Sores

We humans carry sores within ourselves. Sores of pain, sores of hurt, sores of fear, and many are allowed to go uncured throughout our lives. Sores on our skin heal automatically, without the need for conscious treatment, and this is enacted by our autonomous body, which has learned throughout the ages to gather its resources, and place its efforts on cleansing, reconstructing, and healing the physical injuries we acquire, all the while remaining true to its myriad other functions that keep it alive, mobile, and useful. The physical body knows how to heal itself autonomously.

With the emotional body, this is not so. When sharp words pierce it, when sudden separation from a loved one rips at the tissue that attached to them, when violent abuse crushes it with unwelcome willpower, when it is burned by another's outburst of rage, whether directed or undirected, our emotions are injured, and we feel their hurt. The damage is not visible, the leaking subtle fluids cannot be seen, but the physical body reflects the inner state, oozing out tears. To these injuries it replies too with fight or with flight, for it recognizes danger, and desires protection.

The immediate response is the same in the physical as in the emotional, but its healing is not. The response of the emotional is consistently the same: It contains the injury with a barrier of fear, of repulsive quality. This contains the hurt and keeps it isolated, allowing us to continue along life without the constant feeling of hurt. Later the fear itself is too surrounded, by scab-like guardians that mean to prevent further damage. The guardian can be a fiery wall of anger, who threatens to burn anyone that gets too close. Or it can be a hefty solid dense wall of stone, numb and unmoving, impervious to what is within and without. And more often than not, the boundary between the fear force field and the outer guardian coalesces, and congeals into a sticky, unwieldy slime of shame.

Thus is composed our sore, and thus it reaches stability, the damage no longer felt. The person can then continue to live and move and act, unhindered by its hurt. As time passes, if the person is overly drawn towards the external, the inner can be forgotten, these damages inclusive. Though unseen and evadable, these injuries remain, and they affect the shapes, patterns, and health of our overall flow, for they obstruct it. The injury location is a no-pass zone, and our inner denizens must reroute their flow in order to continue their unending chores, for the guardians are mighty, and temporary rerouting seems preferable to again feeling that hurt.

And yet we feel it, and it affects us throughout our lives. At unexpected moments, other people's innocuous actions trigger fear, shame, or anger with disproportionate strength. And we inexplicably find ourselves in situations that trigger the same sharp emotions over and over again, the manifested calls of the injury to be remembered and cured. And as we take notice of this pattern, we move gradually from thinking it a random coincidence, to realizing their frequency is too high for randomness, to blaming the universe or unknown external forces for one's misfortune, to finally realizing that the only common factor in these situations is oneself, and within oneself the cause must lie.

The emotional body does not heal itself. I don't know why. I surmise it has not evolved that capability as the physical has, and that it is learning to do so through the experience of our generations. In the meantime, we must do it ourselves. Healing only comes from within. Just as no physical bandage, disinfectant, brace, cream, surgery, powder, potion, pill, chant or ritual can replace the regenerative and self-mending abilities of our physical tissue, neither will advice, therapy, friends, lovers, family, fame, wealth, admiration, nor power over others replace the healing abilities of our emotional tissues. But because they are not yet autonomous, we must learn to do it ourselves.

To heal, an emotional wound must be recognized, accepted, felt fully, and allowed to flow. Each of these four steps follows the one before, and we guide them with our awareness. A person's awareness, most often directed outward, is turned inward, and the will is summoned powerfully to keep it so.

Sometimes a layer of humor or forgetfulness surrounds the guardian, diminishing its seeming importance, or makes it difficult to find. If one has consciously chosen to heal it, however, one has already realized this outer layer is merely a diversion, and can step through it.

To recognize the wound, one must face the guardian. The wall of raging fire will respond, and threaten to shoot out flames to burn the threat. The flames are shots of blame and intended attacks to that which hurt it, and they will try to go out and attack the one we deem responsible, and violent thoughts and urges may appear, desiring to project hurt at the offenders. It is at this junction that the will to remain inward is needed. The flames, manifestations of the congealed urge to fight, desire to shoot onto the external world, and still focus on the fight, not on the healing. At this point recognize that there is a wound inside, and that nothing in the external world - not the cause nor a savior - has the responsibility, and much less the ability to heal it, be it through an apology, a punishment, or revenge.

The stone-like guardian may be difficult to find, but its key scent is denial. The guardian is approached with curiosity, and a genuine desire to know the truth. These old incidents we regard as minor, yet keep blipping in our consciousness at unexpected moments, and that we keep dismissing with automatic reactions - these can indicate guardians of numbness. Ask yourself, "Is it true?" Does that event really not affect me anymore? Is there an emotion underneath that indifference?" And stay there, ponder. Here the will to remain inward is also necessary, for denial seeks other objects to distract the focus. Ponder on the truth of that point, until you have found genuine satisfaction of your own truth. And if you find something you didn't know was there, continue inward.

Shame is often the first deterrent to acceptance. Once past the guardian, the existence of an anomaly within is undeniable, and this can conflict with our feeling of self-worth, which often holds the ideal being as "whole, healthy, and undamaged". Just as one can be ashamed of a physical injury because it can indicate clumsiness, recklessness, weakness, or merely imperfection, so can the existence of an emotional wound stand in conflict to our feeling of self-worth.

But our self-worth is deluded unless we know our self with truth. Therefore, when shame creeps out and begs you not to proceed, see it. Do not heed its woeful cries, and do not deny it either. If it is felt, it is real, and it has its place and role. But it bars the way to the central wound, and its usefulness is past. See the shame and feel it. Know it to be part of you, and with focused awareness, feel the shame until you feel it melt away, to be processed or discarded by your emotional channels. Unpleasant or not, it is part of you.

Fear is now exposed, and the body trembles. The hurt begins to be felt, and our systems react in turn. We are trained to flee from pain, but this time we must face it. Memories of the injury, therein stored, seep into the consciousness, and bring the original pain with them. Then with an honest intent of self-exploration, step into the hurt.

The wound's memories rush through, and the pain is fresh again. The bodies may react with cries and tears - let them, allow no shame to hinder their flow. Only you and the painful memory are here, and you relive it once more. You have the opportunity to choose how to feel about what happened, and to change that feeling. It is now the time to feel.

Let the pain flow where it is led, and simply let it move. Do not diminish it, do not exacerbate it. See it for what it is. See the memory, see yourself in that memory, and explore whatever calls. Be not the victim, who diverts the pain by blaming unfairness, and pretend not that you are immune to the hurt, turning a blind eye to the wound. Shine on it bright with focused awareness, and explore all its painful corners with intent of truth.

