Owledge

From Dao De Jing #38, one of my favorites: When kind people act, they do so without thinking about it. When the just act, they're always sure they're doing the right thing. But when the righteous act, and nobody reacts, they try to force everyone to do things their way. If you're not in touch with Tao, at least you can still have integrity. If you don't have integrity, there's always kindness. If you don't have kindness, there's always justice. If you don't have justice, all you have left is righteousness.

What should also be putting you off is all the artificial or overblown fear, worries and problems that people are being convinced of in order to incite them and feel hatred against each other. The crap is getting through to you, and if you can't change anyone else, at least keep your own house clean. Always a good start to focus on a pure center. Disconnect those yucky entanglements that suck energy out of you. They speak through you. You cannot be yourself with them. BTW I don't think you can teach about the Dao in a meaningful way without being with Dao. As you will know, the Dao that can be talked about just isn't the real deal, heh. You would only be teaching anger/contempt, the source that motivates you, and thus feed that. EDIT: Teach the Dao, not about the Dao. Maybe this helps you:

Then again, this must not lead to emotional self-invalidation. Rage is always justified the moment it arises. The time for review comes after it has been allowed to be experienced fully. If you do not allow that, you lose respect for your own inner voice. It is better to behave badly and feel ashamed about it later than to be told by someone else you should be ashamed for it. Society doing this is short-sighted and robbing itself of an important feedback process for self-correction and problem solving. If such intervention is considered unavoidable, it only shows how long a growing problem has been avoided. http://eqi.org/invalid.htm

I just thought this might the the right place to share something I encountered in the game The Witcher 3 recently and it vibed with me (if you can say that, meaning I can empathize), since it is a spiritual problem that is very defining of my life struggle, and probably for many sensitive people inclined towards shaping a better world and a desire for authentic self-expression. Feel free to share your thoughts or whatever might flow. I'm also very happy about video upvotes, comments, shares and such. I just can't get myself to enter that whole ruthless spam advertising game. Massive disadvantage. That, too, is a problem related to this topic. Staying away from such seems a luxury, going all in feels like killing the best in me and creepy and generally not possible for avoiding depression, and something in-between seems half-assed and like guaranteed to fail. All I have left is to accept the experience of suffering and hopelessness and voice it. Specifically the video reminded me of experiences I mainly had in my school years (but is also a long-time constant environmental influence): Refuse to play the bullshit game (or just don't get it) and people will resent or fear you. Because honesty takes courage and people don't like to have their self-serving delusions made visible. Some are so very willing to adapt to imposed doctrines. Personally, I just don't have the poison tolerance of a witcher.

More popculture belief to soothe your own mind. One of the big lessons delivered to me by life is that all my positive energy and belief has created negative reactions, has made things even more difficult. Especially for the people 'in my life', so to speak, there can never be abundance. They are devoted enemies of that. Small minds will always attack that which is greater. They need to reap the disrespect they sow through their actions. Putting hope in them is a mistake and a disservice to that (potential) gift of greatness. If you could see all the love I sent into the world and what I received in return, you would have murder on your mind. One of my teachers once said that some unchangeable mindsets that bring suffering into the world just need to eventually die off with their hosts. (Sadly I don't have that kind of time.)

I got so much entertainment out of playing games with cheat codes in my childhood. Because I didn't need or want competition, pressure, risk, friction and above all scarcity. I'm a creative mind, understanding that we bring into the world what we live, and I want to condition my mind towards abundance. Naturally that makes things extremely difficult in our world, since it goes so much against society's ruling structures. And manifesting abundance without impairing someone else's is even tougher. But to some degree others don't deserve it anyway. No point accumodating strangers who might be totally selfish. Problem is just that if you apply a watering can principle, then you never know who you hit. And that's where my empathy won't budge. I had to learn to differentiate in order to not become a misanthrope.

