The struggle to free myself from restraints, becomes my very shackles... AGHHHHH!!!!!

[RickyBalboa]

The Struggle To Free Myself From Restaints.....mp3

All statements below are not meant to be taken seriously by anyone, not even me. These are simply the ramblings of a madman. TO NO ONE, FROM NO ONE. 

9/16/2020

I feel myself at odds. I put fourth my efforts to be less hateful, more understanding, more neutral, less egoic, less emotionally turbulent. I come to the conclusion that these traits will be reflected in others the more I embody them only to come up disappointed at the lack of evidence supporting such a theory. I've changed the way I use my words to have more instances of "sometimes, tends to, perhaps, maybe" as to not make sweeping generalizations or stir up conflict. Despite this it seems there are individuals who will respond by projecting their own negative interpretations of my ideas and throw them back at me amplifying them to preposterous degrees despite putting my most sincere efforts fourth in being respectful and trying to encourage effective dialogue.

I question whether my efforts have been worth it. Should I simply push forward with a heavy hand and make every interaction a battle to the death of being the winner. Using my ego as a chain-mail, hurting others with my quarter-baked ideas no matter the cost. Is there truly less pain in making thoughtful attempts at mitigating my personal suffering. I can mitigate the pain from using more compassionate self-talk, but to love myself and then try to love others the same and then be vulnerable to their attacks seems like a never-ending loss. I feel like an emotionally blunted human as it is. How much more can shirk off feelings to the point I don't even feel upset by interactions such as these?

I can see myself, so sensitive, so self-important. Why does it matter that a portion of the population is dead set on hurting me/others ? Would a truly impartial person even bother to type out such an insignificant concern? Is my insistence on putting this in text a testament to how egoic I actually AM? Am I ultimately helping ANY form of life in this? Is this line of questioning and the sense of futility that comes along with it an attempt at curtailing my responsibility of working out the kinks of my inner mind? Which intuition is correct? Which voice do I listen to? You've clearly gone mad. Take a break.... clear your god damn head.

Edited September 17, 2020 by RickyBalboa

[RickyBalboa]

9/16/2020 (continued)

Alright, bud. What's going on here is that you are feeling badly because you are judging yourself to the degree of an imagined enemy. You can't accept the way you are being treated because you can't accept yourself. You are self-editing so that your message will be accepted by all. You are looking for acceptance. What feels better than acceptance? Knowing that if you make an honest attempt and enriching the world, the world itself in all its forms will accept you back. That's connectivity. That's love. Is the idea that loving indiscriminately will eventually at some point severely hamper hate and judgement? And the mitigation of that will mitigate the mitigation of love and growth. So we have come full circle here. My inability to love indiscriminately is due to my weakness in the face of others AND my own hate of myself. So the only way to not be corrupted is to care less about myself and more about everything outside of myself. But to do that and push love forward at all costs...... isn't that a discrimination against hate? How does one love hate? Wouldn't loving hate be as impartial as it gets? Understanding that there HAS to be that balance? Love needs Hate just as much as Hate needs Love. My brain hurts. I think there is a paradox here that defies logic. It's a loop. A stalemate. In the event of said stalemate, what does a human do? Is there a wrong answer? Are all possible timelines which are inclusive of all possible human acts and emotions equally valid. Idk whats going on. Time for a break

Edited September 16, 2020 by RickyBalboa

[RickyBalboa]

9/16/2020 (continued)

I'm spinning in circles. My thought operate like a series of loops. Each thought passing across its last over and over. Each iteration scanning over its last to acknowledge inconsistency or error.

 

I'm spinning my wheels in the sand. I go nowhere. The only exploration happening is the movement required to examine the the thoughts themselves and how they came to be. I feel a particularly negative way about this. Why do my thoughts lack momentum and a trajectory into a different territory. I am increasingly annoyed the more I reflect on my past writings. They seem to make no sense whilst imagining them read from the perspective of a peer. However TO ME, they make sense considering I internally possess the impulses and imagery for what was trying to be said. Is it simply I am disconnected from how other people think. Is my thought process just not suit for the conventional ways of expression? Is language just too limited for what I am trying to express? Or is my ability to follow basic grammar so lack luster that I end up revealing to myself and others that I am in fact a retard. Maybe a bit of both. Maybe my obsession with being as dry and objective as possible lends itself to becoming a stale, boring, and ultimately useless vehicle for communicating anything to anyone. What use is language if it only makes one understand themselves, and not help others?

Is there any truth to be attained from what I am saying? If so, is there even a point to doling out the thoughts if its essentially just revolving around itself infinitley. 

We got to turn this:

INTO THIS:

[RickyBalboa]

9/22/20

Its astonishing how the feeling of embarrassment is not limited to being in the presence of others. I can feel quite embarrassed being on my own. The question is if that shame (in the presence of no one) is an invention of my own or a construct of society which was programmed into me a long time ago. Even if it was the latter, could it really have been programmed into me without my permission first? Only I can give permission for some pattern to take a hold of me. I guess the distinction here would be conscious permission or unconscious permission. If that distinction does exist then a majority of my programming must have been unconscious and been readily absorbed during lower levels of development when I was much less capable of making distinctions. So in that sense, I can't really be held responsible until I became conscious of said shame and realizing I hold the keys to release it from myself. That time is now. It may not have been my fault, however it is now my responsibility to fix it.