Once felt and seen fully, the pain subsides, and its power is diminished. Its barriers have been crossed, and their power is greatly lessened. With the open channel, the fluids in the wound can now move, and exit the barriers where they were pierced. Let them flow, let them go, like old blood and pus yearning to escape. Feel as the old comes out, feel as the new seeps in, bringing help for the reconstruction. Awareness has come in and disinfected with truth. Now the body can begin to clean and restore.

Some wounds are deeper than others, and one exploration does not always fully heal a wound. It is the first such incursion that finds the defenses most powerful, however, and once seen, one already knows the way, and one can consciously choose to explore again when the moment feels right.

Also, such a wound and its barriers, if we grow with them for a long time, we grow habits and patterns around them, as we learned to evade and protect them, day after day after day. These do not vanish the moment the wound heals, and may remain present for long after. However, if their originating cause is healed, they lose their foundation, and can be gradually massaged to further balance, with no energy to push back against it. Through all this process, it is helpful to recognize that our emotional body is a highly complex system, and that each new exploration is an opportunity to know it, and ourselves as a whole, in greater truth.

Layers

We process in layers.

Body:

If you feel overwhelmed, if your sense receptors are overloaded, and you cannot process them yourself, worry not. Pass it on. Offer it to the emotions, who will process what you sense.

Allow your pleasure to evoke happiness, let those graces turn to delight.

Allow your pain to become sadness, then turn to anger, grief, or fright.

Emotions:

If you feel overwhelmed, if your feelings are blocked or stagnant or raging, and you cannot process them yourself, worry not. Pass it on. Offer it to the mind, who will process what you feel.

Allow your delight to bring curiosity, let it find fruits on the path.

Allow your grief to rise to reason, let mind understand it, and find the power that in it remains.

Mind:

If you feel overwhelmed, if thoughts are lost, reason is exhausted, or you find idle beliefs or triumphs, and you cannot process them yourself, worry not. Pass it on. Offer it to the soul, who will process what you think.

Allow your conquests to rise to the witness, surrender them to trust.

Allow your confusions to be seen by the seer, who knows them completely and remains in trust.

May we take count of the products in our storerooms, process those we have procrastinated, and let go those which have expired. May we then unclog our channels, and keep them open and ready to allow the current.

Preference

It is well known that as people, we prefer to have good things and to experience good events, and that we avoid those that are bad. What is not as widely realized is that these tendencies are not merely attributes of what is good and what is bad; they are their definitions. It is not the goodness or the badness of things that determines what we like and dislike - it is our preference towards the phenomena within the world that define the good and the bad within it, and which colors our experience with a rich spectrum, from rosy gardens of delight to the toxic trenches of misery.

It might be argued by some that this is not so, and that there are good and bad things which apply to all people, regardless of who they are and what they prefer. There is, after all, a general agreement that stealing, killing, and lying are bad actions, that sadness, fear, and pain are bad, and that happiness and pleasure are good. It is good when resources are sufficient and abundant, and it is bad when they are scarce, is it not? Isn't it good to be beautiful and intelligent, and bad to be ugly and dumb? How does personal preference play a part in these obvious, basic concepts? How can these commonalities exist between billions of people, each with their own unique preferences, if not due to the intrinsic goodness and badness of the forms, qualities, and actions themselves?

A key to this puzzle lies in the fact, often overlooked, that we share vastly much more in common than that in which we differ. Were it not for the relatively minute attributes that differ between us, which people so often emphasize so sharply, our bodies, our equipments, are virtually identical. Our bodies' shapes, their abilities to move, perceive, process, and express, their reactions to the same types of inputs, are unchanged from individual to individual. They react in similar fashions to qualities of pain and pleasure, to sadness, anger and joy, and they use the same chemicals and motions to express the same qualities and reactions. The success of our very language indicates how much in common we all share, for we have managed to incorporate abstract, intangible meaning into common sounds and symbols. In the grand space of possibilities, this accomplishment should indicate how virtually indistinguishable we must seem, from a perspective outside of the human drama. It is this ancient shared foundation that induces so much of the common good and bad that humans are familiar with.

And yet we are not identical, and in fact the amount and depth of the attributes that we express and make each of us unique seem limitless as well, and they only grow as our concepts become more complex and our discernment is refined evermore.

From both these sides; from our vast reservoir of common ancestry, forged together through eons of interplay, experimentation, and survival; and from the myriads of attributes, qualities, and choices in the spectra of countless and growing dimensions of differentiation that we humans explore and create, led on by a powerful inquiring mind, along with the exquisite thread of experience, fabricated with colors and shapes no one has ever seen, and woven upon terrains never before ventured; from these two sides of our composition, our preferences arise.

And seeing many of these preferences common and obvious, as well as the common good and bad they induce upon the world, many conclude that goodness and badness are traits inherent to the forms, and attempt to find in the forms what is "the good" and what is "the bad". In the objects, in the actions, in the habits. Then when they find in other people another set of values - when that person sees as bad what one finds good, or viceversa, a logical impasse is reached. "If I know that this object is good, and that person thinks this object is bad, then I know (s)he must be mistaken, because this thing is either good, or it is bad". This conclusion occurs in an instant, unawarely in all but rare cases. And just as unconsciously, it triggers a reaction to fix this disparity, to help the other realize that his point of view is mistaken, often resulting in arguing, friction, conflict, and violence, since the other person likely reaches a similar conclusion, and a reactionary feedback loop is created.

But their unaware reasonings are based on that specious former postulate: "Goodness and badness are part of the forms". Were we to realize this postulate is false, that our own unique preferences are what filter and tinge the world around us with the good and bad that feels so true, that they do not belong to the form and matter but to ourselves, very many would realize the futility of persuasion in many situations, and perhaps that energy now lost to argument and conflict could be repurposed to exploring the values that can be garnered from these individual differences, and in turn use these values towards further growth and unity.

mind

[a mental musing]

Mind cannot know truth. It is not within its capacities.

Mind observes, it discerns, it analyzes, it infers. It connects our perceptions to analysis, and groups, compiles, categorizes our perception into abstract entities, like groups, kingdoms, structures, patterns, and theories of the world. The periodic table of chemistry, the categorization and tracing of genetic evolution of biology, the mechanics, thermodynamics, and fundamental forces of physics; the notes, scales, and chords of music theory; the social patterns of growth, conflict, competition, collaboration, wars, treaties, and other social interactions found by history and sociology; the precise movements of fantastic objects traced in the heavens by astronomy; the theories of the planet's formation, morphing, and composition from geology; the predictions of the weather of meteorology - all of these human accomplishments, powered by the mind, are no more than working hypotheses about the truth of reality. No matter how strongly and harshly tested, how long-lasting, or how useful they have proven to humanity, these all do not pierce the veil of Truth.

For they are all dependent upon perception, which is necessarily inaccurate in this fluid world, and is colored by the perceiver, who differs from every other.

