and abs that made me look like a satanic version of the Stay-Puft marshmallow man. The colors had that neon quality like glow-in-the-dark piss. And worst of all, it was a size too small. Due to the costume's no-refund status, I had to wear it on Halloween at school. The shame and embarrassment tore me up. The costume itself also tore during class, so my mom (who was a parent volunteer for the day's festivities) had to sew it up while I sobbed like a baby. My grand objective of becoming spider-man was crushed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fight the fact that I was just an ordinary kid with a spoon-fed life purpose.

From my perspective, your relationship is a red flag. It took me years to realize that I tried to "fix" my friends in order to deny my own deficiencies. I thought I was so noble and giving, helping out my friends, dishing out advice from all the books I've read. What I was really doing was running away from the self-hatred boogeyman. I figured, if I could act as a paragon for others, then maybe with enough external approval I wouldn't hate myself anymore. That never worked. All of those friends? They're no longer my friends. I ruined every single one of those relationships. If you relate to this anecdote, I suggest extreme self-honesty. Ask the difficult questions you don't want to ask: Do you really love him? Or are you afraid of losing him? Are you afraid that if he's gone, you'll have nobody to fix, and you'll have to be alone with your feelings? Are you using spirituality and "unconditional love" as a way to justify staying with him? Do you secretly not want to be with him? Do you like yourself? Are you putting his needs before yours in order to feel better about yourself? Another thing I've learned: trying to control other people is like trying to grab at whizzing clouds. Maybe you've already figured that out. All the best.

battles are lost in the same spirit with which they are won. I cried last week. I do it a lot nowadays. What often happens is that something triggers a sad cry: for my friend's suicide, for my guilt, for life's vanity. But then, out of nowhere, I transition to a hysterical laugh-cry: for gratitude, for the love for everything, for being alive, for the big cosmic joke that is life. Strangely, I don't prefer one mode of crying over another. They're both beautiful and cathartic in their own ways. My man Walt Whitman once wrote that battles are lost in the same spirit with which they are won. I think I get what he means now.

wishing it away. You enter kindergarten wishing it away for primary school. You think, They have the better playground. You enter primary school wishing it away for middle school. You think, I'm too cool for the little kids. You enter middle school wishing it away for high school. You think, There will be much more freedom. You enter high school wishing it away for college. You think, No more tyrannical parents! You enter college wishing it away for young-adulthood. You think, I'll never have to study again. You enter young-adulthood wishing it away for adulthood. You think, I hate being at the bottom of the ladder. You enter adulthood wishing it away for midlife. You think, I just want a family. You enter midlife wishing it away for retirement. You think, I can't wait to be an empty nester. You enter retirement wishing it away for the older days... but you can barely remember them.

@FindingPeace Have you ever heard of the Pacific Crest Trail? It just happens to take around six months to do the whole thing. Maybe something worth checking out.

What's so bad about being hopeless? At least you're not entertaining illusions. At least you're beginning to face the fact that there will be no moment of salvation in the future where everything is complete. That this is it, in all its perfectly imperfect glory. Looking forward to things is nice. But hope? I don't blame you for being hopeless. Hope is damn silly. You wrote this post because you're looking for your next fix of hope. It's more running away. Have you ever considered the opposite? Running towards? Opening the emotional floodgates? Letting yourself feel as powerless and hopeless as humanly possible? It may be a good idea at this point...but easier said than done. Either way, I wish you the best.

expose your forbidden fruit. The more you make something a forbidden fruit and stow it away, the more valuable it becomes. Otherwise, it wouldn't be forbidden. Keep that in mind when you're trying to get rid of an undesirable behavior. You're not a dog. There's no sense in treating yourself like one. So instead of trying to control your compulsion, study it. What value do you get from the behavior? What keeps you coming back to it? What utility does it have? The more you expose your forbidden fruit, the less valuable it becomes. With enough vigilance, it won't need to be forbidden anymore.

can I go back to sleep now? Life is all there is. It’s all One Consciousness, and you are it. Life is giving you an invitation this very moment. An opportunity to accept everything as it is. Will you take it? It’s now or nev- Enough already! Jesus! I know you like doing your midnight satsangs, Mr. Goo-roo, but it’s four in the morning! Can I go back to sleep now?

if life were a book... Self-help is the study of how to make the story inside the book the best it could be. Nutrition is the study of how to make the story last longer. Psychology is the study of how stories work. Philosophy is the study of what's true within the story. And spirituality is the practice of remembering that you are the book.

