Emerald

I think a lot of comes from guys who haven't experienced a longterm relationship with a woman, and don't consider the practicalities of how things like a partner's work ethic, job, temperament, ethical code, etc. are the MOST important factors for how sustainable a relationship is... and just not realizing how vulnerable and stressed it leaves a woman and her children if her partner has deficits in these areas of life. Often times, before someone experiences a relationship and they lack the knowledge of how a real relationship works, there are focuses more towards intangible things like sexual feelings and physical attractions. And I notice that this is especially common in young inexperienced men who are drawn to women mostly out of a desire for sexual experience. And from that point of view, any considerations of things beyond pure physical/sexual attraction might be viewed as cold insincere gold-digging because they just don't realize how much of a dampener of peace, health, and happiness it can be to end up with an unsupportive partner. And they may not even be thinking of things beyond the physical attractions and read raw sexual desire as more sincere than the more complex considerations that mature women go through when selecting a long term partner. And often, the type of guy who sees these kinds of relationship considerations as gold-digging will often be hyper-focused on his own agenda and vulnerabilities (like the fears of a woman not genuinely wanting him but wanting his money). And because he is hyper-tuned into his vulnerability, he may not be able/willing to exercise empathy towards why a woman might take these things into consideration.

Yes. Any accusation of objectification and hypergamy is a confession... since men are commonly objectifying and hypergamous regarding women's looks. It's just that the men who don't realize they're being objectifying will project onto women their own tendency to view women as merely the sum of their parts... and they will believe that women see them as nothing more than the sum of their parts. But of course, going for a guy who isn't mature and doesn't have his life together will be terrible for child-rearing. And a man not making enough money to be stable, means the woman would be needing to sacrifice the quality of life of her children to choose that guy. And of course, if he has no job, that's typically a red flag that she will need to carry so much more weight to make things go. I always think about this cartoon character to be a PSA as to why it's important for a woman to consider factors like money, job, work ethic, etc. when looking for a partner...

I'm sure there have been women who are attracted to you if you're generally socializing. You just may not have known it because women can be reserved about sharing their feelings out of nervousness that they aren't returned. But let me assure you... I'm originally from a redneck town, and as a teenager even the creepiest least attractive guy that I knew had girlfriends just because he was socializing with girls. And let me be clear that most girls were freaked out by this guy because of his tendency to be very touchy feely and sexually inappropriate in a socially inept ways. He was the "Where's my hug at?" kind of guy. He also genuinely looked like a walrus... white mustache and all. And if I recall correctly, he had a genetic issue where he had webbed toes on one of his feet. But that might have been someone else... as it's been nearly 20 years since I was interacting with him. But if he can get girlfriends, literally anyone can. And he's just the most memorable example of a person you might have assumed can't get a girlfriend, getting girlfriends (multiple over the years I knew him). But being from a redneck town, I can tell you that there were tons of boys/men who were unappealing in a variety of ways (being ugly by societal standards, missing teeth, being crazy, creepy, unintelligent, etc.) who had girlfriends and/or wives. So, literally anyone can find a partner... many in fact. But you have to put yourself out there and socialize. So I have to ask... are you interacting with women? Do you have any women in your social circle? Have you tried joking, flirting, and engaging in banter? These are things that are necessary to open up the possibility that something would happen. Otherwise, it would be quite uncommon for a woman to initiate on you without any indication that you like her. And women generally won't express those kinds of feelings towards a guy or come onto him unless she's sure that he's attracted to her. Women generally tend to be a bit more averse to overstepping those bounds and grossing a guy out.