If I am responsible for releasing this long held pattern, then I am equally responsible for asking myself whether it is truly a necessary emotion to go through. My first instinct is to tell myself this is a BAD emotion. It leads to hang-ups in my decision making and frames myself as a victim. If I had to be neutral and try to note examples of why shame is in fact GOOD. My immediate answer would be that It stops me from committing the most heinous crimes known to man. Rape, murder, and theft are all acts I could commit with more ease If I did not feel shame. They are the most direct paths one could take to getting their base needs met.

So upon such reflection, it seems my shame serves more good to others than it is bad for me. The worst of shame is a brief activation of the sympathetic nervous system causing an unpleasant sensation in the organs and potentially a feedback loop of shame/anxiety depending on how I respond in the presence of others. But again, who is responsible? Is any one individual other than me responsible for the potential feedback loop of negativity I exhibit as a result of the initial shame? Obviously not, but the ego has it's own thoughts on the matter. The ego will quickly blame society for whatever feelings It experiences and the uncomfortable impulses that ensue (fight,flight,freeze)that could potentially hurt social status further. Thus reinforcing the loop more. So the big question here is how can one mitigate their response to shame and manage them to where they reap the benefits of not doing harm to others or self, but also not have to cower in a pit of their own suffering? 

I

DONT

KNOW

 

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by RickyBalboa

[RickyBalboa]

9/27/2020

 Time for a short anecdote. Yesterday was my first time trying vr. My friend bought a Valve index headset with controllers and bases for 1000$. It came in and he asked me to come over to give it a spin. I was very impressed. Sure it wasn't 100% indistinguishable from reality, but we are still pretty early in the development of this tech. It looked rather good despite that. I maybe played around in this environment in a 3.5 x 3.5 meter space for probably a good hour and when I came out the use of my thumbs while using my phone felt not quite as real anymore. The use of my body almost felt like a simulation. In a way it made me really appreciative my immediate environment in non-vr space. Reality experienced  in human form alone is incredibly beautiful and it shouldn't take exploring a vr environment to realize that. The defining factor in what makes our reality feel so boring at times is it's static nature. The vr gives you the opportunity to explore new spaces without the pain of lengthy travel and spending money per mile traveled. I'm rambling but the real reason I wanted to put this down on text was because of what happened to me later that night after I went to sleep. 

So maybe 5 hours later I went to sleep. I ended up falling asleep on the ground next to my gf with the lights on. What happened next is a bit hard to explain but basically what happened was I pushed my body upright with one hand and with the other I reached over at my gfs face and began poking it to see what would happen. There is alot of picking up and touching of objects in the vr environment via the controllers that can sense the opening and closing of your hands. So in my strange state of what people call 'confusional arousal', I was testing the reality of my gfs form. Here is the kicker though, while I was aware of what I was doing, there was no Rickybalboa to speak of in this state. It was like my normal everyday identity was COMPLETELY absent from my actions. That part of my brain was offline. It took me going back to sleep and then waking up a few minutes later to realize "wtf, what just happened? I remember doing that to my gfs face and can sort of put together that I was doing it because my experience with vr earlier in the day. But the inability to identify with my self as Rickybalboa or acknowledge my gf as her typical role in my life is really perplexing". I stayed up the next hour reading about people who have experienced the same thing. This is how I came upon the term within parasomnia disorders known as confusional arousal. Reflecting back on my life, I have definitely had this happen before. But usually there was less action and more just staring around the room in confusion while not really knowing who, what, where I am. One of those times unfortunately being near the ending of the Evil Dead when all the zombies are melting and exploding. That was fuckin weird, and kinda traumatizing. Apparently it's very common in children but does still happen in some adults. 

Really, the thing that intrigued me the most was the combination of this event and the obvious effect my vr experience had on my actions in said state. There was just enough awareness present to realize I had the power to interact with my environment and enough to question "Is this environment and creature next to me real? Can I touch it?". Only thing that was missing was my identity and all my memories of what brought me to where I was. So fuckin strange and in a sense enlightening. So easily I forget all the things that come together that allow me to function as a human being in the present moment. How much my memories are central to making sense of what is around me. Imagine what living in that strange state perpetually would be like. Being perpetually confused about where I am and not holding memory beyond the past few seconds ago. It felt like what I would imagine insect consciousness would be like. Not knowing what I am but endlessly trying to meet mybasic needs at all moments of the day up until the moment of my death. I really don't know what to do with this experience. Incredibly interesting but It can't be filed like my other experiences, it just doesn't fit in any category or folder the same way other experiences do. That is all. 

Edited September 27, 2020 by RickyBalboa