Messages

This is certainly a much needed kick in the arse for me.
I'll have some thinking on it.

Two more hours to go.
Head is swimming in words.
Chest is tight.
Neck is sore.
No real reason to be here.
Yet here I am.
My pleading will go unmet.
But that is how it'll be.
I can't really fault another
For doin what I've done before
I'm not owed anything
It doesn't suck any less.
Some appetites will never be filled
And will consume the universe
If left unchecked.

Alright, I'll bite, what process?

I often feel like the Cramulus Guru autopilot is responding...

Well, that was an asshole thing to say.

Yeah. It was. It's the first time I have said anything that assholish in a long, long time.

I guess this means I've transitioned from doormat / tube, to asshole.

And sometimes you talk to someone, and you can recognize that they're not really there. You're talking to their autopilot.

I often feel like the Cramulus Guru autopilot is responding...

My problem is most definitely not with the whole concept of "being present in the moment". Judging from some of the stories that you've told, I can see how that concept helped you break out of a rut, expand your horizons, make you feel more alive, etc... But you're talking to me, the dude who up and walked out in the middle of a cabal meeting to literally go watch bats eat fireflies in my back yard as the sun went down. If I'm not present, it's cause I got more interesting shit going through my head. Otherwise, I'm savoring the nutmeg, coriander and cloves in my currant oatmeal, I've had it dozens of times now, tastes just as great every time.

[i think it's just a matter of attention.]

it feels like you are talking about the sense that seems to hit hardest when you're on a long trip and you suddenly realize that you are driving.  i think it's just a matter of attention.  you can either focus your attention on the real and tangible, or you can focus on your thoughts or imagination.  i think it is only deliberately that a meditative state of "no mind" can be achieved and there's some sort of irony in maintaining that state.  (how do you maintain a state of "no mind" without thinking about it?) 

then again, maybe not all minds work the same way. 

Cram, I believe you are about to become a father. If I remembered right about that, congratulations! and: I predict your perspective on mindfulness is about to undergo a major shift as you will be focusing your attention on providing for and protecting your toddler from themselves.  there will be times when you are completely aware of *their* world and unaware of your own.

I think that is what I'm getting at to be frank. Assigning something mysterious or supernatural to this concept seems misguided to me. The concept of going into a flow state, or defaulting to a habit is not alien to me, but I don't see it as a thing to be fought against nor do I see attention as some sort of hard to reach state that is to be sought after for its own good. I don't summon up all my attention to make or eat breakfast in the morning before work. It's unnecessary to do so, spends lots of extra energy to remain in that state, and I'll probably fuck up my eggs because I'm trying to do it consciously rather than leaving it up to my well trained reflexive habits.

Now, if a habit kept producing an outcome that was displeasing then I'm going to direct my attention to the chain of events in that habit till I understand, what are the circumstances (do I keep stubbing my toe on this piece of furniture, the placement of this furniture is part of the circumstances), and the internal reasoning (do I keep skipping out on exercise during a planned time, what other motivations are on my mind at the time? Have I given up enough other activities to really make time or am I cramming too many activities or desires into my schedule such that I've got conflicting motivations that exercise just keeps losing at every time. These are internal reasoning) that make up the habit. Then I try to come up with options, can I move something in the space to optimize that habit, can I remove conflicting motivations, can I remove distractions or temptation, can I build up barriers between me and the habit I want to break? Can I craft a new habit to replace the habit I'm trying to end.

And yes, all of this is work. I wrote up a several page document a week ago looking at all the communities I see myself as part of, analyzing how I interact and what, if anything I get from those communities and what I want to get from them. It took several hours and after I was done I had a solid list of communities I wanted to cut out of my habits. And change them I have. Now I'm watching for the tradeoffs and trying to build different habits in the new space.

[What was seeing, right then?]

There was a moment where you decided to move dirt, to change streams.
This is an important moment!
What was seeing, right then?
What is it, inside of us, that sees things from a higher perspective? and can sense these wild impulses that occupy us for years at a time?

The cognitive bit. Man 3 if you like. I have no organ for this fourth brain. I do have organs for the other three.

But what to do about these assholes?  They have no soul.  They dislike their own odor.  They have never had fun in their entire lives, and they're not about to start now.  In a proper world, they'd all be put in cargo containers where nothing will agitate them.  And then maybe dump them in the ocean off Greenland somewhere.