Of course women experience that level of interest and attraction towards the men they have feelings for. And it isn't just some utilitarian thing. Women can get super obsessed with a particular man because she like his personality and likes being around him... in a way that doesn't even have to do with ANY specific quality he has... not even looks. People fall in love with other people. It's just how it is. Also, women could (and often do) come to similar conclusions to the one you did but with regard to men not being capable of feeling real feelings towards women. And that's because of a VERY common pattern of men only liking us for surface level qualities like physical appearance. And you mentioned looks as one of the main elements of what gives you the warm and fuzzies towards a woman. But you don't recognize that you're engaging in a similar type of objectification that you fear is the nature of female attraction. You're just not used to being objectified for your looks, so you don't recognize it. But what you said above would be the equivalent to a woman saying "It's a shame that men only capable of objectifying us and liking us for our looks and sex appeal, when we just need a man to have a spiritual interests, innate intelligence, a big penis and a fat wallet to be irrationally infatuated with him." So if you introspect a bit, you can recognize that the objectification that you assume women are doing to men is actually something that you yourself are doing... and that that's a big part of where these concerns and projections are coming from. The more a man sees the value of women through a more objectifying lens, the more he will come to believe that women are objectifying him. But this is only his own reflection staring back at him. You just don't recognize it as such because you are not used to being objectified based on your looks. And then you worry that women will do the same to you based off of money.

This isn't really what I meant by what I wrote to you. It's more the other way around. Your problem is only a woman-problem at the symptom level. The real problem is shame. And this is what creates the n1/n2 problem that you mentioned because that is a symptom of the shame. I know that your problem SEEMS like it's a problem with women and dating. But it really isn't. Shame is the beginning and end of the issue, and it manifests likely in many forms... and this woman-problem is just one of them. So, my advice isn't about alleviating shame for the sake of being more confident with women... as that isn't the root of the problem, just a symptom. And if you try to alleviate shame to be more acceptable to women, you will just double down on and exacerbate the shame. My advice is rather to seek to resolve the shame because you want what's best for yourself, and as a side-benefit of resolving the shame this will enable you pursue connection, love, sex etc. from a frame that doesn't come from a sense of lack and a need for external validation. And the ONLY way you can alleviate shame is by practicing unconditional self-acceptance and compassion. If you put a condition on loving and accepting yourself, it will create shame in you. And you will go seeking validation from the outside. And one side-effect of this is that you will be looking to women to validate you so that you can finally love and accept yourself. And of course, this puts all sorts of pressure and stakes into romantic interactions that aren't actually there. And once you come to accept yourself... you don't need to pretend to be a nice guy or a dick or any other kind of thing to get women to like you. You will just feel comfortable being yourself, and there will be women that are attracted to you as yourself without any calculation about what kind of persona that you need to adopt. And seeking out some mentor to teach you how to get good with women... or trying to learn to act like a dick isn't going to help you. To do this would be like trying to cure malaria by taking a a fever reducer. It might bring the fever down, but it won't really resolve the issue.

Yes, there are many myths that archetypally refer to the psychological dynamic that many men are caught down in when they end up in a Red Pill mindset. Really, the Red Pill framework is just the replaying of an ancient mythos couched in modern storytelling... and then projecting that mythos onto reality and believing it is real. And then shadow boxing with the mythos. And that is because it FEELS real archetypally, and makes sense of the feelings of pain and shame that men collectively feel regarding the expectation of perfect masculinity that is socially enforced. It is also projecting a mythos onto female sexuality in lieu of deeper understandings that stem from empathy. One example of this is the mythos of the mermaid. The ocean tends to represent emotions and the unconscious. And women tend to be more native to those waters like the mermaid, while the sailor (the man who is un-integrated with his feminine side) is a land-lover who doesn't swim quite so well. So, the story is of vicious calculating mermaids luring the unintegrated sailors to drown in the depths. But if the myths were more reflective of the reality... the unintegrated mermaid just doesn't understand that the unintegrated sailor isn't capable of swimming in the emotions and the unconscious without drowning. So, in actuality she doesn't understand his limitations and that he won't be capable of swimming in the depth until he becomes integrated with his feminine side (Anima) and grows some gills.

