Journey to Nothing

[LastThursday]

Ah Jesus.

For the first time in what like literally decades, I've decided to stay awake all night. It's super tempting to go for a walk at nearly 2 am here in UK land. But it's probably effing freezing. One day I may well recount my story of tonight on here in this uber-public journal. But not right now. Read my journal in depth and between the lines to get behind the story. 2am walks were de rigeur in my twenties, usually home from a club.

I've broken several @LastThursday rules today, and engaged my kink. Three double shots of brandy and a pint of beer, so far. Gotta admit I'm feeling kind of liberated, not so much by the alcohol, although that helps. Let's just say expressing a side of my identity I seldom express is a relief. At least I haven't engaged with caffeine, that's a sweaty lightheaded wide eyed bunny insomnia I've avoided.

Lockdown has been brutal. I've just looked at these four walls for a year solid. Human contact has be 2d for the most part. But I've been able to connect 3d with some friends and my mum (bless her). I've patrolled the environs of Tunbridge Wells like a security guard during lockdown, mostly as an exercise in exercise. There's a historical phrase for patrolling county boundaries but for the life of me I can't find it on my favourite search engine.

I find myself here more often than I find myself at work. What does that say? Whatever it is being here brings me, is more important than work. My intuition is literally screaming at me and yet my rationality is saying fuck off, stick with job, earn money, have warmth and anaesthesia. I have previously succumbed to intuition and not particularly regretted it, but it wasn't sustainable. Like it or not I'm inculcated in Brit society, there's a lot of lateral leniency in what I can do, but not quite enough for me. I must get my fucking Spanish dual nationality, that way I can bypass the Brexit bollocks. But I have to live a year in Spain to do it. Try doing that at 48. No gracias, es muy dificil.

02:42. More browsing.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by LastThursday

[LastThursday]

05:47

I've always liked that synth choir effect. This is simply beautiful:

 

Ok there's a theme. At least I remember the second directly, the first not, I was too young and in living Spain. I only caught it on repeat.

Not quite a chorus. But it's a similar effect, breathy vocals. I still love it. Don't forget for a few years around 1980, French was very in, thanks to Blondie:

 

You can taste the Punk and Ska (Carribbean ) influence in this Frenchified song. One, two, one, two, one, two....

Proper Punk:

Which kind of transmuted into:

Which lead to a slow motion Punk:

Sun is up. Going for a cold walk. 06:21 am.

[Leo Nordin]

When are your going to get enlightened, what are you waiting for? 

@LastThursday

[LastThursday]

@Leo Nordin enlightenment can't be forced. That's like trying put a leash on a cat.

[Leo Nordin]

@LastThursday  okay, how is it going with your fears? 

[Zigzag Idiot]

5 hours ago, Leo Nordin said:

When are your going to get enlightened, what are you waiting for? 

@LastThursday

@Leo Nordin When are YOU going to get enlightened, what are you waiting for?

[LastThursday]

Nothing Arising From Something

What gets missed when asking the converse of this question is what exactly the nothing is. Can and does nothing exist? Does the word "nothing" point to anything at all? With my programmer head on, is the word "nothing" a dangling pointer, and what happens when we try and dereference it?

It's super obvious that there is something. That something is all around us all the time. Where does nothing sit in all this somethingness? It's a concept duh. If you have a box full of something and you take out all that something, you're left with a box of nothing. The only way to explain nothing is to remove something. That removal is a finite process, otherwise something wouldn't exist if the removal were an infinite process. Nothing is always  framed by something.

How about a special "nothing" not couched in something? Can a word in fact not point to anything at all? Yes. Here's one: ughert. But you can tell already that it's pretty useless as a word. Ironically it's a better word for spiritual nothing than "nothing" itself is.

Really, we have no idea what spiritual nothing is. So we're free to equate ughert with something if we like, but it's meaningless. Something does not arise from ughert.

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by LastThursday

[Leo Nordin]

5 hours ago, Zigzag Idiot said:

@Leo Nordin When are YOU going to get enlightened, what are you waiting for?

