Not sure where to go (warning epic long text)

[ValiantSalvatore]

Hello,

I will keep the title short since I am not quite sure what I am going to write about. Currently, I am quite confused about which direction I am heading in life. I feel this is the right path and I can also see or contemplate why it is worth it. This is already confusing since I am thinking, that people think I have a concept of self-actualization which I do have. So, I am just trying to explain the current concept I have about self-actualization because I am not sure if the concept is let's say healthy and or even if I have a concept at all. 

So, first of all my notion of self-actualization would include Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs especially "being cognition" I downloaded the Audiobook. A psychology of being from Abraham Maslow. (Spoiler Alert twofold) Where he talks about "being cognition" and "deficit cognition". Leo also has a video about it which I have watched in the past.  I like it how in the book he explains which situations in life occur that include or contain "being cognition"  and yeah, obviously that you can experience them and he talks about recognizing these situations and that "deficit cognition" occurs in the first 5 stages. Because you depend on them you need a group of friends, shelter, sleep, sex, recognition, and respect, food, water, a creative outlet/fulling ones potential or dreams becoming a sound engineer a lawyer or a writer. Yet, being cognition does not depend on any of these, yet at the same time depends on the first previous 5 stages to be fulfilled. Being cognition includes doing things just for the sake of doing the thing itself. I love the analogy in this case from Allan Watts - Why do you want to learn another language to get a job? Or to tell people oh look I speak XXX languages? No, you do it because you enjoy talking to French people for example or to Spanish people, so you do it for the sake itself. This could also be considered intrinsic motivation so, here a different experience that I had. While I was listening to the Audiobook I always remembered how it was as a child riding a bike to a destined destination and simply enjoying riding the bike, there was no purpose, no arriving, just the pure experience till thought kicked in. The same while I was listening to the Audiobook from Abraham Maslow I was sitting on a metal bench in autumn, at a train station waiting for my next train to get back home from uni. As I was sitting there and listening to the Audiobook the sky was simply so beautiful and the light shining through the station ( it was open in the cold) had a very peculiar pattern which I had never seen before. I was so amazed by it, yet I simply took the moment as it is. It is similar to the state of flow for me, yet does not have this mellow drive to achieve something quality, which I would equate with the feeling of flow.

 

To summarize my notion of self-actualization currently would entail for me to achieve complete satisfaction with "deficiency needs" and to turn my highest "deficiency need" let's say (not stating my goal here ) becoming a doctor and to help people become healthy again and to lead my team with compassion, to give my example a little bit more finesse. And to see my occupation or the activity that earns me a living ( to give a neutral concept) as a thing that I am doing for itself. So, let's keep the concept that I am having of self-actualization here like this.

In the book he continues to talk about how to achieve that and that not many people ( 1 in 10000) do so, he goes on with that the concept is not very valid since there are not many people who checked the validity of the hierarchy of needs if I remember correctly and that a child needs safety to expand his zone of comfort and to test his courage to overcome obstacles and that he/she is not able to do it when certain safety precautions I am just going to say are not meet, this all depends on the development of the chilld / individual person/adult etc. Yet, take this information with a grain of salt it has been some time since I listened to the Audiobook and I only listened to it once or twice. 

 

Excuse me for telling personal stories all the time here, I want to explain my current viewpoint or perspective on "stuff". That's why I want to tell the story.I did an internship in London for 2 months during the summer semester break ( I am from Germany ) in a small company.  During that time I started to get back to training since I had a knee surgery this year and was finally feeling fit enough to get fit again, I also went vegan since I wanted to try it out ,and while talking to a good friend of mine, and knowing that my aunt is also vegan, I was quite confident to test it out and went cold turkey ,and I am vegan still, since mid August now. It feels quite energizing to live like this and also I have more energy than usual, I felt that I could go out for a jog two times.  I did not go to a doctor yet, to check if I am missing any vitamins or we and I keep procrastinating to do it bla bla. ( I do not even know if I can do this here in ger for free I should though)