I think it would start with knowing where you want to arrive... and even more importantly WHY you want to arrive there. One issue with the tendency for men to seek out the help of other men who have "gotten there" is that it often misdiagnoses the real issue. And this, in turn, can lead to a tendency to seek out role models that may worsen the real cause of the issue. And there are many men who have gotten to where you want to get to that are struggling just as much with the deeper issue. And the real cause of the issue doesn't actually have to do with dating, sexuality, and women. That's just the most symbolically resonant projection screen for the real issue to play itself out on. The real issue in all of this is shame and a feeling of not being good enough. And even moreso, men liking women more than they love themselves... and seeking out female validation to try to alleviate the shame (which of course doesn't work). And it imbues a projection of false power onto women, who come to be seen through the projection as hyper-objectifying calculated arbiters of male worth and punishers of male weakness. And this, in turn, leads to men misunderstanding female sexuality... and instead to read into it a kind of cold power to adjudicate the worthiness of a man. So, resolving the shame and developing self-love and looking into any reasons for attachment to female validation is necessary to rescind the projections... which in turn, will enable you to really open up to love and connection with women: platonically or romantically. And if you seek out mentorship with dating or seduction, you'll want to be 100% positive that the mentor you choose is not caught down in the same shame dynamic, as it is a VERY common dynamic for boys and men to get stuck in.

You're afraid that women aren't capable of loving you and meeting your love and connection needs... and that you will have to go without that need. And you also may be projecting a condition onto your own sense of validity and lovability that "In order for me to be valid as a man, a woman (or women in general) has to love me." So, this creates fear and pressure and desperation because you want and need love and connection. And that desperation is what manosphere coaches and content creators are arousing in you (sometimes consciously and sometimes just a result of them being caught in the same shame spiral). And that's because with that pain, you'll want to buy the solution and you will get in a cycle of searching out more and more manosphere information and more and more manosphere solutions. And their proposed solution is of course... more manosphere! That's why you should NEVER ask a woman to help you with these things... because then you won't pay money to get a manosphere coach to help you. So, it becomes the place that supplies the pain and the cure... and the cure is more of the pain... so you need more of the cure... which is more pain. And it creates a really pain-filled target audience of men to wring money out of.... and to sell increasing pills to to brainwash them into deeper degrees of desperation. And to ensure that women will get scared off by them because women can smell these ideologies from a mile away. But rest assured, that manosphere frameworks isn't reflective of the actual reality. It just takes the worst examples and then says, "This is an unchangeable part of female nature." And it creates even more desperation... which is then solved by.... more manosphere. So, the solution is to get out of the manosphere loop and forget 99% of what you 'learned'. And open up and be vulnerable... and if you are discerning, you can find a relationship that's based upon mutual love and respect.

You're welcome. I definitely relate to this. There's a lot of tension between my seeking/expansion drive and my contraction/meaning drive.

I've experienced the emptiness too... after I experience ego death. And there there is nothing and no desire. And there is no self to take anything in. But most of my experiences of God have been a more subtle decentering of the ego to reveal God's consciousness underneath... and showed me the everything-ness element of the infinite. It's like a drop that realizes that it's the ocean... or a twig that realizes that it's the tree. But I don't claim to know anything about infinity, as I do not know its true nature. And my suspicion is that no human being can know the true nature of infinity. I only 'know' that I've had certain subjective experiences of different facets of God, and that the understanding I've taken from my memories of these experiences has led me to certain conclusions that I now use to help me navigate through life. I take my experiences a bit like the blind men and the elephant. In my experiences, it has been like feeling the tusks of the elephant. Perhaps in others' experiences, they have felt the tail of the elephant. So, my perception is that we are both blind men... and you are just describing one part of the elephant. And I have felt this part of the elephant too. I also like to think of it through this analogy. Let's say that God is an infinite pie. And I have experienced God in my medicine journeys 8 times. So, I've eaten 8 slices of infinite pie. And 7 out of those 8 times, God was a cherry pie with the experiences of oneness and everythingness. But one out of those 8 times, God was a meat pie... this is when I experienced ego dissolution. But with an infinite pie, you cannot know the true nature of its filling. Even if you were eating pie nonstop for your whole life and you only ever ate cherry pie from the infinite pie... you could not know that cherry was the true nature of the filling of the infinite pie. And that is because, you could have all sorts of unknown fillings in the pie that are outside of the realm of your experience. Who knows, maybe most of the infinite pie has a filling of motor oil. And that is where the surrender of the illusion of knowing the ineffable comes into play for those who have had awakenings.