These types of knowledge produce their results via observation, compilation, and inference of patterns. These are the results of statistical analyses in essence, whether that is cognized by the inferrer or not. And as with all statistical results, a margin of error always remains, and the resulting hypotheses remain thus, always at some distance away from truth.

This separation does not render them worthless, however, and common knowledge *ordains/retains* that the results of the mind are some of the greatest triumphs of humanity at large, particularly in the last few centuries. Believing them to be absolute truth, however, is false and dangerous. Doing so can take us upon the path of arrogance and complacency, and stop progress in its tracks.

We as humanity are creating working hypotheses collectively with the help of our minds, and as we build more and more of them, one upon the other, we are creating great progress for our race. Let us know that these are all approximations of truth, and none of them truth itself, which is the attractor, whether realized or not, that drives our efforts and striving to know. And may we keep the hope that the results of mind, building ever higher and deeper, will someday lift humanity enough for us to know Truth.

Anchors

Something to believe in, is what man aches to attach to, to anchor to, in the middle of this shifting, rippling, at times stormy open ocean, that sometimes seems to threaten us to flounder, to lose ourselves, tiny specks in the expanse of the vast ocean, enormous in size and complexity. "What can I hold onto to save myself from the dangers of this ocean?", man asks.

And man finds anchors. Some hold on to our families, some to our partners or companions, soothing the loneliness often derived from the inherent aloneness of existence as an individual. Some hold to our jobs, to businesses with their own purpose and role, and sacrifice their own usefulness and purpose for the purpose of the business and financial reliability. Some attach to their communities, to their countries, or to an art or a science, aligning their purpose towards the well-being and growth of these institutions. And other seek goals to chase, longing or chasing towards them with the oft unspoken belief that, if they only had *that* thing, or went to *that* place, or were to meet *that* special person, then they would succeed and all would be well, and then pain, effort, and suffering would disappear from their lives.

Every one of these anchors, however virtuous or long-standing, is impermanent. They are all made up of the same fluid substance as are our bodies, our governments, our leaders, our frameworks, our systems, our emotions, as are rocks, water, fire, gas, and clouds. None are wholly fixed or reliable as we might hope them to be, and looking deeply enough into any of them revelas it to be a mirage in the ocean of forms.

Where then should we turn our attention? How to find direction, a target for our focus, a purpose for our energy, in this maelstrom of chaos, confusion, delight and pain, if nothing around us seems worthy for our life? There is one more direction oft overlooked, that towards within.

For behind our experience, emotions, and thoughts, there remains the witness that is our core. From here we watch, from here we live, and from here we shine our impulses for our bodies to sense and to follow. It is easy to forget it, and to revel or to suffer oblivious in the whirlwinds of our emotions and our minds, driven and empowered by inertia and by world contacts. But when we manage to quiet down the whirlwinds, and turn within to listen, the subtle signal from within shines on, and can guide us if we trust it.

And subjective as it may seem, the self within is the only direction that can remain fixed in our experience.

The omnipotence of copy-paste

I recorded an impromptu, long voice message on a street that felt of significance to me, and recorded with very, very low quality. Link to SoundCloud.

I transcribed it as I could underneath.

Hmmmm, copy-paste.

I feel I've been under the illusion of copy-paste for decades in my life.

In general, my life has been spent interacting with computers. I have been playing video games, walking through adventures in video games that I guided myself throughout, expressed my choices into, computers, stories within computers that I followed, and I tried to solve, and I traversed one time and another time and another time, because it was entertaining, and it showed me new things, and I was happy to PLAY with them! To feel the success that... to feel the success of what I achieve, ... and I moved from one goal to another to another... and I enjoyed it. And I played video games, and then I began to learn programming, and I learned then how computers are so... predictable. They're designed to be reliable. They're designed to, for its process to be repeatable. Over and over and over again, to be absolutely reliable, as much as humans could engineer. And, so... I grew up with this... unspoken knowledge ingrained in me that... that life is repeatable.

That is... well, something I feel I learned, that I believed. That life is repeatable. Because I experienced it in the world of computers.

And... *sometimes in these games there were times where I had a choice to do one of several things, and I wanted to try them all. But when I tried one option I couldn't try another without starting the game over again from the very beginning. So I began saving the game, and I would be able to save the game, F5. And give it a name, and say "oh, F5, I guess I am in the kitchen". And I knew that I would be coming upon a dangerous situation soon, or that I had several choices, so I'd save the game so I could, so I could explore them all. And that was my strategy, I realized "oh, I'm at a crossroads right now, I can take one of many choices, but I don't, I don't have *to just choose one of them*, I wanted to try them all. So I saved the game, and then I *took my choice, and explored, then if something bad happened, then* I would just restore, and come back to the saved game, and I was exactly in the same place, exactly, no change. Nothing different. The state of the game was *identical* to before. And so it seemed to me that... I think I believed, I learned that life is repeatable. And each moment is... saveable. I can *keep upon* this moment, when it had multiple choices, and then I try all of them. I just need to... somehow bring some control.

And so, I continued playing games, other types of video games, adventure games, strategy games, role-playing games, shooter games. And *.........*. The game was repeatable. It was, it was a state machine. And I was the... director of the state machine. No, the explorer, the explorer of this state machine, as I didn't so much guide it, as I explored it.

5:37

And the way I see it, I believe I spent a *large* amount of my energy in life into computers. Into the world of computers. Into playing computer games, into learning how to program. A lot of my passion went into "oh, I want to program! I want to make things that make things! I want to make things that are useful and that work by themselves, and tools that just... provide some kind of utility! Either to myself or to others, and to... sometimes to *****. Just, hmmm. I think **. I felt a strong affinity to computers. To computer games, to computer programming, to **** about computers. And then I studied **, and I realized "oh, that's helpful for this work", and then I realized people had to somehow... physically manifest the concept of logic and reliable logic into the physical world, which is *respectively somewhat unreliable *****. And then, I got to grow up, and my family brought me to study, Computer Science, and then I went to work, and then the *value* that I obtained at work was through the value of my, these predictable things I made, and which I simulated and ran **, iterated over, over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and tens, dozens, hundreds of time sometimes for a single project. I had been working in the framework of repeatability for decades. Because computers, even as I grew up, the expression that computers themselves could have, their capabilities, grew up with them. They grew up in how faithful the sound recognition and sound expression could be in computers. And it grew in how faithful displays could be. Color displays, they went from the CGA, to EGA, to VGA, to Super VGA, to... there's an XGA somewhere? And then, they began measuring, no longer by VGA, not by these acronyms, but by numbers. OK, how many pixels do we have? And oh, we have 720p, and then oh 1080p, and then 4k, 8k, 16k, which I've seen sometimes in specifications. And... I feel that just, this, feeling of repeatability just grew into me, and I believed that the world is repeatable. Because I could satisfy a lot about my expectations of life, what I knew about life, through computers. I could see whatever landscape I wanted on the computer. Before the internet perhaps not so much, but I could see the *main* of it, and then the internet came along and I had access to BILLIONS of images! Billions of images! That are accessible to my fingers. I think about something, I type something, I type it into my computer, or device, and I got just what I wanted. Oh, I wonder what the ** whatever ** looks like, and I type it in. Oh, there it is. Oh, I wonder what Bach's music is like. And I just find it, and then I say "oh ok, that's it! That's it. Yup". But I KNEW ingrained in me that, within computers, within the world of computers, everything is repeatable. Everything is *precisely* repeatable. Not a BIT of information when running reliable programs. Which is, the preferred way to do that, when we want things to be predictable, to be reliable. We run them because we expect to get some utility from them. And utility tends to be predictable. ** predictable. Oh well, at least entertaining.

