Unraveling

[Telepresent]

11 hours ago, seeking_brilliance said:

(what is feeling good?)
(what is happy?)
(what is feeling free?)
(what is peace?)
(what is success?)
(what is love?)
(what are friends?)
(what is confidence?)
(what is security?)
(who wants to feel special?)
(who are the people I love?)
(what are "them", what am I?)
(what is a mind?)

Have you ever noticed that every attempt to define something only conjures up a new thing, which itself needs to be defined and lo! There's a new thing which needs to be defined, which itself creates a new thing which needs to be defined...?

What if you can hack them all at once? What would that be?

[seeking_brilliance]

 @Telepresent 

Well, first off all, I don't know! Let's get that out of the way. 

I suppose I could say that in the grand scheme of things, language is just about as real as Samuel is. No more than an idea. It is not the entirety of reality, and could never describe reality. But it's also all we have to describe anything, and we use it to describe that which cannot be described. (and that's not a new concept to me, as Christians we said the same about God) 

The questions and answers all arise in language. It's entirely possible that without language neither would arise. However, I have the great fortune and misfortune to think in language.  To think at all is both a blessing and a curse. 

I think I'm just rambling though, I honestly don't know how to answer your question. Perhaps to remove the "I". 

Edited October 13, 2018 by seeking_brilliance

[Telepresent]

26 minutes ago, seeking_brilliance said:

I honestly don't know how to answer your question.

I'd be very surprised if you claimed you did! 

My intent is to save a lot of tyre-spinning: the smaller "what is X" questions - in my experience - can lead to a hell of a lot of frustration, and not take you very far. Boil it down. From what I quoted above, I can boil down 2.5 questions:

1) What is a feeling?

1.5) What is a feeling regarding another being? 

2) What is the mind? 

26 minutes ago, seeking_brilliance said:

 Perhaps to remove the "I". 

Eh, I think people get stuck on trying trying trying to do that. Right now I think that's an outcome, not an activity. 

26 minutes ago, seeking_brilliance said:

No more than an idea.

The questions and answers all arise in language. 

These two things are connected and HUGELY important (though not the whole shebang by a long salt)

But

26 minutes ago, seeking_brilliance said:

language is just about as real as Samuel is.  

You sure of that? Is there no more to Samuel than the language-thoughts about him? What if I stab his eye with a fork? 

Edited October 13, 2018 by Telepresent

[Telepresent]

28 minutes ago, seeking_brilliance said:

But it's also all we have to describe anything

Bonus question: Is it? What might an artist or musician say about that? 

[seeking_brilliance]

6 minutes ago, Telepresent said:

Bonus question: Is it? What might an artist or musician say about that? 

That's right... Interpretation, intuition, abstract interpretation (or whatever). Ok I will contemplate the hints you have given. Thank you so much

Edited October 13, 2018 by seeking_brilliance

[Telepresent]

@seeking_brilliance No worries. It's helpful for me too

Just remember I'm not 'there'. I might be wrong about everything and the worst person in the world for you to listen to

Edited October 13, 2018 by Telepresent

[seeking_brilliance]

@Telepresent I should mention that when I posed those questions, it was mainly as an admittance that I don't actually know what these things are, even though I go around pretending I do and want them.  As opposed to really asking what these things are.  It's probably about 50/50 asking/admittance 

[Telepresent]

@seeking_brilliance I get that. I remember you in the past talking about then being more like affirmations. I just want to cut to the core.

Bonus question 2: how long were you thinking about that before you wrote that post? 

Bonus question 3: why? 

[seeking_brilliance]

@Telepresent bonus questions :

1. Well, I don't pretend to understand time but by my guess what felt like 10 minutes. 
2. Why did I spend 10 minutes, or why did I write the post? A) because it bothered me to go without clarification and I wanted to get it clarified as soon as possible to induce more accurate follow up questions (although thankfully you understood my meaning from the get- go) B) but why did I want clarification, that's the question... I want to contemplate this but my immediate answer is for some reason I want to be liked, feel special. I want to be understood. Even though I don't know you very much, I already want you to like me and think I'm doing well. And I don't even know why I want that. I just do. I want to be acknowledged.  I want verification. Verification that I'm heading in the right direction. 

