Day 308:

I worked out, watched two videos from Peterson and wrote extensively in my blog. I went out in the evening to meet with two guys from high school.

29 minutes ago, Amphibian220 said:

@Ikar, coveting or caring for something too much kills my nerves. I can achieve the result, but at a great mental cost and then cannot enjoy it.

In fact, this thread seems to run through many things in life: attracting a woman, getting your desired job, moving to a new home, reacting to a conflict. When you start thinking: “I will get this, it’s okay, it’s not such a big deal” the people around you seem to notice the change in your composure and start taking a different route with you. 

My friend left his carpet in the common area for the cleaners to pick up a couple of days ago. The concierge who looks after the place, naively thought it was put “away” and took it for herself. My friend’s reaction was surprise, maybe some disagreement, but she didn’t really let herself get worked up over it. 

I then contrast this with an employer in an English law firm who used to swear at his employees and pressured them to bill their clients aggressively. Then, on friday nights he would encourage the employees to go down to a local pub and accept him paying for everybody’s drinks. First anger triggered by coveting, then atonement through gifts?

You mention your experiences and areas in my life I want to be more knowledgeable/wise about, but I fail to make the connection in how that relates to one another. It could be that it's past midnight here, but I am unsure how to reply to this, because it seems ambiguous to me.

Day 306:

I worked out and got some work done on my web. I think I might be half-way through it at this point. As for working out, I started doing more complex full-body workouts.

I attended a presentation with a guy who is doing interviews with the veterans/insurgents of wars in the Caucasus. I thought it would be more history-oriented at first, but in the end it was about understanding why specific people participated in them, gaining people's trust and getting to the real roots of their participation.

In the evening, I went to an English speaking event and I met a respectable young entrepreneur whom I want to chat with again, because he seems to be on the right track, at least in my eyes. We agreed on the importance of having mentors in our lives to learn from.

Day 307:

I went to the uni, worked out and went to bed early.

On 2/20/2020 at 3:06 PM, Alexanderle said:

First of all, the big idea overall is to get rid of pornography. By now, there are probably hundreds of studies showing the devestating effects of pornography. This stuff can even change your brain!

I think there's even an ethical perspective to not watching porn, because then it's possible to refocus your sexuality into the real world. Once it's back in the real world, you'll fantasize about real women you meet. Once you do that, then you have a clear bearing for what women you want to approach and perhaps date. And once you are in a relationship, your sexuality gets hopefully integrated into something greater.

10 hours ago, Tomas said:

For all the cash I spend on that game (it is ridiculous), the card knowledge I got, the fact I ALMOST got to Legend... Oh man... how much I wanted to get to legend, and after that quit the game... That game... is poison. Hearthstone is like a pack of cigarettes. I can't just play one game and the quit. I have to smoke the whole pack, and then buy some more. Can't I just play a few games each day? No, I can't... And I am not going to. Goodbye Hearthstone, you peace of beautiful sh*t. 

Constructed only ever was about getting above 50% W/R anyway, so it was just a time-grind. I much rather played Arena and I was infinite at it, though I quit HS almost 4 years ago.

@Alexanderle is right. You're doing this for yourself.

Day 304:

I got mails, read, worked on my website, cooked and worked out. I went out afterwards.

I had a good time chatting for an hour or two with the girl I wanted to talk to. She mentioned she and her female friend dislike the majority way of how females interact with males romantically and that they barely have any other female friends, even though they are both heterosexual. They are both unavailable for dating from what I can tell though.

This is extremely interesting and motivating for me. I feel like I want a woman who is combative in an open way, rather than guilt tripping, so she can qualify in my eyes both as a person I want to have kids with and someone I can hold deep respect for as a friend as well.

Day 305:

I worked out, went for an interview (I think it went well), visited my grandma and attended a seminar about the power of thoughts and words.

