I am posting back to back. i want to dump some some ideas out. i had other ideas waking up. I have gone back on no fap. i have done it on and off. neither seems morally better but this has a powerful effect in a way. strange and wonderous things happen- they really do - subtle things.
In sum, i want my body to fully come online, so i can be fully embodied and physicaly and mentally present in a place. I can even feel disembodied and dissassociated in the privacy of my own bed, and i feel this war in my body. I think Paul the apostle had a war. My war is not like his. There are moral dimensions i guess in mine too but he lost the war. he became disembodied. I am trying to become embodied. When you're embodied, you feel it. When not, not. I guess one can become disembodied by being too much in fantasy-- sexual or otherwise. one can be too much in the imagination too- even non sexually. one can be too much in morals and dogma and fairy tale but you can profess to believe those i think and still be embodied. Abstraction-- not necessarily. I would argue the more embodied you are, the more abstraction you can handle. I would argue all understanding and memory lives in the body because it was stored there correctly and mapped to the body. You feel a certain concept, even abstract algebra. Maybe it makes it harder, as you have cognitive load. I don't know. Losing or being defeated or bored can be disembodying i think. I think maybe there are three main things: 1. sexual desire, which focuses too much of the body in one spot 2. imagination and fantasy- dreams of getting rich and 3. pain and losing and boredom, which relate to number 2 because they have you daydreaming. I just took a float tank yesterday. When i daydreamed in high school in boring classes, i was somewhere else but when i was in the float tank i felt myself being pulled back together. It's the same mental act kind of, of the default mode network but for different reason in different context.
Power Inversion- this is what i need with women. Basically they have all the power-- for real, all bravado and frames aside, but they don't have to. This goes back to embodiment i think. The eyes are a danger to men. I was at starbucks yesterday working and there were a ton of students. It was full so you take what table you can get but i had gotten there early and i was planted in the corner, to get work done although i don't always chose the corner. there were these two I believe attractive women sat next to me, talked, and i think eventually started looking over or i sensed a vibe and lean in. I didn't even look at them to know if they were attractive or not. I think if i would have, it would have killed their fire and curiosity and i would have been branded lame. Instead, what i felt was charge, and recharge. They did the whole gambit of stuff in their conversation. It was girl talk but they were students and workers and attractive i think. i felt heat coming from them. I didn't look. if i would have darted my eyes, that probably would have been the end of it. As it was, power was reversing.
That is what i need, power reversal. I never want to chase, pursue, open a girl unless and until i feel in power or at least equality but even equality is risky because it can lead to power subordinacy. I never want that. It is evil. I like what i had yesterday. It also reminded me-- i need to make use of the proximity effect. The Proximity Effect is my friend and i need to use it. It is one dumb reason why community serves me and societies without communities hurt me. There is proximity. It is not the only thing. Reputation and status can help too-- and if i get on the wrong side of things it can hurt me but usually if i am at all embarrased or ashamed i pull away first. i have a personality that wants to be scratch- for whatever reason. I mean beyond reproach by and large. Authenticity and trustworthiness is my power but that only exists in community, not in a fragmented world and that also only exists if i self police or regulate. That's how i feel but these insights are from reflection. For me it is automatic. Other people operate differently. Communities have always been where i did best- if i didn't spoil the scene and i am realizing part of that is sheer proximity and if i go to busy places, that has part of the aspect of community. i can also get to know the baristas or whatever but even if i didn't, that first day, proximity itself works. I have more fun at a starbucks sitting next to women that i sense are beautiful, that i don't even look at than i do paying for something that is supposed to be fun, but it is worth noting that later a hugely obese woman sat next to me whose energy also leaked into my field and who also did a lot of talking on the phone. it's a lottery. if i could control or bias the outcome, that would be perfect.
I am made for community and proximity of younger people who don't have baggage, who have optimism, hope and good faith and good manners, but i am getting older. I am getting more of all the things a man should be, more confident, self aware, successful, embodied etc but getting older. i can't fish in crappy ponds. if the others- in those crappy ponds would meet me half way, things might be fine but it doesn't seem like they do and i don't want to take what little they got and break their heart and lead them astray if they are 35 or 40 and looking for something serious so it does seem like i have to be Leo like but for completely different reasons, from a completely different context. This is just what i'm finding. i didn't set this up. These are the emerging dynamics. Show me otherwise. I know I am straying into apologia territory and that is something i want to do less and less of. That is not a good place to be if you don't have to. One doesn't owe anyone anything. As Dan Pena says about business- i only want to stick to what's legal, moral and ethical but ethics have changed and ethics and morals are relative in so many ways. They got mad at the guy who wrote blurred lines Robin Thicke when ganster rap was way worse. even the rapper in his song had worse lines, and Robin was only calling out that blurred lines are a thing- the woman was making the lines blurred. The world has some crazy ethics. they say one's desire is innate- you are born with it, whether gay or straight, trans or whatever and you are only responsible for your conduct. I am all and only about consent but more than that- satisfaction. In fact my desire, if it's not just a quick casual random thing where both parties are satisfied) is to be the best, bring different things they have neve experienced, and find someone who grow a good big family with. The only people i don't necessarily care to satisfy are third parties. I know I am straying into apologia. I can't help it sometimes. Maybe this is a problem for me. Maybe this is me being too much in my head and not embodied, in my chest and elsewhere. I was coming alive in my chest this morning, or feeling the emotion and energy.