You know the ssss sound chopped onions make when you throw them on a hot pan? That.

saving money for a low-energy asshole. The idea of retirement cracks me up. There's an old saying that goes: Young adults have time, energy, but no money. Adults have money, energy, but no time. And senior citizens have money, time, but no energy. What's the point of saving up for some future me who a. will have little energy left to do things with the money I saved up for him, b. may not exist, and c. I've never met? What if future me is an asshole? Why would I want to save up money for some low-energy asshole I've never met? Retirement sounds boring as hell too. I suck at golf. I could die today. Planning is great, but putting your salvation decades into the future is delusional. If I'm not living the life I want to live right now, when will I? I can cut my desires to save up money for a mini-retirement any time I want. May as well do it while I still have my youthful energy. Once I'm too old to be able to wipe my own behind, I'll just ask my immediate family to pull the plug. That'll save me some dignity.

look at the moon. One of the most brilliant games I’ve ever played is The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. The premise: The moon will crash into Earth in three days, and Link, the protagonist, must find a way to stop it. He has the power to rewind to Day One with his ocarina. The strangest part of the game is not the fact that Link can travel through time. It’s that most of the people of Clock Town live in a state of perpetual denial. They go about their daily activities in a state of fear and pretend that nothing’s wrong while the moon continues to grow in size. In a similar vein, the strangest part of the human condition is not the fact that we are so smart. It’s that we’re too smart for our own good. Like the citizens of Clock Town, most of us live in a state of perpetual denial. We go about our daily activities in a state of fear and pretend that nothing’s wrong while simultaneously denying the knowledge of our demise. Everything has so much weight to it until we look at the moon, ready to crash down at any minute. If we make a practice of looking at it regularly, maybe we can learn to accept our fate, relax a bit, and enjoy the ride until it does.

positive thinking is a full-time job. After my best friend killed himself, I immediately turned to “positive thinking” self-help. The likes of Napoleon Hill, Rhonda Byrne, David Schwartz, Brian Tracy, and many others convinced me that thinking positively enough about myself would attract positive circumstances in my life. So that’s what I tried to do. I was a positive-thinking beast, with visualizations and affirmations aplenty. Any negative thoughts were suffocated with the sweet syrupy goodness of positivity. I actually began to feel worse about myself. No matter how much I said, “I like myself,” it couldn’t change the fact that deep down, I hated myself. My mind was its own Thought Police, painstakingly working endless hours to deny my deficient programming with optimistic lies. As with any soul-sucking work, eventually something just snaps. The emotional floodgates opened and positive thinking went out the back door. The most putrid negative thoughts surfaced, and I surrendered to them. The tempest lasted several months before equilibrium was restored. I now let positive and negative thinking both have a say. Trying to push the positive while avoiding the negative is a soul-sucking full-time job with terrible hours. By quitting, you may lose security, but you gain equanimity.

advice is tainted. Anytime someone gives advice, it’s tainted. If you ask someone directly after an apple-pie-eating contest if you should go buy some apple pie, he will probably say no as he proceeds to hate you for even saying those two evil words. If you ask someone directly after watching Star Wars Episode 7 if you should watch it too, she’ll say, “HELL YEAH! OMG!” Ask her a week or so later, and she’ll say, “Eh, it was all right. Kind of like Episode 4 with a new coat of paint. Watch it only for the entertainment value.” If you ask a bunch of digital nomads whether you should quit your job and travel indefinitely around Europe by monetizing a blog, you may find that most of them will say yes. Ask a bunch of middle-aged parents the same exact question, and you’ll receive a contrary response. Advice is the culmination of autobiographical information, current emotional state, belief systems, and countless other factors invisible to the human ears. Keep that in mind the next time you take advice too seriously.