54 minutes ago, Phoenixking said:

Tomorrow I leave for Lithuania for about 4 days. I'm still not sure if I should bring my laptop or not. Part of me doesn't want to waste any time and wants to work. Surely there will be boring moments there, no? Or moments where I'll feel a bit lost in translation or bored or anxious with having to hang out with the crew or my colleague actress. I sometimes just don't have the juice to socialize with people. But another part of me thinks I should just embrace the challenge and go screenless. I'll still have my phone in case of emergency.

I say go for it without the laptop. I spent my 10 weeks in Iceland without my laptop and while I still spent a few hours on the phone, I think it was less than I would've had if I had my laptop.

A habit I had while I was in Iceland was to spend about an hour just lying on the coast, thinking, meditating, reading or slumbering after the day's work. I'll try something similar today after all these months. I also sometimes feel that my days are constant streams of activities and that I don't really have a sharp divide that would allow me to enter a more relaxed part of the day.

10 minutes ago, Phoenixking said:

This reminds me of an acting exercise I took part in a while ago. It was a class on intimacy and how to be able to use it as a tool while acting. The first exercise was to simply kiss every single person in the class. Weird, but there was so much logic applicable there. The teacher had figured out that kissing somebody new was a novel thing and would throw people off their game. So he got it out of the way as soon as it all started. He called it killing your giggling Japanese school girl. The jitters you get, butterflies, nervousness or blushing? You don't get it while doing a scene if you've already kissed that actor or actress a few times during exercises or drills. Kissing and intimacy then transformed into something in our toolboxes to use while doing scenes, without it being something we'd fret about. It was suddenly just a common thing we could deal with while keeping a level head. Maybe it's like that?

I have a friend from high school who is studying to be an actor and he mentioned something related to what you pointed out. The performance/play needs to look believable in different contexts. There can be plays where the kiss is nervous, but there can also be plays where the kiss is passionate. The idea is the actor actually needs to embody the given emotion. I can't even begin to imagine how complex that must be to achieve on a regular basis, but I suppose it's practice in a way.

19 minutes ago, Phoenixking said:

Maybe this is you, slowly but surely getting to grips with all of these things. Maybe in the future, you won't respond so twitterpated and be able to keep a clear focus on being in the present? ^^ In any case, I admire how conscious you try to remain while being social with people. It's like you're really really trying hard at connecting and being a more solid human. Mad props, man!

I think I'll stay more grounded the next time as well. I'm really gripped by this area of life at the moment and I try to let the intellect work side by side with emotionality, trying to not go overboard with any. I'm enjoying trying to figure this out, at least in basic shapes.

7 hours ago, Icandothis said:

On my childhood trauma. 
 

“You were so quiet, stayed out of the way, didn’t need anything. You were so good.” 
 

I learned that in order to survive it’s important “not to be a child”.

Lots of tears today. 

Little did they know they were equating "good" with "robot" and that humans are not robots. It's still better to know that now than never at least 🙂

Day 303:

Today, I went to the shop, thought about the design for my banner for English teaching and did Russian.

I afterwards went to the gym and met the same girl I did last week at the same time (Day 296 - didn't write that down here). I already knew she did some graphics designing from the week before and meeting her again gave me the opportunity to ask her whether she'd be interesting in designing something for me, as I think some artwork might be required for either the banner or the website. But she told me she is not very happy about her artistic capabilities so far, so I let that thread go.

I ate, took a shower and went ahead to meet with the local group for geographers, but there were only three of us. I got engaged in small talk for a bit afterwards.

I then went to the library, where they hold English events every now and then and today there was a Taboo desktop event. I met with the older lady from Day 293, but she left a bit earlier, so I was left alone with the married librarian in her 30s I met for the first time and played Scrabble with on Day 268.

To top it off, I went to the philosophy lectures in the evening. It helped me sort out some of the things below.

