My meditation journal

[Thittato]

Microdosing on mushrooms on a snowboard cabin-vacation

So I had the opportunity to microdose on magic mushrooms today, and that was pretty sweet. I'm on a trip with two friends, staying at my parents cabin for four nights, going to snowboard for three full days. Pretty awesome. Anyways, I could really feel that the microdosing was helping me process all our groups experiences together so far. It is pretty interesting when a group like us get together on a trip like this, how the dynamic between us develops, and what kind of habits we gradually land into as we settle down into this cabin for this short period of time. In the beginning it is sort of chaos, but then gradually everybody find their role and their place. Originally we thought about microdosing while in snowboard, but after some discussion we figured it would be better to do it in between the sessions, to help process the experience from one day to the next. Perhaps the biggest challenge for me is that one of my buddies had a challenging day today because he is new to snowboard and he was falling a lot and got a bit discouraged. But he got very happy in the evening, and said that the courage was back again. I think with sports like this it takes a little bit getting used to falling. I mean in normal daily life the patterns we move in are pretty comfortable and restricted pattern, so of course it is going to be shocking for the body to fall over and get a little bit smashed every now and then. I can notice my own driving getting a lot more nonchalant and laid-back. I feel much more robust in my driving. So tomorrow, I will try to help my friend, trying to coach him to get this basic cruising technique down so he also can get a sense of mastery. Perhaps just driving together for a while is the best thing to do. He seemed pretty eager to get some coaching on this now, and if me and my other buddy can help him and support him, I think that will totally be the best for our whole group-dynamic. Actually, when I think about it, I think actually him getting a sense of mastery is more important to me now than my own driving. I'm just here to have a good time with my friends, and letting go of striving I think I have recognized as one of the most important things I can improve on in order to get my life into balance. But my own snowboard-technique has developed tremendously today, and now I can do simple jumps, spin around and around in both directions, and also drive with the back-foot in front (so-called goofy).

It is also pretty cool the stuff be have brought with us to the cabin that we spend time on when we're not snowboarding. We brought guitars, drums, ukulele, chess, drawing equipment, and etc. So it is like a creative retreat where we are exploring our skills and interests together while learning new cool stuff. The only thing lacking, is perhaps we could have formalized some meditation together, like put more of a retreat structure on the whole thing, but on the other hand I'm working on letting go of control, so perhaps it is just perfect the way it is that it is flowing in its own kind of way.

With the microdosing thing I think the most important thing I still have to learn is to give up the craving for a more intense experience, just settling down into the experience as it is. Sometimes with microdosing I get into some kind of in-between landscape, where I'm not quite fully tripping, but I'm not quite not-tripping either, so that can be a little bit confusing, but there is something interesting about exploring that tension.

So anyways, great stuff going on. I think all this can only grow. Like really getting the musical instruments, the chess, the drawing, the microdosing, the snowboarding, and the supportive and warm social interactions really integrated into some really cool habits that just continue to feed each other. It is about creativity. To just let it flourish all the time in an integrated and fun way. I'm not going anywhere, but this stuff can just continue to grow out of me while I'm right here, right now.

And yeah, also with borrowing my parents cabin, I can notice my mom is very enthusiastic about this. They are actually spending a lot of time at this place, sometimes up to 60 nights per year, so this is a big part of their life, and it makes my mom very glad when I'm taking an interest in their life.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

Three days of snowboard-bootcamp

So me and my two buddies vacation turned into somewhat of a snowboard bootcamp. Hehe. And my buddy who struggled in the beginning did really well the 2nd and 3rd day, so he is really happy and has now been initiated into the art of snowboarding.

And I really love the concept of microdosing. When I was a younger psychonaut, eager to blast myself far out into cosmos, I was seeking probably much of that same experience that adrenaline junkies seek in extreme sports. But now high doses of psychedelics don't do it for me anymore. It's just too rough on my body and mind, and it takes too much time to integrate and process. But microdosing - that's just perfect! And microdosing combined with my interest for extreme sports - well, that's the perfect combination, paradoxically enough, for a somewhat older psychonaut than my younger self. Now I have to say my take on extreme sports has a pretty soft approach to it, but still, for instance with snowboarding, if I can combine such experiences with a microdose every now and then, well, that's a pretty rich life for someone seeking the type of experiences that I seek. And of course - meditation. Meditation is the most important ingredient in this. But only meditation gets too boring in the long run. I'm not a monk any longer.