?I am preparing external situations...? When I go "enlightened" then I will not come back (I think) so I took it easy with my approach. Even Leo gura and most everyone else told me not to make drastic decisions at my age or in my situations. Certainly I have way more clarity right now and am more grounded, I have had experiences being an apprentice at a school which has also teached me many things. And also my earliest moments of oneness was ultimately ecstatic so I didn't then have experience with all the forms of expression during enlightenment. 

Though I don't know if I am going to wait until summer vacation. I might "accidentally" go "enlightened" before that, at least people around me would believe my seriousness if I quit 1 month before finishing this year in school because therefore I loose a whole year of my studies. We will see what happens.

 

@LastThursday

I was going to involve myself further with you but the desire is gone now, so I hope you the best of luck?? I don't see anything I can do for you, so good luck. 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Leo Nordin

[Leo Nordin]

@LastThursday  

You may be moving in circles, repeating the same way of living, thinking, feeling every day. When you see that maybe you won't come to this forum anymore, or have the same type of thoughts or thinking over and over again. Explore life. 

[LastThursday]

@Leo Nordin I appreciate your sentiment and I'm grateful for you taking an interest in me. 

This journal is a place for me to dump my ideas, so I don't really want to fill it up with conversations discussing my own development, that should happen somewhere else (PM me or post questions in the forum). However, if you just want to comment on my ideas here then please feel free.

 

[LastThursday]

I'm into numbers and maths. I'm definitely not into numerology. For me it's like a see-saw with maths on one side and numerology on the other. Here's an elaborate example I cooked up one day, just to show how a numerologist's mind works and why a knowledge of maths undermines it.

19: I am a child of the moon

The Metonic cycle is 19 years in length which is 235 lunations (full moons if you like) nearly exactly. After which the sequence repeats. It can be used to predict eclipses (nothing weird here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonic_cycle)

My year of birth is 1972. Adding the digits we get 19 (getting weirder, but there's loads of these sorts of numbers). 

When I was 19 the year was 1991 (nice, a palindromic number. Adding the digits gives 20: go figure out why).

Lets multiply: 19x91 = 1729 (more weirdness, the digits are rearranged, it must mean something right?), obviously still adds to 19.

1729 is a very famous number, it's a taxi cab number. It's the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_(number)). Or for a numerology angel, I mean angle: http://sacredscribesangelnumbers.blogspot.com/2014/06/angel-number-1729.html

Multiply again 17x29 = 493. So? Then multiply by 4 again = 1972. Lovely. Total coincidence, mathematically though.

For all those riddlers and numerologists out there, when was my birthday? And other than my birth, what was momentous about that day? What phase of the moon is it?

 

Numerology: just say no. You can find any patterns you like in numbers to justify your beliefs. Numbers are just that, a way of counting things.

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by LastThursday

[Zigzag Idiot]

Darn it,  @LastThursday You burst my bubble. Although it has been punctured somewhat and slowly leaking over time. Being that I’m naturally math stupid I’ve been riding numerology for all it’s worth for quite a few years. What you say resonates though. At the height of my numerology mania, looking at license plates and anything with numbers on it became obsessive compulsive that would often lead me far away into abstraction.

Does the following add up any for you?

Lunar essence types energy is passive and negative polarity with the pancreas being the dominant endocrine gland. The chief feature of Lunars often is said to be willfulness. For whatever it’s worth, I’ve typed Leo as being almost archetypal Lunar. You may view this essence typology I’m using in the same light as numerology though. It was born out of the enneagram and the Gurdjieff Work and goes by outer appearance mostly. How people carry their weight and somewhat of how they express themselves. Just thought I’d throw it out here. I enjoy reading your posts.
Good day to ya,,,

[LastThursday]

@Zigzag Idiot even empires come and go.

I've probably mentioned sometime before that I'm not into "systems" for living or divining life. That's not to disparage others who do, it's just never been a personal preference of mine - that includes numerology as a system. Although I'm about to contradict myself.

Where I think there is value in using a system is if the particular system is loose in its interpretation and has an element of randomness. Something like Tarot, or the I Ching (although I don't know much about it). The randomness allows you to make observations or choices you normally wouldn't have, which is good for pushing us out of our comfort zones or stuck ways of thinking - so it keeps us flexible. The loose interpretation allows our intuition (and by extension potential paranormal abilities) to kick in and override our normal every day thinking. The upshot is to lead better lives.

