Finding Myself -- A Journal

[LikeWater]

The best philosophy in life is but two simple words.

 

F**k it.

[LikeWater]

Day 40

 

Hm... I really miss you tonight. I just want you to be here and I want to hold you tight and feel like I'm not alone. I just really could use your love tonight.

[LikeWater]

Day 41

 

How do you try and comfort someone if you think that their views are irrational and, well, simply wrong?

 

I have a female friend who I've known since highschool. It's been 100% platonic from day one. Well, she's been bummed out lately (she's single) and she called me because she needed someone to talk to. Well, after a little while of talking about this and that she brings up that one of the things she's saddest about is that she had it all planned out that she'd be married by now (at 24) and that she'd have kids by the time she's 26.

 

Suddenly I was just like "..."

 

I don't know what to say to that or how to comfort someone with that mindset because I HATE it when people are like that. So your focus is more so on just getting married and having kids instead of finding the right person to do those things with, because you've planned out these ages that these were meant to happen at.

 

She was like, "Wow... you're really silent over there."

 

I said, "Yeah, don't worry I'm listening to everything you're saying. I just don't know what to say to that. I think it's a bad idea to try and plan your life out like that instead of putting the focus on meeting the right person first, worrying about those things second."

 

She got upset with me and hung up. Kinda felt bad about it but like I said, I don't know how to comfort someone about that kind of thing.

 

Bah... I don't belong here. Someone take me to another planet or something. I fear that this is all too common of a state of mind and I'm just not gonna find someone with my views on all this.

[LikeWater]

Day 42

 

I really feel like there's just nothing for me to talk about. There's nothing to say about my ex that I haven't said already. I'm very, very slowly getting over it all I think, but I still really miss her. I'd do anything to just be able to talk to her again. But then again, maybe that wouldn't even be a good idea. I don't know anymore. I'm pretty certain by now she'd have to be seeing someone else. I doubt she's even capable of staying single for more than a few months, so talking to her and hearing about her awesome new boyfriend doesn't sound very appealing. I guess I just miss and long for something that doesn't exist anymore, and I need to keep reminding myself of that and focus my thoughts elsewhere.

 

But yeah, I don't know what to write anymore. I have nothing to write about, really. So I believe my posting in this journal will be rather sporadic from here on out. Most of my posts will probably just be music that I feel like sharing, hoping that someone will listen and become a new fan. Introducing people to new music is something that appeals to me for some reason. Aside from that, I guess I'll just post when I really feel the need to get something off my chest, or the rare occurrence when something interesting happens in my life.

 

I just wish I could start this over. Life really needs a reset button.

[ButterflyWrists]

Sounds like you are getting somewhere now water

Hope you're ok in other aspects of your life.. Keep strong you'll get there

[LikeWater]

Sounds like you are getting somewhere now water

Hope you're ok in other aspects of your life.. Keep strong you'll get there

 

Thanks Butterfly

 

Other aspects of my life are... pretty crazy right now. Don't really feel like revealing everything but there's been a big change in my life that's forcing me to stay super busy. I'm having to look for another job on top of the one I already have. Only thing I feel like revealing is that my mother has lost her job so my parents are in a bad spot at the moment...

 

In other news, this is one of the best songs I've discovered in a long while.

 

[video=youtube;o6DPoIGHwmQ] ]

[LikeWater]

Day 43

 

What ifs. Maybes. Would've, Should've, Could'ves.

 

Issues are numerous. And what am I but a humble servant to my impulses? I'm not even the ruler of my own mind.

 

So why would anyone give even the tiniest of f**ks? Anyone but me.

 

Can't wait to forget you, but I fear I'm waiting for a tomorrow that will never come.

 

I need to stop making so many mistakes...

[LikeWater]

Day 44

 

Man, I've been just so exhausted lately. I've been meaning to come here, write more, offer advice more, PM people more and all that jazz, but goddamn am I tired. Just feel so drained physically and mentally lately. Definitely been a busy-ass man the last couple weeks. At the same time, as true as all that is, I've also just been lazy. I've been meaning to write more in general, whether here in this journal or in some creative aspect but I just haven't had the push to go through with it I guess. Even now, however, it just feels like I'm having such a difficult time expressing myself or saying what I want to say how I want to say it. Just tired.