I really like the concept of a bootcamp - a dedicated period of intensified learning. We talked about having other types of bootcamps as well. A creativity bootcamp, for instance. I guess you could say meditation retreats are meditation bootcamps.

[Thittato]

Normalization

So waking up back home again, starting the day with 10 sun salutations to get the stiffness out of my body. These three days were totally a success, both technically, socially and as a nature-experience. But once again, it is one of those kicks that I get, that seems temporary. I've been on two snowboarding trips this winter, and after the first one (only one day) I was extremely hungry for more. But now after 3 days of snowboarding, I seem to have gotten it out of my system (at least for a couple of days), and the question remains - where do I want to invest my time? Should I just go along with whatever kind of kick comes my way, or should I more actively pursue one targeted direction?

So back to this central theme in my life of directionlessness. I think the feeling of directionlessness usually comes on pretty strong when I've been focusing very strongly on one of my interests for a concentrated little period. The emptiness that comes after having been very inspired. I guess that is pretty normal. It is like waking up after a really cool party, being alone again after all your friends are gone. I like to normalize things these days. Still these questions are valid, but I was about to get stressed here (like I often do hehe...)

Anyways, whether snowboarding (or some other kind of "extreme sport") becomes a lifestyle, or if one trip per winter is enough, it was pretty cool to make into such an intense and conscious learning-experience. The whole group-dynamic really boosted the experience for all of us. Towards the end we were all in a state of flourishing riding down the hills together like a playful and fun crew.

When I woke up this morning, once again, I was in doubt about everything. I'm very often in a state like that when I wake up, and gradually as the day goes on I wear it off, and towards the end of the day I'm often in a state of flourishing.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

Daily meditation

Yesterday I meditated for two hours together with two friends. It was really nice. Sat for 45 min again this morning. I'm noticing that my meditation practice is not as daily as I want it to be, and that I write about many things here that are not directly related to my efforts to keep up a daily meditation practice. Perhaps I'll need to put some kind of structure on this, but to begin with I'll just say that from now on I'll make an effort to at least meditate once per day, without putting any time-requirements on for how long quite yet. For me today, meditation represented the transformation from negative energy to positive energy. Also when I walked around outside afterwards I felt like I was living my deepest purpose just by being in a state of presence. That is a pretty cool feeling. I was enough just by the simple fact of being. Nothing extra needed. I will mediate for 45 more minutes now just to celebrate that feeling. And I will try to make this journal more specific about my attempts to master the craft of meditation. I'm still suffering from spreading myself too thin, and it is pretty clear that I should intensify my efforts at gathering and collecting my energy in a state of presence.

[Thittato]

Feeling cornered in life / "Dark Night of the Soul"

45 min of meditation today. Some pretty rough feelings today related to feeling "cornered" again in life. Not seeing any clear path ahead. Feeling that most of my tricks have been used up. I regret that I procrastinated for so long before I sat down today to meditate. I will work on making it the very first thing I do as soon as I have the opportunity. When I sat there was actually some relief just sitting with the anger, grief and frustration that I feel today. I feel like a dabbler in everything that I do, and it is just random which kind of activity I have juice on at whatever kind of point during the day or week. Wondering if this is some inescapable point that I will always return to, and whether there is some deeper spiritual crisis hidden behind all my attempts to find some activity to indulge in that will always bring me back to this feeling of feeling cornered in life as soon as the juice runs dry on whatever kind of escape route I try to indulge in. Kind of makes sense to see it in this light. Instead of scrambling around to try to find some solution to this, I should probably instead just continue to sit with it. Face it head on. Helps to write about it. Makes it easier to see what is going on. In fact I don't think I've ever been at this point and had access to the tool of journaling at the same time. Feels like I'm loosing all interest in all the cultural stuff that I normally do, but actually that would be quite a relief if I was once again forced back to the contemplative life. No need to fight it. I will sit for 45 more minutes right now.

Funny how this journaling first started out with me making a journal about music, and then about drawining, and then I return to making one about meditation, and then I get side-tracked a little bit here and there in my journal about meditation, but eventually it returns back to this inescapable point.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

More on dark night, meaninglessness, existential crisis, etc.

