Journey to Nothing

[LastThursday]

It's undeniable that the body does "stuff" outside our conscious awareness. Our blood pumps, food digests, and myriad other mechanistic things churn around. Occasionally that "stuff" is brought to our attention: we feel lethargic, we feel hungry, we have a heart attack.

But what about the more intangible things: things like our learning and memories and ideas and emotions? Do they have a life outside of our conscious awareness?  Most people would say "yes". Most people call it the subconscious.

It's an interesting term: sub-conscious. Sub comes from Latin and it means below or under. It metaphorically betrays itself; the metaphor being that consciousness is like the clear air above a lake and the subconscious is the murky water of underneath it. And, occasionally stuff pokes up above the waterline to delight or scare us. There's also a mechanistic assumption that somehow the machine is churning away somewhere in the murk.

I'd argue it's nothing like that at all (but see my previous post for a contradictory view!).

Unlike bodies and the world "out there", thoughts and feelings have no permanent form. They are whispy and etherial. Because of this they don't have permanent existence, there's a kind of nothingness quality which permeates them.

All machines operate on a kind of algebra or symbolic manipulation. For a four stroke engine, this is shiny steel and liquid gasoline: the steel has a certain shape and configuration, the gasoline has certain attributes and explosive tendencies.  For a body the machine is chemistry and physics: different elements each having their own chemical and physical properties are configured in specific interlocking patterns in a vast network.

In theory if you can specify a machine in enough detail you can replicate its workings.

What sort of machine would work on thoughts and emotions? The obvious one would be language, with all its symbolism and rules and logic. But immediately there is a problem with this idea. Unlike a four stroke engine, the engine of language is not made of thoughts and emotions, but words and sounds. Language is more of an intemediary than the actual thing itself. Thoughts are converted to language are converted to thoughts. 

Nonetheless, is it possible that the machine of language is churning away and subconsciously processing our thoughts and emotions?

I'd say not. The main evidence against it is that you can't get your subconscious to supply you with tomorrow's essay on "Consciousness" whilst you do other things. In other words producing language always involves conscious exertion. The thoughts and ideas come on a whim and are converted there and then into language - the same being true in reverse. There is no language machine under the waterline, it's all above the waterline.

Could there be any other sort of machine which sorts and processes thoughts and emotions out of sight of consciousness? For this to happen thoughts and emotions would have to be stored somewhere so that they could be held for processing. But how do you store a thing which is ephemeral or highly abstract like love?

If you talk to a materialist then both the machine and the storage mechanism is the human brain and more specifically neurons. And this effectively reduces it to chemistry and physics. But this has precisely the same problem as the language machine idea does: at best the brain is an intermediary for mind. Somehow the brain must have to convert electrical signals and activation potentials into such intangible things as the thought of a swooping bird (and possibly do it in reverse). A four stroke engine is just the same chemistry and physics (mostly carbon): can it process a basic kind of thought? It seems extremely unlikely.

Again as with the language idea, is it possible to ask subconscious to churn away and reproduce a kind of mental play for you, ready for you to hit "play" and consciously re-enact it? All whilst you're doing other things? No, it seems not. Even dreams are conscious activities. It's all above the waterline.

There is no subconscious, give up the idea. All the processing and machinations of the mind happen in consciousness. Yes, consciousness is that powerful.

[LastThursday]

I remember about 15 years ago on my regular driving commute I had one particular recurring thought: "I wonder how many more times I'll be doing this?". On the surface it's not such an odd thing to think. But being as I am, I began to dig into it a bit more.

It can feel sometimes that a situation will never change. Maybe you will never find that job, or you will never get over the death of a loved one, or you'll always be taking that bend at 27 miles per hour. There's a kind of fatalistic sisyphean vibe that can kick in and it can feel like a prison. And then one day it happens, you simply stop doing it, you stop feeling sad, you get that job.

Most of the time you don't even notice that you've stopped and you just forget all that time you spent in repetition and it seems like a far off dream.

We just as easily slip into doing repetitive things without a moment's thought. For example during the lockdown here, a few friends thought it would be good to meet up virtually on Zoom. There was no plan and not much forethought. But we have kept up the weekly meet for four months now. We quite literally silently sliped into it. How much longer will it last? From experience, one particular week it won't happen and that will be that.

This is what "letting things go" really means.

Things, people, posessions, situations, come into our lives without notice or planning and they just as easily disappear. We mourn their loss or get angry at having things taken away from us, or that some part of our identity has been changed forever. The expression "nothing lasts forever" is a deep truism about life and it can be hard to accept. Can we go deeper?

How long does a thing last? In our minds it has a beginning a long repetitive middle and an end. But this isn't really true. We can break down that repetition into parts: Monday's drive, Tuesday's drive, Wednesday's drive and so on. Our gut knows that each repetition is different from the last. We know every time we see our loved one they are not quite the same person they were last time. How far can we go dividing? When does something really start and really end? How many discrete slices is a thing made up of?