 

I do need to write more, though. It helps. I've always found some kind of solace in writing, even when I was really young. I don't know what's with me lately. I just feel so disinterested with everything. It's actually really frustrating. It's like... I want to write, I feel the need to, but then with being really tired and having other stuff that needs to be done when it comes down to actually sitting down and just f**king DOING IT, I have trouble. I'm having trouble doing it at this very moment. Can't seem to pull my thoughts together and express what I want to in a cohesive, flowing manner. It's a struggle to write basic sentences.

 

It makes me feel stupid. I'm already ready for 2013 to be over, cuz it's been one shi**y year.

 

When will I be myself again? Will it ever even happen, or am I waiting for a ship that already sank? Time will tell, I guess.

[LikeWater]

Today I received $3000 dollars from my grandpa.

 

I don't even...

 

I'm so mindf**ked about it. I seriously don't even know what to do with this money or why he sent it, and it's weird because honestly I feel guilty for even having it. I feel like I don't deserve it at all and I almost want to just send the money back to him.

 

I need to figure out how to put this money to really good use as a way to make things better for my family and myself.

 

When I opened the envelope and saw it I figured this had to be a dream. This isn't real. What the hell do I do with this? I don't mean to sound ungrateful; I'm extremely thankful for this. I just don't know what to do with it.

 

Strange days.

 

[video=youtube;-NSz-9qqgKE] ]

[LikeWater]

Day 45

 

So this whole healing thing...

 

Not how I thought it would turn out. Am I over her? Sure. But not in the way I expected to be. It's like... okay, you don't think about her all the time anymore, and when she does pop into your head it doesn't tear your heart to shreds. However, I do still think of her. I do still get reminded of her daily. And I'm pretty sure that's just how it's going to be until I find something to fill the void. Just learn to live with it I guess.

 

So I don't even know. Am I healed? I'd say as healed as I'm gonna get, basically. I just thought I'd actually get the point where she was just a distant memory, but I see now that that was nothing more than unrealistic expectations.

 

Essentially, you don't forget. You just learn to deal with it. And that's 'healing'.

 

I've thought a lot about the future and my place in it with how my life is going and I think to myself, "Do I even want to live to see 40?" Well, the answer is no, I don't. I have a self-destructive nature and I suppose I'll just stay that way until it destroys me. I'm fine with that, because this world sucks and I'd rather just move onto the next one in all honesty. Unless some form of divinity sends some love my way, I don't think things are gonna get much better for me. I made some truly terrible decisions when I was younger and it's all catching up to me now.

 

Let me get a reset button, somebody. It's a mad world and I'm tired of it.

 

[video=youtube;4N3N1MlvVc4] ]

[LikeWater]

Day 46

 

Hm...

 

Sometimes I read back through this journal and I'm kind of disgusted. Reading some of the things I've written here, such as my last entry. So incredibly depressing and downright emo. If my 18-year-old self were to read some of this s**t, he would be so repulsed that he'd probably vomit all over himself. I'm actually ashamed at some of the stuff I've written here. It's kind of embarrassing.

 

Not to say there isn't truth in these words but man... am I bi-polar or something? I feel fine at the moment and I go back and read some of these entries and I'm just like, "Holy s**t, did I really write that?" For everyone to see as well. Thank Zeus for anonymity, right?

 

Anyway, I need to figure out what the f**k I'm doing. Get my life in order. And get a f**k buddy as well (priority #1 lol). Not interested in love anymore. Don't believe in it.

 

I think I'll head to the bar. See if I can make this night an interesting one.

[ButterflyWrists]

Theres nothing wrong with expressing your feelings! lol and yes you are anonymous

Glad to see things are starting to look up for you! sorry I've not popped in, in a while, busy busy..

[LikeWater]

No problem, Butterfly. I rarely pop in here myself for the same reason. I suppose you're right about there being nothing wrong with expressing one's feelings, but still I can't help but cringe at some of the things within this journal. Sad that I let one person get me that low. Not that she alone has dictated my mood in the past, but she was definitely a large factor in it.