So this whole journaling-thing started out with me pretty much having the attitude of reaching some new level of complexity in all areas of my life. I dabble in a lot of things - art/drawing, guitar/music, dating, yoga, chess, psychedelics, snowboarding, etc, etc.

And somehow I think I can become good at all these things.

But whenever, with any of these things, when I'm starting to feel that I'm getting some kind of basic foothold in the understanding of these various pursuits, then I hit that same wall, over and over. So I've been blaming myself for this - thinking there is something wrong with me, or that I have some kind of ADHD or something like that.

But now I think that wall that I hit is the wall of meaningslessness.

And I'm just too scared to face it.

So I try to kick up some other project that will get me away from it. But then the same thing happens, again and again.

It is like peeling away the surface layers, to really get to the core of what is going on.

And the core of what is going on is some kind of spiritual/existential crisis that somehow always returns and that I haven't yet been able to process fully.

So it is impossible to escape this thing, no matter how hard I try, so I better just deal with it. And I think meditation in combination with journaling is perhaps the best tools I've had so far.

Feels like it helps a lot to understand my "condition."

I'm actually feeling pretty excited about this.

Edited January 24, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

The skill of meditation

So today I meditated for 45 min pretty soon after I woke up, but still I'm going to trim that time down even some more because I was fooling around 5-10 min on social media before I got out of bed. I'm going to make it into the very first thing I jump out of bed to do when I wake up.

Been feeling much more energized about my meditation again.

I think with all these skills and tricks I want to learn on all these other areas, perhaps it is because they are much more tangible. With my meditation I can't really show it to anyone else, except that my vibe gets better because of it and that is really something that gives social value, but still it is less tangible.

However, I got to pursue this as if I was a teenager eager to pursue snowboard, for instance. The meditation world is the same with tricks and community and stories and heroes and youtube-lessons and coaches, and yeah, pretty much the whole culture that all human activities is surrounded by.

Gonna clean up my place because it has gotten messy here as a reflection of how messy I've been feeling on the inside, and then I'm going to meditate for 45 more minutes.

[Thittato]

Purification - "Fire Meditation"

Sat for 1 hour today. Felt a lot of hopelessness and depression before I sat down. Quickly after I sat down the resistance towards this emotional pain started to disappear and I could go into it without fighting it, and then quickly after that the pain started to feel like it was burning with strength and vitality - like the pain was good because it was transforming into strength and dedication.

Normally when I sit down I start to feel a lot of tingling sensations throughout my body, especially in my hand and in my feet. These tingling sensations represent a sense of well-being and flow in my body. I think of them as the Qi Energy from Chinese Medicine. Along with these tingling sensations I get a visual image of flowing light behind my closed eye-lids, and when stuck energy really starts to flow and my concentration feels good I start to get a sense of my whole being turning into a light ball of flowing energy and vitality.

Today when I meditated this energy ball feeling much more took the flavor of my whole being being a fire of purification, and my visual images were filled up with the colors and motions of a fire. To increase this feeling even more, I add on to it with the intent to visualize these types of images so that both my bodily feeling and my visualization-ability is co-operating to immerse myself as much as I can in this experience.

I sit in half-lotus, and usually when I start out feeling down like I did my posture doesn't reflect strength at all, but as this experience literally started catching fire I was sitting very erect and I felt very strong in my body.

I've had many of these types of purification meditations. In fact I think there is an element of purification every time I sit down, but this is the first time I have felt that I've had a successful "Fire Meditation."

Edited January 25, 2019 by Thittato

[Zigzag Idiot]

15 minutes ago, Thittato said:

Normally when I sit down I start to feel a lot of tingling sensations throughout my body, especially in my hand and in my feet. These tingling sensations represent a sense of well-being and flow in my body. I think of them as the Qi Energy from Chinese Medicine.

I experience this too. More so in my hands. 

Thank you for sharing.

I enjoy reading your Journal.

[Thittato]

On 1/25/2019 at 3:42 PM, Zigzag Idiot said:

I experience this too. More so in my hands. 

Thank you for sharing.

I enjoy reading your Journal.

