Journey to Nothing

[LastThursday]

Travelling back from Dublin yesterday I realised something. A lot of what makes travelling (or any such situation) uncomfortable for me is all to do with the body. For example train and aircraft seats really are uncomfortable for sitting in for any length of time. Shoulders and back begin to hurt and this makes you want to move around or get up. Fairly obvious. 

The body also complains when under some sort of stress. This can be caused by any number of things when travelling. No one enjoys queuing for example. What makes queuing unenjoyable is impatience, close proximity to people (I don't mind too much personally), and standing for long periods. For me it manifests as tension around my neck and shoulders and a tendency to hold my breath or breathe very shallowly. Mentally, it's a kind of "willing" the queue to move faster, which causes dissonance with reality. I have to actively work against these manifestations of stress: I look sideways away from the queue, relax my shoulders and try to breathe more deeply, find something else to fixate on, quieten my self-talk. Ideally I avoid queuing until the last minute.

Whilst travelling there is a lot of waiting around too, when all you want to do is be making progress towards your destination. The obvious things like reading or listening to music help, but simply just meditating or people watching can be effective. I also don't wear a watch when travelling, because clock watching causes stress and boredom. Sleep can be effective for passing time, but it's nearly always difficult to sleep sitting up without head support.

One thing I can't recommend enough is to get plenty of sleep before travelling. I tend to feel more stressed and unable to control it if I'm tired. Strangely there's also a tendency to want to eat when travelling. I don't know if this is just comfort and distraction from the stress of travelling, but I actively try and avoid eating unless I'm hungry and just drink liquid instead (I don't drink alcohol when flying to avoid dehydration and tiredness). 

Being in strange surroundings can also be off-putting, if you're abroad then odd customs, dress or having to deal with foreign languages can be difficult or even just trying to find your way round - the simplest things can become difficult. The best thing to combat this I find, is just to go with an open mind and not have too many expectations, enjoy being in a new situation, relax the body and the mind, let it wash over you.

I'd say if you can be totally relaxed in the body and mind and be in the moment when travelling, then you can apply this to all areas of life.

[LastThursday]

Two throughts are whirling around each other, and I wanted to capture them before they disappear.  A: the interchangeability of the sense of self; B: the absurd coincidence of reality. I don't think they're connected outwardly, but they probably are somehow.

---

Imagine throwing a die over and over and getting the same repeating pattern 4 and 2. You would suspect something was up, and you might inspect the die for some form tampering. Probability itself says that any pattern or non-pattern is equally probable given enough throws. Now extend the notion out to infinity. The die will throw every conceivable pattern sometime in the infinite number of throws. In fact it will throw any finite sequence infinitely many times.

Notice that even though we are interested in certain patterns, say 1,2,3, each throw is totally independent of the previous throw (given a completely fair die). So despite having patterns, each pattern in itself is not cohesive, the parts of a pattern are not dependent on each other. What if we extend the analogy of die throwing to reality?

Reality appears to be "meaningful". Meaning in a stripped down sense is just patterns that we recognise. Reality is chock-full of patterns. Each object and emotion is a pattern, ideas of space and time are patterns, our sense of self is a juxtaposition of patterns. Patterns, patterns, patterns everywhere and at every level. 

Say there is an entity - for the sake of argument - which throws random assortments of qualia together infinitely many times. Somewhere along that sequence of infinity randomness dictates the qualia will come together to form meaningful patterns. We are living in one such assortment of randomness which is rich in coincidence because those patterns have occured together all at once. If you have enough monkeys mashing typewriter keys ad infinitum, they will eventually type the works of shakespeare: if God throws qualia around enough it will create your reality.

See how in this model of reality, nothing is actually dependent on anything else, it's just one big coincidence. Cause and effect is just coincidence, the laws of nature coincidence and the same for the rest. What about all those realities God threw together that didn't quite work out? It doesn't matter. The process of "throwing" qualia sits outside of time and space, it's only the patterns that matter. There's circularity here: it's only the meaningful arrangements of qualia that get "selected" by consciousness to be "reality". So the base of reality is in fact not the arrangement of qualia themselves, but the process of "selection". What gets selected? It's simple, those patterns that repeat themselves. For example, gravity is a pattern that repeats itself throughout the cosmos. The patterns are self-selecting through their own repetition.

Fundamentally any pattern is just difference. A repeating pattern is a repeating difference.

---

We feel differently at different times. We can look back at our former selves and sense that we have become different people over time.  Because we label that trajectory of our persona with the same label (e.g. Guillermo) we have an idea of continuity. But this is untrue, our sense of self can be untethered. In fact the dissolution of the self is a goal for spiritual practices. I can say killing a self (or ego), is hard to achieve and in some ways undesirable unless you go and live in a cave, or mix just in spiritual circles all the time. The next best thing is to take on different selves.

The idea is that we're made up of a huge number of processes or entities or smaller selves. This is because as apes we like to mimic other apes and also other animals. We store away all that mimicry for later retrieval. Not only that, even though we may not outwardly express that mimicry, in order to understand anything at all we have to internally embody the mimicry. This is the source of empathy and altruism, we are constantly modelling (aka theory of mind) other beings albeit mostly unconsciously. We can leverage this internalised mimicry or theory of mind, to "inhabit" other selves. The goal of this is pretty much the same as killing the self: to be free and fluid and non-attached and flexible in our thinking and behaviour.

To do this we turn up the volume on that mimicry. We are used to inhabiting our everyday selves, but with practice we can bring out all that learned mimicry to be someone else entirely, even if only for a limited time. The extreme example of this being multiple personality disorder, in which those other selves are amplified so much that they become mutually exclusive. We can do this at any time and for any aspect of ourselves.

Some things to play around with are: voice - raising or lowering pitch and tempo, walk and gait - tempo, spacing, attitude, blink rate, facial expressiveness, hand gesturing, different clothing. What tends to happen is that whatever the body does, the mind follows. If you want to think and feel differently, then change the body first. Maybe if you want to express more masculine traits, squared off shoulders, feet apart, serious expression; you will find yourself thinking in a more masculine manner. With plenty of practice this becomes second nature, and you can put on the clothes of a different self to suit a situation and your mood.

The main point is freedom of expression. Instead of being rigidly "you" you can accomodate yourself to an ever changing reality. Mimicry is the most powerful tool we posses.