At its core, the whole world is constantly starting and ending. For every new moment that starts the previous moment has ended. How much of it do we mourn? Should I mourn the loss of me five minutes ago, the man I was then? No. Another truism is "life is for living". That's just an acknowledgement of the transitory nature of our experience on this planet.

If you can learn to grab each moment for what it is: brand new and fresh, and just let go of that old moment then you are flowing with life, and that commute is something to look forward to. Sisyphus would be proud.

Edited July 24, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

I've been watching pick-up videos.

It's one of those things, someone posts an interesting video and it piques your interest for whatever reason. This seems to be not so different from pick-up itself: an attractive person piques your interest and you want to know more. Well that's what I've gleaned from the videos I've watched, I'm not a P.U.A. myself. Do I want to be one? Not really (I'm not a sheep, I'm a lone wolf, awooooo). Do I find women interesting? Definitely, very - well some of them anyway. 

What I personally find cringy about pick-up is the contrived nature of the idea. I can see the strong parallels with being an actor going for an audition. You breathe deeply, shake it all off and inhabit the PUA character. You then get on stage (approach) and deliver the act of your life. Then the woman says "yes" or "no" or even worse throws rotten vegetables at you.

Now don't get me wrong. There are many situations in life which require you to perform like this: job interviews, PHD vivas, best-man's speech, company presentation. But why should pick-up be any different? Because being an actor takes dedication and effort, and it takes you away from your natural centre. 

I've always found it strange that Hollywood actors have their own personalities. They spend a large part of their times inhabiting other characters: you would expect them to be so good that they were chameleons with no natural centre. Every interview with the same actor should reveal a completely different person. But that's not the case Jim Carey is still Jim Carey. Weird isn't?

So even a very proficient actor has a natural character they they always return to. This character is the the one they've honed to perfection over a lifetime and it's the one they're most proficient with. We're no different. Pick-up is "weird" because participants are forcing themselves away from their natural character.

So how would you be a non-cringy PUA? First, you would forget the idea of actually being a PUA, you're not; instead you're just you doing something you normally wouldn't. This is actually a very normal activity. We are constantly bombarded by novel situations, every situation is a new one. In fact novelty is the de-facto mode of reality. So why is it that we feel very uncomfortable in novel situations? In a word: improvisation.

Most of us are shit at improvisation. Strangely, most of us start off being very good at improvisation. Kids universally role play and make up games and respond unconsciously to their emotions. Then usually puberty kills those improvisation skills and we have to agonisingly re-learn them - most of us fail. And improvisation is a skill, it takes constant practice, because we are constantly confronted by novelty.

A large part of improvisation involves failing and making mistakes and learning to correct our course on the fly. Improvisation is always a conversation not a scripted event. What can kill improvisation is embarrassment, shame, not being present, lack of fluidity, and stock (scripted) behaviour. Good improvisation is wickedly hard.

One of my pet hang-ups is all about fluidity in my interactions. I've worked very hard to improve this aspect of myself. It hasn't come easy at all. What's helped is precisely removing those things that hinder good improvisation. I have become a much much better improviser.

 

For fun, here's one approach I use to use in nightclubs (in my youth) when I was a lot less fluid:

Situation: A group of three attractive women. Banging club music. Bad lighting.

Me: Approach the group. Hone on in on the least attractive one of the group (but still attractive). Make eye contact. Start talking. 

Me: "Do you think I'm good looking?"

W: Nervous laughter. No answer.

Me: "Which one of your friends do you think I find the most attractive?"

W: Pulls a face. "Well maybe Katy. She's such a babe." Laughter.

Me: "Really? Do you think she would find me attractive?"

W: Tries to get Katy's attention.

....

[LastThursday]

Slightly dramatic style:

Going through the "The Crisis" was a torment. Most mornings I would awake from bliss into dread. Some mornings I wouldn't wake at all, I just couldn't face it. Through it I knew one thing, that if I was going to survive it I would have to carry on as I always had - plan B was just too hard to contemplate. Unfortunately, plan A was unbearable. 

"The Crisis" was certainly existential. I hadn't had a word for it until a Life Coach I was consulting with half jokingly pointed out that my crisis was in fact an existential one. I believed at the time it was a hand waving gesture on his part. I honestly believed my problem was a materialistic one. I hadn't ever married, I hadn't brought up children, I seemed incapable of leading anything other than a mediocre life. The icing on the shitcake was that I was in fact now old and there was no going back. It seemed that all my friends and people I cared about all had exactly what they wanted: to be normal. Why was that so damned hard for me? 

I had tried so hard to be part of a tribe. I had long term supposedly deep friendships. I'd had the long term girlfriends, I was the first to buy a house amongst my friends, I had a high salary and a university education - the first in my family. I had tried to do everything that society had asked of me. But none of it really stuck. I knew deep down it was all bullshit and nothing could undo the sensation. That sensation undid me in the end.