Thank you! I'm very glad to hear. I really appreciated that article you posted me, and I look forward to get to know your journal better :-)

One of the first meditation techniques I studied centered around feeling this tingling in the hands and feet, and seeing how it was connected with the breath, and starting to think of this tingling as a "breath energy" and to see how our whole body is breathing this breath energy in connection to the actual physical breath, and in this way to stimulate it and make it flow in our whole body and make this into a unified flowing whole to collect and deepen our attention around. Pretty cool :-)

[Thittato]

45 min of meditation per day

I feel that now I have landed at a daily meditation practice of 45 min per day. This has been my standard before that I have returned to again and again. Just did my meditation, and I feel really grateful for this combination of meditation and journaling. Finally I have something going that gives my spiritual practice momentum again. I've been also looking more into Leo's teachings lately, and I have to admit that there is a lot there that I like, so there was probably a meaning why I came here. Especially I like his principle of self-experimentation in his 65 Core Principles of Living the Good Life. Basically just that we continue to experiment and experiment until we find what works for us, and that what works is different for everybody. Right now my self-experimentation brought me to the combination of journaling and meditation - which I think is a really powerful combination. So I feel grateful for my life these days. Seems like so much shit is starting to get sorted out after I started these journals. And I have a lot of faith in this process. The things I've been struggling with for years will get sorted out. And if I need something else or more to get my life to where I want it to be, I will figure out what that is and go get it. I have faith in my process again.

[Thittato]

Full lotus

So today I sat my 45 min in full lotus. I will see if my back and knees can handle it. Been training for this for a while, and it gives me a very powerful feeling when I sit like that. How to best describe it? Feels like my body is as collected and concentrated as it can possibly be, and erect and proud, and somehow also small and humble because I pack myself together to such an extent. It feels like some kind of bodily mastery, although the potential to "master" this pose is much greater. It is far from without strain so far, but still it was pretty pleasant today. I want to make these 45 min into as much of a "power pack" as possible, and training for full lotus really contributes to that. It also gives inspiration to my yoga-practice, because meditation feels much more like also a physical project this way. I find it is also symbolic regarding where all this is going. I started out with lots of thought in all kinds of directions, and now I try to collect and concentrate down all this energy, both physically, mentally and emotionally.

[Thittato]

Full lotus 2

Today I sat for 35 min in full lotus, and then the remaining 10 min in half-lotus. Worked well today as well, no pain in my knees or my lower-back yet, but I can sense that it will be a strain to go for 45 min straight in full lotus every day, so I will try to build it up more gradually by doing only the first 15 min from now on. But 15 min of that every day will probably make my body quickly adjust to it because it already seems pretty accessible, so better just be careful not to over-extend. Fun to have a physical project around this as well :-)

Edited January 31, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

Full lotus 3 and gratitude

So before I'm going to bed now I wanted to sit for 15 more minutes in full lotus, and so I did 2 yoga-exercises to open up my hips that are really great. So then I sat for 15 min, and when I was done I was so inspired that I wanted to sit for 15 more min with the opposite foot on top, so I repeated the yoga-exercises and did that and that also worked really well even though it felt a little bit odd compared to the usual way I sit. But I just meditated on this odd feeling going into it and embracing it and that was really fun too. Wonder why I haven't thought about this before. I've been meditating for 16-17 years, but I always just sat in half lotus with the same foot on top of my thigh. That is like getting stuck in the same comfortable pattern when I could have been using this time more efficiently getting more physical benefits out of it as well. Anyways now I'm doing that, and it feel like I'm translating some of the things I learned on snowboard over to this. Last time I was snowboarding I was specifically training for learning to ride with the opposite foot in front of what I usually do. I've always sought safe patterns like that to settle down in, but now I get angry at how lazy I've been with not challenging myself with simple things like this. So anyways, learning to do it the odd way is now my friend :-)

Feels like just mediating has a lot of health effects, and especially when done in full lotus. It is something about the circulation that it creates in the body that is both vitalizing and strengthening.

Feels like my body is just ready to open up much more now. Like untying itself.