Edited September 30, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Are you a drama queen or king? I feel as though I've always had a strong distaste for drama, I prefer a calm and considered approach even if all hell is breaking loose. And yet, drama has followed me around like a bad smell, and I have to consider the fact that I might be at the centre of it at times. I suspect I'm a closet hypocrite.

Definitions. What constitutes drama? Fundamentally it's a strong emotional reaction to circumstances, usually negative. But in itself that isn't enough, that emotion has to be expressed in an overt way. That expression can often be over the top and impulsive, and is designed to get the attention of as many people as possible. This is so that the needs of the drama queen/king are met. There is an element of insecurity with drama.

I'm certainly guilty of having strong emotional reactions to circumstances. Usually, this comes about because of some perceived unfairness (towards me generally), or because of being overwhelmed, or more rarely the stupidity of people's actions. My default reactions are intransigence or sarcasm as a way to signal my emotions. They can be effective in getting my own way if done right. However - and I know this - they can induce strong emotions in other people and actually cause the drama I'm trying to avoid. My behaviour is to a degree selfish, but directly challenging a person can also induce drama, and I have done this plenty also. Mostly, I just keep my emotions to myself and let them dissipate, that is the sane option, but nearly always unsatisfactory.

I think my behaviours have coalesced over time in response to being in positions of helplessness when I was younger. I was helpless against bullies at school, I was helpless at work when being asked to do things I was uncomfortable with (long hours, work weekends). In order to wrest back control you have to either make the antagonist feel uncomfortable every time they deal with you, or see that you're unwilling to yield to their demands. Sarcasm or humour can be very effective for making people feel uncomfortable, without them having anything to push back against - and therefore avoiding drama. Intransigence shows that you are unwilling to yield to demands, or if you do yield, you do a bad job of carrying out their demands. Again, it's hard to fight against someone who is carrying out your demands - it avoids drama.

 A lot of drama is caused by outrage. I guess outrage is just a strong emotional reaction to some perceived unfairness or rule breaking or entitlement. The entitlement one is interesting, as often people in positions of authority expect others to do as they say. Directly challenging people in authority often causes outrage which can create drama. 

Some people use drama as a modus operandi, either consciously or unconsciously. At some point in their lives they've realised the effectiveness of getting lots of attention to bolster and validate their emotions. Often elaboration happens around those emotions and a dramatic story is weaved with lots of reasons and justifications for those emotions. Usually, there is an outward projection for the causes of those emotions and a complete rejection of responsibility for owning those emotions: that guy made me unhappy and I'm outraged, everyone needs to know my story!

And my distaste of drama comes from that need to make something bigger than it really is, the impulsiveness and irrationality of it, the need to involved people unnecessarily, and the unnecessary elaboration around simple emotions. It just makes me roll my eyes in despair.  Stay calm, keep your emotions in check, and challenge the person who upset you directly.

[LastThursday]

I held you in my hands, just for a moment and then had to let you go. I knew it in that moment that it would be forever and I would, forever, be looking back at you; back at us as we were. I was tense and angry at what happened with a certainty I haven't felt since. If only I were so certain now, but I am not, what I had is lost. Just like my old tattoo what we were has blurred and become indistinct, rubbed out by the motions of time. What's left is just a shadow of the despair I once felt, that wrench of separation now transformed into I don't know what. No matter what beautiful substitutes have taken your place - I loved them all equally - they were somehow incomparable, you would call me crazy I know. In every love I had I saw you, and yet not you; I wanted to continue loving just you and to hold you in my hands for just a moment again.

[LastThursday]

I thought I would talk about sacred spaces. Then I realised that wasn't quite right. Ok, I'll try and describe what I'm thinking about.

The first kind of space is a sacred space that of churches and cathedrals. I have a fascination with these buildings from an aesthetic point of view - I'm not religious though. In this country Canterbury and Salisbury and Winchester cathedrals come to mind. The sheer bulk of these buildings inspires awe and they are normally taller and more muscular than all the buildings around them. But they are also artistic in their constructions with lots of ornament and figurines looking down at you. They are designed to humble you and make you realise how insignificant you are; but compared to what? The majesty of heaven, or God himself. There's much embodied maleness in these buildings.

It's not that outside that I really want to talk about though, it only sets the scene. The inside is the sacred space, and it asserts its sacredness by assaulting the senses. First is the threshold normally gated by a massive wooden door, left open to invite the curious in. You get a glimpse of the interior from the threshold but never enough to work out what is going on inside. Once in you are subdued by the gloom, a kind of dim evening light which takes a few moments to readjust to. I always feel like I'm trespassing in spite of the open invitation. I suspect that feeling is induced on purpose, but I can't quite fathom how the trick is done or for what purpose. You then realise that you're inside a cavern where all sound is muffled and diffused throughout the space. The impression is always that the inside is actually larger than the outside (as if that were possible), and more delicate and oddly more feminine in character: that you are going back into the womb from where you came. Light and sound and form are being played with inside these buildings to induce a sense of sacredness and for me it always work - they are works of genius.

Some of these aspects that are captured in a cathedral occur naturally, and I have got the same sensations of awe and sacredness by accident as it were. I find being outdoors during dawn or dusk to be like this. I remember sitting outside one evening on holiday by our converted barn, and just being dumbstruck by the massive disc of the setting sun, the warm breeze, and the gentle ever quietening sounds of the countryside. The dim light inducing a kind of wariness and heightened attention.

I find dawn equally magical, I remember being picked up in a minivan to travel to the airport and go to the pyramids in Egypt. I was tired, but excited, the sky was perfectly clear and was as if the whole world were slowly coming alive for the first time. Prayers sung from the mosques could be heard in the distance, and I understood why in that moment - the coming of the day is sacred - and I felt it in that moment. It's like exiting the cathedral and being changed by the experience and being born again.

Some of what I feel in cathedrals, I've experienced inside caves, the tourist ones anyway. As you walk through them again the light is dim, and they can be cavernous or at least the sound is reflected and modulated by the flat and jagged edges of the walls. The wetness and sound of water rushing or dripping coupled with the strange forms and colours of the rock, can send you into a kind of hypnosis, which alters your perception; it feels like another world. Cathedrals have borrowed their tricks from caves.