The time had come when carrying that sort of cognitive dissonance around couldn't be tolerated any more. Either I would be normal and fit in or I would go all out and be different and unfettered. I fell for the first person that gave a damn and I desperately wanted normality with her. I chased her like a hungry wolf and she nearly succumbed. But after a very long period she rebuffed me with conviction - she had finally made a decision, and I wasn't it.

During the early stages of both being in love/lust, strongly wanting normality and strongly wanting out - I lived a zombie existence. During waking hours I couldn't bear to be indoors. I in fact wanted to run far far away. I spent many many hours just walking aimlessly. I would take trains to nowhere in particular just to be somewhere away from my home town and myself (Eckhart Tolle's story strongly resonates with me here).

Slowly over time the realisation took hold that my crisis was very much not a materialistic one. What I realised was that I hated myself, not in a cut myself kind of way, but in the same way that a lazy or fat person is vilified. I hated that I was a coward around people, that I needed people's love so badly, that my own indifference and indecision caused so much resistance and inaction, that I gave away my responsibility to others, and that no matter what I tried I would fail, and even worse I wasn't particularly interesting as a person.

I ran to New Zealand completely unplanned for an unspecified amount of time. I ended up being amongst 20 somethings. This helped. I had an excuse to behave like a young person again, and I could reinvent myself. I ended up being called Tom for two months (despite having Guillermo for a name). I came back somewhat rejuvenated and full of a sense of my own ability to change my circumstances.

Coming back was painful. The mental torture was still there, just to a lessened degree. But I made strides to do more things by myself. I would sit in pubs and restaurants and cinemas by myself. It was unbearably uncomfortable at first. In the end I realised that my "normal" friends didn't do this sort of thing: they were the cowards. Over time this gave me great personal strength. 

During that time I would find myself crying at music in the car or being uncontrollably emotional at work. 

I needed to learn to love myself, I even saw a hypnotherapist. She cleared some of my "blockages" and I began to feel lighter.  That incessant feeling of needing to run slowly went away over years and I began to settle into my current self asymptotically.

How am I now?

A lot more mentally stable. I've learned to accept my mediocrity - just like everyone else does - it no longer presses on me so hard. I've also learned that I'm very much responsible for myself and the direction my life takes. And I still live in hope that life will end up being wonderful and maybe one day extraordinary. Fuck normality, I was never cut out for it.

 

Edited July 31, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Hello again journal blog diary mental jerk off thing, it's been a while.

Impatience.

What is it good for?

I like to start off with a mental definition of a term before I start waffling on about it. Impatience is the state of heightened emotional tension due to the discrepancy between one's image of how reality should be compared to its actuality. Nice. Impatience is a future orientated emotion much like its cousin Anxiety or second cousin Perfectionism.

It seems that there's a sliding scale of impatience roughly proportional to age. Although certain individuals break the rule and are impatient at all ages. Why is this? Why does age have a bearing on it?

It's all to do with apparent passage of time. Older folks see time from a higher vantage point, they intrinsically know that if you wait around long enough, most things come to pass. They will tend to give a thing some thought: "I need a new laptop" and then forget that thought until the time comes around when it happens. Whereas for a younger person any amount of time seems like an indefinitely long amount of time - what if it never comes? The only solution is to make it happen now and in the moment. Impatience is reactionary.

What causes the "heightened emotional tension" of impatience?  It's the combination of the uncertainty that what you hold in your head may or may not come true, and the indefinite quality of when it might happen. It's a form of anxiety: a fear that what you want may not happen. It's a fear of uncertainty, it's a lack of trust in reality.

How is impatience related to perfectionism? They are both similar in that a platonic ideal of reality is being held in the mind and there is an expectation of that ideal manifesting itself into reality. In that sense the two are nearly identical, impatience is a form of perfectionism. The only difference is that perfectionists are interested in the details of outcome itself, impatiencionists (is that word?) are just interested in the outcome happening.

Impatience is also a form of social signalling. The heightened emotion of an impatient person is relayed for all to experience, and this can cause emotional discomfort which can only be released by placating the impatient person by giving them what they want. The short of it is that impatience is social manipulation at it's finest. Impatience translates into embarrassment, which itself is a strong motivator. 

Naturally impatience is very self serving, it is selfish by nature, and by that token elevates the impatient person's needs above other's needs. And because of the relationship with age can be taken as a childish or immature emotion. Sometimes it creates irritation or anger rather than embarrassment. The irritation itself being a strong social signal to "back down or else".

So impatience has its place in the pantheon of social manipulation. But bear in mind patient people just don't care about you that much.

[LastThursday]

I don't often get to talk non-duality with my friends. They are distinctly "dual". Saying that, I don't feel pity for them or anything stupid like that. I don't feel as though my awareness is somehow "more" than theirs. So what's the difference? Why would I call myself any more non-dual than they are?