Also, in using some of these systems there is an element of ritual to it. My ritual abilities are very underdeveloped, but they are superb for putting consciousness into altered states and so allow our abilities (intuition etc.) to shine through.

So there's my recipe: loose interpretation, randomness and ritual. I ought to actually try it myself!  What would you suggest?

As far as Gurdjieff goes I think I read that he would inhabit different characters as part of his "method", that really appeals to me.

And thanks. I read loads of journals here, including yours and I get something different from each one.

Edited March 12, 2021 by LastThursday

[Zigzag Idiot]

@LastThursday I appreciate your thoughtful reply.

5 hours ago, LastThursday said:

So there's my recipe: loose interpretation, randomness and ritual. I ought to actually try it myself!  What would you suggest?

I would recommend to anyone who had any interest at all towards it, the I CHING and in particular the revised version called The Oracle of the Cosmic Way. https://www.ichingoracle.com/
If you’ve followed my Journal you’ve seen a bit of its commentary from time to time and my reasoning for abandoning the old version. As you probably know C.G. Jung had an avid interest in it and actually coined the term synchronicity when he wrote the forward for the Wilhelm Baines edition. Referring to the mechanics of how it worked as constrained chance, if I’m remembering right. Terence McKenna, also a student of the I CHING said it was like throwing a coin which had 64 sides,,,,

5 hours ago, LastThursday said:

As far as Gurdjieff goes I think I read that he would inhabit different characters as part of his "method", that really appeals to me.

This is just a three minute clip about Gurdjieff and his role playing.

 

[LastThursday]

I don't do it for the views.

10000 views! Whoop whoop!

[LastThursday]

I thought I would review my learning style as both an example of one and as a meta-analysis of the pros and cons of it (<-- always use punctuation).

My innate tendency is that I don't try to force learning or remembering. Instead I graze. I was in the lucky position as a kid that my father was into several different disciplines and hobbies: music, chemistry, electronics, horticulture, maths. I was never forced by my parents into learning anything. Instead my father (mostly) would attempt as best he could to answer to my curiosity: I learned to read Spanish that way. And nor was I restricted from playing with stuff. I remember distinctly playing on my father's new HP21 calculator (which I now have), which would have been an expensive toy for a kid to break! This also taught me to be self sufficient in answering to my curiosity - as well as having respect for things.

I do remember having an intense curiosity about everything as a kid. But it was a virtuous circle. I was free to practise that curiosity using the things that were around me and to have all my questions answered. One of my greatest assets as a kid was a dictionary with small illustrations. This made the dictionary accesible to me, and I would often just scan the pages looking at the illustrations and wondering what it all meant: I had to read the text to understand the drawings. This ingrained in me a habit of looking up information to satisfy my curiosity.

I've always had a good memory. If I was interested in something deeply enough I would remember it, or at least know where to go if I couldn't remember it. It's not something I had to work at until I started doing A Levels at 16. My A Levels and afterwards degree, required forced learning and went completely against my preferred style. I coped but the results were mediocre (I was also a party animal).

My attention has as far back as I remember been scatter-gun. I can focus for long periods, but even now it takes effort and is done out of necessity. Instead left to my own devices I will pick up something, put it down, pick it up some later time and so on. I have some programming projects I have been working on for over ten years which are exactly like this. I do wonder if I have some ADD, but I never really cared enough to investigate it, I also vehemently disklike been labelled. My journal here is scatter-gun. I can't stand schedules, deadlines and organisation, but I can do them if forced at gunpoint.

So following my nose has allowed me to organically learn everything, including the very thing my life depends upon: my IT skills. Some things I'm very bad at however. Rote learning and remembering facts and figures requires tedious effort on my part. You'll notice in this journal I don't reference anyone else directly, that's because I'm very bad at it. Instead I remember concepts and ideas and systems extremely well. Also, because I'm very self-directed in my learning, I'd much rather work things out or invent things myself than blindly just trust what someone tells me. That can be inneficient because there's not enough time to re-invent the wheel every time.

Can I improve on my learning style?