It's definitely a bit like that. This was that feeling too. But there was also this sense that, when my daughter was speaking I could feel that sense of namaste... which means the God in me sees the God in you. And even though she was just talking about a show she was watching, it was this quick awareness that I was looking directly at God and I could "see" it shine through her face. And for a split second, it was like I was God talking to God in a bubble of experience made of God... and that that was all there was. And it was this quick flash of a feeling. But I took it as a nudge for me to recognize how significant small moments of connection like that are... and how that moment was really everything. And it felt this struck me like it did in this mundane moment to emphasize the importance of being present in moments like that with my kids.

The reason why is very straightforward. I genuinely don't prefer to transcend because I don't prefer how it is. And in my heart of hearts, I prefer to be embodied as this human and to forget the infinite to embrace innocence and unburden myself. Also, it's a little like the difference between a person who enjoys playing video games versus a person who likes to deconstruct the console. Certainly, you could do both. But I'm not as interested in deconstructing the console as I am actually playing the game... though deconstructing the console here and there for the purpose of enriching the gameplay is definitely interesting to me. So, it's just a preference. And you could have a preference for one, the other, or both... depending on what your life path is. And what my Ayahuasca experiences have shown me is that I was created specifically as God's vacation from God to make the infinite existence manageable for that part of its consciousness... among tons of other things it does to be effortlessly present with and to feel the totality of the infinite suffering it must always be knowing, creating, loving, and experiencing forever and ever and at infinitely deep levels. And it is always encouraging me to be like a hobbit and to have fun and enjoy like I did when I was a child, as it created this life to give this point of its consciousness mercy from the infinite suffering. It even once brought me back into memories of when I was obsessed with Scooby Doo as a young child, and it wanted me to embrace that childlike spirit again. It's like in the movie Citizen Kane where his last word was "Rosebud". (I won't spoil the ending the movie here, but it definitely relates to the theme of relinquishing power and embracing joy and simplicity) Now, my supposition is that God splits off the parts of itself that are more Yin as these parts feel the pain and burdens of the everything-ness aspect of the infinite and then incarnates them into limited forms so that they can find mercy from the too-much-ness... but of course I'm not sure of this. It's just me putting 2 and 2 together to make sense of what I experienced. So, the spiritual is really one and the same with the material. They're not separate. And it is the same as any other human being's experience, only with the contrast of the infinite... which enriches the lived experience.

Yes I have a partner, and 2 kids... a 13 yo and a 9 yo.

I'm just sharing my subjective experiences and what I have come to believe and have chosen to exercise faith in based off of those experiences. It is all that any human could ever hope to do, which can be a hard pill to swallow. I must surrender to the fact that everything I've ever experienced could be totally illusory (including my awakenings)... but also to recognize that my subjective perspective is the only vector of reality that I have access to... and that it is the only compass that I can operate off of and exercise faith in that enables me to preserve my own sovereignty. And I am choosing to exercise faith in my imperfect subjective perspective as a valid wisdom compass for navigation. It is only then, that I can truly be a sovereign being standing in my own power. Though of course, I could alway be wrong. And that is okay too.

Very well said!