A ghost stepping out of the mental process would mean end of (delusion of) existence. That quote is totally not thought through. Remove all your memories and I'm sure you'll do totally different things.

Things are so bad in such a systematic, dynamically reactive and elaborate pattern that sometimes it makes me wonder whether I am just a ghost in denial about his death, desperately/unsuccessfully trying to imagine still being alive. If this is a game, I got ripped off, because I paid full price for a demo version.

One source of my depression/burnout is my environment's response to my efforts towards improving my situation. Another is my environment's response to me giving up trying because of that response. There is no patent solution for resolving a dilemma. Had a really good couple hours of sleep today, refreshing, base-building, and then because of that I finally found the drive to deal with solving a long-lasting problem and that pretty much ruined everything again, because it was yet another reminder that all hope gets destroyed here, that some things never get better and waiting or persistence is folly. Basically a world that signals: You have to torture yourself harder. You have to learn to take it. If you can't, you are a bad person. You are lazy. Just be like us and the problem is solved. My main challenge isn't even a general incapacity for work, but finding work that doesn't drain my emergency batteries but at least slowly re-energizes me. Finding some authentic connection to people who give a shit and going from there. If only it wasn't so fucking hard (for everybody and thus even more so for the burned out) to find a healing place. I'm dreaming of a sustainable humble little home with good internet speed, far enough away to not be disturbed by people and to not disturb them. Then I could actually start cultivating the really powerful stuff in me. But even settling for less seems to merely exchange one problem with another that's just as depressing. This is also why I have given up seeking 'professionals' for help. They are usually part of the problem, the same slaves that depress me so much. No trick or technique can cure a situation-induced state. You would need coaching for that. But then guess what: Same problem: Good coaches are rare, likely lots of sleazebags in the business, and health insurance doesn't pay for coaching, regardless of how well it could solve things. I went to an ergotherapist once because the job description sounded appropriate - discovering potentials and finding ways to help people develop them - but apparently unlike coaching fixating on "person is wrong" instead of "world is wrong", and she said she thinks I am not ready for coaching, while she was depressing me when I realized she's got more problems than I. That's even more frustrating, but sadly quite common: When you know very well what you need, but those who are supposed to be able to help you are trying to impose their own ideas on you, often out of pettiness. I.e. if only I had accepted that the shit's not gonna get better, I'd be in a better mood. (But for how long?) - Now I'll have to try to let it go past and do a quick recovery, as always. Substantial things just hit so frickin' hard that barely any light of spirit can hold against it. And 99% of the emotional support I get comes from myself.

I think I might occasionally dream but are able to open my eyes, and am wondering whether someone knows what could be going on. Sometimes when I 'crash' on the sofa because I feel tired (e.g. from a meal, although strangely not right after eating but towards the end of the digestive phase) and take a nap, what would happen is that I go into a recurring dream theme of having difficulty opening my eyes. This time that I still remember well, I was only able to occasionally half-open my left eye, with a lot of effort. And I was seeing exactly what I would see when opening that eye awake, lying there on the sofa, part of my arm in the view etc.. And then apparently the typical dream consciousness that likes to pick up impressions subconsciously and work with them couldn't not deal with that strong impression and the dream started revolving around that. Several times I got up in the dream and tried opening my other eye, or sometimes just doing stuff like browsing a catalogue or a video, as if to train my mind to awake to open the eyes by busying it with awake-like stuff. I would use my fingers and try to pull open my eyelid(s), but that didn't succeed. They were just wanting so strongly to stay closed, just like when extremely tired. In another moment I would move my hand(s) in front of that open eye vista and realize that nothing changes about it, that I cannot see my moving hand in front of me, as if the image was burnt in. (But when closing the eye things went black. Then I would actually dream of just having my eyes closed.) Then I would desperately keep seeking and eventually see my own face with eyes within that image, pretty much like that faint reflection of your own eye you have in your glasses if you focus on it, and then I noticed how when moving my hands my eyes (both open) in that reflection would follow the hand, and occasionally the speed of that would increase. So that was definitely the dream component. That reflection then assumed a wider view and I saw a villainous person figure looming over me from behind, not moving (fictional character, likely just symbolic for something) and I did defensive movements with my hands as if to ward him off or beat him up, and that in that moment felt distinctively as if I was out of the dream already, trying to do some 'dream aftercare' just in case. But that was still while asleep. I then woke up and felt very depleted, as usual after I take a sofa nap instead of a proper sleep in my bed. Now, I don't want to go all 'evil spirits' with this, but I think it could still all be an expression of my subconscious that my mind disagrees with being in the sleep state at that time and would much rather be awake. (I am in a prolonged situation where I have a desire to be more active but have trouble finding a path to that.) I find this quite severe. And I'm not sure whether it fits the diagnosis of sleep paralysis or is more like a partial version of the opposite, since I can move an eyelid while fully asleep. (Wikipedia: "Sleep paralysis is when, during awakening or falling asleep, one is aware but unable to move.") Although many descriptions there match.