I met someone recently however that I resonated deeply with. Let's call her S for anonymity's sake, although I did ask her permission to use her photo in this post (I made double sure it wasn't searchable on the big G) - I think it was some sort of company photo. She agreed with me that often a picture tells a lot more than sheer words and agreed to let me post it.

Now I would say that despite her age, she is very "with it" and switched on. It's funny how these things happen sometimes, she was the friend of a work colleague and we got chatting in the pub after work. I think I was having one of my funny days of feeling very deep and meaningful and somehow we got on to the subject of spirituality. I think she kind of felt a relief that someone else was as interested in this stuff as she was. So we got talking. We've met a few more times since - totally platonic honest  - waayyy too young for me!

Anyway. We recently started chatting about if our own personal consciousness is the only one that exists. I told her that solipsism is kind of a dead end. She said that she felt that it was true but couldn't really explain it. She said she had no way of knowing if other people really are experiencing consciousness or not. I told her that consciousness doesn't belong to anyone and everyone is sharing the same consciousness experience. She told me that that was ridiculous, it was obvious that nothing was being "shared"; it was just her consciousness experiencing everything. I kind of laughed and assured her that I was actually conscious. She took the point, but still wasn't convinced.

I tried to turn the tables on her and told her that if I wasn't conscious then by symmetry she can't be conscious either. She cleverly retorted by saying that it's possible that I don't actually exist so I can't be conscious. I kind of baulked at this but ran with it.

S carried on by saying that: "Yes I can see you and hear you, but it's possible that this is all just me having a dream, and when I wake up you will just disappear". She was definitely on the right path! I had to wait until I was 47 to reach the same conclusions she had at 27. I guess she was just more spiritually tuned in than I ever was. But I still goaded her some more.

So I said, "OK then maybe you're just a figment of my imagination and I'm also a figment of your imagination." She caught me out by saying "there is no MY, you don't exist, just the conscious dream does". So I said "Alright then. Wake up and make me disappear". And fuck me that's exactly what she did.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

So here I am and S made me disappear. Unfortunately, she also made herself disappear and all that's left is her picture above. Apparently she never existed and my memory of her is hazy now. Just before she woke up she said something very very odd which will never leave me: "I was never real, a computer created me". Now that certainly is creepy.

S no longer exists. I miss her.

Edited August 7, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Always good to discover another teacher. This is a bookmark in case I ever forget myself:

 

[LastThursday]

I've been playing around with hypnosis videos on YT.  I already had an inkling that I was suggestible after learning the basics of Ericksonian hypnosis back in the day.  This was prompted by someone else on the forum posting a hypnosis video about having an orgasm and such like. I'm an inquisitive sort, so I couldn't help myself. Suffice to say I found it quite effective but it was definitely no type of orgasm I've ever had. The main feeling was of an intense all over body sensation. Anyway, it was a new experience and non-drug induced (aka cheap and probably harmless). The trick will be to anchor it and trigger it on demand (smiley face).

One of the other videos in this particular series is an anaesthetic gas one. It's basically deep relaxation with a view to improving sleep. You imagine yourself lying down getting ready for some sort of medical procedure, put on a gas mask and after some suggestions from the hypnotist, away you go.

The sensation this time was quite deep. I had nearly no intrusive thoughts or mental chatter, and my body was basically paralysed, but neither did it occur to me to move in any way. In this state which lasted probably 30-60 minutes I found myself trying to non-verbally examine all the sensations I was having. Obviously it's extremely hard to relay this in writing, but the most noticeable thing was that my awareness wasn't still and more importantly not under "my" control. 

It then occurred to me to try and pin-down once and for all where the sensation of "me" resides. So in this hypnotised state I tried to hunt it down. Every time I thought I had found "me" I examined where in my body or what that sensation really was. Each time it wasn't it, just a part of it. Finally it dawned on "me" to examine the thing that was doing the examining (I like meta). The conclusion was that awareness is constantly flicking from one sensation to another by its own accord and there's no way to control it. I mean "sensation" in its very broadest terms. The awareness was taking on different shapes so to speak. Sometimes it would take on the shape of "me" and I would snap back into existence.

I do think if I carry on experimenting I could reach a point where the sensation of "me" could disappear entirely. That would definitely be something new in "my" field of experience.

If I disappear, the awareness that's left will let you know.

Edited August 10, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Essay at 01:15.

Ok this is difficult. Mostly because alcohol is not conducive to thinking and writing and my body thinks it should be asleeep. Nevertheless...

Carrying on the thread of hypnotism and experimentation. I feel as though I may be permanently hypnotised. Or more accurately it seems I can get myself back into the state very quickly. I thought I would play around with it. I mentally created a set of knobs that I can crank up to see what I can effect/affect.