Thank you! The way that I would say it is that it's a little bit like the parable of The Diamond Net of Indra. In the parable, the God Indra hangs an infinite net in the sky that stretches in infinite directions. And at each of the vortices of the net, there is a jewel. And there are infinite jewels in the net. But each jewel reflects all the other jewels in the net. And from a certain perspective, there is just one jewel that contains and reflects all the other jewels in the net. So, the expansion path is one where you recognize yourself as the one jewel that contains and reflects all other jewels. These are experiences that I've had of God realization in my medicine journeys... and I can also operate through this assumption in my contemplations as well. But the contraction path is one where you forget that you are the one jewel and you become one jewel out of many in the net. This is also the consensus perspective. And in surrendering totally to being one jewel out of many, it removes the existential pressure of the expectation of perfection and you can embrace the beauty of the imperfections. And you get to live the story and really immerse yourself in it and forget that you're in a story. And this makes the story more meaningful. But having had the contrasting experiences of the Truth, the illusion becomes much sweeter and more profound. And there is an expansion in enrichment and joy. It's a little bit like the saying that goes something like, "First there are mountains and rivers and trees. Then, there are no mountains and rivers and trees. The, there are mountains and rivers and trees again." It is the contrast of the emptiness of meaning that enables you to find what's meaning to you. And you can also find the infinite couched within the finite. For example, a couple months ago, my family and I went into a cafe. And my daughter was talking to me about something, and in that moment, there was this palpable feeling that that moment was everything happening in the universe. It's hard to explain. But it's like the infinite shines through in finite forms and you can feel how much everything matters.

Thank you!

From the perspective of those on this forum or people who see seeking enlightenment as the one true path, I'm sure that my decision to surrender to and embrace my human limitations and to live the story will seem resistant and deluded. But J have been shown that enlightenment isn't the only game that God plays with itself. And I choose to exercise faith in these experiences and their feeling of rightness over what some people in the world of Maya believe about enlightenment and truth. What it showed me is that it is just as happy to be a Buddha as it is happy to be a sea urchin. And any incarnation comes with limits and handicaps. And it is through these limits and handicaps that meaning and beauty are possible. It is only because a story has a beginning and an end that you can have happiness and joy. And it is only in separation that relationship is possible. And my path is a feminine path of embracing limitation and contraction rather than the masculine path of expansion. Though my experiences of expansion and awakening have served to enrich my Earthly experience, transcendence is not actually what I want. I came here to play the game and live the story. So, if you lay out the option to be Emerald or to be God, I'm definitely going to pick Emerald every time as it is as clear to me as it is possible for a human to have clarity that this is the function of this lifetime. To give some context as to why this is integral to my path, I have dealt since I was very small with a God complex that originally stemmed from a lack of trust and feelings of unsafety. And it's come from a traumatized 3 year old aspect of myself. And at that age, it isn't so clear that you aren't the center of the universe. So, I have this part of my that feels it must be perfect and do all the scary things alone. And it has created this lonely anxious God dynamic that hums underneath all of my experiences. And it has given me this life-long burden of feeling like I have to know perfectly but also paired with a genuine curiosity that's pretty insatiable. And it has led me to constant expansion into more and more insights. But because I cannot know Truth in the absolute, it has left me ever expanding and expanding and expanding and spreading myself thin trying to know. This is even true, having gone through ego dissolution and many awakenings. You can be it, but you cannot know it. And in my journeys, I have experienced infinite knowledge twice... and it is completely overwhelming. It showed this to me to help me remember that my path doesn't have to do with expansion of knowledge but rather to do with contraction of knowledge. And I can tell you, infinite knowing is a real crown of thorns. And I'm not Christian, but God had shared with me that it is only the Christ that had to bear the burdens of the infinite as a finite being and that I don't have to do it because no one has to do that anymore. And that's a good thing too, because it is like hell in ways that I struggle to communicate and understand. And it has even taught me how to wear the crown and then pass the crown and appreciate other people more, and to disappear into being a side character in the story to diffuse the weight of the crown. And it was such a joy to conceptualize of myself as a background extra in the story of someone else's life. So, as God it has picked Emerald to incarnate this overwhelmed part of itself into to relieve that part from the burdens of the infinite. But Emerald can't help herself and keeps going back into knowledge expansion mode and sneaking back into the cookie jar of knowledge. So, there is a learning curve to contraction and the letting go of the need to know. But in my Ayahuasca experiences, God has worked with me to heal my knowledge-seeking obsession and show me the value of embracing ordinariness, limitations, and contraction and to be able to surrender and to exercise faith in lieu of knowledge... which is what my neuroses have disallowed me from. And this constant truth-seeking has put a cap on my ability to show up in life fully as myself as it is like I am always in protection mode. So, over the past couple of years my path has been about embracing the path of contraction and limitation... and grounding deeply into the human experience and allowing myself to be ordinary and imperfect. And a huge part of that has been about recognizing and accepting the limits to my ability to know... whilst also exercising faith in my own experiences of God consciousness and exercising faith in my own inner compass of my intuitions and insights. And a big learning curve is in being able to put trust and faith in my own subjective experiences and perspectives, despite recognizing that they are limited and that I cannot know and do not know the absolute objective truth and never will. I know that my path doesn't fit your idea of a spiritual path, and you may see it as deluded. But keep in mind that both truth and illusion are part of the Truth. And both expansion and contraction are part of Expansion. And both the finite and the infinite are part of the Infinite. There is not two... but one. And the contraction path is just the other side of the coin to the expansion path. And it is clear to me that I open up and expand when I allow myself contract... and contract when I try to expand.