i was feeling a lot of emotion and energy (nerves) in my body lately on account of both no fap and some real estate drama i have been doing through- a chronic hassel at this one and only one of my properties, which i'm selling-- things i don't have closure on right now. Anyway long story short I'm feeling more nerves and emotions in my body. I say stoicism where stoicism is required- holding the load and transferring it property when and where you can, but being a man, outwardly, but stoicism NOT AS AN IDENTITY and also BE ABLE TO TAKE AND GET PLEASURE AND GIVE PLEASURE. Marcus Aurelius is not my hero. Wonder boy emperor was not my hero. He could bear load but he coudln't take or get pleasure. He couldn't enjoy his power. I am not big into cigars right now though maybe i will be but that's the idea. You need to be able to be stoic but you need to be able to experience pleasure, leaning back, smoking a cigar and maybe having tumbler of whiskey or whatever, maybe even getting a bf and it doesn't have to be cheap fornication. could be from your wife and mother of children. Point is what's the point of power if all your'e going to be is stoic? Power is not just about stocism. Plato was probalby single, in his abstractions like Newton. Aurelius was the groaning coping emperor, the archetype of that whose wife maybe cheated on him with a gladiator. Savonarola was the friar in Florence who ran the bonfire of the vanities (art and decadence and pleasure). Men can swing this way easily. There is something in the male psyche that does this type of thing (and can also be bad for the world) but i think women are mostly more embodied- are naturally more embodied-- and actually ironically some women i might do better with- abby or tatiana or whatever maybe less embodied, more awkward but trusting and curious and open and desirous, where i can lead them to their bodies. That might have been a reason. Perhaps they saw my relative embodiment. they were cute though. i wonder why they didn't open earlier. People, and women i think tend to open in a season. Some are like that, flowers that bloom and are available only for a brief time. Others like jessica are perennially good. As a man you can only control who you are- if that. I mean who controls anything? Self control is a highly recursive and reflexive concept and idea but you can't control other people or influence them unless they let you have influence and impact on them. If you get a girlfriend or a partner, then maybe you can. You can help them grow and develop into great people, inspire and guide and help transform them, if it is something they are open to.
Embodiment is great but at the end of the day, supposing someone is fully 100 percent embodied. it is still them versus the world. One needs to be integrated, assimiliated, positioned, connected-- otherwise stressors will keep coming. Oh yeah i had three concepts the other day, from the float tank:
1. embodiment
2. scaffolding-- this is important. church does this amazingly well, as well as universities. universities are just giant scaffolds that accomplish multiple things: education, fellowship, young adulthood launching, career starting, career providing for faculty and staff, an alma mater bond and community, networking etc. Universities and churches are the two biggest most broad scaffolding systems but also families are i guess too if you have the good fortune to be from a good family. My family had potential but failed. My immediate family that is. my broader family was great but they didn't cross over and give much direct paternal mentorship to me but now even younger cousins of me help me out a lot in specific areas as i them and we have good relations.
Scaffolding can mean what trains one up and helps them grow. That is, scaffolding can be vertical/developmental, growing a person from 5 to 15 or from apprentice to master craftsman, or it can be horizontal- connecting people, like how everyone can go into a church and it connects people, or it can be both, like university. This is making a lot of sense now. I missed family. i missed university for most purposes because i was sent or i chose to go to a stupid small liberal arts college that put me far away from where i needed to be to truly grow and fit in and discover. i have always been the explorer type and this was not that. it took 4 years of prime development time, it took confidence and a lot of money so family, college etc. i got church for a while. i am not a true believer in the dogma and fundamentalism although even some of the rituals like prayer and worship can be powerful in a psychological way independent of the dogma. i can see the reason and power in it. Scaffolding matters. Frats are scaffolds. They can kind of 'lend' people confidence and power. Networks are powerful and i never indended to be a loner or an individual. I always liked the idea of people and networks although i value freedom of thought and resonance so it has worked out that way unfortunately. [btw i am reading machiavelli's "the prince" finally. I just started and i go slow but long story short i'm not impressed with him, neither on the moral front- he's like it's ok to kill the family of your enemies or he's too casual about it- or on the intelligence front. "There are two types of blah blah..". It seems like he's BSing or taking himself too seriously. Surely Lorenzo has advisors and knows what he's doing and he probably ignored Niccolo's advice completely. Machiavelli perhaps might be neurodivergent. At least he was mostly a nobody in exile. Compare him to the actual Medicis, and the city of Florence itself with its guilt system and prosperity. Yeah no, i know people think it's cool to come back to him and to Nietzsche. I take the value i can from them but these types of 'profound and brilliant figures' are no longer that impressive to me. Schopenhauer is more interesting and authentic and stable but the Medicis as a family are impressive and i am studying them. Machiavelli is like a failed artist, versus a michaelangelo, who couldn't go quietly into the night, drafted a post and hit send.