 

I'm not gonna let anyone have that kind of power over me ever again. Fool me once and all that jazz. It turns out that I'm pretty weak, emotionally. That's just the truth. And I gotta do what I must to protect my heart and my sanity. If that means a life of being alone, then so be it. Better than this rollercoaster bulls**t.

[quirky]

If it's any consolation I feel the same..lol

Tried the f buddy, didn't work for me long term at all. Still fighting the good fight and often feel like I can't be bothered with this s*** either. Dunno about you but I want to be a bit more optimistic about love somehow. SOMEhow ! ! Can't find it in me though yet. I saw this movie called 28 days recently and it had a quote in it that sadly spoke to me

 

'No adult human being is happy! People are born, they have a limited amount of time going around thinking life is dandy but then, inevitably, tragedy strikes and they realise life equals loss! The whole point of the game is to minimise the pain caused by that equation! Now some people do it by having kids, or making money, or taking up coin collecting, and others do it by getting wasted.'

[LikeWater]

Yeah, I definitely feel ya on that one, Quirky. I want to be optimistic about love as well but yeah, you basically covered it. It's really hard to stay positive about that subject for me. I try, and sometimes am, but then eventually the devil reappears on my shoulder and reminds me of all the reasons that my optimism would be far better placed in other areas of my life.

 

Sorry to hear the f-buddy thing didn't work out for ya, but at least you were gettin' some Doing better than I am lol. But I also haven't even begun to try that kind of thing. I don't know why but I feel like just being by myself in every sense of the word is what's best for me at the moment. Perhaps I'm crazy or stupid but it seems to be working so far. Just need that time to really be me again, by myself, and find my mojo and chi up and all that good stuff.

 

I've been doing fairly well lately. Much better than I was even just a few months ago. Like... in March if my ex had contacted me that would have been a dream come true. Now? I'm fairly certain I'd just delete it, ignore it, and go about my way. I think that's called progress

 

Your quote from the movie, while undeniably truthful to some extent, is just too cynical for me and I'd rather not think like that. I know that sounds pretty ridiculous coming from me considering how much of a Negative Nancy I've been, and yeah I'm still leaning towards the side that says love is some BS, but I can't agree that life = loss. Life actually means quite the opposite of that if you want to get literal, lol. So yeah, there's still some hope and positive energy swirling around in me somewhere, as feint as it might be.

 

Anyhoo, thanks for stopping by Quirky. Sorry it took so long for me to respond but you know, life and stuff.

[LikeWater]

Day 47

 

Missing her now is more like just missing a friend. Like if you ever had a childhood friend who you were really close with and then next thing you know one day they're moving away. And you never see them again, but you always have small moments where you miss them or recall some funny things you'd gotten into.

 

That's pretty much what it's like now. Like, "Damn, I wish I still had my pal to do blah blah blah with." It's strange how I still have a fairly strong desire for us to just be on good terms someday. I'm not sure why other than we just had a lot of fun together and there's no reason to have to pretend that we don't exist. It's silly. But apparently that's the way it has to be for a lot of people, and I'll never get that.

 

I suppose more than anything I'm just bored and lonely, and I think I've realized I no longer have any good friends to share my thoughts with. Just this journal it turns out.

 

We'll just round this post out with a good, random song.

 

[video=youtube;OIRE6iw-ws4] ]

[LikeWater]

F**k my life. That's all I have to say.

[LikeWater]

Today I learned from my ukrainian friend that up until just two years ago, any beverage with an alcohol content lower than 10% was not considered an alcoholic beverage in Russia, but just a regular drink. I didn't know if he was just pulling my chain or what so I looked it up and it turns out that it was totally true. Don't know why but I find this just absolutely hilarious. On the same token, while I looked that up I found out that apparently, you can live just on beer. Turns out that beer has all the essential nutrients you need to sustain life. How about that...

 

Just kinda made me imagine that instead of having like... tap water come out of your faucet, in Russia they probably just had beer coming out of that s**t, since that would be considered just a regular beverage over there (until 2011, that is).

 

The more you know... lmao.

[LikeWater]

Day 48

 

Hm, It's been a while since I actually wrote anything here. I just wanted to jot down some things that I've been thinking about lately.