I had the opportunity to talk to a zen master (online during my stay in London) which I did, not very sure what to ask, so he lead the conversation he mostly talked about creating an infrastructure that helps to foster my meditation habit ( which I am doing now for 2 1/2 years missed 2-4 days) and that people at my age ( 23) are quite confused about life its direction and what is love, who am I , what role do I play in the world etc. I was not sure what to take from this, since I "knew" some of the stuff he talks about. Yet, what I really liked was that he talks about being young and old, that you have a lot of energy and time when you are young and that all of that contracts when you are old, yet happiness increases XXX times. I never thought about being old and not having the energy or let's state that differently. I am now way more aware that I am having tonnes of energy and a mass amount of time which I am most of the time-wasting still, and that I am aware now almost daily that things root (sorry for potentially offending the age group most likely not present on the forum) away, also my grandma is sick and we have  someone in our house who cares for her, so I am seeing her condition now since two years or so. Still, not able to find a profound insight or the "great" motivation that propels me forward and to do something for my family.

During my time in London, I hated and loved the city for various reasons. One theme that is currently still present in my life is feeling confined and I listened to David Deidas' book "The way of superior men" and he talks about female and masculine energy and that feeling confined and wanting to penetrate or to permeate "something" is a typical masculine energy theme. So, good I have the knowledge to a degree and now it is all about purpose. I did not even want to write this post, because it is somehow redundant, yet here I am stuck on the opportunity cost.  

I am going to fast forward this I am so done this is the fourth attempt now sitting here for two hours, somehow deleting my text randomly which just fits perfectly into the pattern I am stuck in right now. Ever since I came back from London to Germany, did a meditation retreat, was industrious in general doing homework reading, educating myself and trying out psychedelics for the first time same goes for the meditation retreat. I somehow end up self-destructing or sabotaging myself and my close friends do this too, especially for the last two years, there was so much good and bad. Yet, most of the bad part was somehow me sabotaging myself. Like currently I am sitting here writing a post on a forum where I know nobody personally, only since I feel and think, especially think that I am not able to relate to people anymore since I am soo deep which I do not even think. I just notice by my and their (comparing myself to the students here or rather keeping them in contrast since I do not actively compare as much) behavior with the background knowledge I accumulated over the past two years being to China for 6 months, reading books, progressing spiritually, getting my shit together, various internships one in London one in Germany, and do stuff for university, trying psychedelics, doing my first meditation retreat and did one consecutively this month and I have quite good marks or a grade. Yet, still, there is so much more potential that I have not used because I am wasting so much time doing petty things, playing video games, browsing on booptube , WhatsApp , not being able to create a bed routine since two years, because I hate routine and yes I watched the video going full circle and I listened to Alan Watts a billion times and he talks about this theme in a very funny way, that I really enjoy and love paradox now. Like this, I wrote this article or this paragraph 4 times not sure where I was heading and at the fourth time, I see that pattern that I want to talk about, sabotaging myself, since I had no clue wtf I am going to write about as the title already suggest. Yet, at the same time, I am just lost again.

I really wanted to talk about my experience with psychedelics and the meditation retreat, yet my experience which I wrote down here being deleted 4 times and sitting here for almost two hours to write this post is just ludicrous.

 

 

I am trying it again now, I did two meditation retreats over two separate weekends one in October and one now in December during November I tried psychedelics (AL-LAD ) so, I can imagine people understanding that I am confused. First, the meditation retreat in October was quite good since it grounded my practice and I was able to understand the practice better and to explore new themes. Trying AL-LAD in November was very very cool, I took 150 Microgram with the first trip and meditated one hour b4 also. journaling what the experience should be about and did a meditation intention sit for 20 min about what the trip should be about. The experience was not what I imagined it to be, I imagined having a breakthrough or insights, I did have some insights which I am most likely still subconsciously implementing by progressing with spiritual work keeping up with meditation and the second meditation retreat, following the AL-Lad experience a couple of weeks later. So, I did all that to make sure it was for spiritual purposes and not for or even for self-actualization purposes in terms of growing in spiritual dimension and not for a recreational purpose / one. In the end the experience ended up to be somehow both, a recreational one and a spiritual one which was, in the end, the best thing that could happen to a beginner IMO. ( I used to know some ppl who abused drugs). 