One mental knob I tried was to increase colour saturation. You know, you go into Photoshop and increase saturation and all the colours looks outlandish and over the top. So on my usual daily walk I messed around with it. And basically it worked. I was kind of stunned. But pretty much the entire day colours have "popped out", it's a surreal sensation and as if I'm in a world I don't recognise.  Everything seems like I'm in a painting. I'm not sure how long it will last, but I'm enjoying it.

A few other knobs I've tried are the volume of my internal voice - which admitedly has been harder to tone down, but that's worked to a degree. Another it to increase my acuity to smells and another to sound. I can honestly say my smell sense has somewhat improved.

What is going on here?

Well, the hypnotism was pure language, i.e. not reality itself, and yet it has had a marked effect on me. How does that work? Is it that reality is indeed affected very easily by langauge? Does the pliability of reality undermine any sort of trust in it? I guess it must do - reality is not as static as it seems. I'm going to keep experimenting.

And if you're British stop smirking about knobs.

Edited August 13, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

From a very young age I've been fascinated with symbols.  My parents would buy a magazine of some sort and I would watch them reading it. I soon noticed the little company logos around adverts and I saw them everywhere. Of course I didn't know what they were, I just realised that the same logos would often pop up. But they stuck in my attention.

My dad had one of those early Hewlett Packard calculators: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-25 which I would often play with. I distinctly remember trying to work out what it all meant. I soon worked out the numbers and I remember asking my dad to explain what the other buttons did.  He tried the best he could, but it was too incomprehensible to my four year old brain. But I was definitely hooked on that thing, the symbols were just too enticing.

What the calculator taught me was that symbols could be manipulated and strung together in many different ways and that there was a pattern to it, even if I didn't understand what the patterns stood for. From there it was a natural progression to being inquisitive about letters and words. Again, my dad taught me (in Spanish) that each letter stood for a sound and that words were just the sounds put together.  He often recalls how astonished he was that I learned to read so quickly. I remember trying to read out loud from a newspaper soon after he'd shown me what all those little symbols meant. Luckily Spanish is nearly phonetic and each letter is distinct and the same each time.

From there I had a voracious appetite for reading everything. When I started school I could already read. When we all moved to England when I was six, I soon learnt to read and speak English in a matter of months. I just found it all so easy and fascinating.

But the real breakthrough came one afternoon when we'd gone to visit my aunt and uncle's. It was the beginnings of the home computer era and they had one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81. I recollect having an intense fascination of it, the blocky graphics and the programs you could create with it.  My uncle showed me a few programs he had written, where two little trains collided on the screen. I just had to have one! The programming symbols were mesmerising.

Eventually my parents succumbed to my constant nagging and they bought me the computer for Christmas. I think I was nine or nearly ten years old. From then on, if I wasn't playing outside, I would spend every waking minute inside learning to program. I remember it was a struggle at first trying to understand it all, but I began to understand slowly. It was just like learning another language: a third language if you like, but it was much more a visual experience than auditory. Naturally I knew from then on I wanted to be a programmer and that's exactly what I do some forty years later.

In terms of spirituality what has this love of symbols taught me? Mostly, that meaning is attached to the patterns of symbols, but the symbols themselves are completely arbitrary, that they have no inherent value in themselves. In other words all symbols written and spoken are just proxies for the actual thing; the symbols themselves shouldn't be confused for the things they represent - the map is not the territory. The extension to this idea is that rational thought is just the manipulation of mental symbols. The paradoxes and inconsistencies of thought are not real, they are just a consequence of having a finite set of symbols representing an infinite world. We shouldn't be fooled by symbols not matter how enticing they are.

Edited August 13, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Masculinity/Feminity

I think for most people talk about the division between masculinity and femininity (masc/fem for brevity from now on) is clear cut. The most stark indicator is sexual dimorphism, men are on average taller, more muscular, have deeper voices and women shorter, less muscular and have higher voices. Naturally there are a ton of other biological differences, such as potential baldness, breasts, shape of hairline, lack of facial or body hair and so on.

However, by themselves biological characteristics don't define the entire spectrum of masculinity or feminity. Society on the whole uses biological masc/fem to anchor all the other aspects of masc/fem to. I think predominantly this is just a very handy heuristic to use to quickly work out what the most appropriate way to interact with someone is - an angry beefy man could potentially kill you.

Next on the scale is behavioural masc/fem. Normally behaviour is expected to align with biological masc/fem. (Stereo) typical behaviour of men might be to be more serious, more prone to be and enjoy being physical, less talktative, more in thought than emotion, a greater focus on pragmatism and practical decision making and perhaps goal orientated, taking charge of situations and confrontation. (Stereo) typical behaviour of women might be to laugh and appease others more, have greater intonation in voice and a more emotional thinking and expression. Women would typically be less physical and less likely to want to directly confront others. Anyway, enough stereotyping.