It's obvious to me that my ability to focus on a single area has improved drastically over time. This has allowed me to get depth in my learning. But I also know that there isn't really such a thing as "a single area", everything is connected or is a part of everything else. This is what attracted me to Actualized.org in the first place, everything Leo talks about is just a part of a big whole: like seeing parts of the mountain appear out of the mist. So what I'm getting at, is that synergy is very important for improving my learning. Synergy is just noticing and using connections between disparate areas and pattern matching and coming up with new configurations.

Play and fun and humour ought to play a greater role in my learning. It may seem counterintuitive in our culture of rigidly measuring learning with exams and grades. What is play after all? It's self-directed learning! It is scatter-gun and improvised and collaborative. Ah, yes, collaborative. That is one area that I'm very weak on. I'm a loner in terms of learning. I find having to share the learning process with other people excruciating. Collaboration is seemingly always attached to formality and process and systems zzzzzzz  I think too fast to either be bothered to explain in slow motion to others or to have the patience to try and decipher someone else's ramblings. Posting on this site has been a big exercise in improving myself in this way, although I still find collaborating with people to be a big PITA.

What does humour have to do with learning? A lot of forced learning is very serious: PhDs and law exams and medical exams. Seriousness, whilst functional is the wrong approach and mindset. The best learning happens in a relaxed informal atmosphere. Is learning humourous? Yes, I think so. There is paradox and contradiction in learning which can be funny. Also, there is an inherent joy and reward for learning something novel, which sometimes breaks out into humour. Noticing the odd unexpected connections between things can be suprising and humourous. I think humour can also underpin the approach to learning, to keep it light and informal and interesting.

What else? Learning by letting things bubble up. That's completely new to me. Ok, yes, if I'm working on a difficult idea or project, I can have an epiphany as if from nowhere, but that's directed epiphany. What about just letting stuff come up seemingly out of nowhere. I think this does naturally happen all the time, but personally I either don't pay much attention to it or it's too etherial and I forget it straight away. In order to capture this process, I would need to immediately write down the insight. But that doesn't work for me. It could be that simply meditating for the purpose of insight might be the way to go, but that's very odd to me: non-directed learning? Hmm.

 

 

[LastThursday]

Sometimes you reconnect with people you haven't seen in months or years or even decades. There's many reasons for a hiatus, such as physical distance or lack of time or an unresolved disagreement or just being focussed on different things. We can feel differently about different people. Some people we miss dearly and others we don't even remember, until they suddenly find us on Facebook and try and befriend us again.

There very much feels like an obligation when someone tries to reconnect with you to reciprocate. I say obligation, because sometimes there's an unspoken reason you haven't kept in contact with that person. Maybe you never did much like them in the first place, or some flaw in their character put you off, or they simply didn't add anything to your life or even worse dragged you down.

So the first reaction to being reconnected ought to be to just take some time to listen without judgement. If it's been a long time, they could have changed out of all recognition, and the same goes for you. It would take time for both of you to readjust your feelings and attitude towards each other. Give the reconnection a chance. Maybe second time round things will go differently.

The second reaction is to go with your intuition. Is the person genuinely reconnecting because they actually missed you or thought more of you than you expected. Is the person doing it out of need and you would be in a happy position to help them? Is the person just nostalgic and wanting to relive a bit of youth, and maybe you do too? You will soon find out.

Last is to use some logic. You have so far lived without this person in your life for a reasonable amount of time - so logically you can keep on so doing, it won't really make much difference in the long run if you decide not to reconnect. You don't have to feel guilty or obliged and you can just patiently wait and let the reconnection fizzle out again.

 

[LastThursday]

I realise I write like Charles Dickens. Not so much in Victorian language but more in the style of omniscient narrator. Despite really talking about myself in all my posts, I like to detach as if I'm some sort of drone recording a scene from a distance. Maybe this is indicative of how I view my world, that I'm somehow once removed from everything I say and do, and I'm just watching it all happen.

So let's talk women's clothing.

One aspect of feminity (my new embodiment), is how it's expressed as a form of body art. Clothing whether functional or expressive is always body art. It modifies the naked canvas of the wearer to convey artistic intent. What's the intent? Many things. It could signal subversion, group belonging, sexuality, authority, defined roles, richness, poverty, modesty, submission, dominance, gender, culture, age, temperament, period, class, or a combination of those. What specifically does this omniscient narrator think is feminine clothing?