          Oh lord I just went into a whole list of wants again.  But whatever. Samuel wants to be heard. 

 

[Telepresent]

19 minutes ago, seeking_brilliance said:

 

Why did I spend 10 minutes, or why did I write the post?

Why did it bother you enough that you had to come back and clarify what you meant?

For me? 

For you?

For someone else? 

Edited October 13, 2018 by Telepresent

[Telepresent]

23 minutes ago, seeking_brilliance said:

for some reason I want to be liked, feel special. I want to be understood. Even though I don't know you very much, I already want you to like me and think I'm doing well.

That is literally - EXACTLY - the same reason I'm making a point to come back to you. I want you to feel those things about me. How silly is that as a feedback loop? But - and this is important - it's not a silly thing to feel. It's a natural thing to feel and don't be mean to it x

[seeking_brilliance]

@Telepresent validation is a powerful thing. Bring on those dopamines! 

You have given me much to contemplate. Your help is truly a blessing. 

[Telepresent]

I love you.  I hate you.  Fuck off.  Gimme more.

If we can't learn from this here, where can we.

Now fuck off.  And love me.  Make sure you tell me how much you love me.  But how much I've changed your life

[seeking_brilliance]

@Telepresent oh no, you hurt my feelings, I don't like you anymore. 

Ok enough distraction, back to work

[seeking_brilliance]

11 hours ago, Telepresent said:

You sure of that? Is there no more to Samuel than the language-thoughts about him? What if I stab his eye with a fork? 

Of course I have no idea, but from what I can surmise : real is relative.

Samuel feels very real to me. More than he ever will to another who is in the same boat.  I have been Samuel for 31 years now, give or take, depending on when exactly I began identifying with the idea of him. Only recently did I ever get the twinkling of a hint that Sam is an idea, and that I really don't know who I am without that idea.

Perhaps nobody at all, without the wants, hopes, and expectations that have formed this idea of Sam. Perhaps it would just be a lifeless body, or one that runs purely on instinct - like an animal - if there were no Sam to animate it. To trick it into thinking it has meaning and purpose. I have no flipping clue and it really interests me. Like seriously, who the heck am I if not Sam? And does Sam even exist? 

Well I'm a big believer that real is relative. (yes, it's a belief, and I don't even fully understand why I believe it. Perhaps intuitively.) If there is a Sam, then he belives he's real so who's to say he's not? Who's to say anything? 

If @Telepresent were to stab him in the eye with a fork, someone or something would be in alot of physical pain. Emotional pain as well. Would the body be in pain, or does the body even feel? What if all pain is only in the mind? No, I do not know what the fuck a mind is, and should have no authority to speak of it.  I don't know if Sam is of  the mind, or if Sam has a mind. Or both. I don't know if Sam is the body who has an intelligent mind, or a parasite (possibly symbiotic) which leached onto the body.  I just don't freaking know so that puts a huge hinderance on further insights and contextualization. (edit : or perhaps I only believe it does) 

But at the end of it all, there is a Sam which believes he is real. And believing invites another kind of pain. Not like what the body felt from being stabbed in the eye, but this one possibly worse because it sticks around.

"Why would @Telepresent stab me in the eye? Did I do something wrong? Did I offend him?  If I had been better, would I still be in searing pain and suffer losing half of my eyesight- one of my most precious things?" 

Sam is real. No matter what anyone says. Even if only real to himself. And Sam suffers. If another could suffer what Sam has suffered, I'd  call them a liar if they said he wasn't real. It feels pretty fucking real to me. 