Long story short- scaffolding is HUGE-- even if you have embodiment
3. Navigation- It is possible to overnavigate- which puts one too much in one's head, besides other things that do that too, fantasy perhaps but at the sametime some nagivation is required. Scaffolding can help with navigation and the type of scaffolding where there is a path laid out- apprentice to journeyman. then you don't have to think that much. Being an individual, one has to naviate all the time. What am i doing today, where is this leading me, blah blah, and also what do i say to her, when do i touch her blah blah. The latter requires more embodiment i think and less navigation or thinking but it is exhausting and there is a risk of too much, too little and too wrong or misguided or erroneous of navigation but these are the big three i think that are useful for living, loving and dating: navigation, scaffolding and embodiment. Interestingly i think babies have embodiment, they don't need navigation, their parents do it all for them although maybe sometimes poorly- feeding them crappy formula or whatever, and they have scaffolding although sometimes the bad type. As they grow and become conscious and develop their own mind-- and in america, the individual is emphasized, for good or ill, they have to figure out how to plug in (scaffolding) and navigate and stay embodied through the shocks and blocks and stay in touch wtih their spine... and not get in dopamine loops but seek the serotonin. i'm just digressing suddenly. Remember to breath and stay grounded. There is also a path dependence dynamic in many things. the more one has gone down one path, as a person or a city, the more likely they are to stay on that. that's why one should fight hard sometimes for the good positioning at the start of new things, if this principle applies. i just learned that idea yesterday.
So much of life is free or should be free (financially). One should be able to take embodiment from the air, and just have it, and just have inner power. even if jesus did not say this in these words as translated: "the kingdom of heaven is within you", and even though jesus maybe was just a carpenter and a nobody, the words as translated can still carry meaning- why can't we just access our power, when we can't access it? I guess becoming embodied is a process. that's all i can say about that. It's in your bones though, I think. I think also that truly being emobied (plus scaffolded or positioned--- and maybe not that many people in history have ever had it that good, i don't know, such that they could even rest in peace and pleasure), being thus embodied may be better than getting girls even but also might lead one to be able to get girls, especially if one is connected. It is about not flinching, or wincing, or darting ones eyes, or panicking, or tensing, or even over 'sensing'. it is about-- experiencing what i think they experience mostly on a day to day basis. i think they are very connected/scaffolded- with each other if no one else, i think they are very embodied- way more than men- they can feel their hips way more, and they dont have to nagivate. they like to be lead mostly, at least when it comes to dating, so they don't have that burden and they are used to guys leaning into them or otherwise sensing desire and interest from men. i got a little sample yesterday of what they feel on a day to day basis, and it was powerful, nay intoxicating and i want more of it. i want it to become the norm. it starts i think with deep embodiment but also connection and proximity and feeling like one belongs. one has to feel welcome, like one belongs. if one doesn't feel that, it is uphill, all the way. That has to be almost non-negotiable, a necessary if insufficient condition.
Maybe i don't know what i am talking about. I don't "get laid" that much in case anyone is wondering. i can be transparent about that, so maybe this is all nonsense i'm spouting. I also like a saying in the bible- "a bruised reed he will not break, a small flame he will not snuff out." I think that is how one has to start building their kingdom, not snuffing out the voices and ideas and feelings in the body and brain but nurturing them. Don't mock oneself. the idea and process of internalization is interesting to me. I might have to unpack that. what if we were born confident but just internalized our own gatekeepers? What if-- and how? One guy- HealthyGamer on youtube, who is really good, a practicing psychologist and i like him and his depth, said that confidence is not something you 'get'. rather, it's something you remove the blockers/clouds surrounding. in other words, we are all confidnet but it is buried. the key is removing the rubble. that is something worth pondering but i think the end goal and the feeling of confidence has to be embodiment, with sufficient scaffolding or connection in a good environment, and an ability to navigate enough