One aspect is roundness and softness. Often feminine dress is designed to accentuate the round features of the breasts and buttocks, by being tight fitting, modesty is only a secondary consideration and is catered for by varying amounts of coverage. This is enhancement rather than outright modification, like wearing eyeliner to accentuate the eyes. This is about letting the canvas itself speak, by bringing attention to it and lightly contouring it. PVC works because it sticks to and stretches well with skin, like a modified outer skin.

Flow is important. This is soft undulating movement. Clothing that flows amplifies a woman's natural flowing movements. This is hard to pin down aesthetically, but when compared to more masculine movement, it is a more graceful and less rigid movement, which comes from having less muscle mass and finer frames (in general). Dresses, skirts, long hair (an extension of clothing) especially if it billows, baggy blouses and trousers, saris, kimonos, hijab. Flowing clothing is connected with feminine sensuality. Frilly attachments have a flowing undulation and is very prevalent in feminine underwear. Longer clothing such as coats are designed to swish.

Pattern and sculpting is important. In a sense all clothing is sculpting. Flowers or plant life or tiger patterns (!) are feminine and prevalent. Lacework is reminiscent of patterns found in nature, folliage and filaments. All sorts of repeating and geometric patterns, stripes, polka dots, and often these are cut-outs strategically exposing the canvas below. These have the effect of modifying the immediate sensation of shape and volume of the body and break it up - but at the same accentuate movement where the patterns overlap and swish about against each other. It's about attention: look at me I'm feminine and here I am. This is clothing art as body modification.

The sculpting is very often about strategically exposing the skin around the arms, ankles, knees, midriff, bust. This is about contrast, smooth pale skin, beautiful dark brown skin against patterned fabric. The contrast bringing attention to aesthetically femine parts of the body. These parts mostly being covered in masculine attire. Clothing is shorter to expose the canvas.

Makeup and tatoos is body art and a form of clothing, permanent or temporary. Feminine makeup intensifies, it makes eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows and lips fuller, colour enhances and overlays onto natural features. Flaws are disguised, In this case it's the feminity that's being intensified, smooth skin and homogeneous healthy appearance. Feminine beauty is attached to looking healthy, flaws being a sign of potential bad health. Makeup is facial sculpting to intensify feminity.

Shoes are used to accentuate and sculpt body form especially calves and buttocks. They increase height and feminine dominance. Heels force shorter more feminine steps and the click-clack against hard floors bring attention to the shorter steps. The slight instability in walking in heels increases the sway (and flowing movement) of the hips and buttocks. Shoes expose toes with painted toenails. They can be soft to the touch and look functional, but also accentuate feminine softness. Colour in shoes is very important. Long boots also accentuate and dress the lower legs. Shiny shoes gleam with constantly moving highlights, outlining feminine movement. Bright reds and primary colours also bring attention and can be used to indicate blood and sexuality. Red and light red (pink) are feminine colours. Pastel and unsaturated colours signal placidness and lightness, both feminine traits, in men this is used to constrast againt masculinity (but not generally used in masculine shoeware).

Accesories, tights, stockings, jewellery, hats, scalfs further sculpt the outline and employ flow, highlighting, colour. Masculine body art generally has less accesorising, because this would break up the straighter lines and more homogenous look of male clothing.

 

[LastThursday]

We live in three worlds. The world of the public. The world of the private. The world of our thoughts, desires and fantasies.

Each world is governed by it's own rules and code of conduct. The public space has to be shared with people and is therefore designed so that people get on with each other civilly. It's a world of lowest common denominators, not everything goes: nakedness, drug use, most sorts of deviancy from the norm are frowned upon. It's police and politics and politeness. It's the real world of weather and burning sun, concrete and highways; cars.

The private space is looser in all those public taboos just mentioned. The only agreement needed is from your (un)loved ones who share your space. Whenever the outside public world intrudes an air of public normalcy pretended, or at least usual private practices are toned down. Recreational drug use is rife, the law doesn't apply. The private space is one of relaxation and letting loose and protection from the rigid public world just outside those windows. It is a place of sleep and dreams and sexual conduct. In a non-pandemic world it is an escape from the public workplace and its codes of conduct. It's a place to eat and shit comfortably. It is a place of deviancy and kink, where some of our fantasies are enacted and a space for getting lost in games both computerised and otherwise.