I remember clearly being on the South island in New Zealand and being sat on a boulder overlooking a huge lake of glacial meltwater, framed by the snow tipped mountains off in the far distance. The water was an otherworldly opaque cyan, and I felt like I was inside someone's idea of a fantasy land. Other than the bus full of backpackers, the place was serene and completly still. I sat on a boulder and just looked on awed. I can honestly say that after a while I was overwhelmed emotionally, it was too much beauty. But behind the beauty was that sense of experiencing something sacred and being rudely reminded that this is how I was meant to feel about my existence.

Edited October 3, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

(beauty alert)

Thinking about beauty makes me emotional, it seems to stir something inside me. I want beautiful things in my life, beautiful people, beautiful surroundings, beautiful experiences. I went through a phase nearly ten years ago where all I wanted to do is be immersed into beauty, and I travelled, visited many many art galleries and museums and tried to have beautiful experiences. I was constantly emotional to the point of tears. Even now I can't work out whether my emotions triggered this seeking or whether the seeking triggered my emotions.

I have had this constant nagging sensation that I'm missing something or I misplaced a part of myself somewhere along the line. A few minutes before starting to write here I worked out what it was, you guessed it: beauty. My listlessness and lack of motivation is caused by one thing only, and that is a lack of beauty to my life. I really thought that what was holding me back was my mediocre circumstances, and my mediocre self and that was causing my lacklustre approach to life. All I needed was to be more excited, more extrovert, harder working, more committed. No. I'm excited and attracted by beautiful things and people.

In that race for comfort I've pared everything down to the essentials so that I could live as a distraction free life as possible. My teenage years so unbalanced me that I withdrew into austerity and self deprecation, I didn't want life to intrude and assert its unwanted distractions and tribulations. I was never allowed to sit still however, life won over me. At university I was constant motion, after that I had girlfriends and careers to think about, constant socialising and my family never let me off the hook with their incessant neediness. Inwardly, I gave up all responsibility to myself and lived for and through other people.

Through no choice of my own (I think) I've been given the chance to get what I always desperately wanted: mostly to be left alone by the ugliness and neediness of life. I've managed to take a deep ten year breath and managed to regain some of that balance I lost all those years ago. I've stopped being beholden to anyone (except my employers and landlady). I'm really free to take flight. I've wiped the slate clean so to speak and now I need to fill it with something. It has to be beauty. Not some limited definition of concensus beauty, but a wider more embracing kind of beauty. I need to be grateful for the beauty around me I already have and even just to recognise it and nuture it. Also, I need to learn what beauty really is to me and pay very close attention to it and be guided by it. And lastly, I have to actively create it for myself, be inspired by it, excited by it and let it motivate me.

When I fantasize about the things I want in my life and who I want to be, I realise now that there is a common thread. I'm ready to tug on that thread.

[LastThursday]

I found it! The picture of the place in NZ I was talking about two posts ago, although it doesn't really do it justice:

Some I took of Salisbury Cathedral:

I forgot about the rabbits:

[LastThursday]

Let me take you by the hand and lead you to a new self.

Let me take you by the hand and lead you to a different way.

Let me take you.

Let me take you quickly; slowly.

Let me take you by the hand and lead you to Nirvana.

Let me take you by the hand and lead you to a unity.

Let me take you by the hand and lead me to you.

[LastThursday]

I had some musings on the epiphenomenon of thought and being a "me" in a body.

One question that continually bugs me is why am I me? The slap your forehead answer is: because I'm not someone else. But there's no joy in that answer, the alternative answers fling you down a deep rabbit hole of existentialism.

One of those anwers is that the notion of me is just an epiphenomenon. The analogy is like that of a computer, hardware and software. The hardware is of course physicality itself, all those transistors and silicon. The software is the configuration of electrons in that all that hardware; electrons themselves also being physical, but the combinatorial properties of shuffling electrons around is the epiphenomenon of software. So it is with "me". The hardware is the stuff of consciousness, colours, sounds, smells, the software is the sense of a "me" inside a body and being a world. The stuff of consciousness arranges itself combinatorially (in patterns) out of which runs the program of a self.

This analogy has a strong whiff of the simulation hypothesis. In a way it is, a "me" is being simulated, as if I were a computer game character; except the hardware is definitely not a silicon computer and the software is not electrons running a program. So what should I make of this fact in relation to asking myself "why me"? The first thing is perhaps the software is such that it has tendency to ask this sort of question about itself, maybe it's completely an epiphenomenon of no value whatsoever; if the software of "me" were to be wiped the hardware would persist and do its own thing. This is just enlightenment from a different angle. Enlightenment is just trying to break the programming enough that these sorts of questions are meaningless, it baldly points out that I'm just software and a frivolous epiphenomenon, and that the "me" can become aware of this.

What enlightenment is, is the hardware asserting its authority over the software.

Ok more about the question "why me?". What's the alternative? Maybe I would jump from person to person and time period to time period Quantum Leap style. In this scenario some core essence of "me" would remain between jumps, because if it didn't I wouldn't be aware of jumping at all. I say "person" because hardware-wise that is the nearest analogue that would fit my program. If I were to jump into a fly, the "me" program would have a very hard time running. If I were to jump into different persons, then that core essence would bleed into that person's character. There would be a discontinuity in that person. If you go to the literature this indeed seems to happen (walk-ins or possession for example).

What about jumping around in time? This should be possible too as an alternative. Again the hardware of consciousness is all-powerful, it can manifest anything it likes. Time period is a very high level concept and involves notions of change. For example to say I could jump into a Victorian gentlement, my core essence would need enough knowledge to realise that this had happened. There is this sense again, that my core essence would have a hard time running say 10,000 years in the future on a foreign planet, so would prefer more familiar time periods.

Maybe the idea of familiarity or compatibility is all that's needed. I am "me" and not "you" because if I were to jump around inhabiting different bodies and time periods, they would be too alien and basically incompatible with the software. I stay as "me" in this body because the software refuses to run on any other hardware. Don't get me wrong though, hardware is not materialism, it's not that "me" couldn't run in your body, that's not it, it's because "me" runs on this particular configuration of consciousness.