I was sitting there listening to music and had the idea ( as I said not going to repeat everything that got lost by hitting strg z and being a good hearted random clumsy fool which is a good description of my current state, about how much I informed myself about psychedelics)  to talk play a video game with friends to make the onset pleasant and to not be suddenly zoned out and have a horror trip. Which I, later on, could contemplate in that state easily happening because you are so subtly influenced by everything it is freaking insane. Just changing music or the sounds of the video game and the emotions even in the video game was amazing how it altered my experience or I was just tripping lol. I felt at one moment since I did not want to talk to my friends during the trip, because I knew I was going to talk about it and it would fk me up in the end so I did not, while we were playing the video game. I just felt so much like my friend, I kinda wrote like him and just had a very very deep experience of what would it like to be him if he is in a very good mood and had a very pleasant empathic experience of me being him... So, as we chatted I could relate so much and he knew because I am generally a very empathic person or can be. (Infj) He is the polar opposite ESTP and I just had a blast experiencing what it would like to be him and playing the video game... as I said recreational and spiritual if you want to say it like that. Going further into the trip I stopped playing videos games, listening to music looked out the window, and watched a video from Leo, checking my visuals and all potential experiences one could have with this substance. Visuals where pretty much non-present, to non-existent as my second trip in that month revealed. 

So, going on to the second trip I took 300 Microgram, besides the empathic effect and feeling very present in the body, there was just nothing happening even with the spiritual preparation. I did not meditate directly before that, yet did my daily routine of meditating when I wake up after taking a shower and later that day took the substance sometime. This time I could feel my body even stronger and visual were present I checked it a couple of times, by looking at a poster in my room which has some ripples and these ripples were melting into each other and not, showing me how easily perception could be fooled. While looking at one of Leo's video I saw his head and arms having a sort of blurry train ( of a comet just googled that word) in his body movements in the video. That's that for visuals and they kept occurring, I looked out of the window and could see the stars and not see them because there was a big cloud and in reality I knew I should not be able to see them since the cloud was too dense, yet somehow I just perceived the stars to be there and not and I thought about the trip report of AL-LAD which I most likely watched later on, that the mind reflects on itself during that time and that this state I was in actuallly is similar to good meditation session ( as a beginner) yet, the not the same the experience just seemed differently altered. What I want to say is that I realized that the mind reflects on itself while looking at the clouded sky and seeing and not seeing stars, I realized that my mind is reflecting on itself and I thought about the phenomenon in psychology of projecting one's emotions, fears, problems or let's say issues onto other people and now today I am realizing more and more how I am and other people are doing it to me and others. It has just become so apparent, and I also just realize this so apparently as I am writing this post ( hope this sentence makes sense lol.) It is just sort of ubiquitous in my perception now not unconscious. Maybe subconsciously if there is a difference between the two concepts. 

The next thing that occurred during that trip and I also want to emphasize that I realize now how much more value I could get out of this if I would read more books about psychology and some more specific spiritual themes like non-duality or so, since I have a big picture understand of listening to Shinzen Youngs work , Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts, Jiddu Krishnamurti a little and a bit of Deepak Chopra. ( All Audiobooks) 

So.. to get back to topic as the next thing that occurred is, that I was padding ( not petting xD) my cat and I somehow thought about how nice he is not scratching me because he always lays his paw onto my lips or eyes and I sometimes pretend to eat his paw and he only pulls out his claws softly, to slightly "massage" me. I thought how conscious is this entity is there a scale? How can he recognize that he does not want to scratch me and does he realize that he is doing it? Then I thought how limited he is in his form and that is state of being is way clearer than mine, yet at the same time so reactive to outside forces and also in alignment with them. 