Then again, so do dreams. In most dreams, I am Sam, though at the same time, I'm not. Like a strange twilight zone version of him.  But the me in the dream feels like it's completely real. Let's call this particular Sam in this hypothetical dream: "Sam.00183". Sam.00183 is on an adventure. He's having the time of his life fighting dragons in a hotel bathroom while nondescriptly getting "helped" by a beautiful young friend.  Sam.00183 can remember fighting the same dragons not long ago out on the cliffs of mordor.  He remembers noticing that while on the cliffs of Modor, the dragon had cotton candy shoot out from its tail if cut in a certain area. What Sam.00183 doesn't realize is that he was never on the cliffs of Mordor. This was a false memory which is a huge interest of mine.

When Sam.0 reviews the dream, he laughs to think his other "self" believed that false memory, even though it clearly arose only after fighting the dragon in the bathroom for some time. It was instantly and randomly created when needed, never actually needing to take place.  But to Sam.00183, it was real. Who's to say it's not? Wasn't? He was on the cliffs of mordor, stuffing down cotton candy, while "helping" his beautiful friend. And to him this happened sometime before fighting them again in the hotel bathroom.  Sam.0 would be very quick to judge to merely laugh the experience away. What if Sam.00183 suffered great pain? Stabbed in the lungs by the razor sharp tail, while attempting to get that delicious cotton candy. Who's to say that pain wasn't real? It was felt. Somehow. And if the pain was real, who's to say that Sam.00183 wasn't real as well?

Even Sam.0 doubts his counterpart's existence.  Sam.0, who still feels the sting and loss of breath from being impaled straight through the chest, begins to believe that this happened to him.  There is no Sam.00183, because it is no longer in Sam.0's direct experience. 

Yet Sam.0 wants validation. He feels he needs it. Yesterday, his friend was in pain because it is that time of the month. (yikes and ew.)  But Sam cared little. He did not feel the cramps. They were not in his direct experience, so were they real? It sure felt real to his friend, if you'd ask her. Who's to say it wasn't? If his friend had a way to transfer this pain to Sam, (and I think she gladly would), at which point did it go from not-real to is-real? Would it validate his friend's realness, or does Sam wonder if it didn't become real until it was in his direct experience. He tends to do that. 

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2018 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

I'm taking a small break on autolysis, since I wanted my next session to be on what are feelings, and I realized I can't really put it into words that well yet. So I'm reading The Chimp Paradox which I think will help me build a better vocabulary and understanding.  Hopefully it will also help me understand the mind better, or at least it's interpretation. 

Edited October 16, 2018 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

So I guess the chimp paradox perhaps isn't going to teach me much about feelings, despite what I thought I read in the free preview... Maybe it will but haven't gotten that far yet. 

So, @seeking_brilliance (oops phone bug) 

So, @Telepresent , you are the one to ask me what are feelings. I could give you two types of answers.

1. I could say what i believe feelings are based on how I was raised to believe them
2. I could say what I'm tempted to say which is I don't freaking know what the hell they are. 

But then where does that get me? Do you know of any books that could at least get me a basic understanding of how to put into words what feelings could be? 

 

[seeking_brilliance]

     Currently my emotional feelings are only a ghost of what they were as a child. Over years of fear and pain, I built a wall to protect me- to numb the unwanted feelings. Unfortunately, I guess little child me didn't know how to build walls correctly and numbed the wanted feelings as well.

    Disappointment was one of the hardest feelings to have as a child. I could probably name many of "my" action loops that were built upon preventing the feeling of disappointment. And I should. Why is it such a bad feeling? When I was a kid, I had strong emotional responses to being disappointed (compared to now, where it may still sting but I mostly react with, "oh well, should have guessed.") but yeah, strong reactions to not being able to go to the pizza parlor after all. Or the toy I just got for Christmas broke on the second day. Disappointed when I sold my beloved Gameboy and collection of games, to buy a new game which turned out to completely suck. Getting sick and not being able to go to Disney World.

     I had no buffer on these emotions back then and god, they hurt. Pure emotional pain.

     And that was just disappointment.

     What else caused the strong emotional feelings?