That's the problem with epiphenomenons, they give the air of being detached from the substrate that gives rise to them, but in reality they are the substrate behaving in certain persistent ways. I am consciousness not separate from it, it's just that that consciousness has become configured in a certain way that gives rise to a "me".

This begs the question of whether "you" actually exist. Maybe the reason I can't jump from body to body, is that there is in reality one instance of software of "me" running, otherwise known as solipsism. You see the software is programmed to recognise other persons and to reflect that back onto itself. I see two arms, two legs and a head that talks at me, and recognise that as some sort of analogue of "me". So not only is the program simulating "me" it is also simulating "you". Don't confuse the raw conscious experience of a person (hardware), with the experience of seeing your mother (software). The hardware itself does not recognise anything at all, any attempt at recognition or familiarity is all software. All the hardware is able to do is be aware, and it is aware of itself, all the rest is hardware configuring itself into software (like physical electrons running in physical silicon).

So we have a picture of the raw consciousness of the world with the singular ability to be aware of itself, and the rest is simulation. Even enlightement can't jack you out of the simulation, because if it did everything would cease to make any sense at all, like turning off the power to the computer (and aborting all running programs). The power of enlightenment is over-stated.

So, why me? Because I am an epiphenomenon of a slice of consciousness, that has sandboxed itself. The only option open to me is to modify the program of "me" running enough that the hardware asserts itself more strongly.

 

[LastThursday]

I think I'll ramble today. It's kind of interesting sometimes just to be nosey about other people's lives and what they get up to. I guess that's why some of us watch TV soaps (I do not). I'm fighting with the cognitive dissonance of having to do work, I have a shed load to do, but my brain is just going "nope". I just cannot quite bring myself to concentrate. Programming takes immense concentration - although it varies by task - usually I can get myself in the zone, but if anything's slightly off then it becomes nearly impossible. I do feel a bit of tiredness and I haven't been for a walk, enticingly the sun has just started shining, so I may just fuck it and go out. The problem is this particular task has been outstanding for months, and there is a lull in the influx of my workload, so now is prime to to knock this particular task on the head.

If I worked for myself it would possibly be easier, my off days I would just switch off and vegetate or do something not-left-brained. I sort of like the spacey feeling of being a bit tired, it's like being in a dream. I notice this especially on walks. I have pretty much exhausted all the walking routes around my local area, and as things go I do have my favourites which I patrol often. So I can compare and contrast the days and how I feel each time. Sometimes I'm very "present" I feel connected to my senses and focused in a certain way. Other times I'm in my head with a kind of stream of consciousness thing going on, my thoughts are fleeting and incoherent (no I'm not psychotic) and I feel disconnected from the world around me - at times like these my walks seem to pass very quickly. I often try and force connection with my senses, by paying attention to what's going on around me, and it can work after some time, other times no chance. I do like using walking to ground me, as I'm very prone to being in my head. Yet other times, I'm completely in thought and rational analysis, which can be useful for problem solving.

Also what's not helping is that I'm having the outside of my building painted. Scaffolding is up and I have to put up with the oddity of painters passing by my windows (I'm on the second floor). They're also painting my windows, so they keep fucking around with opening them, scraping them and so on. It's also cold outside in Blighty, so it's fucking annoying to have windows open. Apparently so my landlady tells me, they were meant to paint in Spring, but Covid or whatever. Why the fuck they have to do it in Autumn instead and not wait until next Spring I just don't understand. Yeah I know, let it go, let it wash over you, don't be too attached, it's just an illusion anyway, yeah yeah. The smell of paint fumes isn't that pleasant either.

So I'm listening to more Dub Techno which I use as an aide to work, it's a device for shutting up my chattering mind (it's not working today though). But I appreciate the repetitive and ever changing soundscape of it. This one at the moment:

I'll go into what music I like and why some time on here. But I will say I like rythmic music.

I've never been one to go against my natural impulses and inclinations, rather, I like to explore them. But this can get in the way of things I have to do, there's a lot of that being a grown up and all, it's all so tedious.

One of the biggest problems I find is that time passes so god damned quickly. I've wasted a morning already doing basically nothing. It feels like I've blinked and three hours have passed. I suspect that this is only going to accelerate as I get even older. I think what happens is that consciousness goes ever meta and novelty decreases over time. We need that novelty and consequent emotional stimulation to anchor us in time, without it, time collapses back into what it actually is: a singularity. I'm not talking black holes, I'm talking about the real nature of what's happening, anyway.

Later on this evening, I'm going to see the new Bond movie with a couple of friends. I've known both about twenty years (used to work with them originally). But one of them is recently divorced and going through the e/motions of that. I don't really keep contact with that guy, we never completely clicked as people, but my other friend acts as a linchpin between us. I understand that role well. I think some of us act as a bridge between disparate sets of friends and family. I kind of have three groups of disparate friends which I go between. I would say on the whole they're probably incompatible with each other (and also geographically), and I'm a different person to each group, which is fine, we all modulate ourselves to the people we're with: we unwittingly play a familiar character to smooth over social interaction. As for Bond, it's a bit of fun and I've seen all the other ones, so I may as well. I'm going to stay off the beers I think, although the novelty of taking a beer into a cinema never wears off.

This coming weeked I'm travelling to Norfolk for a weekend staycation with friends. It's a two or three hour drive depending, probably the latter as I'm travelling Friday rush hour, because it's unlikely my friend can organise his life to leave any earlier (wife + kid = time vortex). I've nominated myself to drive, because I enjoy it and I find being driven around less exciting.  It also gives my friend a break from being "Dad" for a bit. There's a petrol crisis at the moment around London and South East where I am, and it's been hard to find Unleaded or Diesel, luckily I don't need to commute in the car! I better get that tank filled before Friday.

This trip was organised by my friend. I never organise things. Mostly it's because I'm single and it's easier for me to go along with others' family plans than the other way around. I'm more flexible and spontaneous and I usually say "yes" to most things, I don't mind it, I'm very good at saying "no" if I don't want to do something. Plus, I dislike organising and administrating things, especially people, it's all so tedious. If others want/enjoy doing it, let them!

Ok WALK! Back later.

---

 

[Myioko]

Hi...longish time lurker of your journal here 

That NZ picture is absolutely mesmerizing, I didn't know blue glacier lakes like that existed...wow! thanks for sharing. That shade of blue/turquoise is one of my favorite colors so I'm actually very happy to see it exists, in large bodies of water (i saw glacier water once in a river but that was it!), it looks like an upside down sky but even brighter. 