-----

I noticed that I know of two cases of sharing food in the past several days, while asking the person if they want subconsciously without thinking. There could obviously be more cases of this recently (and in a non-materialistic way too), but in the past I felt that sharing was more of a duty I had to do. When I was a kid (about 12), I have a memory where I actually hated sharing a pack of Mentos with another guy. I'm also fairly eager to volunteer nowadays. I'm planning on going for the nature clean-up day with the people who run the philosophy courses, as they also all volunteer to give these lessons.

 

I also enjoy employing the idea of continuous concept talk. I generally meet people on a weekly or semi-daily basis. That gives me some time to ponder what thing during our conversation caught my attention and I try to expand on the idea the next time I get to talk with them.

That way, I got to sense that the girl I met at the gym was fairly disciplined and get her to mention she had a boyfriend, without explicitly asking that or laying similar overt questions.

That way, I got to sense that the married librarian might be making a few too many sexually-themed references during the game.

 

On Saturday, my friend told me he went to an event. The talk was about being present among other things. During the event they would receive and try to bend solid stainless spoons, without applying excessive force and using only two fingers of each hand to achieve that. My friend managed to bend two spoons out of four. I don't know if he managed to just accumulate enough heat in his fingertips to bend them. But he told me that when he started caring too much about the result or even being scared about what is happening, he would no longer be able to bend the spoon and stay present.

This was EXACTLY what happened to me on Day 297. I was talking to a girl who was playing with her hair while talking to me. I read that it is supposed to be a classic flirtation signal. I noticed that and I got scared, because it was so damn novel to me. I probably saw a ton of women playing with their hair before, talking to me or not, it's just I never made that connection.

 

I could be making all this shit up of course, but maybe I am slowly consciously figuring out the basics of human (sub)communication. I'm getting after it.

3 hours ago, Talby said:

It's such a liberating experience changing your perspective of something that you struggled with for such a long time, particularly as there's still people I know/knew and in the media trying to tell me that I'm not addicted, that's an unhealthy way of looking at it blah blah blah.

People see what they want to see. The way I see it, it's my life and I decide whether it's a problem or not.  Which gives me control over my behaviours and what I say.

As I said, liberating.  Thank you for your reassurance and to everyone on here for opening their hearts and minds 🙂

100% on the liberation part. Regarding gaming, liberation came to me when I understood I gamed because the rest of my life was haywire. Regarding people/relationships/myself, liberation came to me when I understood that we all have certain needs and that we all interact with one another to get those needs met, so we can prosper. I also self-diagnosed myself with addiction and depression, because I decided gaming interferes with too much that I want to do in life otherwise and doesn't provide good enough return.

4 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I like doing something for a long period of time.

I don't like writing this, because I could game several hours a day, but I'm afraid that's something that doesn't serve us well most of the time, because most of the life is about balance, rather than going all-in on one or two things.

I think nailing just one goal for the day (i.e. something important that you do not want to do) is acceptable. Discipline should feel better over time and become a habit. I'm working out daily for the past 7 weeks and I can't imagine my day without that at this point.

Day 302:

I did Duolingo, read, visited my parents, watched a shorter Peterson lecture, worked out, cleaned my room and I'm currently doing the laundry.

I got my next week lined up and I'll try to get something done for the web every day. I didn't have any bigger project I was working on this week, so I'll try to make up for that.

Day 301:

I spent most of my day visiting classes my friend teaches. I saw and participated in these types of lessons after two months. It was great to get back in touch with all of it. I fit in a bit of mailing and a workout in the remainder of the day.

Day 300:

I went to the uni, worked out and scheduled my next week.

No Ejaculation: 11 days, currently 1 day

8 minutes ago, Alexanderle said:

Interesting @Ikar have not heard of that one before. I just watched a couple of videos of him. Overall, I think the idea of living in the presence is quite a nice and fresh take of the world, even though other "enlighted people" have said similar thinks. I just think, it is worth to try out some of the stuff to see, if it is helpful. 🙂 

Why would you not call it a book? 