• Fear
• Excitement
•  Guilt
•  Pure, childlike joy

     And each of these are accompanied with an intense physical feeling - an expanding or Contracting of the heart area known as the heart chakra (or whatever if such a thing exists.) Sometimes the worst pain can be feeling your heart crumpling like a piece of paper, and you'll do anything you can to stop and prevent it from ever happening again.

     Strong emotional pain can often times trigger a physical pain-- a physical sense which evolved early on, I presume, in the beginning of animal life. The heart doesn't literally crumple up like a piece of paper, though maybe there are some physiological responses to the emotional pain which causes a contraction of the heart muscle itself, but it would be minimal compared to how it feels. Emotional pain amplifies that feeling depending on the level of pain, until the point where it feels like even a black hole sucking your heart out completely.

     I wrote a post on where in our body do we feel these strong emotional feelings, because I was curious if it could be verified to be a common place to feel it, or if it varied by culture(i.e. Beleifs). For example, I was taught as a kid that the Hebrews in the bible felt emotions in their bowels, based on some Bible verse in the old testament.  So I don't know if I worded it wrong, if it was the wrong topic- feeling of Love - but I got no serious response of where the feeling is felt in the body, even though I restated my question a few times. All I got were responses about how there is no " I" to love, but no one would answer anything about where the feeling of Love, or other strong emotional feelings that spring up physical feelings in the body--- where they are felt. I thought it was a simple question but I swear the answers felt like they were written by a few sheeple just parroting off something they believe in. Exactly how dream characters react sometimes. If they wanted to tell me that there were no such thing as physical feelings, then that would have been an interesting rabbit hole to explore.

But apparently I can't feel love because I don't exist. Then who feels love? No one? Then what's the God damn point? I say if Samuel wants to feel love, who is there to say he can't? Doesn't he deserve it? Even in his own little pocket universe it thinks it exists in? But if Sam is only an idea, what is an idea? Can ideas think? Did Sam create this pocket reality, or did I create it for him? Co-creation perhaps?

    That's not to say that I believe Sam exists. Truth is I don't freaking know. To say he does or doesn't are both beliefs. Even if I had a direct experience of Sam's non-existence , it would still be a belief. Perhaps they are both wrong. Or true. Who the fuck knows? Why should I listen to anyone about it?

     This is where I'm lost, because I don't even know if direct experience can be trusted, much less other people who can't be directly verified from this (possibly not) locked position. So if I can't trust others' words, and I don't know how to trust direct experience, I don't know how the hell to go forward.

Edited October 24, 2018 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

 This is to complete a though experiment proposed by @non_nothing , in one of "his/hers" thread. 

 What is emotional pain? When I feel emotional pain, I feel it in my heart center. Such a heaviness. Or a sharp pain. It's weird because it's kind of indescribable, or perhaps trying to describe it from memory is hard to do. But I'm definitely not asking to experience it anytime soon, no thank you. I'll just enjoy not being able to describe emotional pain from memory very well. One thing it does include is racing irrational thoughts, and this is perhaps the worst:

• " oh my God, this sucks!"
• " oh my God, I want it to end."
• "I don't ever want to feel this way again!"
• " If I could just go back in time and change this or that, this would have never happened."
• " everything sucks right now."
• "oh my God, I just want to die."

     But it always gets better.

     Wow, everything I said above about not feeling emotional pain lately was untrue. I feel it nearly every day. Whether it's with an upset customer, a spat with the hubby, or getting my feelings hurt. I actually do feel emotional pain quite often. Also when I fuck up, which happens way too often. There is a tightness in the chest, I'm able to feel it now. Even the top of the stomach area twists up in knots.

     But I still would say the racing thoughts and narrow mind are the worst culprits. The physical feeling sucks, but it's actually not excruciating. It's the alteration of consciousness that truly sucks ass, and honestly I think that's pretty unecessary to put us(ourselves) through this. For whatever evolutionary need that was to firewall the mind when experiencing emotional trauma or anxiety, I truly hope the body starts dropping that trait soon. There's no need to inhibit clear thinking, when experiencing these things. If anything, thinking should be enhanced. An opening of the mind should occur, not a closing.