20 hours ago, LastThursday said:

One of the biggest problems I find is that time passes so god damned quickly. I've wasted a morning already doing basically nothing. It feels like I've blinked and three hours have passed. I suspect that this is only going to accelerate as I get even older. I think what happens is that consciousness goes ever meta and novelty decreases over time. We need that novelty and consequent emotional stimulation to anchor us in time, without it, time collapses back into what it actually is: a singularity. I'm not talking black holes, I'm talking about the real nature of what's happening, anyway.

I've found that time has gone by quickly for the past couple of years for me and from what I've talked with other people its a universal experience, time speeding up after you turn 20. Was that the case for you too? It's kind of a scary thought and makes me not want to waste any more moments, but at the same time not be afraid of time passing (because thats a waste too xD). What you said about novelty and consequent emotional stimulation struck out to me, I've never thought deeply about that before, but that does seem to be the case, doesn't it? Moments of emotional highs and fresh, new experiences draws out time. I'm not sure how much in a literal 'in the moment' sense it slows down time, but looking back on it does, such as comparing the memories of a couple of happy weeks traveled vs a few months of hard repetitive work. It's harder to capture the memories of repetitiveness. I wonder if you/I could retrain your brain to draw out novelty and interest from the regular day to day life, similar to seeing new things when traveling. 

20 hours ago, LastThursday said:

So I can compare and contrast the days and how I feel each time. Sometimes I'm very "present" I feel connected to my senses and focused in a certain way. Other times I'm in my head with a kind of stream of consciousness thing going on, my thoughts are fleeting and incoherent (no I'm not psychotic) and I feel disconnected from the world around me - at times like these my walks seem to pass very quickly. I often try and force connection with my senses, by paying attention to what's going on around me, and it can work after some time, other times no chance.

Same here. For me I get very comfy and routine in my favorite walks and trails and walk them hundreds of times until I exhaust my interest in places. I'll occasionally throw myself in a new place, either by force or by spontaneous interest or boredom in finding a new place. It's interesting how different our head spaces can be while walking down the same space each day! Do you find any reasons why some days are more connected or disconnected than others, while on walks, or is it pretty random? (and I wonder if there are any correlations with autopilot and dreaminess/overthinking)

Do you like to listen to music while walking or not so much? I find myself going either way, depending on my mood and where I'm at. 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by Myioko

[LastThursday]

@Myioko I think we're a society of lurkers here in the journaling section. I really appreciate the artistry and art in your journal. I think I should get over my Brit introverted reservedness and be openly grateful about people and their journals. Anyway, I was especially struck by:

I can't recommend NZ highly enough, the inhabitants are truly blessed. My only recommendation is to do what I did: buy a flight, book a hostel and go experience it yourself, their Spring is best. I went around in a big green bus, it was great fun.

When I go walking I don't mind treading the same routes over and over, I enjoy seeing the slow changes of the seasons and different lights and weathers. The familiarity makes me feel like I belong to a place. Saying that I do go for longer hikes in the countryside for some novelty, the UK has a zillion rights of way through the countryside which is good for exploration. Since I like to try and be as present as possible I don't listen to music at all when outside, I find music takes me away from that, but that's just me. But I do love music for its own sakes.

I like the idea of retraining ourselves to appreciate old things in a novel way. I would read the Art of Travel by Alain de Botton, there's a section in there that talks about this very thing, he frames it something like going on holiday inside your home or something like that. One way to definitely do it is to become an artist - painter, photographer, it doesn't matter - and spend time staring at things and really appreciating them from fresh. The only danger is not getting lost in the technicality of being an artist. I find that actually touching things helps, touch railings and plants and brickwork, smell them too.

There's definitely a balance to be had when dealing with time. It's ok to just be in time and let it pass, there's a joy in just being and letting things happen - as you say thoughts of "wasting time" is itself a waste of time. Many times I've felt like I fell asleep in my twenties and suddenly woke up in my late forties - even writing it down feels odd, my thirties were a social blur. It's like I've had layers of years painted to the outside of me, but that fresh faced twenty year old is just beneath. I wouldn't undo or re-live anything though (edit: except my first kiss), it was what it was. My only advice, is to grab life by the shirt tails and really live it, especially when you're young.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by LastThursday

[Myioko]

@LastThursday

Thank you and yes it's easy to lurk here, I find myself caught in 'I don't want to bother' that person often, so I go back and forth in my head wether or not it should be ok to comment. (that or i really am just focused on myself sometimes) 

That painting is called 'vanity' (she's sneakily holding a mirror in her hand) and I think it's a part of or similar to the pre-raphaelites paintings, which I find beautiful as well: Realism mixed with nature, inspired by romance literature/poetry, a lot of red headed pretty ladies, and dark moody backgrounds. 

Traveling to NZ is something I would love to do in my life time so thanks for the recommendations!

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I enjoy seeing the slow changes of the seasons and different lights and weathers. The familiarity makes me feel like I belong to a place.

Yeah those are very good reasons and interests in walking the same trails. I think those small differences and familiarities can be taken for granted until someone moves and suddenly misses the small familiar things: Their favorite smells, a specific place, the way light travels across the room in the morning. 

The Art of Travel book sounds like an interesting book, I'll check it out.

It's interesting in how people experience time over the years and how it feels to them and look back on them, and I get that 'fallen asleep' feeling. I remember a specific moment in 1st grade when we were all handed a cookie at school and I thought 'I'll never love the taste of this cookie this much when I'm older' - I imagined that how I tasted that cookie was more 'real' than compared to the 5th graders. (which is silly haha. But at that age I thought older age had something to do with growing weary and bored and unclear with things.) but it was true that in the moment that I tasted that cookie with the utmost appreciation and clearness. It's surprisingly hard to practice 'food mindfulness', being fully focused, appreciative and aware of a small thing like eating something. 

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I wouldn't undo or re-live anything though (edit: except my first kiss), it was what it was. My only advice, is to grab life by the shirt tails and really live it, especially when you're young.

(lol!) And great advice to anyone at any age.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Myioko
but yes I appreciate your journal and thoughts on here and enjoy reading your journal and writing style!