Next on the scale is societal masc/fem. This is essentially cultural, or more accurately there is a culture of masulinity and one of feminity. Female (western) culture allows women to have longer hair, to shave their legs and to have a bigger and more expressive wardrobe. Female culture expects women to wear perfume and often to use make up and clothing to accentuate their female characteristics and bodies. Clothes will on the whole be tighter and more revealing of skin than for men. Men will have looser clothing, and less aimed at bringing out the masculinity although trousers are universal for men. In terms of behaviour the ideal man is supposed to be muscular and square jawed and confident and direct in the way the carry themselves and interact with others. They are supposed to do things even if it might uncomfortable and be loud and brash and domineering in a group of other men. I could go on.

Next is sexual orientation. The outward biological, behavioural and societal masc/fem is no indicator of the preference of the individual for the opposite masc/fem nor is it any indicator of how the individual perceives or feels themselves to be.

All the above is a quick and dirty summary. In reality masc/fem is a whole constellation of traits, rules and behaviours whose complex mixture varies from one person to the next.

To be bring the "essay" down to earth I'd like to talk about how I feel about masc/fem myself and my experiences.

Personally I identify with feeling masculine, behaving in a masculine manner and mostly fitting into societal expectation of masculinity, as well as finding females attractive. However I have never identified strongly with masculine behaviour. Behaviour such as (sexual) bragging or egging each other on, taking physical risks or laddish talk or outwardly sexual behaviour towards females. Mostly I think this was a lack of role models and personally feeling uncomfortable or having a distate for such things when I was younger.

I have always found some aspects of societal expectation ridiculous, such as women should clean and make food, men should fix things and mow the lawn. As a single man I do everything to the best of my ability: cooking, cleaning, fixing and everything else - if I become less single, I don't expect to stop cooking and cleaning; that would be an affront to my skills as a human being.

I do think that I do identify with women more strongly in certain areas. I find women on the whole are easier to talk to about deep and meaningful subjects, men a more lighweight and jovial - which has its place. I find women also tend to be less harsh and less prone to being competitive (with men). Whilst I like to compete if there is a competition, I'm not naturally that way. I find the constant low level competitiveness between men grinding.

I do like to listen and pay attention to others and to appease people in a difficult situation and these might be more feminine traits. I will also admit that some men are attractive but I don't find men universally interesting - nor do I want sexual physicality with a man (although I have experimented when younger). I don't find masculine or "hard" women particularly attractive. This is paradoxical because in order to find a "girly" woman attractive, you have to know what "girly" is.

This goes back to a previous post where I discussed that we hold everyone's characters inside of us. This would include all examples of overtly masculine and overtly feminine people. In other words we have it in us to bring out a more masculine or more feminine character. The ideal would be to have a level balance of the two which would would help iron out the extremes of the two and provide a more expressive base for being. I guess I sit on the more masculine side, but I would be a lot more central than a lot of men I know.

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

I didn't walk today. I try and get out before midday most days and get at least half an hour of full daylight: mostly to keep my body clock in trim. Today I took a drive.

I don't drive with any particular route in mind. Over time this has allowed me to explore most of the country roads in my area so I know where I'm going well enough. This is a good metaphor for doing anything with mastery. You have to know your material thoroughly so that you can be free and spontaneous.

On the bend of a steep forested road coming out of a village was a hand painted sign pointing to nowhere. It said "FRITH".

Frith is an Old English word for: peace; protection; safety, security. Maybe I should visit on foot?

Edited August 17, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Understanding consciousness is a slippery activity. Imagine your hand is the entirety of consciousness. How then is the hand able to grasp itself?

Understanding yourself is a slippery activity. Imagine you're an automaton that has been programmed to have a sense of self. Is the self in control or does the automaton just carry on regardless?

Does the self really initiate the activity of trying to understand the consciousness which it perceives to belong to it? Is the automaton destined to deconstruct itself so much that it destroys its own existence?

If consciousness is not a story or an event or exists in time then why does it seemingly constantly change?

If consciousness is itself producing a story out of its own awareness then isn't the automaton programming itself? And if so, then why does consciousness again want to de-program itself?

If consciousness already knows itself absolutely and is absolutely self aware then why all the drama? Why such contrivance? And then why even ask about the contrivance of itself?

What the hell is going on here? Why keep picking at the scab only to know you're going to bleed to death?

Edited August 19, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

The YT algorithm is trying to talk to me, but I'm not buying it:

Hang on... who am I?

[LastThursday]

Be less, be more, accept or shift perspective?

It would seem that spirituality as practiced by some is all about reduction. It's all about letting go of everything. The ego needs to be killed and removed. The chatting mind needs to be shut off so that we can experience serenity. We need to remove distraction and be still. Standard reality needs to be shunned to make space for a mind altered higher version, so that we can be God. We need to realise that we are bathing in nothingness and that we came from nothing. Enlightenment is just perfect reductionism.

