Posted: Sep 29, 2017 4:50 pm
surreptitious57 wrote:I cannot tell you what to do and the advice I have given so far is only what I would do or try to do were I in the same situation. All I do is put an idea out. Whether it is accepted or not is not my place to say. For I respect the complete
freedom of everyone to think for themselves and regardless of whatever that may be
Slowly as I get older I have found myself becoming more detached so more free as a consequence. Not by meditation
or yoga but just by naturally letting go. The intensity is gradually reducing and so am now as free as I have ever been
I have learnt that one cannot change the world one can only change oneself so that is what I do. I am fortunate to be
able to do this because I am all alone in this world. What may seem like a very sad place to be is really one of virtual contentment. I think a neutral attitude is better than a positive one since you cannot be positive all the time but you
can be neutral all the time. Hence why I rate contentment far more than happiness
You know what Buddhism says about suffering it says the root of all suffering is desire. And so you control desire then
you control suffering. So letting go or learning to let go is the first step towards this. I am not a Buddhist but there is
much wisdom in that philosophy. Letting go is not easy but it can be done. I let go simply by letting time work slowly
on my mind. I am not the same person I was twenty years ago. I wish I was the person then that I am now. Can never
be that of course. But I can and will be that person however till the end of my days
First off, thanks again for the reply. And 2nd, did you notice Fallible's sig right above your post? For the record,, since these things change:
John Grant wrote:
They say 'let go, let go, let go, you must learn to let go'.
If I hear that fucking phrase again, this baby's gonna blow
Into a million itsy bitsy tiny pieces, don't you know,
Just like my favourite scene in Scanners .
I understand what you're saying, and realize the wisdom in it. But I am more like John Grant, who I know nothing about and don't even know if he's a person or a character. While I have gone along the path you've managed to take, that only goes for certain situations/issues/whatevers. In many if not most others, not so much. I always heard as you got older, you were supposed to get more laid back. For me, it's gone the other way. I get more POed, more passionate, than I did when younger. Even if I'm only tilting at windmills, I'm doing it more intensely. It's far from an optimum choice, but then that's who I am, what can you do?
Focusing on controlling desire makes sense, but how much control one can exert is a problematic concept. The way I see it is if you have complete control of your emotions, they're not really emotions. I come to this through thinking about what it will mean when we learn how to gain knob-twiddling control over everything about our minds. This might be a long way away, but at some point, we will upload our minds into machines in some way. We will gain total control of the whole process of mind. At that point, what would it mean to tell someone 'I love you'?
I know what you are talking about is different. And a years long effort to blunt desire, or to redirect it somehow, is not the same as twiddling a knob. But what I'm saying is still somewhat relevant, at least so I think.
One thing that still drives me is curiosity, I always want to know. I think if I lost my curiosity, I would kill myself as what need of more time would remain? And in this situation, curiosity is one of the main reasons I want to deal with this person. I want to know what the hell he was thinking, or thought he was doing, or ??? Plus, and this is why I stressed needing to know if his SAD related behaviour stemming from our conflict makes him more susceptible to his SAD recurring whenever he's confronted with stressful social situations in the future. I really do want to help him, and yes, that means getting him to do the right thing by me. Letting it all go simply isn't something I can do, I don't seem to work that way.