11:26

Umm, but anyways, I feel like **, I feel I got ingrained into me that life is repeatable because, I was viewing life *through* computers for such a long time. And then, and I knew, I learned, I experienced that the state of computers is predictable, it's repeatable, again and again and again. We can make it do EXACTLY what we want! Minus, hopefully, negligible lower layer stuff. But what the user sees, should be exactly the same. Predictable, predictable, predictable, repeatable, repeatable, repeatable. So long.

12:30

And, and then today, I went to see a concert this morning, a chamber orchestra of Moldova played in Bucharest, and I attended, **. And, as I paid attention to different artists performing - the violins, the cellists, the director, the soloist - all their expressions, all their, their, their particular gestures, their particular nuances of who they were - how much emotion they showed in their face or, how much their body vibrated when their fingers vibrated on the strings, or whether the strings' bow would break off. I mean, it was the ***, not the first one. Or the unexpectance of... heh, expectation is also **... the unexpectance of a piano, that I didn't realize. Or the off-timings sometimes that artists had, and I could feel that there was a *little* off-timing in, and the director would adjust it somehow to bring it all to, back to alignment. And I was realizing... this moment is unique. It's unrepeatable. Absolutely unrepeatable. There is no way that... it's simply *is* unrepeatable. It's... there's no... ** in a ** repeatable. When one simply realizes or appreciates the VAST, infinite richness of flow, of physical flow. I mean, through computers, I've seen music as... MP3s. And... what's that? Napster. In the Napster days, *****. It just struck me how... curtailed of a version of life I was seeing through computers. Or, I think there's been times when I hear, for example, music through computers. It may be the *highest* fidelity, it may be the *highest* precision of sound recording, and even ******* these details of what's happening. And yet that moment, the place where I was sitting, the emotions that I was feeling, the context that I was in that exact moment, the exact day, the exact way that my body felt. The exact way my body reacted to all these emotions, my *own* flow.

16:50

So myself, AND associated with the music I was listening to. It was simply unique, it was un-repeatable. Absolutely unrepeatable. And that's when it struck me - I think I've been believing all of my life, in my... in the omnipotence of copy-paste. I think that's it. The omnipotence of copy-paste. Because, ummm, in computer world, in computer world, programming world, the world of people... yes, in the world of computers... what was I saying? Hmm.

18:09

Ah yes! Because in the world of computers, copy-paste is, is this, it seems to encode the, the... the core values of computation. Repeatability. *** encodability. And for so long, I believed that life is encodable, and life is repeatable. Like, I can copy-paste anything with computers. I can copy *some text, I write sentences, I press Ctrl-A, select all, Ctrl-C, then Ctrl-V, and then, oh! I have two copies of the text! Easy. Oh, and I can do that with, **** ah! two copies! It's the same thing, it's repeatable. Ah, ok. So, I can also copy a book, or... *, or a video! An entire movie, just oh, copy-paste. And I have two. Two of the exact same thing. Even an image, an entire computer image, in any format, ISO or DMG. The entire state of an entire computer, which, when one uses a computer, is like one's entire world. Like, oh the world is here. And if, somehow I want to have two versions because I, hesitate about the choice of ***, so I want to have two versions to... settle things up. Ok! So, copy, paste! I have two images! It can take long, it can take up a lot of space, but, it's repeatable! It's this capability that I've believed so long. That Life. Is. Repeatable.

20:25

**, I found **, I would say, undoubtful evidence that it is not! It is not! repeatable. Life is not repeatable. And it's not that I didn't KNOW yet that the physical world is analog, ****, is, is, is, not repeatable, like, I knew that! I know that. Since *** I know that things that are repeatable, I think I believed *** on YouTube to keep track of! I think that ************. At all. And, hmm. 

22:21

And I think the belief leads into is ****. Why would I want to attend this concert in person? I don't. I just want to hear the music. I've heard the music, ah, it's amazing. And then, **** all the details about ****, whether *** in the face, or behind it, it's not ***! Because I did not see the utility of it, I did not see the value of it. And then, this morning, I noticed a multitude of... **** details. Objects, things, patterns, flows, the attention and the focus of the different artists. And if I *** a reduction to this *****, it's just out of so many details, I noticed how much they affected me! I noticed how much stuff, how they had an impact on me! They... they have an effect on me, and they have unique effects on me! I could say **** are, are new. Are new. They're not very new. They're not like "oh my god! That super **** I saw her be nervous, or I saw the conductor ****, or I saw the angle of the string, playing the string like that, and THAT'S the best. No, it wasn't any particular thing. It was just realizing the things I thought were repeatable are not. They are not. They are... an integral part of life! And if I have noticed them before, it doesn't mean they're not there. I realized how, only copy-pasteable *** experience is. And so it induced in me this... extrapolation in me, that... that the *****. And like they're not. Because they also *** a part. And that's a part of me that I have not explored. This... *** these details, they are, hehe. What I can say is ***** we have no way of encoding it into computers right now. Because it's... in many ways, this *** are subtler, the experience is subjective. When I see a video, I'm seeing the camera's experience. I'm seeing *** through the camera. It's a *** view. There are emotions in that space that I **** feel it!

26:44

So it strikes me that the belief of the omnipotence of copy-paste is cracking within me.

27:14

I know now that there are details in the world that I haven't allowed in. That I have been ***. So... ***. 

27:53

The effect is... some sadness. Of knowing that I have despised things that are valuable. That brings me a lot of sadness, including some sadness that I've been ****.

*** provided important ****. **** even, the premise of the sadness, was, uh... ****** to stay.

So I know now that all my experiences so far are **** realized this.

And if I spent 30 years believing in the omnipotence of copy-paste, and my experience and my belief, or disbelief, have guided me to realize the NON-omnipotence of copy-paste, then ummm, then *****. ****.