[LastThursday]

LastThursday Soap Episode 2

Turns out that friend couldn't make the cinema this week. So we're hoping for next week, that is if Bond is still showing then. And so it is, organising people and why I don't like it.

I haven't been out for my daily walk, maybe I should turn it into a quaint ritual (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beating_the_bounds)? I'll still be getting my dose of daylight though, since I'm driving for my weekend break in a couple of hours. It turns out there's a jacuzzi on the premises, happy days. I'm tempted to buy champagne and sup it in my swimmers to celebrate not being at home or just to celebrate being in a jacuzzi in Autumn. I actually can't wait to switch off from normal life for bit.

I investigated the picture Vanity by Cowper shown in my previous post (thanks to @Myioko), and it turns out I can see it in the flesh at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, for free no less.  London is amazing if you like art, I've seen so many famous art works there. So I'll line it up for a few weekend's time and possibly invite my arty friend A. along. It's funny, A's husband P. is very into photography and yet being dragged around an art gallery is his idea of hell - each to their own! (The P. and A. stand for their names, not their interests). At least it's not my friend R. who I was with at a Picasso exhibition in Nice, and he just thought it was crap and could do it just as well himself - heathen. I wonder if P. could stand a photography exhibition or if his head would explode?

I think I might post about art I own at some point and go through why I have each piece. Could be mildly interesting.

Other than that, whilst I've been working today, it's just been lots of little insubstantial tasks. Frustratingly, I've made no progress on the bigger chunks of work. I so so want to quit working altogether, it's just boring mind numbing grind, and I wasn't born for this. I need to engage my beauty and wonder and awe senses more and not be used as some cog in a money making machine. But humans like to treat each other inhumanely, such is the world. I need to find a way out of the grind (although I've journaled about that conundrum extensively here).

So I ought to end with a cliffhanger. Will LastThursday finish coding up his last report of the week, before his friends arrive for holiday? Find out in next week's instalment...

[LastThursday]

More navel gazing.

I started to look at Leo's motivational speech video. The irony being that I haven't been motivated to watch it all. When I looked at the title for the video, I thought to myself "this isn't for me", I just don't need a talking head telling me stuff I already know but in a serious tone. But I started to watch nevertheless. That sensation I had beforehand was correct, I continued to have it whilst watching it and had to endure the dissonance of enjoying being tortured by the truth of it. In the end I gave up early on the video.

I don't need a motivational speech. But I do need to solve the problem of motivation. It's a deep deep problem for me. It's a problem because I know at my core that I'm not being true to my ......... , I don't have a word for it. Ok let's try. I'm not being true to my abilities, intelligence, self-expression, showing love, showing empathy, being successful materially, being successful in relationships, feeling joy, and all round having a beautiful life. All that presupposes that I'm entitled to those things, but if I'm not then what am I doing here? It is torturing me; causing me suffering.

I'm good at rationalisation and analysis, but I find it impossible to unpick why I lack motivation, it has nothing to do with logic. My intuition tells me that it's partly learned behaviour, but also partly response from trauma, and also partly lack of suitable role models or basic learning early on, but also temperament from genetics. The biggest thing that ground on me from the video, is that I don't need to be scolded into action. That's a good bit of learning. I need to stop poking myself about my lack of motivation, because it's actually counterproductive. Instead, I need to understand and be extremely honest about what does motivate and excite me. I literally need to sit down and work it all out, and build a coherent vision. If I don't do that, I will piss my life away and continue torturing myself.

When I hear about other people wanting to do things, like go travel, or quit their mind numbing job, or get out of their abusive relationship, or write a book or anything, I feel like grabbing hold of them and saying "stop thinking about it and just fucking go do it now not tomorrow".  I see so much potential in other people, and they're not using it to have a great life for themselves. But in reality I'm just shouting at myself. However, I don't actually know what to do. I have absolutely no idea which way to go. I just know that continuing to drift is not for me, I've had enough of it; it feels like I've held my breath underwater for too long and I'm gasping for air.

---

Part deux

I think I'm feeling off today because I have a sore throat coming on (for the first time in years). It's miserably grey and wet outside, and it's cold. I could switch on the heating, but working and living at home means that I would have the heating on 15 hours a day which is silly expensive - I have better things to spend my money on - a cup of tea and a fleece is cheaper.

What I need to do is go outside and get some vague form of daylight and body movement and that'll improve things. Then I actually need to engage with the work tasks that are hanging over me and stop them being a weight around my neck. I learned that exercise and being outside were important for improving mood when I was depressed, also seeing and being with people too - but not gloomy people! And also, having a project or something going on is helpful.

I just about have the wherewithal to recognise when I'm getting mopey, and not to slip too far down into it. But also just to indulge in the "my world is falling apart" narrative just once in a while and not fight it too much - it gets it out of my system.

Edited October 20, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Welcome To LifeWare

At LifeWare we believe that community is everything. Eliminating those old-fashioned distinctions between work and leisure you will always have your own PersonaSpace to use how you wish and when you want to. PersonaSpace is an integrated hub that takes care of your physical and informational presence. Do you ever feel tired or out of sorts? PersonaSpace gives you 24/7 access to trained AI specialists in therapy or medicine, or your very own private Poddy where you can sleep, relax or consume leisure any time.

LifeWare doesn't believe in fixed work hours or productivity quotas. Whenever you work you accrue LifeWare/Cents.  Want that next AI enhanced suit or the latest T-Garment, just tap into LifeWareStyle for that perfect look. All purchases are seamlessly integrated with your Cents account, no need for clunky security transactions with real-world banks. You have the whole of LifeNet at your disposal, you need never leave your Poddy if you don't want to. Watch films, buy cool stuff, and 3d-print-order a three course meal. 

LifeWare employees are encouraged to inter-communicate as much as possible. We provide facilities for both VR tournaments, or Poddy parties for example. UnrealLife has been voted the most realistic VR game of all time, we think you'll find it a blast. 

LifeWare believes that data is the key to living a good life. In return for your data we are able to provide you facilities unrivalled by any other company. Some of that data is used by our AI to provide services that will directly benefit you. You can always opt out of data collection for any length of time, but we ask that you make a minimum work donation each week to keep your Cents account in tip-top condition.