The selfish motivation point is highly philosophical and thus depends on the vantage point. But after my observations and ponderings I think it is of little relevance for creating good results. (Tends to breed cynicism and beliefs of a fixed 'human nature'.) People have sacrificed their own life for things where you cannot even claim they were afraid of living without having done anything. They did what they instantly decided was right, regardless of the risk to themselves. I guess it boils down to whether one wants to consider a drive of love as fear of not experiencing that love. But as soon as someone assumes a view that risking the own life for the benefit of others is preferrable to not doing it, it serves love, the awareness of the big picture and how we are all connected. Even if you argue it was motivated by some type of fear, it was still altruistic, and that is what counts, because I pose that the mind is a profoundly fear-based tool and without any fear this experience wouldn't exist and there would only be the infinite divine realm full of love which cannot be experienced since there's no opposite to contrast it with. As the cause of altruism can be driven by fear, so can the cause of egotism be driven by love, in the case of self-love. In essence: Do not confuse the fear/love duality with the egotism/altruism duality.

As a side comment, since marketing was mentioned: I just saw another person somewhere being an example of what's so disturbing. Was eager to send her ideas about how to be noticed. Used the line "If you want people to be interested in you, you have to be interested in them" as justification for spammy and deceptive advertising, for merely making your presence known and using typical audience engagement techniques. (Basically energy harvesting.) I'm always wondering how much/often that is just self-bullshitting and the teaching activity a search for external validation or whether they're really being trained by society and/or themselves to be sociopaths, unable to distinguish advertising to someone from being interested in them as a person. It often seems to me like quite a lot of people don't really have a concept of sincerity, of any kind of non-selfish motivation, and, as is actually common for sociopaths especially with limited power, are merely learning to imitate and think there is only imitation, that that's the real thing that motivates everybody. This causes them to blend in more or less elegantly and only when put to the test will you get a moment-of-truth like experience. (I had some really fucked up and painful experiences in that area. It is hard to be skeptical of certain people if so many others are not. But those are just in it for the pleasant illusion, not the truth.) I am worried this might be a conceiled epidemic and that the widespread fear of getting to that moment of truth leads to an increasing loss of grasp on and living of the real thing. Maybe Star Trek is right and empaths are not from this planet, hah.

I don't think it was in reference to computer games, but more metaphorical. But even that didn't leave an impression. So many things bothering me about it, but too tiring to go through it. Not worth it.