     Soon I will inquire into what is a mind. Not sure how long it will take to unravel that one, but I better get started.

Edited October 25, 2018 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

     What is the mind? Well first off, disclaimer : I have no idea and for now  and can only speak about it in terms of direct experience and assumptions I've heard from others. (other disclaimer: I have not had a nondual experience, but I intellectually understand "others" to be an invalid term, as there is only one. Still, they can be quite helpful when needed.)

     What I have assumed for the majority of my lifetime the mind to be:

• The brain.
• Limited.
• Basically me.
• Separate than soul.
• Possibly part of our separate than body. 
• Separate from God.
• Sinful.

     But to sum it all up, I assumed the mind to be the brain.

     Currently I assume nothing. (on that topic)

     I've heard that the gut is also a mind.  Whether a part of the one I identify with, or its own separate one, I haven't a clue.  Either way, it has a large impact on the so-called mind, affecting mood, sleep regulation, Etc.

     So now I've just brought up the question on whether there is at least two minds in the body. Probably a good example of accidental assumptions. I probably should not speak further on it without a quick look up to refresh my memory of this.

     Ok, back. Turned out that thinking I had read somewhere that the gut is considered a separate mind was an accidental assumption, based on most likely misinterpreting the term- "second brain." 

     Well, that's how it works, this (lack of better word) mind. Embarrassing false assumptions. Hilarious false assumptions. (Just heard an inner voice say "dang it!", with the feeling of throwing my right arm in a defeated way, and an emotion of messing up.)

     Ok, to explain what just happened above is a great way to explain direct experience of this (or whatever) mind. I did have a small amount of Marijuana, and sometimes when high I can hear voices in my head that are separate than my usual thinking voice, with "intentions" sometimes accompanying them. I used to take them as possible messages from spirit guides, (I used to be into all of that), but now I just see them as the mind having a little extra flair, if not somehow commucating with "me". Or with itself. Haven't worked that one out.

     Another way to describe it is its the kind of voices or sounds you hear during hypnogogic state.  For me, pot puts me into some kind of waking hypnogogic state and I've enjoyed exploring the mind with this method, and it's always fun to see what will pop up. Many times it is fucking hilarious what I see or hear. Sometimes the voices say seemingly random things, sometimes they seem to be adding commentary to whichever steam of thoughts is occurring - usually while writing. From now on, I will be including any voices I hear because I would like to analyze this phenomenon.

     I usually hear voices when my eyes are open and engaged in a word type activity like writing.  With eyes closed and still, I see pictures and have small dreamlets that last anywhere from 1-5 seconds. But usually just pictures.  Beautiful pictures. Whacky, out of left field type pictures. Landscapes, faces, all kinds of random images. This is all of course while high, so you can think I'm crazy or not but these voices do not occur while sober, unless in the hypnogogic state. 

     This phenomenon does intrigue me, and has fueled my passion for exploring the mind. Yes, the mind that I don't know anything about. But it doesn't make it less fun to explore. I taught myself to lucid dream and began exploring that way as well.

     I am willing to admit that there may or may not be any spiritual benefit in exploring the mind, but it's really fun. Those who haven't tried it may find it silly to be that interested in what goes on in imagination, but those who have explored their own (or whoever 's) imagination know there's something intriguing there. Even if it's just to see what might come up next, and the pride (possibly misplaced) of owning this unique, amazing imagination. Those who explore dreams know what I'm talking about. Being able to experience seemingly endless possibilities. It's an amazing feeling.

     Ok, so I got a bit off track, but honestly much of what I get sidetracked by is most likely descring the mind. So it's all good.

     It would be impossible to unravel the mind in one sitting, or even the night, so I'll sign off for now and mull over some things.

If anyone reads this feel free to ask me any questions that I can inqure into. 



 

Edited October 28, 2018 by seeking_brilliance