Yet, the thought that was still lingering in my mind was how limited he is as a form or entity, trapped in a body of a cat I am just going to say it like this. And this now has been present in my daily life contemplating how limited and fragile human beings are, especially on a mental and emotional level, even ranking them with Ken Wilbers integral map, which stage I am talking to and how to relate to them and yes I am categorizing people , yet not mistaken it for their true identity. So, I can't do more with this information since I did not dive deep enough into the topics integral dynamics I am just going to call it (  I am typing now for 3h ) and all the information around that, Spiral Dynamics, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, Piaget even more interesting for me now Jane lovinger I believe was her name and how women develop differently from men morally, and that they have been measured erroneously and hence scored lower. There is just so much to learn and so much that I do not know it is insane and what is annoying to me is that I am just not doing enough to reach this level of understanding and that I do not have a life purpose or that I have one yet, it is too weak. So, I wanted to buy the life purpose course next year and read more about systems thinking after finishing books about how to deal with people and reading more about the male and female difference, since they are related or at least in the books that I am reading the two seemingly different topics are related. 

 

This is a hell of a lot to read and anyone who went through this thank you just for reading and paying attention or trying to understand or even to reply, which I am not expecting to this post. I am wrapping this up by saying that this post helped me clarify somethings, which I was not able to clarify in my journal like the pattern of sabotaging being so present that I have to find a way out of it since I am not doing anything productive since 6 weeks relating to university and projects ( language learning + online courses) . Any sort of feedback is appreciated even if it just states stop bitching and do even more. I could write more yet, my head is so full of thoughts that I can't really come to a sensible conclusion or wrap up at the end. Hope this helps ?  Here a picture of how I kinda felt or expected to feel while trying AL-LAD, this is my potato. Peace

Edited December 15, 2017 by ValiantSalvatore

[ValiantSalvatore]

@Joseph Maynor I wanted to try 1P-LSD and some other stuff, potentially that is legal in Germany.  Why ? 1P-LSD is supposed to turn into LSD when it is inside your body and even has stronger effects and a milder onset if I remember correctly.

Edited December 18, 2017 by ValiantSalvatore

[ValiantSalvatore]

 

@Joseph Maynor I'll take it into consideration, I am just scared of the law. They prosecuted me once because I downloaded a video game over tor. So, .. yeah lol if I ever know someone in real life I would most likely try it.

[ValiantSalvatore]

@Joseph Maynor That's cool I am interested too. Wanted to go to the Netherlands and try it there, yet I do not know much about Mushrooms yet, for instance, if there are some different chemicals that could produce a "psychedelic experience" in the shrooms beside Psylocibin. I watched a video from Jordan Peterson where he talks about a study conducted by some researcher who had a good reputation in the scientific community, the researcher tested Psylocibins' effect in regards to the personality test OCEAN and people rose in the trait openness by one standard deviation after taking the substance. Here is the video in case you are interested he explains it in more detail. 

 

I also saw your post about  LSD and your trip report I skimmed over it and I will read it and if not I will read it when I try out 1P-LSD or LSD :D. 

Edited December 18, 2017 by ValiantSalvatore

[Joseph Maynor]

Watch this video:

 

[ValiantSalvatore]

@Joseph Maynor Watched it already at least 4 times even while tripping loved Leos' head so much. It is not like I am not putting in work, I am yet not able to deal as good as I want to with emotional labor so I keep bouncing back and forth a lot, yet I feel that I am gaining momentum again. Will watch Leos' new video was occupied with a project for uni and "my" emotions lol. (first thing I did since 6 weeks for uni.)

Texting is a horrible way to communicate too much interpretation and so many things to tell. IMO

Edited December 18, 2017 by ValiantSalvatore

[NoSelfSelf]

@ValiantSalvatore @Joseph Maynor Are Psychadelics really worth it even though i see that ego is an illusion?

[ValiantSalvatore]

How the heck do I know?  Assuming one knows that the ego is an illusion and to know it deeply not cognitively what do you think? To give an example there is a video from Eckhart Tolle assuming you know him if not you can look him up, he is definitely free of ego lol. Where he talks about taking acid and it had no effect on him. 

Edited December 19, 2017 by ValiantSalvatore