The inner world of thought is the last refuge. If we choose to, it is a perfect place to keep secrets and lock away unpleasant things, even if they often poke us with their ugliness. It is the action centre, and the nerve centre of our sense of self. Here, the three worlds come together to be sorted and sifted into their respective zones. Here no laws apply, and we are unrestricted in our freedom, except for any self imposed imprisonment. We can become others at a moment's notice and then revert to ourselves when finished. We can travel back in time and far into the future. This is the space we use to learn about the other worlds and ourselves. It is a space to secretly hate others or secretly love them.

[LastThursday]

I often sit here feeling like I've lost an important part of myself over the years. It's pretty difficult to dissect what's been lost exactly, but I'll try my best. Here's a list of nouns I think I've lost or that have diminished and what they mean to me:

• Energy, vibrancy, excititability: I suppose this comes with age, except that I'm not infirm or in any way unhealthy, I'm fit enough to walk 15 miles in a day. So what gives? Social expectation? Lack of opportunity to express this energy? It just feels like I do still have this, but no outlet for it. I think especially most of the things I do are because I have to do and none of it switches me on.
• Fun, joy: Again no opportunity to engage with these. Fun and joy are often expressed with other people, especially in intimate situations (not necessarily sexual). I'm quite a humorous and at times sarcastic person and sometimes it works with people (not on a forum full of Americans however - dig). But I find most adults around me just have a humour by-pass, life is serious serious serious. Also, people are just incapable of laughing at themselves or their misfortunes.
• Connection, people: Maybe the root cause of my loss. As my friends have got married, had kids and maintain mortages, the level of connection has dramatically reduced. Ironically, this connection has increased during lockdown, go figure. I was very close to my sister for most of my childhood, but we have become disconnected as adults - although I'm working on this. I'm not close to my family, we keep each other at a respectable distance. I don't currently have a girlfriend - but I feel strongly ambivalent about having one. I don't do pets or plants. Sheesh.
• Experimentation: This is a tricky one. Experimentation is kind of a one shot process. Once alcohol, staying awake all night, nightclubs, sex, weed, other stuff, have meet experimented on, that's it. I am experimenting heavily with hypnosis and associated activities. But more of this please Me.
• Novelty: Again another difficult one, a sort of sister to experimentation. Most experimentation is about novelty, most novelty comes from experimentation. I think some new activites are needed. I have variously done creative writing, acting, song writing, Tai Chi, Badminton (still am). I have a strong interest in running and walking. Problem is none of those activies are novel. How do I turn on the novelty tap.
• Kindness, gratitude, helping others: It's not that I don't do these things, it's that I don't feel comfortable expressing these as much I want to. Brits are reserved and very sincere about all this stuff. I would just love it to be casual and informal. The way I currently show gratitude is by being physically present and attentive for the people I love. I'm also prepared to go out of my way to help my friends and family. However, I'm not particular verbal about expressing these things. I feel as though my exterior facade doesn't match my interior feelings around kidness and gratitude.
• Purpose: I've drifted ever since left University now over 25 years ago FFS. Before that my purpose was to escape the confines of London and to get educated as highly as possible and then to earn loads of dosh. I did all that and somewhere along the line gave up striving for anything much at all. Saying that, my scattergun attention doesn't help in this respect, nothing sticks long enough to stick to one purpose. There's no simple solution for this. It's quite possible, that I will never pick up a purpose until I pop my clogs.
• Optimism: I was an extremely happy go lucky young person. Despite all the odds of parents divorcing, lonely teenagehood, and being poor, I was still optimistic that things would go right and about the future. This has given way to a very pragmatic and grounded person however - which is fine but without optimism all the energy and motivation is sucked out of me. Pragmatism is great for weathering the storm of every day drudgery: working, paying bills and doing the rounds with friends and family, being adult. Pragmatism has also helped kill the anxious young adult I was - for that I'm very thankful. But without optimism life is nothing special.

Hmm. What's the theme? People, people, people... How do I square getting to know more people with my lone wolf character? Kill the wolf.

 

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by LastThursday