10 ways to piss off blog readers. 1. Create posts with a list of 10 numbered directives. 2. Have some numbers be slightly redundant, but not enough for the readers to actually notice. 3. Turn the list into a slideshow to expose the reader to more advertising. 4. Cater to the monkey mind by providing endless hyperlinks. 5. Sell an ebook that gives you generic 10-step directives and then move to Thailand, never to be seen again. 6. Sell a $100 course on how to make money as a digital nomad...by selling a $100 course on how to make money as a digital nomad. 7. Be a millenial. Or a cis white male. Or both. 8. Have a couple of the numbers be redundant, but not enough for the readers to notice. 9. Don't provide a step 10. Instead, give a shout-out to another blog. 10. Shout-out to my friend Gary. I'm a big fan! You can check out his blog here.

@Marc Schinkel OMG, never saw that episode. Hilarious! Thanks for your perspective! You may find that goals are not a problem. The real problem is not realizing they're made up. Progress is progress, but don't expect an end point. As cliche as it sounds...perhaps the journey is the destination...

How have you not lost weight on this regimen? I've tried doing this along with a low carb diet, but I've lost so much weight that I've been supplementing with starches like sweet potatoes and wild rice. Is it water weight I'm losing? I've always been super skinny, but this is a bit much...

The Spiritual Escape Artist. Lesson 1: Don't be a Squidward. Meditation. One of the greatest practices I've found for increasing overall well-being, contentment, and concentration abilities. Also, one of the greatest practices I've found for increasing procrastination, settling, and frustration. Instead of taking action on the things my intuition tells me I should do, I find it's much easier to sit and stare at a wall all day. It reminds me of the time where I used to clean the entire house, walk the dogs, do a stretching routine, and read self-help books before I decided to make that one phone call I knew I should have made a long time ago (Just kidding - I still do that). No matter how many productive things I did, it still couldn't cover up the fact that I was avoiding the scarier tasks higher on my priority list. What I've personally discovered over the past year is that I've used meditation, contemplation, reading, and all the other introverted spiritual activities as a way to silence that nagging voice in my head that's telling me to go out and make new friends. In fact, there seems to be an opposing voice, the spiritual ego voice, that says, "Friends are worthless! You don't need human connection! That's just a societal construct! Besides, everyone is too unconscious to even understand you. Let's just continue raising consciousness alone, in this room. Whatever that means." With my trusty translator called Intuition®, I learned that the spiritual ego was simply saying, "I have social anxiety. I want everyone to like me, even though I know that's impossible. It makes social interaction a burden. So I'm too afraid to go out and meet new people, even though I secretly want to. Meditation, contemplation, reading, and the forum are all great, but I'd like to balance that with playing around with real social interactions, because I'm lonely. Yes, I know my true nature is aloneness itself, but the human side of me feels like something's missing. Perhaps it's connection." It's like that Spongebob episode where Squidward denies that he likes Krabby Patties, and then proceeds to gorge himself on them when Spongebob finds out that he does. What's the result? He literally blows up. The episode ends with him in the back of an ambulance with only his head still intact. I had to admit to myself sooner or later that I was using meditation as a way to deny my social anxiety, or else I'd become so needy and desperate for social interactions that I'd inevitably push away everyone I meet and blow up in an all-out depression. Whoops, too late. If this anecdote resonates in any way, save yourself the trouble and don't be a Squidward. I'm not saying that everyone uses meditation, contemplation, reading, etc. as a way to avoid their neuroses. But just to be sure, listen to that little nagging voice in your head. Let it speak up and take action. It will illuminate any forms of denial in your spiritual practices, especially when it comes to social anxiety. Or, don't. Maybe we all need to blow up someday to learn to never deny ourselves again.