@Leo Gura I was just watching the video you made on Post-Modernism, and I came across the part where you were saying the Post-Modernist would say, "The whole bible is a joke" and that only those who get it would know. And it reminded me of an irony that occurred to me regarding the Bible. Like the whole first book of the Bible states that 'eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil' and gaining knowledge of good and evil is the original sin... and that seeing the world through the lens of good and evil is what produces shame and casts us out of paradise. And then ironically, the Bible proceeds to be regarded as a book about the knowledge of good and evil... and people still see the Bible that way. So, the first book of the Bible is basically like "It's the biggest sin you could possibly commit to read this book and take it as a moral compass."

In this regard, it's just the same way that men operate when they pursue a woman they're attracted to. Likely when you're attracted to a woman, it's not a sense of rewarding the woman with affection because she earned it by doing x, y, or z. There is likely no sense that you are rewarding women by being attracted to them or sexually involved with them. It's just a desire to move towards them because it feels good to you. The same thing is true when a woman is attracted to a man. It's just a feeling of desire that arises for her subjectively. There is no sense of rewarding the man with affection as a woman doesn't look at herself as a scorekeeper who rewards certain behaviors and punishes others. Punishment and rewards don't even enter her mind... nor is she even thinking logically about which qualities the man possesses that are more or less "deserving" of her affection. If she really likes the guy, she is mostly worries if he likes her in return. There is just a tendency in books and movies and things for women to serve as the prize or the validator of the male main character. But that's not how it is in reality. From the woman's perspective, it's just doing what feels good subjectively and pursuing what produces amorous feelings. And it's mostly about seeking intimacy and sometimes other feelings.

I've had one journey per year since 2020. So, 5 journeys in the past few years... and 2 journeys at age 20.

I'm suspicious of this answer.

Thank you. I think it's just that the OP's pain is associated with concerns that women may enjoy dominating men and embarrassing them, as he has written about it on other posts. And because I am speaking over the internet, this doesn't give him a chance to read my actual facial expressions. And he might imagine me as a wicked witch trying to antagonize him for my own sadistic pleasure, when in reality, this is just how I show up in this context. I come here to share my perspective with others who value these types of perspectives, and I do like to challenge others a bit as well because the environment is very conducive to intellectual sparring. I think I just accidentally pushed a trigger button with my directness.

As are all those savages you mentioned before, that don't want Truth. What makes you different?

I'm not picking on you. I'm just telling you something that might help you as it is something I've seen before. Perhaps my tone doesn't carry well over the internet. But if you don't want me to reply anymore, that is okay.