 

And speaking of thinking, that's pretty much the theme of this particular post. Thoughts are powerful. They may very well be the most powerful thing in existence. Through thoughts, we construct the words needed to communicate with others. Everything that exists that isn't a direct product of the universe is the result of a thought or series of thoughts. Every invention, every piece of art, every song, hell, even a lot of people that exist today were the conclusion of a thought that began as, "I'd like to have a kid someday".

 

Again, thoughts are extremely powerful. Thoughts determine how you feel at any given moment. Sure, actions or things can harvest those thoughts, but it really is totally up to you on how you perceive those things and what you think about them. Most of the stress, anxiety, sadness and gloom and so on that we have to push through day to day are actually caused by circumstances that don't even exist. Most of all that bulls**t is 100% just in your head. It's important to realize this, but just the realization doesn't make all that bulls**t any easier, does it? No, it definitely doesn't, but understanding this is the beginning of making your life easier and making yourself a happier person in general.

 

Everything I've written probably sounds like nonsense, especially when it's coming from a person and typed within a journal that without a doubt seems mostly negative.

 

But that's because shaping your thoughts into something more positive isn't easy. It's extremely difficult, in fact. Believe it or not, I used to be relentlessly positive, probably to the point of being obnoxious at times. But a series of unfortunate events led me to where I've been the last year or so. However, that's still not an excuse. I still could have taken everything that's happened and at least tried to spin it all in a positive way. A very basic and relevant example would be to, after getting over the shock and initial sadness of my breakup, convince myself that the falling out of that relationship needed to happen so I could find someone new, and more importantly, someone more fitting for me. Cliche and basic, but still, totally could have done that and made things easier for me and my mental state.

 

You can spin almost anything and perceive it in a positive way. Again, most of the burdens that plague us and bring us down are actually just in our heads. Completely and totally not actually real, but just thoughts. And they are so hard to battle because they are so damn powerful.

 

Let me talk about something that brings all this together and gives a practical example of what I've been saying. A few months back, my mother lost her job. A job she took an incredible amount of pride in and worked so ridiculously hard at nearly 70 hours a week. When she first heard the news, and then first shared the news, it was dark times for my family. My mother and father were downright scared of what was to come. They and I had no clue what to do, and all this fear of the unknown caused a lot of general stress and sadness for my family and me. But things have actually been working out great. That job was literally killing her and she is so much healthier and happier now than she was when she was dealing with all the crap that job entailed. She's still searching for a fitting job while she draws unemployment and things are totally fine for my family.

 

All the sadness, stress, doom and gloom we all felt was totally in our heads. We all could have heard the news of her losing her job, we all could have convinced ourselves, "Hey, that's okay, things are going to work out for the better because of this and everything will be totally fine." The result would have been the same, which was that everything did work out fine. But we wouldn't have had to go through a period of darkness and depression.

 

Do you see what I'm saying?

 

And facts don't lie. If everything I've said so far just sounds like total mumbo-jumbo garbage, the fact is that people who are more optimistic throughout their lives are generally happier, healthier, and live longer. Our thoughts are so powerful. How we choose to perceive the world around us is so powerful. Hashtag powerful.

 

I have more to say on this theme of thoughts, but I'll leave it for another time. Maybe writing all this down here will help someone else, or perhaps it'll even help me. A reminder, of sorts, because I'm challenging and urging myself to get back to being a positive person. I hope some of you will do the same. It can't hurt, and it will almost certainly help.

 

Now I'll end this particular post by sharing my most favorite of favorite songs:

 

[video=youtube;VZXJLQntCP0] ]

[itsallgrand]

I really appreciate this post. Will probably be reading it over more than once. Exactly what I need to be reminded of.

 

For some reason, it reminded me of being young and my mom would always wake me up with "rise and shine, sunshine on a cloudy day!". Every. Single. Morning.

 

I'd cringe and groan when I heard that. Grumble grumble grumble. Then I'd hear "c'mon bear, come and get some brekkie!!".

 

Remembering it now; I was lucky and barely even knew it. It fills me with warmth and a feeling of safety to think of it now. Perception: experience shaped by the mind. By how you choose to perceive it. Saw it as an annoyance then; see it as a comfort now.

 

Your post is the "sunshine on a cloudy day" for me today. I know you will rediscover your eternal "nearly annoying" optimism. Go for it!

