Addicted to content

[Max_V]

I am addicted to filling up emptiness with content. I feel better when I don't do anything, yet I must fill my time. I must consume content. 

I don't know how to go about changing this is a handleable way. Every time I try to work on it a little bit, it's like a big wave comes a drags me away in a fast going stream, unable to move. And I'm back to square one. Again, and again, and again. I guess after a while I just gave up, because the issue was too big of a titan to even look at.

I know this need for content is the reason why I have so many thoughts coarsing through my mind all the time. Even when I'm not on the internet, or whatever, my thoughts are here to keep me busy and drag me into their stories. It's my modus operandi. 

How do I change this mode my mind is set into, needing there to be 'stuff', in a way that will stick and is handleable?

 

[Fishy]

Have you tried keeping your awareness more in the body than in the head area? This and focusing on the breath to drag my awareness into the body has helped me alot to have a less noisy mind. 

[Preetom]

No other way. This is the force of habit all throughout millions of years and lifetimes.

You're against this astounding force of nature aka Maya. You cant...until you do

 

[The Blind Sage]

I struggle with the same issue, nothing really worked until I went to a vipassana retreat. The weeks that followed afterwards I was eating my food without watching anything and have never enjoyed it more. Of course it didn't last though, but hopefully it will stick as i keep progressing....

[Aaron p]

My only real addiction is truth. I can't get enough of it, it's like fuckin cocaine to me. I get a little bit of it, then I want MOREEEE. MOREEE TRUTH

[Preetom]

1 hour ago, Aaron p said:

My only real addiction is truth. I can't get enough of it, it's like fuckin cocaine to me. I get a little bit of it, then I want MOREEEE. MOREEE TRUTH

good boy getting woke

See ya on the other side

[Sahil Pandit]

@Max_V Make a firm decision to dramatically reduce your stimulation intake. This could look like the following:

Turning off the computer and phone, and not looking at it for ___ amount of hours.

During this time, sit on the couch and purge through the need to "do something". Instead, use this time to connect to "Being".

After that, make yourself a meal or go for a walk/gym. 

Then when you come back, slowly start improving other areas of your life as needed. (Clean up the room, organize your items, reduce your items, etc.)

Then come back and u can use your phone to see if you have any missed texts or what have you. 

[Truth Addict]

You're not doing anything wrong. You just think you do. Drop that thought and accept who you are.

If you feel that you need content, don't try to convince yourself otherwise. That's a waste of time.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Truth Addict

[PenguinPablo]

Interesting idea. Can you elaborate @Truth Addict?

I went hard af with meditation for like 1 month after a retreat. Eventually meditating on the breath 24/7. However I burnt out and started playing video games hours every day and binging pronography for several days. 

Still putting this all back together. Not sure what is right or what is wrong.

 

[SOUL]

10 hours ago, Truth Addict said:

You're not doing anything wrong. You just think you do. Drop that thought and accept who you are.

If you feel that you need content, don't try to convince yourself otherwise. That's a waste of time.

This. @Max_V

It doesn't matter how much or little content you have, there are no requirements to adhere to. You are creating the hoop to jump through then judging yourself for not jumping through it. Don't let others convince you one condition is any 'better' or more 'right' or 'true' than another.

To cease self suffering just sever attachment to any condition or circumstance, be at peace with simply being present no matter the amount of content that happens to be passing before your eyes or through your mind at any given moment and your liberation from self suffering will be abiding.

Edited July 24, 2019 by SOUL

[Truth Addict]

@PenguinPablo Like @SOUL said.

Because what is the ultimate goal of all of an individual human behaviour? Why does a human being do anything at all?

[Preetom]

18 hours ago, PenguinPablo said:

Interesting idea. Can you elaborate @Truth Addict?

I went hard af with meditation for like 1 month after a retreat. Eventually meditating on the breath 24/7. However I burnt out and started playing video games hours every day and binging pronography for several days. 

Still putting this all back together. Not sure what is right or what is wrong.

 

You look too old for binging on porn. Take it easy grandpa ffs if you dont want a heart attack ?

[PenguinPablo]

@Preetom it's porn, not meth youngster.