****. I feel there is something lost, ****ly.

*****Violin sounds******

*** biased.

I think that's it. Copy-paste. I used to believe in its omnipotence, and its capacity to encompass the world. Now I realize experience... what I thought were negligible details, *** effectively, are ways that I find in me, valuable.

32:18

**dog barking**

*** are things to do about in life. uhhh, expanding. Expanding the mind.... *** expanded. ****** possible. *******. **********.

I realized **** copy-paste this morning.

I just **** some excitement! to feel how life continues to ****. Now that this... *****.

Lures

I think the mind is innately curious. Deep in its core, inextricably like water is fluid, like fire rises, and like gases penetrate. I think it is attracted to novelty per natural law, a fundamental attribute of the mind, as one of air is to want to fill empty space.

And I think this attribute is that exploited when humans are lured into purchasing a new product, hiring some service, or more recently, into clicking on internet advertisements, YouTube videos, into engaging with social media, etc. In general, it can be exploited to attracted human attention, which in recent years has not only gained social value, but is also being more finely discerned, tracked, and measured.

Hence we see multitudes of posts, video titles, and internet advertisements with texts like: "The top ten island destinations this summer!", "The best way to keep your skin clear", "The three worst things to do when you like someone", and so on. These titles use superlatives to attract a person's attention. The topic is often of strong interest to a sizable amount of people, often triggers emotional responses, and is at times fairly unspoken about amongst people, either due to taboo or simply to it being niche.

In addition, the superlative, or a word that indicates the information is of an extreme nature in some way ("The insane...", "You're never gonna believe...", "Try not to laugh...", "What doctors don't want you to know", "5 things you've been doing wrong about <common activity>", "get any beautiful girl with this one weird trick") triggers the mind's attention towards novelty, and reinforces the emotional trigger by compounding it with mental attention. An extreme is some of the simplest information one can obtain and verify, since it simply extends a one-dimensional spectrum in our minds.

The possible results for an observer are:

1. I learn about this extreme, and it is new to me. I have then extended my conceptual spectrum, and there is new space in it now that I can explore, which tingles my curiosity.
2. I see this extreme, and I already knew it, or it is even less extreme than the one I already knew about. My mind feels satisfaction, perhaps pride, at knowing that it already knows what is purported as a novel claim, and I feel my own knowledge is correct and verified.
3. I see this extreme, and it is different from what I already knew, but it does not seem logical/consistent with reality. Then I can mentally justify the validity of my knowledge versus that of the claim, and feel argumentative or self-righteous about my truth, engaging my mind and emotions together in the process. I could also react by attempting to challenge my own previous belief, though taking that step requires some extra effort and time that is not always available during idle times.

In either case, all these possibilities offer novelty and mental engagement, which as mentioned, is a natural urge of the mind.

As modern life in general, and the internet experience in particular, become increasingly standardized and individualized, our opportunities for lively mental engagement have overall diminished, and an idle mind is common. It is on this idleness that these lures act, seducing it with new information, or triggering the emotions to produce the same effect.

I think it is important for people to recognize when these lures act upon them. Individuals have unique paths, roles, and choices in life. If lures can be manufactured so that the attention and actions (i.e. the energy) of the masses can be surreptitiously swayed this or that way, it allows hidden forces to sway these masses, and lead them to think and act without full knowledge of why. And that is a dangerous state of affairs, for without understanding of one's own behavior, a few wills can take over a vast many, and bias institutions like economies and elections towards those few. In addition, when lured by hidden forces, people's habits turn reactionary instead of conscious, and it makes it more difficult for each individual to rediscover their true choice.

Chakra wisdom meditation

I asked my chakras a single question today: "What am I doing here?"

As the music began sounding and the tribal rhythm dropped my body on my knees again and again, I asked my question in the red context. Three words came along: "Create my way". I felt the carving of my life occurring as I moved my body and actions into the empty space of the nothing, as I tunneled into the clay of the moment.

As orange came and the sensual sounds and sexual female moans urged my hands to caress my body, I asked my question. The answer was simple. "To enjoy, And feel what you find on your way", and it then swiftly went back to feeling sensuously and enjoying me.

The yellow context in my solar plexus was bright. The music turned celebratory, energetic, and I rose my arms as the joy in me rose. "To show yourself", said the music. I placed my question in this energy, and the answer came quickly. "To shine", it said smilingly, and images rushed into me of opportunities I may have soon to shine my full self, being.

The heart music began with some chanting, monk-like, and it led us into the color green. I vibrated my body, with the awareness of green upon my heart, and asked my question once again. It answered, not as me, but as itself. It said "I am here to love you". I realized with clarity that I had a caretaker in my life, though I did not realize it before. It loves me, whatever happens.

As music turned to throat singing and the words led us to feeling blue irradiating from my throat, I breathed large gasps of air into it, and placed my question in my throat, listened for an answer. I felt the answer from my throat. "I am here to guide you". And I felt grateful for my expression.

The context became purple, and I asked my third eye, the same question, wondering what it may say. Clear words did not come - I felt instead the feeling of exploration, of investigation and summarily a feeling of "I don't know. I'm figuring it out". My hand faced forward and outward and felt a pointed sensation on its palm.

When the music turned even lighter, and we visualized gold in our crown chakra, I saw it move through my body. I didn't even give him the question, he just answered: "To live. You are here to live".

And integrating, I realized how all the answers are true with each other.

child

A child grows itself. It seeks and takes in what it feels it lacks, the objects of nd through countless unmapped inner processes, its body, and all its other parts develop larger, abler, resistant and skilled in the context of its life, via a continuous exchange of information with the world that surrounds it.

Its body grows with matter as its mind grows with concepts, information, and ideas. The body seeks nourishment via hunger and thirst as the mind seeks information via curiosity. With both, the child initiates his own search. With both, the child knows what draws him to help him grow, and it is then that he becomes receptive to grow in the direction for whatever he seeks, whether he is conscious of it or not.

This self-centeredness of grows does not, however, preclude care and guidance from others in the world. Neither of us could have arrived here without intensive attention and nourishment from our parents or other caretakers, and they also prevented many of us from dangers around us, altogether in physical, emotional, and social contexts, among others. That is to say, the inner drive and search that comes from within the child is not sufficient to lead a full life, as receiving care and guidance from the world is an integral part of human experience.

Nevertheless, I intuit that the child's primary guidance comes from within. It is the child's body which best knows what it needs to function properly, and it is the child's mind which best knows which ideas within him are aching to grow, and which knows which knowledge is he most eager for, most receptive to absorb. And as each of us children grows abler, more knowing and more confident, the intensity and the frequency of the guidance we receive lessens, allowing our choice and our trust to grow themselves too.