Friends or family are most welcome any time at LifeWare. Simply fill out a FamConsent request, which outlines how we gather visitor data. Of course any data gathered will accrue against your Cents account at the enhanced visitor rate. We think that is a win for our employees. As a LifeWare employee you are free to come and go as you wish and take any amount of time away from us. Your Cents account will automatically deduct for any periods of non-data at a fixed rate. If your Cents account falls below our LifeThreshold then we simply ask that you make a regular donation to ensure you keep your place with us. Failure to do so will involve disciplinary action or termination.

I'm sure you stay with LifeWare will be experience you will never forget. Welcome.

Edited October 21, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

From the worst of times springs hope. The winter was one of despair and darkness, and incredulity. It was my belief then that age should have bestowed wisdom upon me, but no, I was still in an age of foolishness. And yet now it seems the best of times and a season of light has shone from within; as I have moved from a city of devilry to one of saintliness. A tale indeed if I were to tell it.

Edited October 23, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

I'm going back to the question of what to do with my life. These are the emotions/questions I have right now with regards to this:

• People are not attracted to drifters and dreamers, people are attracted to go getters. I think I'm really talking sexual relationships here. Most of the women I find attractive have exactly the qualities I want to have in myself. But that puts me in a bind, as I myself don't have those qualities. Put it this way, if you had a choice of a man that was sure what he wanted and how he wanted it, compared to a bloke that was unsure and really didn't seem to care either way, which would you go for? I mean some women would find the latter attractive, but they'd be in a minority. Appearing unsure, breeds insecurity, which is unattractive.
• There is a sense in which there are only two paths to be taken. Either you take the path of purpose and constantly move towards something, or you take the path of acceptance and just be in the moment. It feels to me as though both paths are equally valid, but it is made out (by society) that unless you're constantly heading somewhere you are not worth or valued as much. Whereas the point above is more geared to reproduction and biology (a go-getting man is more valuable for raising healthy kids), this second point is more about the way society is structured in the West. The setup appears to be that we're in constant competition with each other, and that is what gives dynamism to society: and if you opt out of that you're shunned, or thought of as weird at least; you are less valuable. But I do lead my life very much in the moment, and accept the good and the bad.
• I should leave something for posterity. So when the day comes for me to die, then I have a legacy that I'm proud of; I can point to something and tell everyone who wants to listen, "I did that, I changed the world for the better". I feel very ambivalent about that. I have a certain pride in myself and my achievements that I'd like to boast about to others - although I'm happy with the lesser pride of not boasting. Given where I came from and my family circumstances, I have achieved greatness already, despite absolutely nobody (I care about) openly acknowledging that. So if I'm on my deathbed and boasting about my legacy, will anyone actually say the words "you did good" and mean it? I mean why bother trying to have a legacy? The more "pragmatic" or even "mean spirited" part of my just doesn't give a fuck: I die, end of, what's this legacy nonsense?
• It's possible that I'm actually just kidding myself, and I'm very much an "external" person. What I mean by this is that all my motivation comes from other people. It's like the introvert saying I'm party animal, when everyone else clearly sees through the delusion. The delusion in my case is that I can be self-driven. I suffered greatly when I drifted away from my core group of friends - albeit the drift was in a sense natural, they changed, I changed. But being more isolated has been a double-edged sword. I have grown immensely in terms of my self-development from it, but on the flip-side it has done nothing for my sense of worth, optimism and motivation. The issue is is that I identify so strongly with being self-sufficient and self-driven, that openly and consistently admitting (to myself) that I need other people to thrive feels wrong. But hey, I'm doing it here, now.
• Planning. Like it or not stuff needs planning, I mean big stuff. I may not care about a legacy, but I need to care about survival. When I'm actually an old geezer and I need to stop working (dear God can I stop working tomorrow please?), how will I take care of myself? The older I get the more into sharp relief this problem becomes. I don't believe my pension as it is will support me very well in old age. Nobody is going to take care of me, I just don't have that sort of family. I don't have my own family, no spouse or kids to lean on. To a degree I think that there is some selfishness in parents, were there's an unspoken expectation that their children will be their saviour when it's needed. I have saved my parents many many times. Largely, I have shied away from having kids purely to not expose them to my selfishness, why should I have children just so that I can lean on them when times get tough? It's unlikely that I'm going to get some sort of windfall. My father has a property that will be split three ways that I will inherit - that's it. That share would probably keep me going for about four years perhaps without working.
• Family. It's not rocket science, there are pregnant women everywhere I look, everyone's at it. Why should I be so special as to not have a family? I seem to salve myself with the thought that I just haven't been lucky yet. But if I examine myself frankly, I don't see much excitement in it. It's twenty years of slog and grind and an endless money pit. If I have a long term partner the likelihood is high that we'll have kids. I badly want the company and intimacy of having a girlfriend, and I know that it would be better overall for my mental health and wellbeing, it's just a normal human need. But people are fucking complicated, and I just don't want complication at the moment. Damn it, I need a simple girlfriend with simple needs, with a bit of a spark for life. It's just a shame that I'm so fucking complicated. Anyway, back to family. I do feel an underlying need to have a family, and just be "normal" and fit in with everyone else.
• I do feel acutely that I'm wasting my talents and abilities. More than any of the above this is what is driving me insane at the moment. It's like I simply want to shake my world upside down and go do and be someone completely different. Unfortunately, either through choice or luck, I'm typecast as the current version of me. It's like I'm stuck in a spider's web of geography, friends, family, work, age, social norms. More prudently I'm stuck in a spider's web of my own thoughts and insecurities and ignorance. For example I'm insanely good at programming computers, so I'm typecast as a programmer, that's where the money to live comes from. Yet, I feel as though after nearly forty years of doing it, I've exhausted it. I just want to stop thinking that way. What other talents do I have? I'm musical, and if I were to plough time into it, I could be a very good pianist. Is that the sort of life I want, is it acceptable for a man my age to start a career in this now? I'm very good at maths, I have the sort of logical mind to be a very good mathematician. But, how many well off mathematician friends do you have? I have a very strong physics and engineering background. But more than anything nowadays, I find myself being interested in people. I feel this strong compulsion to understand people, connect with people and have a group to belong to. It's partially why I'm writing here. I feel as though I have a pretty good understanding of what makes people tick - to that end I could do coaching or perhaps even be a therapist. Maybe that will fulfill me more going forward? But more than anything I have a deep need for expressing myself in whatever ways present themselves, and I find the arts very attractive - I wouldn't be a Picasso or Tolstoy or Beethoven, but I could make a good go of it. I do see the balance shifting in myself to a more  people and arts centric way of doing things - more right brained. If so, how do I even tackle the transition, when will the threshold be reached were I just say "goodbye programming, hello self-expression"? How the hell will I live that way?