[tiredofvampires]

You're really onto something great here, LW. I'm interested to know if this is something you've been discovering on your own...or if you're tapping into some of the material out there that talks about this (material which is anything but "mumbo-jumbo").

 

I personally go a step further. I myself prefer not to couch things in "negative" and "positive" terms, because to me, that creates a subtle judgment of what one should be feeling and how. I don't know of anyone who ever started to think positive because people were telling them to, or because they were feeling negative about being negative. Of course these words can have some utility in common parlance, but I tend to feel they get abused quite often. I see too many people trying to label their own thoughts or others' thoughts this way, either to congratulate or admonish themselves or others.

 

It's more important in my opinion to just inhabit one's experience and honor that, whatever it is bringing. That is not a conscious effort to be "positive", but rather an ability one cultivates that brings about a better quality of life.

 

Someone who is "positive" doesn't have to be thinking of themselves in that sense. The most important thing is not the categorization of our feelings, but what we are doing with our minds to work with reality as it's occurring. So to me, if you are going through an incredibly painful experience, and allow yourself to feel angry, sad, afraid, etc. while realizing that this filter of thoughts and emotions does not define who you are or the entirety of this situation, realizing that the situation will change inevitably one way or the other, and that this moment you have to experience is essentially no better or worse than any other moment except that thinking and preference makes it so...the outcome of that will be strength, perspective, and a feeling of appreciation for life no matter what is going on. Acceptance of the situation and oneself (NOT resignation -- acceptance, which means being able to allow for it, not reject it) is the heart of the matter, because we can't always honestly be "upbeat" or hopeful. And so if you live every moment that way, the cumulative effect of that will be a strong and appreciative mind. That's "positive", but it has no use for such a label.

 

I think the problem is trying to figure out how everything will work out. What is going to happen making or breaking our minds, that is the problem. In my experience, nothing has ever really evolved as I thought it would. Three years out (somewhat of an arbitrary number, but generally a sound point of reference) from an event, in retrospect, nothing in a situation's evolution revealed itself to me to be what I imagined. And that is very important to bring into every new situation arising.

 

I think a person has to be extremely emotionally and spiritually advanced (more than most of us are) to truly be able to say, "Everything will be fine" and MEAN THAT -- and I mean beyond just trying to predict an outcome as one wishes it to be, anticipating a happy ending. Because in some cases, things don't turn out well. Sometimes it doesn't turn out all "okay", from the standpoint of good fortune turning around misfortune. That's the truth. I'm glad to hear things have gone well in your case, and am happy to hear your mom and your family's situation is resolving. That's wonderful. But truthfully, that could not have been known before the fact. So if going into the unknown, she and you were to have said, "WHATEVER happens, it will be okay", that would be an immense act of courage and ability to take life on its own terms. Not to necessarily have to spell out what the outcome must be to call it "okay", because that creates expectations, and expectations are the cause of conditional happiness.

 

As many wise people have stated, genuine happiness is uncaused.

 

We can actually put our minds to preferring the moment we have now, whatever it is, over the one that is hallucinatory and imaginary, because it is the REAL one.

 

You may want to check out an author and speaker who I consider one of these wise people, who has a lot to say about just what you're talking about, named Anthony de Mello. He's a psychotherapist and counselor with an eclectic spiritual background. He's put out a number of books (I recommend "Awareness"), and a couple of audio/video series, one of which is "A Rediscovery of Life" which is really wonderful (and dappled with a robust sense of humor), in which he's speaking to the heart of your discussion about the nature of thoughts and their tyrannical, enslaving, deluding power over us.

 

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes by him, along the lines of uncaused happiness, which is a break-away from thoughts:

 

"Spirituality means no longer being at the mercy of any person, thing or event." (the best definition I've ever heard of that mumbo-jumbo-esque word, "spirituality" with it's hodge-podge of interpretations)

 

"Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know — all mystics — Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion — are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare."

 

Again, I'm glad things are looking up for you...

 

And yes, that Tool song is something pretty special. It's been a longtime favorite of mine, too...every time I listen to it, it's like the first time.

[LikeWater]

First of all, IAG, glad to hear my post gave you sunshine on a cloudy day And thanks a ton for the encouragement!