There is the opposing side which wants more. It wants to be more conscious, more skilled and more aware and more nuanced. It has to attain nirvana and enlightenment. It has to work for everything in order to get closer to that magical spiritual state. The person you are now will never be enough because you need to be more in all areas of being and knowledge. The more knowledge and insight you accumulate the higher up and further on you are on the path to salvation. More is more.

Then there is the middle way. There is only ever this. No matter what you do or try or how hard things get, or how conscious you become, it's still this. There's no escape from it. That is, except to just accept this. Acceptance is the way through the quagmire of judgement and evaluations and storymaking, the antidote to drama. And if you feel acceptance is disingenous, then simply accept that too. Nothing can penetrate the shield of acceptance.

The Fourth Way. The fourth way is not a way at all, but a deceptive shapeshifter. We simply allow experience to buffet us around and we constantly shift perspective to keep ourselves upright. We forget about being a someone at all (and expand our identity to everything) and simply become a container for experience. The appearances are the puppetmaster and there's nothing else to do or anywhere to go to. We feel happy and we feel sad and we strive, but are pointedly aware that nothing is going on at all, there is no motion. If we died or disappeared in the next second, it wouldn't matter. If we gave up trying, we simply shapeshift and let it all just be. The Fourth Way is just being whatever arises.

Is there another way?

Yes. It is not have a way or method. Don't spiritually tangle yourself up just so that you can untangle yourself later. Just live. You cannot force the exacting details of the future but it will come before you know it. You cannot know what you will become, but it will come. You can only be what you are in this moment, nothing more and nothing less. Should you try and change yourself and your life? Yes. But only if you want it in the moment. Should you try and get back to that enlightened state you were in yesterday - permanently? Yes, if you wish to. Should life be dramatic and exhausting and of low consciousness? Yes why not?

All options are possible. Don't deny any of them. Your future self does not care about you now.

 

Edited August 20, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

A quick overview of the science of consciousness:

Or is that the consciousness of science? I shouldn't enjoy my own jokes.

[LastThursday]

Coincidences, synchronocities are weird. They're a little bit like breathing. Breathing inhabits that space between unconscious and conscious. Normally breathing happens without any thought at all, but it can also be taken over and consciously controlled.

A syncronicity can be easily explained as a sheer mathematical concidence: given enough random events something coincidental is bound to happen. However, in order to be noticed as a coincidence we have to become aware of it. Funny isn't it? Synchronicity also seems to inhabit the strange middle ground. It's like it wants to be explained away as mundane, but it still has significance of some sort.

I went up to London today to go for a long hike with a photographer friend of mine. To do that I had to get across London on the tube (metro). As I got on the tube I noticed a young woman dressed in bright colours: a hot pink T-shirt saying something like "Rules are meant to be broken" and a red leather (effect) skirt with a yellow zip that went vertically up the front of it. I had three quick thoughts in this order: kinky; how convenient; too young for me. Ah... the vagaries of being older. Strangely her posture and demeanor didn't quite tally with the confidence her attire would imply.

Anyway, on to the coincidence. On my way back about about eight hours later on the tube, the exact same woman gets back into my carriage and stands nearly opposite me. Bear in mind I had already been on the train for a good 15 stops or so. There must have been literally hundreds of trains and thousands of people pass through in that eight hour window. What are the chances?

I personally think trains are a place of high strangeness for me.

 

 

[LastThursday]

It's very tempting to come up with a personal philosophy with which to live life.  I think we all do it to a greater or lesser degree. This is the set of beliefs and values we hold dear or as obvious. However, the fact that these can change over a lifetime is often overlooked. We can retrospectively look back at our younger selves and see that we were naive or uninformed or ignorant; and that we're in better shape now. We never question our current philosophy.

It's a lot harder to recognise that our beliefs and values are completely fluid. It's very uncomfortable to simply drop a value (such as not eating animals) and substitute another (eating animals). Beliefs are no different. Could you just stop believing that we're living in a material world? The fact of the matter is that our personal philosophy grounds us and gives us a direction to aim for and comfort. Because we sink our energies and time into our personal philosophies we are very loathed to give them up; it feels like pulling out the rug from under our feet.

This clinging on to our beliefs and values is what keeps us stuck in our development. Yet, there is the assumption that "developing" ourselves is not a value (it is); and that it's clear what development itself means. The lack of clarity on what "development" actually is should be a big red flag. Development can and is anything that changes your current philosophy into a supposedly better philosophy. But better is always relative in the least. Better is simply a judgement or belief and as such is part of our personal philosophy. There's circularity there.

The escape valve might be to install a meta belief that our beliefs and values are a choice that we make. Inherently, they have no substance whatsoever. That can seem daunting, how are we supposed to live a good life if we have nothing to base it on? Because good is just another relative value again without substance. Really the escape valve is actually binary: either we have values and beliefs, or we give them up altogether; there is no middle ground.