They are the new scum, which is like the old scum except maybe they color their hair and wear "Keep <insert name of city> Weird" shirts.  As if they knew weird.  Their weird is pink hair and dismal, low-grade BDSM, and maybe walking around Second Saturday gawking at the street artists.  But when you or I let our faces slip and show them actual weird, they all crowd to the other side of the bus and call the cops to shoot us stone dead for our own good.

I may not actually achieve it being the soulless greyfaced cabbage that I am... But I do aspire to at least wrap my head around this fun that you speak of, even if it breaks me.

First off, whoever decided to name these concepts Man 1, Man 2, Man 3 and Man 4, FUCK YOU! You've made it basically impossible to google that shit and the names do nothing to clue in the uninitiated. Couldn't you have just named them The Physical Being, The Emotional Being, The Cognitive Being, and The World? Look it's easy to be informative and not gender centric. I'm not apologizing for it. Fuck You!

Anyway, from the context of the conversation the other night it sounded like there was this concept of Man 4 being some super meta state of being where you just control the other three Physical Emotional and Cognitive beings, to which I also say, Fuck You! That's Bollox! Man 4 is the actual shit that you have limited control over that constrains and shapes your behaviors. The Cognitive being can try to go deliberately against The World, but they will fail in the long run. You can push water up the hill all you want, but you aren't going to change the flow unless you move The Dirt, aka The World, the so called Man 4. Punch that Sucker where it counts, move The Dirt. And yes, you can do this with the other three parts of yourself, but that doesn't make you The World or Man 4.

Some examples of moving The Dirt.
Taking a different shift at work
Getting a different job
Investing in a passive revenue stream
Changing what you are subscribed to online
Unplugging your Router
Changing where you hang out
Establishing or severing ties with friends/acquaintances/family members
Scheduling and performing tasks until they become habits
Re arranging your space
Learning new information and changing your rationality

An example of not moving The Dirt.
Looking back at your week on Saturday night, having not changed anything, remembering that you had a goal to exercise more, shrugging, sighing, saying you'll try again next week, and not cancelling plans or making plans for the next week, leaving the trough untouched and watching yourself flow through the same sequence of rational decisions and justifications you flow down every week till the next Saturday night.

The Dirt often moves without explicit intention, just like a river will change it's course gradually from one year to another. Sometimes other friends and family will have something change in their life and they can no longer make it to that weekly meeting that sustained your relationship with them. Sometimes you get fired from your job. The World shifts indifferently and sends you down paths that if you aren't careful, or aware, could end you in a lonely, constricted, powerless place. But you can move The Dirt intentionally. This is hard work because there is uncertainty and there are consequences you can't anticipate. And you have to face up to those consequences. This is an art and not a science, there will be tradeoffs that you won't notice unless you are looking for them, the outcome will be uncertain the first few times you try, but do it enough and you might start to get the sense of how to get that stream where you want it to go and how to mitigate the tradeoffs...

That said, just like manipulating a flow of water in real life, it is entirely possible to really fuck up someone else's existence if you aren't careful. "Oops, I just re-directed this river and washed away your house" is entirely possible. "I just invested in a passive revenue stream" and "you just got priced out of every living space within miles of where you've lived all your life" can be a lot closer than you might realize. And the same could be said of your own existence, "I'm going to start taking a drug that is socially stigmatized" can quickly become "I'm hiding this habit from friends and family and bailing the waters of shame" if you aren't keen on how shit works in the world. Or how about this one, "I've started attending Positive Outlook courses so I can learn how to manifest a better future" can quickly become "I've been sold a bill of goods, I'm out a lot of money, and I still don't know how to change my life." How about this one from my actual life. "I took a job that more aligns with the skills I went to school to obtain because It pays noticeably more than my last position." Led to "I now have hours of time at work with little to no work to occupy me, and I'm barred from the usual sources I turn to in order to stave off boredom. I have to adapt to this situation carefully or I could develop severe mental health issues or a financially ruinous impulse buying problem."