 

To tov, let's start with your first question. It's something I've been coming into on my own. This probably won't be much of surprise to some of you who know me better than the others here, but I'm a pretty big proponent of psychedelics. I'd much rather not get into a discussion about that because that discussion will most likely be an argument on 'drugs' and whether or not one should take part in them. If you're against psychedelics that's totally fine. I'm not trying to convince anyone to explore them. You really need decide that for yourself anyway.

 

But with that out of the way, I'd like to say that I'm pretty experienced with these mind altering substances, particularly LSD. I'd never had a bad trip in all my times going to the other side... until the last time I did it. And it just didn't make sense to me. I was in a comfortable environment, I had a great mindset going into it, but somehow it just went wrong. I got stuck in what's known as a thought loop. Ever been stuck in that spiral of negative thoughts that's really difficult to shrug off? Well on a psychedelic that spiral becomes a twister you just cannot escape. It's weird and hard to explain but it's a well known phenomenon. They're not always necessarily negative (I know I'm using these labels a lot, but more than anything it's just so I have practical words to explain the scenarios,) but they're never enjoyable, for sure.

 

Let me try to give an example of what a thought loop is like while you're tripping. You might think something like, "Oh man, this is a strong dose, it's too intense for me. Okay, let's calm things down a bit, maybe change of music." So you change the music to something nice and calm, you listen for a while, and then you're like, "Okay yeah this is better. Alright, let me lie back and enjoy this trip." You do for a bit, but somehow those bad feelings start to rise again. Suddenly you don't like this music either, maybe for a different reason. This particular music is making you sad. So your thoughts go back to how they began, rinse and repeat. Over and over and over. You can even recognize it's happening and it will still be nearly impossible to escape the loop. Sometimes they're just weird and frustrating. But other times they're overwhelming. Inexperienced trippers have actually been stuck in terrible loops that convinced themselves they had gone insane or a number of other delusions. Yeah, they're not fun.

 

Well the loop I was stuck in this last time I tripped was really bad. It just took control of the whole trip and made it a really mentally exhausting experience for me.

 

Well, luckily I knew what to do and I managed to slowly but surely kind of pull myself out of the trip and calm myself down... and eventually I was able to escape the loop. Now, before this I'd heard more than once that if you experience a bad trip that's not caused by a bad set and/or setting, then it's a bad trip that needed to happen. I'd have to say after that experience that I completely agree. After the trip was completely over and I was able to logically dissect and analyze it, I realized what caused it. Simply put, it was my tendency to slip into negative thoughts as of late. It made me realize how much my negativity has been affecting me. It's slowly just eating away at me, and it needs to end. I need to get back to my old self.

 

So to answer your question, that's what began my line of thinking that I eventually turned into my last post.

 

As far as what you said about labeling things as negative and positive, part of me agrees with that notion and part of me doesn't quite. In general, I prefer not to label things that don't need to be labeled, which is pretty much what you said. At the same time, I have no problem recognizing things as polar opposites that can't exist without their counterpart. Without bad, there can't be good. Without night, there can't be day. Without women, there can't be men. Without death, there can't be life.

 

So while most of the labeling things as negative and positive in my last post was just for easy explanation, I also don't really have a problem with recognizing that there are positive thoughts, and there are negative thoughts. But part of me totally gets what you're saying and it just comes down to different mindsets. For example, a friend of mine doesn't believe in bad trips, instead he says there are just different ones. Kind of the same thing you're saying, really.

 

Anyway, thanks for the kind words, tov. Glad to see you stop by. I'm not sure if I'll check out the stuff you recommended or not, only because I generally try to steer away from anything self-help related and I (for the most part) prefer to give my best effort to figure things out on my own. But I may, and if I do I'll let you know what I thought about it. I'm also super happy to see that you like that song as well. I can't even describe in words how much I love that song, lol.

[tiredofvampires]

One of the reasons I like that song so much is because it transports me into an altered state. I have never taken any drugs (recreational ones, that is) to know, but I have had experiences with music that I would imagine could almost compare.