As such, I see a parent's role as a guide to be secondary to the child's. Atop the essential nourishment of all kinds and protection from hidden dangers, the parent's role is meager and ought not to override the child's unnecessarily. A parent or caretaker holds jurisdiction and authority over her household and family, naturally, and overrides are often crucial, such as when she knows the child's search will led him into needless harm. Or if the child's direction becomes aimless, his actions idle, or his spirit turns dim, a parent's forceful spurring may set him again on a useful path in life.

But if the parent turns overbearing, and restrictive in her ways, and forcefully pushes the child on a path, while listening more to her own fears and beliefs than to the child's guidance, she may unknowingly block a piece of the child that aches to grow, or pull out an aspect in him that was not yet ready to bloom.

Life is messy, however, and adhering always to the "correct" course of action, both for the parent and for the child, is nigh an impossible task. The monumental task of growing, and nourishing, a child, all the while paying attention to his needs and his drive, to his unique characteristics, all the while gradually releasing control and restrictions from the child precisely as he no longer benefits from them, is, I imagine, arduous, draining, often thankless, and long, sometimes lifelong. The task strikes me in intricacy and delicacy, not unlike the process of cell mitosis, which to this day baffles even the most dedicated and passionate researches in the biomolecular field.

I repeat,: Life is messy, and we children will break often as we grow and live. We will hurt, we will get lost and feel lost, and encounter countless vicissitudes, and it will feel like we lead a life far, far from the "ideal" life we feel we were "meant" to live. Nevertheless, I feel that it is the child's inner guidance *stronger* as he develops and grows, that best leads him onto what will best enable him to grow with health, fullness, and grace.

i want you to like this

From a Messenger conversation today:

"

Also, I was thinking: I think people rarely say something like "I want you to like this thing that I show you".

And I have the feeling that sometimes people do have that feeling, and do not express it.

This indicates to me a blockage or diversion of the feeling.

I think that the internal dialogue that happens when blocking this feeling is something like:

"I want her to like this thing that I showed her. But I cannot make her like it. Also, liking is not a voluntary thing. Even she cannot like it just because she wills it. It's outside her power.

Then why I would I say it? She can do nothing with the information, she will likely feel pressured into liking this thing, and may feel guilty because she cannot do anything about it. And for myself, I will present a need I have that depends on her, thereby displaying something of a weakness, a dependency in me, and I don't want her to know that, because that feels shameful."

Regardless of the strategizing, I intuit that being able to express fully is valuable.

A core part of this value, I believe, is the understanding of oneself one must have before one is able to express fully and clearly.

"

Blamelessness

The desire for blamelessness arises from a fear of being blamed. The fear of something can induce the desire for that things' opposite, for its negation.

The fear of blame arises from an experience in which one was blamed for something, and that caused a hurt in oneself, whether via damaging words, social ostracism, explicit punishment, or otherwise.

Hurt occurs when one believes one's own boundaries are violated, and something that belonged to oneself: goods, identity, reputation, is stolen, taken away or damaged, or something foreign was imposed within, an unwanted invader.

The boundaries by which one defines oneself encompass one's own identity. And with people as well as with nations, the more we encompass, the more resources we dominate. But also, the more we encompass, the more boundaries we are obligated to defend. For no one else truly can.

And the definition of one's identity is entirely one's own choice.

Self-restraint

Aug 11, 2021

It occurs to me that there are various types of self-restraint we human beings can practice.

On the physical level, our body mass is constantly pulled down to the earth. In our early years of development, we experimented and we struggled as we learned to align our muscles to our will, learning gradually to hold our head up, then our upper body, and then learned the balancing act of standing on our own two legs, and later even to shift our weight from one leg to another and to step forward, repeatedly, thus learning and mastering the art of walking. And though this struggle is oft forgotten by the regular adult, each of us, as we live and move in our daily activities, is practicing a constant and complex self-restraint against our body mass' tendency towards falling downward, whether consciously or not.

On the physiological level, we have also learned to restrain the natural urges our body feels fairly continuously throughout the day. Hunger, thirst, the urges to urinate, defecate, to sneeze, or even to breathe. These all the body seeks in order to survive, to seek homeostasis, as its design compels it to. And most of us learn to restrain these urges at some time or another in order to uphold values on a different plane. Social norms override the basic urges of hunger and lust, as they rank the values of neighborly respect and social cohesion higher than those driven by the primal urges. In these cases, among others, we exercise self-restraint of our physiological urges, and a large number of these overrides has also sunk down into our subconscious.

We have learned to restrain our emotions as well, though the process is still ongoing in the species, as can be observed when a person speaks or acts driven by emotional impulse, then suffers from his own remorse after the emotional wave has quieted down. We know sometimes to hold in our sadness, our anger, our jealousy, our hurt, and even our excitement at times.

Restraint of emotions recognizes there is a value higher than that of our emotions. It negates the priority of one's own emotions and yields it to another value within ourselves, such as our logic and ideas. In the same manner, restraint of thoughts recognizes there is a value higher than that of our thoughts. It negates the priority of one's own thoughts, which sometimes involves considering that our own thoughts are incorrect. Such self-restraint, I notice, is not common among humanity as a whole. Accepting, admitting that oneself is wrong - not only to others, but to ourselves, is something I have had difficulty accomplishing, or even realizing as a possibility; I notice in the behavior of other people that they have difficulty too, or do not even consider...

September 1, 2021

their mind may not be correct or complete, that it may have interpreted reality incorrectly.

Upon each of these levels we build the framework of our bodies. The elemental forces on each plane exert their own tendencies upon our bodies, be they to flow, to release, to yield to entropy. And at each plane we observe, we yearn to master our expression and our balance. And then we struggle, seek, fight to gain command upon these bodies, upon the various levels of our existence. Life struggles through us to discover Itself, to observe in these planes what It grows Itself into.

At each level we build. In the unordered elements at each level we learn to discern, we choose to grow, and therein our work lies. The struggle is to erect a framework in ourselves, and in the world, that is guided, operated, and controlled by our consciousness, by Life.

Self-restraint, I believe, is a key element to this struggle. It is the imposition of the willpower upon the elemental urges of the bodies we sometimes feel so much as our own selves. At each level we explore the shapes, patterns that align with our will, and via self-restraint we give it strength, solidity. And upon the framework we build upon the denser levels, can we rise and continue to explore and build upon the subtler.

And so we build. We began defying gravity while even in plant form, we detached from the earth as animals, and as humans higher still we rise. With healthy and self-controlled bodies, we now explore the planes or emotions and mind, seeking to build a stable framework upon these as well, guided by our awareness, driven by our will.

So it is worthy to realize that to grow, at times, it is valuable to restrain our own emotions, as well as to restrain our own opinions (thoughts), and to listen instead. When and where to do so is a matter entirely chosen by ourselves. And doing so can help us build ourselves, and rise to higher levels.