What is it like to give up on all belief and values? I don't know. But I can imagine it's a bit like believing in Santa Claus. Even though most of us have given up on Santa Claus we can still entertain the notion of a red clothed bearded old fellow. So instead of a belief in Santa Claus, there is something looser; we act "as if" Santa Claus existed. So how would this work in practice?

Instead of believing that being vegetarian is good, we would believe as if being vegetarian is good, we act as if we know what "good" is. Notice the subtle shift, we are no longer certain of anything, but we can still work with it. From there we have complete freedom to choose what to believe and value, nothing has absolute worth any more than what we assign it. The shift is one of perspective not actuality. We still end up being vegetarian, but we are playing a role instead and choosing it: acting "as if". This means we can drop or pick up a belief or value consciously, for whatever reason we choose to. This gives us immense power to change ourselves and to stay fluid: we become Shapeshifters.

Edited August 25, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

I think I've always been contrary. My mum's instinctual reaction to everything is:  "No". My dad's instinctual reaction is: "I know better than you". Just mix together and shake. I suppose I do at least realise I'm like this and this keeps me on the level, and I usually know when I need to concede. 

One great benefit of being a contrarian is it has allowed me to get a handle on this business of going meta. By going meta I mean seeing a thing from a larger or different perspective. Most people are surprisingly bad at it, this way of thinking is completely alien to them. It's instructive to list some of the ways of going meta, so that you can see how the process works. The names and descriptions are my own (what else?).

Reflection

The way this works is to apply the observation in reverse.

Say you perceive that you're a people pleaser, but you're unhappy because you have to deprecate yourself in order to please others. Applying reflection you would offer: why not please yourself, are you not deserving of it too?

Say you are having a problem with a bullying manager at work. With reflection you would ask: have you ever bullied anybody? Or: does you manager also get bullied?

It's also useful for shifting perspective from outside to inside. For example, you experience that you are a victim of circumstance and you can't make friends, this makes you depressed. With reflection you would ask: what is this depression like, what are the characteristics of it? You are shifting the focus of attention from external causes to internal causes.

Expansion

This is seeing the bigger picture. 

You are unhappy because you are not having fun and meeting new people. With expansion you would ask: what could you do that would allow you to meet more people? Or, how could you have fun without meeting new people? Even better: what do you think you are learning about yourself? 

Another. Your parent has always been a very negative person and it gets you down. You might ask: what in their past has caused them to be like this? Is there a reason you hadn't considered for their negativity?

You are running a business with a partner, except things have turned sour between you. He has all your stock worth thousands on his premises abroad - he won't give you access. With expansion you would ask: are you prepared to give up on your stock to make a clean break?

Contraction

This is narrowing things down so that they're more manageable.

You are running a business, but all your stock has been stolen, Covid is killing your orders, and you've recently being diagnosed with cancer. With contraction you would ask: which thing is the most important to concentrate on first?

You have to study for an exam, but there are too many things to cover in too little time. With contraction you would ask: which topics are essential to know?

Lateral

This taking a different angle or perspective on something.

The local traffic in your neighbourhood is high and slow moving and causing increased rates of breathing problems. One lateral solution might be to increase traffic flow, so cars spend less time in your neighbourhood. You could close off side roads or move pedestrian crossings or relocate shops that cause traffic to back up.

You are having trouble meditating and just can't seem to make time for it. You could see if you could meditate differently, maybe on your commute to work, or by taking a walk during lunch times. Or even asking if there are more effective ways than meditation (although that could be Expansion).

You are trying to learn a new language, but finding it difficult to remember words. You might try: find words which are similar to English and have similar meanings. Or try and listen to music in the target language. Or even full immersion by living in the country for six months.

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

Photography 1

I dabble in lots of different things, some for interest, some for pure pleasure, some for talent.  I would say that photography is sort of in the talent category. I've come to realise I have an eye for composition, but my passion for it is non-existent. That may seem odd, but passion isn't necessary in all activites.

Mostly I take photographs on holidays. A good friend P. is very much into it and quite competitive to boot. I knew this and a good long time ago on one particular break away I challenged him (like the devil I am). He would use his fancy camera, I would use my little point and shoot. The only concession was that I could tart my pictures up with Photoshop, he couldn't. The rest of the group then blindly judged the shots at the end of the holiday. Of course, I won.

Getting feedback from the group on what was good and bad proved invaluable. And we've carried on the tradition of having a competition each holiday and we've both improved over time.

I talk about it mainly because you should always have backup plans in life. Plan B and Plan C. They might not seem particularly serious or that interesting but they should still be worth considering. Could I be a professional photographer? Yes I think so. Should I be? In an emergency yes.

So P. and I took some shots outside Heathrow airport. Here's a very small selection:

 

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by LastThursday