That is all.

[LastThursday]

One thing that my recurring quest to give up smoking taught me was that it was possible to do. The other thing is, is that I never really gave up.

I was thinking really about shadow work here. One particular shadow I had was smoking. For a long while I was addicted, and for long periods I simply gave into it and gave up worrying about the consequences. Morbidly, when I got depressed, I actually wanted the smoking to kill me and I wilfully smoked as much as I could. I originally took up smoking because I thought it had some coolness factor and to fit in with my peers.

Smoking is interesting to me. My Mum smoked probably once a day for many years when I was young, my Dad never did. Whilst I never tried it in my teenaged years full well knowing it was bad for me, I let loose at universtity. I think my Mum smoking kind of normalised it for me, and so when I took up smoking it wasn't really such a big deal. The interesting aspect to it, was that I felt I needed to do it to impress others; and therein lies my shadow.

As time went on, smoking became associated with that period of my life and all the good times I'd had - eventually it became a sort of nostalgia or remnant of the life I'd lead. What made it difficult to even contemplate stopping was my long time girlfriend also smoked, but I always smoked more than her. Later I became more and more aware what an expensive and useless activity smoking was, and I became determined to quit. Absurdly, I would stop for very long periods, say six months or a year and then start up again.

Cravings are interesting to observe. Like any other type of shadow the impulsion or appearance of a thought or emotion comes out of the blue. Many things to do with the body are this way, there's a staccato quality to these things. When trying to give up, cravings would suddenly come on and crescendo, and then slowly taper off. But actually really thinking about it, there was nothing smooth about the craving "curve", it was more like the craving was made up of repeatedly hitting me in ever increasing frequency and intensity until it decreased again.

I think this stacatto thing applies to other types of shadow or trauma. The memory of past abuse suddenly hits us from nowhere, and it keeps hitting us in waves until it decides to go away again. Then there is a period of quiet normality. That period in between bouts or cravings, is as if the trauma or shadow doesn't exist at all. That's a key thing to take in. What happened when giving up smoking, was that the cravings became more and more spread out, until they eventually never came back. And so it is with shadow work, any work you do aims to reduce the frequency of these "shadow attacks".

The take away is that the shadow is never cast constantly. If you are depressed you are not constantly depressed. If you are traumatised you are not constantly traumatised. If you are a smoker, you are not constantly craving. No. A better model would be to say that you are a smoker only when you have cravings, you are depressed only when you have a bout of depression, you are traumatised only when the trauma periodically reasserts itself. How else is it that one can have "good days" and "bad days"?

This gives hope that we can leave trauma and depression and smoking behind: mostly because we are already doing this. All that really happens is that the frequency reduces with successul shadow work. So I never really gave up smoking, I just haven't smoked in five years. I never really gave up being depressed, I just haven't been depressed in over ten years. And so it goes.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not advocating that it is simple to give up on things that torment us, it really isn't. So I'm not saying just reframing or recontextualising your smoking habit is actually going to work - most probably it's not. You actually have to do work, you have to learn to control your impulses to smoke, you have to learn not to engage too strongly with the emotions of trauma. This learning is really really hard and slippery to master. That is the nature of shadow work.

Edited October 26, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

I was thinking about the question asked here by @soos_mite_ah

My answer was basically to go actualise yourself. Whilst out on my daily walk, it occurred to me that this was not a particularly obvious answer. One thing that's not obvious is why self-actualisation is needed at all in the first place and why it would give you a fulfilling life. The second thing that struck me was that it's really not at all obvious how to even start the process. So I thought why isn't there some sort of school for self-actualising?

My idea is that it would teach you the basics, enough to get the ball rolling. It would be say a residential eight week set of courses. That amount of time seems long enough to get some grounding but not so long that's it's not feasible. The residential aspect would allow you to be fully immersed and focussed on learning. It seems to me that some people find it very difficult (me included) to be self-driven and need a different way to do it.

I think the set of courses should interlock with each other and be taught maybe in rotation, rather than exclusively in week chunks say. Since it's only eight weeks and supposed to be basic, then the number of subjects covered should be minimal but provide high long term value. I don't have a real feel for what subjects would be covered, but some that come to mind are:

• Interpersonal relationships, sexual relationships, self-confidence
• Meditation and introspection, journaling techniques, listening skills, conversational skills
• Outdoor activities, walking in and appreciating nature, survival techniques, cooking and nutrition
• Some form of physical sport/group game playing
• Dance, light martial arts, making music, singing, making art, story telling
• Techniques for emotional mastery
• Techniques for mastery in general, with perhaps some area to start hands-on mastery in the eight weeks
• Techniques for running your mind
• Some basic finance, planning and life strategy. Life purpose techniques.
• Open and/or closed therapy sessions, where problems can be aired and worked through

I'm sure there is a much better set of subjects that would mesh well together though. I would feel inclined to try and keep the male and female ratio 50/50 and to encourage all age ranges, but it could be impractical to enforce that. 

Some inspirational guest speakers peppered in would also be a great boost. 

What I see with a lot of courses is that they're too short, too narrow in focus, and are easily forgotten after the fact.  There needs to be enough synergy that the learning sticks permanently, and allows you to start the self-actualisation process in earnest.

Honestly, a school like this I think would be devoured by most of the people on the forums here. I certainly would go for it.

So if I were to set something like this up, there would be a long hard slog. Some immediate cons I can think of:

• Cost, I can't imagine this would cost any less than about $8000 (£6000). This is difficult, because the people that need actualisation most are exactly the people with little money.
• Location, initially there can only be one location for residence, so it would need to be somewhere most folks can get to.

For me personally, setting something like this up would be terrifying, but boy it would certainly give me a purpose in life.

Edited October 26, 2021 by LastThursday