 

I think the reason psychedelics (putting aside the obvious, cost and legality) don't appeal to me as an idea is much why "self-help" reading doesn't appeal to you. I want that independence, that self-reliance, to get there and discover things in the "pure" state of consciousness I have when not under the influence of anything else (then of course, regarding neuroscience and hallucinogens, there's the long-term inconclusive but suspected effects on the brain itself in perceptual ability, but that's something I'm sure you've studied and we'd have differing opinions/information on that). But for sure, art, sound, etc. can be amazingly conducive to altering mindstates, so I understand the appeal.

 

Also, I used to read books about first-hand accounts of people who had gone on LSD trips, and I think with the kind of mind I have, I would probably have the most intensely, terrifyingly bad trips ever. Just the idea of being unable to predict or control a state of mind is terrifying to me. If they are anything like the desperately searching dreams I get "stuck" in every night, which I often feel I can't break out of, I can't imagine that wouldn't be compounded by 500 on a bad hallucinatory experience. I'm sure you can develop more ability to control trips with experience, but it's still something that sounds to me like strapping myself into a carnival ride, and putting myself into the hands of the machine operator, the piece of equipment itself, to get out safely, while I passively experience the impact of the extreme phenomena naturally created by subjecting myself to it. (Hopefully this isn't overstepping in your journal to insert my POV on it.)

 

Yeah, I agree, as I mentioned, that the words "positive" and "negative" sometimes need to be used to identify what you're talking about in a readily relatable way. I use the words "good" and "bad" as well (though sparingly, because they're so non-descript/generic). I'm not anti-label -- I just find that often, such broad words don't really describe the mixtures that those words miss. And I just don't find that people use them wisely. If someone is saying, "I'm just never going to be happy/liked/successful", that's an incredibly negative thought, of course. I'd label it that way, for sure. But labeling it like that wouldn't help worth a damn, either in trying to work on the underlying reasons I'm thinking that way, figuring out the patterns, or finding alternatives. I get what you're saying though, you just identified a pattern that way, so it was useful to you. It's just that too often I hear someone say, "so-and-so is just such a negative person" or "you need to stop being so negative" and I think that speaks to the person who is uncomfortable with those feelings, as they see them unattractively reflected in another person, than someone who wants to suggest anything helpful. Just for me, I guess it's just that identifying what's going inside the nature of the feelings is more likely to change me (or as the case may be, talk someone else through something) than thinking "these are bad feelings, I want to think good things more often." Okay...yeah. And? It's like telling the doctor your head hurts, and the doctor answering, "I'll tell you what's going on: you have a headache." It's not specific enough shift anything or figure anything out. Except for me to think negative is unattractive, so now I have another reason to feel crappy about myself because I don't want other people thinking I'm as unattractive as I feel, haha.

 

I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said, really, I'm just putting my own spin on it.

 

I wouldn't exactly call the stuff by Anthony de Mello "self-help"...it's more like tapping into the insights of various great thinkers who have spoken and written. Which I guess you could call self-help in the sense that anything that expands my awareness or teaches me something is me helping myself. Ultimately...all of these "aids" are self-help, if we are trying to figure ourselves out.

 

And more power to anything that gets us there.

[LikeWater]

Boy, I sure am glad to come back to this journal to find that all (or almost all? I didn't actually go through the entire journal) of the music I've posted has been deleted. Great job, Youtube. Your automated content ID system has f***ing Skynet syndrome. I wonder if they realize how much they've screwed over a large portion of the youtubers that made them what they are today. I wonder if they realize their overzealous bot is destroying people's jobs.

 

Probably not. Probably wouldn't care if they did. They've made their money and now... who cares, right?

 

I don't even remember what I came here to write, now. I'm just appalled that they thought their current system was a good idea. Shame on you, Google. Not that you'd care at this point, but I'm done using your services. You're despicable.

 

Man, no matter how hard I try to do otherwise, I'm constantly reminded of why I hate this shi**y world we live in.

 

$$$$$ = All that matters. If you disagree, you're doin' it wrong, apparently.

 

Merry f**king Christmas.

[LikeWater]

Weird. Now I'm not even sure if my videos are actually deleted or not. Is Google being hacked right now? My PC keeps giving me warnings any time I try to visit any Google owned website.

 

Meh, I think I'm just gonna stay off the interwebz for a while.