Funny thing is when I sit in half-lotus I sit on a cushion and than often when I have gotten some momentum in my practice I have felt like a king sitting on my throne. Although that has some healthy aspects to it, I think a sense of pride can be healthy, it also has some narcissistic aspects to it. When I sit in full lotus I sit directly on the floor only on top of a blanked, and I somehow feel smaller in many ways, but small in a humble and cute way. Like this meditation thing is no big deal. I'm just going to sit there for a little bit, re-charge and tune into a more gentle and friendly state while my body is open and relaxed. Perhaps that's what much of it is about. Just getting the tensions out of my body so that I can become just gentle, friendly and humble. I've given too much weight to this sense of feeling powerful and strong. A lot of that is just some ego-stuff wanting to get ahead of everybody else.

Feeling so much gratitude right now :-)

[Thittato]

Full lotus 4

Sat for 1 hour today. 15 min intervals alternating between doing full lotus my normal way and then with the odd leg on top. In between these intervals I did the two yoga-exercises I have that are good for opening up my hips. Felt cool to do a drill like this. Already the odd side feels much less odd. Feels like my body is really opening up now. I will do some more yoga in the coming days as well to enhance this feeling of my body opening up. Feels a lot like my yoga-practice and my meditation-practice is merging into one thing.

[Thittato]

Back in my center

Seems like now that I have re-established my meditation-practice again as my nr. 1 priority, that the momentum is really getting strong again, and that I feel much more grounded, present, and landed in myself. Holy moses how far my mind can go in between these glimpses of being landed in myself. So I'm really happy that I discovered this page and this emphasis on journaling and that now it seems I have managed to write myself back to myself again. And so the journey from here on will just be to take this art of presence to the level of mastery, in other words being present all the time. I don't think that that is really all that hard, even though I have to admit that I have meditated for 16-17 years without managing to do that, but there has just been so much suffering and confusion in my life, that again and again I've lost the belief that I can actually bring my mind to the present moment and make it stay there. Like that priority and the will to do it just totally disappears in all the confusion. But now, with the help of both journaling and meditation, I'm going to map out how I can make this come alive in a gradual and systematic way. I really feel that I have suffered enough now, and when my mind goes off again to wallow in some negative thoughts and emotions, I think I just have to tell myself over and over that I don't want to go there in the sense of wallowing in it. I can go there in order to "feel it to heal it" and that takes just being present with whatever is going on, but that wallowing part, I think I can now gain the mental discipline to avoid that bad habit. I've simply seen this suffering going on and on over so many years now, that by now I should really know that no amount of spinning around in my own mind will ever be the solution to anything.

Interesting how this journaling-journey started out with me being pretty much everywhere in my various creative projects and all kinds of thoughts about everything, and now I've managed to write myself back to the very core. Like trimming down a bush in the garden that hasn't been taken care of in a long time with wild branches going off in all kinds of directions. Haha, that's actually how I've been feeling.

[Thittato]

Meditation states

Had a little depression going here again. Interesting how I don't notice that I fight it, and then I start to look in panic for external solutions, until I figure out what is going on and surrender to the feeling.

It probably came because yesterday was so social fun, and now I feel left on my own again.

I've already sat for 45 min, but I will sit for 45 more min after I'm done writing here.

Also yesterday I was getting into a meditation state that was really mellow and nice, and today I didn't quite get there, but the momentum was sort of like there, but the state I was getting to, even though it was pretty present, had more of an edgy quality to it.

I'm trying to learn to access these concentrated states of well-being, presence and softness, so I get a bit of a backlash when I'm not able to reproduce it. So I will have to look closer at this disappointment. It is like syncing up with what is here right now, and not trying to reproduce what was here yesterday which will always be a failure when I try, but if the attempt to reproduce is here, then that is something I can embrace.

These states are a paradox. If I don't try at all my mind will never get collected enough, but if I try too hard I will squeeze them.

And if there is more difficult stuff in my system that I need to process, then I have to work with that instead and usually these states are not available, at least not until the difficulties have been processed. So sit with what is. Sometimes I'm rewarded with states of well-being, sometimes not.

[Thittato]

Vipassana and samatha

In the buddhist meditation that I do there are two components called vipassana and samatha. Vipassana is the aspect of clear seeing or insight and samatha is the aspect of calmness. These two qualities are supposed to be brought into balance. Sometimes my mind is naturally very calm, and it is nice to just let it settle down and get some well-needed rest. Other times my mind is more active and I have to work more in my meditation and that is when I have to emphasize the vipassana aspect more. Today was such a day, and it felt like my vipassana skill has become much sharper, which was really cool.