Fish out of water, a common theme of the human experience, in some felt more strongly. My situation differs from yours in that I am not IN the at least self-sustaining albeit spiritually draining process, but I am out of it (dropped out due to increasing burnout and lack of future prospects), which is probably even worse, since I cannot even try to find a balance between those. It's an empty future and a present without motion. So imagine you lost your job and the pain got ever-greater and any attempt to just get by increases it further. @phil48 Been there, done that. Smart advice is conveniently emotionally invalidating, that's why there's so much floating around. Everybody wants to imagine people can snap their fingers and be happy, rarely anybody wants to see they can snap their fingers and make someone else happy. The distancing is fear, the connection is love. Small steps of positive experiences create a memory that is tormenting in the face of dynamic adverse reactions from the environment. If for anything pleasant you do your best to experience you have to expect something very shitty following soon, how long do you even keep trying?

Any progress is highly motivating.

Those statements clash a bit. It's not difficult to imagine many situations where "just ignore" is not an option. I mean, that stuff is even all over popculture, in dramatic writing and such.

Well, there comes a culminating point where THEY might stop you. Or cripple your efforts. What is disagreeable to you about the thread title?

We can also be the decisive factor in other people's choices, which is an essential characteristic of love - connection, dissolving of barriers. Some act in the service of fear out of convenience, others out of inconvenience. Spot the difference and your love can fall on fertile soil. ( There doesn't seem to be much of it though. The field has been run by takers for very long, and still is. :-/ )

Ad Been a good, virtuous person all your life and gotten miserable because of it? It is not too late to start over and become an asshole!

Is this not from the Duh De Jing?

I see so much bullshit. I'm wondering whether you can have a healthy relationship with someone you know you cannot trust, or whether you would have to become a selfish manipulator who disrespects but exploits them, which very much seems bad. Just not interact with such people? Who has that luxury?! There can be enough around to end every little smile you might manage. Related topic: Servitude to inner demons. You know many of the people you encounter would murder you in your sleep if not doing it would exceed their normal tolerance for inconvenience. How could you ever unsee that? Awareness as literally a dis-ease.

You need to say this at the beginning or it won't work. :-P

The last part of the quote doesn't vibe with me. Many people are actually choosing the reality they prefer and that causes a lot of suffering. It's a tool, neither positive or negative, but characterized by what it is used for. It is popular among the strongest and the weakest. Nothing is gained by just blanket-advocating such a neutral tool. It only makes the advocate feel better about themselves, BELIEVING they have helped the world with it. The life advice / career consulting industry is full of this.

@qicat It wasn't exactly a formal, mutual initiation into a sect. Max Christensen doesn't call himself a teacher and while stating the origins of his techniques does not claim to be an official representative of those lineages. No contract, no fine print. It's not that I am shocked or surprised by those techniques requiring effort, it's that if my situation/state/problems is a lack of drive, that's kind of a dilemma, even if they could help. And if it's just one of many possible arbitrary illusions to help develop that discipline, then it doesn't work. It's like, to just use an analogy to clarify what I mean by dilemma, asking a starving homeless man to go get a job to feed himself and he can't even keep his eyes open due to weakness from hunger. 1) Get food. 2) Get out of the ever-draining cold. 3) Then he can get a job to MAINTAIN that minimum state. That then might open more avenues. Also, there might be situations where perseverance at any cost destroys that which perseverance is needed for. I saw a tweet once that cynically described the widespread problem of our society: "Today I cured a man of depression by telling him to just be happy."

@voidisyinyang I think you might be suffering from a severe case of academia, haha. ;-) @qicat I could only associate some rudimentary experiences with something like a lineage. I got "Kunlun Nei Gung" and Red Phoenix transmission from Max Christensen. In case you're not familiar with it, there's stuff in it related to Jenny Lamb (tibetan buddhist connections?) and to Mao Shan IIRC. Got a very brief and mild OOB early in practice, but due to my troubles couldn't quite stick with the practice. Had the occasional forehead energy ever since getting the transmission. My ayahuasca experiences came years after that. Had one that seemed overwhelmingly profound and what people would call a full-blown horror trip, with being stuck in time forever and all, and possibly some perceptions of a future trip mixing in. Was quite insightful in a subtle, ominous way, although of no profound effect on (change to) my life as far as I can tell.