It doesn't have a story-line and it's not giving any advice either. It's just text that is supposed to help you to connect some dots that you didn't see before.

Day 299:

I did a couple of smaller things today. I backed up my diary here, got through more mails, Duolingo, washed the dishes, sent a classic mail and worked on some exercises from Manson's Models. I had a class later afternoon about regional development and it was quite interesting, so I took the business card from the presenter.

I went outside to the English speaking event afterwards and I had alcohol-free beer (perhaps it works as placebo anyway?). I am experimenting with whether I need to drink alcohol at all, as while it's easier to combat whatever anxiety early, it makes me dip into the state of drowsiness sooner and harder and I do not like when I'm not as acute in my social interactions as I could be.

24 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

I'm burnt out and tired. I'm doing every task at work because the spare junior engineers don't do their work so my managers don't trust them. I don't blame them, but I'm overwhelmed. Just discipline these kids or fire them. Do something. 

They will, if they keep doing nothing. Why would they pay employees that do nothing?

28 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

I just read an article about a polyamorous relationship searching for a house together. Can you imagine the sex? What a fantasy this guy is living... I'm so jealous. 

I can imagine that after a day of 9-5, if I have the energy to have sex, I'd crash asleep instantly after it!

Focus on yourself and you'll be fine 🙂

3 hours ago, Alexanderle said:

There are two interesting concepts, I found today. The first concept is the idea of painbodies. According to Eckhart Tolle, they are a cumulation of our previous history of "failures". At some point, it loops and creates a vicious cycle. He suggests to not ignore this anxiety feeling, but actually focus on it and accept it. Interesting concept, maybe I will try that out in a lecture.

I just got into "A New Earth" of his. It's my second book from him, I like the spirituality of it and it makes me wonder a lot. I wouldn't even say it's a "book" per se.

Welcome back.

17 hours ago, Redbeancooked said:

Interesting experience you've got there lol. i've got my gf for 4 years and i think i f'got every sense that my brain use to flirt or maybe even just to talk with another girl other than mine.

It's not that i want to, but how do you talk to girls?...

 

15 hours ago, ceponatia said:

@Redbeancooked I don't that's why I use online dating. Lol. Much easier when you can take however long you want to reply!

The bad news is, online dating apps really only get you rid of the approach and the venue you would normally meet at. You still need to be able to hold a normal conversation sometimes for dozens of minutes on end IRL and that is damn difficult. I'm away from dating apps for three months. I can say that the return of investment is incomparable to when I go outside.

Day 298:

I visited my grandma, got a new haircut and worked out.

 

1 hour ago, Vera said:

I'm curious! What kind of things do you discuss on these courses?

So far, we discussed myths from ancient Greece - Socrates and Plato, as well as Indian ones.

Day 297:

I read, got through mails, did Russian, worked a bit on my web and then watched some old Peterson podcasts, which is something I haven't done in a while. I found myself somewhat restless during the day, so I found some solace going back to the basics to keep me grounded. Since yesterday, there are weekly quizzes where I met some people I met way back when at the New Year's Eve. The highlight of the night is me talking to one girl and noticing she was playing with her hair. I still need to work on my conversation skills and vigilance though.

5 hours ago, Erik2.0 said:

I don't think I'm ready to do a spreadsheet and try to track my goals. -_- it makes me feel tired and overwhelmed just thinking about it...

 

4 hours ago, BooksandTrees said:

I tried last summer and didn't like it. I overwhelmed myself. Don't worry. It helps some and not others. Just do you. 

I started experimenting with spreadsheets way back at the end of 2016 and I'm still not at the point where I would have my days fully lined up.

2 hours ago, Amphibian220 said:

I will give my insight on this. One area journaling really helps in is if you have a specific result-oriented goal to achieve.

 America's swimming champion Michael Phelps tracked his time in a journal and made it a principle to make improvements every consecutive training session no matter how small.

I do that as well, although I'm not trying to increase my goals daily but every couple of days. It is a good thing to do.