There is no magic here. Using these methods probably won't solve all your problems. You aren't likely to become amazingly rich or become a totally different social being getting laid every night in the blink of an eye. But it will probably get you out of a rut and give you experience. So yeah... If you aren't doing what you feel you should be doing, Start moving The Dirt, start somewhere small, move your alarm clock across the room so you can't punch snooze without getting out of bed, punch man 4 where it counts, see what tradeoffs emerge, rinse and repeat till you die cause once you stop moving The Dirt, you've embraced oblivion and are going to be pushed by the indifferent universe into a hole that is way harder to escape.

Personally, I've been looking at my stream and noticing how similar it looks to the streams of other people. And I've noticed that the streams of those other people, led them far too frequently to suicide, death by loneliness... So here I am, desperately trying to shovel an escape trench to a different end. Wish this greyface cabbage some luck, cause I'm gonna need it.

Pardon my ignorance, I tried googling IFF and I'm not sure I've got the right term. Does IFF stand for Identification Friend or Foe?

Thank you, I think I see the parallel now. I can only wish that some contingent of the unhappy crowd gets unhappy enough to sit out or desert (even temporarily) should Trump make another go at the presidency in 2024.

Is it the QAnon Crowd (Margorie Taylor Greene and the like) vs. the rest of the Republican party? Or some other dividing line? Either way I'd love more details about what you're seeing if you've got the time.

I haven't yet spotted who is the figurehead for "the rest of the Republican party". Who has the guts to primary Trump? Who will split the base and start the infighting?

A serious musical analysis of Clowncore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_IZ9bQJXlw

Clowncore found here for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT7x1NvGf5k

My summary is "Sufficiently advanced music is indistinguishable from antimusic, except more consistently funny"

Holy Fuck. I needed something to soak up two hours of dead time and I wasn't about to start another serialized video series... This is something amazing. I will bask in it's glory and spread it to my limited circle. Aww Yiss, there are Beat Saber Mods!

Here's my woo. I get that this is just too small of a statistical sample to really draw conclusions, but it feels like I happen to be around right before the end of stuff a lot.

There was a podcast that I enjoyed, back when I liked the idea of guru's and self help stuff. I reached out to communicate with the creator, as it happens, I was the first listener to reach out to them, they invited me on the show. That was the last episode they produced for several years. After a while I reached out to them again, they did another short season interviewing various individuals including myself, the episode with my interview was the last episode they produced before going silent for several more years. Eventually the podcast came back, but by then I'd grown disillusioned with guru's and the host had gone full on "Affiliate Marketing/ the Secret" and I just stopped listening.

I had a job as a material handler for a few years at the place my dad worked. When I started, there was 7 material handlers, by the time I was laid off, there was 3, and I was the one who picked up the work for all the ones that were fired/quit. When I was laid off, it was a blanket layoff of all contract workers, I guess they were hoping we'd all reapply at worse wage rates. Two days before the layoff I asked my supervisors if I was going to be part of the layoffs, they assured me that I was too valuable to be laid off. Guess they didn't know shit. I kept tabs on how things were going there by chatting with my dad. Within a few months, the company shipped my dad's department, one of the few solid money making departments in the plant, to another facility half way across the country. My dad went and worked for a local competitor for the last few years before retirement. Before he left he told me there were plans to rent out a huge portion of the building to another company. I've seen multiple people who used to work there show up working for my current job. They all said that place went downhill fast after the layoffs.

The job I had in between that job and the one I have currently, it was a small mom and pop tv repair shop. The former owner and his wife handled the business, he ran in home repair jobs, she ran the front desk/schedules/shipping & receiving/invoicing/payment processing. The new owner hired me to do what the former owner's wife did. I had that job for less than a year. It was an exciting nightmare and burnt me the fuck out. I left because the new owner had unacceptably shady business practices and because I found a much lower stress union job that paid like $5/hr more. Shortly after I left, the business lost the property and moved to another location, one of the technicians left and the other one was strongly considering quitting when I last heard from him.

It is more of a joke woo of mine, but sometimes my brain entertains such a bizarre causality. My arrival somehow signals the end of stuff. I am become harbinger of the Eschaton.

I find booze and PEEDEE effective.

Not at the same time though. That's like Drinking and Driving. You might get lucky most of the time, but one day, you'll end up in a stranger's living room, car parked on their dog, while you're ranting about the Eschaton.

It sounds like we're both on the same treatment plan