@SOUL yeah. not sure if it makes a difference but im intent on jumping in the opposite direction behavior for the sake of proving to that inner tyrant that shit aint so srs. 

[Joseph Maynor]

How much content do you need to do what you know what you need to do for your life?

[possibilities]

This is a very simple to solve actually.

To me it seems like it’s because you’ve given up your mental independence, you feel you cannot entertain yourself or come up with answers by yourself.

I would practice imagining situations of helplessness, because that seems to what you’re experiencing, then imagine overcoming those situations step by step (so not magically. 

Imagine you’ve been stuck to your chair for 10 hours straight with a VR headset on that you just can’t get out of because you’re just so engrossed in what’s happening because the the content in the VR I’d feeding you the illusion that you’re fulfilling some existential purpose when in reality it’s slowly killing any such thing.

How will you stop the addiction? 

What steps are you going to take inside your mind to take off the VR knowing that it’s not boredom (or needing to go to the toilet, or go eat something, let’s say the VR is so engrossing it stops those impulses) that is going to get you to take it off?

What internal recognition will you have to make?

What new beliefs around your competency to generate your own internal content (from entertainment to problem solving) will you need to make?

What past situations (maybe past situations of feeling helpless - make a list then one by one imagine overcoming those situations and what lessons you generated to overcome them to help you with the virtual situations you create in your mind) will you need to heal from in order to overcome prior psychological conditioning that led you to this situation?

 

Edited July 25, 2019 by possibilities

[possibilities]

Leo made a video about people giving their authority away which touches on this, however what I think is more specific terminology is power (I.e. giving away their power) and the construction of power (from the individual human to the ‘beginning’ of the universe). Power, perceived power and it’s distribution is a very nuanced subject that is probably one of the most important for a student of life to understand if they really want to know where they fit in the grand scheme of things, it’s even in some ways more important than understanding how beliefs are created given power goes to the heart of why they are created. 

Many people unknowingly put the power (some refer to it as responsibility in this sense or authority) in the hands of others to supply them with some unmet need, some desire, without ever really contemplating or negotiating the contract they’re unconsciously making with the supplier/s.

Whether this be a personal relationship, a fast food company, a certain celebrity, a teacher or company they work for. Or even as it pertains to thought constructs their consciousness has created, say with respect to giving their power away to attachments to the past, some belief they “just have to believe in” (for whatever reason, perhaps to feel like they belong to some group, which is also related to power) and so on.

Power infects every aspect of society, an individual, history and existence itself as far as I’ve reasoned for better and for worse say relative to some utilitarian value set (just to frame better/worse given these kinds of ethics can be relative to reference frames). 

Its a subject that is quite complicated and in depth so you’ll need to do your own thinking on it. It would take Leo at least a series of 10 1+ hour videos to cover it adequately given just how much of existence it touches on beyond the stereotypical status game humans play so I’m not sure you’ll see him do it anytime soon. He could do a mini series on it though who knows.

Once this subject is truly understood though so many other things will be understood about existence like dominoes falling from this first point of comprehension.

A good text is Nietzsche’s Will To Power but it even goes much further than this.

https://archive.org/stream/TheWillToPower-Nietzsche/will_to_power-nietzsche_djvu.txt

Nietzsche was a pretty conscious fellow as well, here’s a quote from the text:

“Through thought the ego is posited; but hitherto one believed as ordinary people do, that in "I think" there was something of immediate certainty, and that this "I" was the given cause of thought, from which by analogy we understood all other causal relationships. However habitual and indispensable this fiction may have become by now--that in itself proves nothing against its imaginary origin: a belief can be a condition of life and nonetheless be false.”

 

Edited July 25, 2019 by possibilities

[TheAvatarState]

On 7/23/2019 at 7:16 AM, Aaron p said:

My only real addiction is truth. I can't get enough of it, it's like fuckin cocaine to me. I get a little bit of it, then I want MOREEEE. MOREEE TRUTH

You should question this. If you're experiencing addiction, then it cannot be to Truth. Truth is something you are. It cannot be understood, only experienced through a mystical experience. 

So the question is... what are you addicted to?