Driving

As student drivers brake often in frightened jolts, anxious of danger on the road,

And as they ignore traffic signs, either in ignorance or in rebellion,

And sometimes scrape, bump, and crash with other drivers on the road,

So do we humans hesitate, struggle, act unaware of the signs Life offers

And collide into others, resulting in harm

As we practice driving these vehicles we inhabit

As we improve on and master the skills of this Life

As we learn to see and discern correctly, to act with grace

And to relax

Pursued

When I pursued women

I thought I was doing them well

Because in the images within me

Of her and me together

She was also smiling and laughing

I didn't realize that these my images

Were mine alone

Not hers, not ours

The illusion my own

My drive, my desire, impetuous servants

Pushed me to push her in

To share that image with me

To impose it upon her

Whether clothed in soft words

Or in joyful gifts

If my drive was my thirst only

What I presented was a lie

For I never admitted that greed

I see now how this dynamic

Ignored the boundaries of her self

Trespassed them, untempered

When I did not listen to whom she was

When I did not see her as

Anything beyond my own aim

success and failure

When we humans come across a success of ours, we tend to like to keep it. Success is the alignment of one's own expectations with manifested events, and the satisfaction this induces in us makes it appealing, attractive, and worthy of keeping around with us to continue feeling this satisfaction in the future. A trophy or a medal for our collection.

When we come across a failure, on the other hand, we also tend to keep it. Not because we like it or because it appeals to us, but because we sometimes refuse to let go of the expectation that did not become manifest as we desired. Or we do not know that we can let it go. And seeing this misalignment within ourselves, this empty spot for the prize we still desire, this unoccupied pedestal, we wish it not within us, we wish it were not there, and we tend to shroud it with the veil of shame. And to ensure we do not feel this emptiness again, and that others do not see it either, we guard the veil with our pride, who flouts indifference and pushes back with anger, or we clothe it in diversions like humor. And there the guards remain, protecting the rejected secret with stalwart automaton duty, until we choose, or are forced, to open up our emptiness again.

Whether what we encounter is a trophy to display or a gap atop our pedestal, it tends to stick to us, and we then make it our keepsake. In life we gather trophy after trophy and failure after failure, believing them all to be part of our identity. And though we may display the former and deny the latter, the core effect of both on us is most the same. They burden us. They attach to what we think we are, we hesitate to let them go, and we instead drag them around with us as life continues to continue. Both shiny objects and muddy sticks will cling to our garments, and whether they induce in us pleasure or pain, they weigh us down, they tie us to the past, to those used-up garments trailing and growing behind us like an extravagant bridal dress tail, ever-decaying. They occupy our inner space and they divert our focus, they diminish the space where we can dance, and they prevent us from noticing that new, fresh garments blossom and grow around us with every present moment.

Only we can release our own garments. Only we can lighten our own load.

Flowing stepwise

Our answers, our achievements, our satisfactions.

Our certainties, our results, our conclusions.

Any finalization, the instant it is achieved, it exists and it is true.

It is also a relatively stable place, and one may feel like a journey is over, like one can relax the muscles, the abilities, the tensions which helped us get here.

A mountain summit, a promotion at work, a finished project, a ready dinner. Each walked step. These all may feel like places we can pause and relax. And we can.

What often happens is one takes the achievement, and makes it a platform - horizontal, steady, reliable. Perhaps a good place to rest, perhaps even a good place to build upon.

And yet, the flow around us continues shifting, turning, rising and falling, with rarely a stable platform anywhere. Sometimes it seems to me we approximate the path of a graceful, continuous, inscrutable flow, with platforms that we build along the way. These may become part of our identity, and help us find reference points and some reliability in one's life. Know, however, that such an approximation can not surf on the flow with pure truth. To do that, reference points and achievements cannot reside within us.

May we discern between a stepwise approximation of the flow and the flow itself. And may we know each step is also part of the flow.

Why

"Why" is a call to bring light to the roots of a phenomenon, be it physical or abstract. One encounters a new object, a new concept, an event, and one finds it separate from one's own tree of understanding. One finds no clear path from what he does understand onto the phenomenon, and this new perception is now separate, fragmented away from what one knows. Innately, knowing that all is inherently one, the seeker knows there is a continuous path from his current coherent version of reality onto this new form, and seeks to unite them by exploring the origin, the source, the roots of this new part, and proceeds to explore the branches that may unite them. The hope of the life, of the seeker, is to unite, and thus harmonize, his separate parts, both to maintain harmony and coherence, and to shed light into those unknown branches that connect them, and that he does not yet know.

The "Why" is the search for a common ancestor between multiple disconnected sub-trees in our tree of understanding.

Instrument

An instrument can be most effectively used when it is well-understood. Truly and thoroughly, from the intent of its creation to the most minute of its functional and aesthetic detail. This applies to a physical shaping tool, a musical instrument, a human body, a software application, and to language itself.

belly

My belly, my body wants love.

It wearies from daily activity, and feels tired. And when I come back home, tired, my body is pulled towards ingesting, munching crunching something to fill up the belly, to satisfy it. I asked him curiously "what is it you want that you are trying to fill yourself up so desperately with?", as it munched, and devoured a bowl of crunchy nuts with glee...

"LOVE!!" came the surprisingly quick answer. "I want to feel love, to be loved! I want to feel love!"

"Often my family members tell me they are fond of me or that they love me. Does that count?"

"No. Not at all. I don't want love from someone who I *know* will say it, who I know feels obligated to say it! I want to feel love from someone unexpectedly, like I didn't have to do anything to get it, but to just be! I want that."

"And why do you want to be loved by others whom you weren't expecting to love you?

"Because then I have power over them. Because then they love me and I don't need to do anything, and they hang on, so I can play with them and stay with them, and then leave when I want. Because then I have power over them."

escalar

No toda sensación escala a ser emoción.

No toda emoción escala a ser pensamiento.

Saber discernir entre nuestras capas nos permite distinguir entre las señales de todas ellas, y poder elegir con consciencia entre promover cada señal a una capa superior de consciencia para buscar resolución, y vedar su acceso a niveles más altos.

No toda incomodidad justifica enojo, no todo placer justifica alegría.

Así, no todo deseo justifica una búsqueda, y no todo enojo merece pensamiento.

Discernamos, pues así nos es posible escalar.

Three voices

My voices cried within this morning, and I listened to them. Three voices rose up, from three locations in my body. And with three I conversed. To them I answered, one by one:

To the hurt and fear in my belly:

He that hurt you did so in ignorance, unwilling or unaware, or ignorant that his attacks on you, his intent on damaging your emotions, was an unconscious reflection of the damage and hurt he had earlier received. Jeers and mockery reflect only external opinion, which is capricious and unreliable.

When another aims to damage your emotions, know that you need not comply with their aim. We may set a boundary that denies access into the soft reception of our being to approaches with harmful intent.