[Thittato]

Reflections around gestalttherapy group-processes and perhaps getting an art-studio next year or trying to figure out if that is just some daydreaming shit that will just make me more miserable.

Mediated for 45 min this morning. Fell out of meditation for three days now. It has to do with having to do much work and a weekend-seminar regarding this gestalttherapist-education that I'm doing. Been going through a lot of shit for these three days. First of all I'm just going to finish this 2nd year of this education and then I'm going to quit. The education is 4 years in total, but I really don't like it anymore. It was good for the 1st year, but this whole 2nd year I've been really uninspired with this type of work. I think this form of psychotherapy lacks a spiritual dimension, and the sort of joy and life-energy you see in groups that practice meditation. This is a low-energy uninspired group that wallows in trauma, so it is pretty bad to be there when I've met so many joyful spiritual practitioners in my life. But anyways, I've signed the contract for this year, so I will just have to try to make the best out of it. Even though I don't want to be there, I will use this group as a mirror for all my projections. Fortunately I still like our main-teacher. She met me in a really nice way this time, as usual. So I'm reliving my school-traumatization where I've been sitting behind my desk for years feeling let down by my parents and the system and just projecting out that everything is shit and escaping into my fantasy, and she helped me understand that and that made me calm down. So I will just have to use the reminder of this year as a "projection screen" to get all this stuff triggered and then use the help of the teachers and my meditation practice to work through this stuff.

So perhaps this is related because these last days I've also escaped into my fantasies about becoming an artist again, starting to think next year I will get an art-studio and that I will start to plan for my next exhibition (I've had several before, but this would have been my first solo-exhibition), but when I woke up again today that whole drive is just totally gone and I'm back to presence and meditation as my value-system. This sort of things happens over and over and over for many years, so I don't know what it is, whether I should go for it or whether I should just consider it some fantasy stuff. It is like the fantasy gets more and more real and realistic each time making plans and trying to figure out how I will direct my creative process in a realistic and dedicated way. But still that whole value system around making art seems to fall back on the ground when I mediate and sort of see through the narcissistic stuff in it. Probably doesn't have to be that way, but I guess I will just have to continue to meditate and see which way my life-force will move in based on that.

Anyways, to use this gestaltherapy-student group that I don't like as a "projection screen" is probably the best that I can do for the reminder of this school-year, and it sort of makes me more settled to develop some understanding around how I will approach this. I think this gestalttherapy actually is some kind of trigger practice. No one can sit in a group like that listening to all that traumatic stuff without getting really really triggered. I don't think there is anything wrong with my capacity for vulnerability and empathy just because I don't like to sit immersed in a group like that for so long anymore. It was fun and meaningful when I needed that support and to get a sense of our shared sense of vulnerability and support for each other when I felt motivated to work with myself that way, but now it is just not inspiring anymore. I can still have a lot of vulnerability and empathy in my real life situations, for instance my job, when the situation calls for it, but those group-processes are some kind of artificially created groups where all this stuff is triggered up in too large quantities for me.

Anyways, all this shit is stuff that I wallow in over and over, so I'm glad to get it out like this in the form of journaling so that I can see it in front of me instead of it just spinning around inside of my head.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Thittato

[Thittato]

Dark Night of the Soul

Hmmm......

Meditated for 45 min, and then for 30 min a bit later, today.

Woke up with a lot of strong feelings of being totally miserable and a failure in life. Lots of shame, worthlessness, and just pretty much everything that is nasty and bad. Managed to clear out many of these feelings with the 2nd meditation, but seems like this "spot" is where it leads back to again and again, and I think there is some deep purification that is needed to process out all these feelings. Not just one meditation and then everything is fine again. Perhaps the most irritating part about this is that I don't stay there long enough. I get some reward from my meditation and then I feel fine again, but then the misery comes back again and again, so I sort of wish I could just stay in the misery until the purification was done. Just land in it. It is always better when I just accept that my life is miserable right now and probably will be for a period of time until this stuff is processed, then when I get my hopes up that life is fun again and having it crushed over and over. But probably I will just have to have the attitude that there is a lot of mediative work needed right now.

This is also probably to wear down the escapism I get into when life feels fine again. Getting fed up with being intoxicated by the fun parts of life, forgetting there is spiritual work to do.