Know also that we can nurture and cure ourselves. Here, my inner carer, my woman, my feminine in my soft lower left, front and back, shines a signal. She wishes to care for you. How does that feel?

Comforting. Nurturing.

We always have this energy in us, available to care for, and love, and hold, whomever within us requests for help. Help from external sources, which you sought at the moment of damage, are secondary to the help we can give to ourselves. Inner care can more clearly feel and see the details, the texture and energy of the damage, and can thus better know where to channel love, which area to shed the light of awareness unto, and how much and for how long to place the love and attention.

"You can be nourished with your own love. Love strengthens and nurtures."

It probably happened that, as you grew up, you learned that expressing certain emotions, or at a certain level of intensity, was undesirable or rejected by others. Perhaps you learned to hide the love and care you previously offered, especially in your role as a male. And perhaps in a moment later on, people rejected you, pushed you, bullied you, mocked you and your choices, and delighted in seeing your confusion and humiliation. And perhaps in that moment, with your emotions freshly injured, you disallowed your inner love and care from showing up, from helping you heal as it so very candidly desired. And perhaps thence arose the fracture in your emotions that still vividly hurts and cries.

Thank you for helping me feel, what still hurts and remains unhealed.

To the eagerness to write at the bottom of my left ribcage, 4-5 cm away from my solar plexus:

You've been active as I spoke with belly. What do you want to do?

I want to find good words that accurately depict what is happening. I want to remember the moments that feel significant, the words, the lines in the conversation that feel key, that would present a good summary, that won't miss out any important details.

And you want to write all that is happening?

Yes, I believe the experience is significant, and it can be very helpful to others if they read it, because then maybe if they read it, they can relate to some of the feelings and the processes here, and some may be curious and choose and introspect closer, deeper, as you do now.

And you think that this experience is unique, and hasn't been said before?

Yes, well, our exact experience is certainly unique. And maybe others feel it and say it too, ok, but I don't think I've seen it described as I write it, in minute detail, with unabashed openness. I like my writing style and I think it can be useful, so yes, I want to write this what is happening now.

I feel also some anxiety in you. Do you have another drive that compels you to write?

Well, I also want other people to read what I write. I want them to like it, to use it, to be helped and instrumented by my writings in their lives. And if they like it and share it and love it, they'll point at my writing and deem it with value. And I'll know it was me who wrote what they love. And then I'll know that I have value.

The question that drives the anxiety is: "Am I a good writer?"

And you will know that you are a good writer if others like what you write?

Yes! At least a little. I mean, "good" is known to be that which people like. I like some things and I like to share them, and those things are famous - to be like that, you know... it feels good.

And when others don't like what you write, you feel bad?

Yes, that too. I don't want to feel bad, and if others like me for something, then I don't feel bad. I avoid the bad. So I'm excited if I find something to write that I feel has good value.

Notice you are feeding an internal lack with an external resource. This can at times sate the thirst that you feel, yet the source is unreliable. Public opinion shifts like the weather, and people's focus of attention turns like a wind vane with a tiny breeze. Fishing for fame is a gamble where we bet much of our own hope, and the reward is only wispy. And most importantly, the reward is never truly yours. It is only a circumstantial loan.

Know that glamour is an illusion. Your anxiety does not say "I want to be famous". It says "I want to be seen. Appreciated." And that we can also gift to ourselves.

Know that you seek to be of value, and you seek confirmation of your value. Know that value arises not from external opinion, but from the life you pour into each action and moment. And the energy that fuels your search for external approval can be redirected, and repurposed towards your own truth and creation. And by thus barring this thirst for external approval from nourishment, the thirst eventually weakens, dries, and dissolves.

"Having your value depend on external approval is unreliable and deleterious, for it keeps you addicted to, dependent on, what you do not control."

To the angry warrior in my solar plexus:

As we spoke, a housemate walked beside me, and I felt my solar plexus triggered to alert, to defend, and to prepare packaged responses for imaginary words he could say to me. My body felt stiffer, some of my energy focused as a shield. I felt fire within.

Why do your burn, solar plexus?

He's here in the room and I don't know what he's going to do. I don't want him to talk to me, I don't want him to approach. So I rise to prepare ourselves. If he speaks or if he engages, then I can produce one of these packaged responses that will move him to leave me alone.

And how are you going to do that?

My prepared responses will show him that I have no interest in talking with him. And not just that, but that I have an active repulsion towards him. That will have him leave me alone.

Why do you have such an active repulsion towards him?

He hurt me. He and her got together one night and told me that what I was doing was wrong. And I didn't even know that I had done anything at all. I felt attacked and ambushed by them without any intent from my side. And this makes me feel that not even doing nothing, not even being simply as I am, is acceptable to them. That my natural self is incorrect.

And you feel he can hurt you again?

Yes, maybe. I don't trust him now. So if he approaches me, I want to be prepared. My responses will be sharp, unexpected, and will stun him enough that he'll stop approaching me. That he'll leave.

It feels like you want to hurt him too.

Yes, that! So he knows I can stun. So he knows I'm not limitlessly pliable. So he knows I have boundaries and I'm strong to keep them. And if he doesn't respect me, I want him to know I can bite!

And then, he'll be hurt like you are hurt? And he'll replicate this patterns towards you or towards others later on?

Yeah, well... he started it! I'm not weak! I'm strong! If I don't show it it's because I restrain myself for the sake of others, but I do not want to be pushed and coerced beyond my boundaries because others mistake my permissiveness for weakness. So I'll show strength! By hurting him, I show strength!

Hurting others is not necessary to prove you are strong or to set your boundaries. Though it may show aptitude at some attribute, like wittiness, physical prowess, or some measured superiority, it also feeds your satisfaction on the detriment of another. This satisfaction is a dangerous one, for it can grow into a thirst that damages whomever it comes into contact with, whether willingly or not. And if hurt is answered with hurt, the feedback loop created can quickly escalate and spiral into a whirlwind of hurt, blame, and anger that engulfs all the participants and upon which neither has any control.

But I'm the solar plexus, I defend. If I don't defend us, how can we be safe?

I do not ask you to step down as our defender, nor to dim down your fire. Your power drives and impels us through so many activities and efforts each day, and I continue to value you in all of these. What I offer is this: when you are triggered to defend, when you feel a threat is approaching, pause. Consult with others in our body, verify whether the threat is pertinent to you. My mind and heart have learned, and are learning, to avoid most physical and emotional danger to us: danger that could be neutralised with your power. I ask you to trust that mind and heart are guiding us along a path with physical safety.

And as regards social and emotional interactions, I ask you to trust that my throat can express the necessary truth, and also keep us safe, without the need to hurt another and to push him back.

"You need not hurt others to keep yourself safe."