Pain almost gone. Bleeding largely stopped. Staying a long time without eating/drinking is the way to go. It's a little difficult to keep my head up whilst icing my jaw.
Something smells... it's probably my rotting bits of bloody gauze tape.
Went upstairs to see the sun. Good times.
Now what do I do today? I have a pretty open schedule. I could play games, plan my next startup, even work a little bit...
Minecraft. Of course.
I realize my dentist has recommended I eat icecream.
But I don't know how good an idea that is?
Surely the sugar will lead to infections?
I'm not icing enough, nor probably elevating my head... but damn – I want to sleep too...
I'm so much stronger than I think I am. I can actually distract myself from pain.
Many types of pain disappear if you wait and stay still. Interesting isn't it.
I will wait for wifi to come on. Play some Minecraft. I'm a strong man. I can handle this.
And besides, it's all illusion. If you really pay attention to pain, you'll notice that every painful sensation is actually the pain going away.
I feel terrible.
Just got all my wisdom teeth out.
I also chewed my nails too close before the surgery, so my pinky is all sensitive and the slightest scratch makes it hurt.
I'm chewing down on gauze tape right now, to stop the bleeding. My mouth slowly fills with bloody saliva and I have no effective way of expelling it because
And we had to have a fuckin' power cut too right in the middle of my shower.
Meu Deus.
I’m lucky. I can listen to Pride of Man on a Bluetooth speaker at 2:30am. I can skip all my meetings if I want to. No one will have their day ruined as a result. I can afford good dental surgery for a fraction of Western prices. I can fuck my wife quite frequently, and she is game for all types of sex including oral and the odd bit of ass eating. I have time to find a new job. I am a responsible adult.
I’d love to change the world but I don’t know what to do.
My ayahuasca curandeiro/healer/shaman scares me a bit – and I also feel a bit of anger towards him. Like he misunderstands me. Like he’s actively trying to fuck with me.
No I didn’t re experience some trauma. I experienced the great white void. I disassociated from my normal human experience. I got terrified at the infinite unity that is life/death/everything we can possibly experience. The all. The everything. The undefinable. The in encompassable.
That’s what I screamed about.
I was screaming because nothing no matter what could take me out of that experience. It was eternal in that moment. Total unity. Total emptiness. Total possibility.
Maybe if I was a more evolved soul I could handle it. Maybe as I progress through life I’ll learn to handle it.
Maybe not though. Maybe this is it and the rest of life is all downhill. The adversities of old age will step away my ability to meditate. I will have more distractions. Weakness and fear may overcome me.
In a way it felt as if ayahuasca stopped me in time. I couldn’t handle the next stage of being, so I simply returned to base reality with my “helmet” back on.
It's hard to avoid the double espresso.
The single espresso is good enough. I would like to avoid it becoming a daily thing. Or, if it became a daily thing, I want at least a week's worth of decaf-only to balance it out.
It's hard to avoid the second shot when it doesn't cost that much more. Say the espresso is $1.47. The double is 1.56. That's 9c more.
9c!
Yet the cost is higher.
The cost is addiction. Bad sleep. Distraction. Overfocus on work.
Similar game with modafinil but actually, modafinil is worse. Because it's ultra effective.
I can't find the term I'm looking for, but I'll describe it. I believed it was called a Schnepper / Schelling point, but that describes something else.
The point at which you become irretrievably set on the wrong path.
I think it goes like this: Would you accept $10k to become 1% less good?
If yes, think carefully.
Because you might start off thinking there is an acceptable % of evil.
I would be happy to become... 5, 10, maybe even 30% less good.
But – there's a catch.
If you become 5% less good, then what you consider “good” and “evil” will change. Another 5% will become acceptable.
Before long you'll be irretrievably evil, because of a 5% drawdown, that leads to another 5% drawdown, that leads to another.
The only way to stop this from happening is deciding upon a hard, inviolable limit at which you won't go any further.
This doesn't just apply to personal morality – in fact it might never apply to personal morality.
It certainly applies to the centralization/decentralization dichotomy.
And I believe it applies to the spiritual/material focus dichotomy.
If you drink a little coffee, that's ok. If you eat some meat, that's ok. But before long, if you're drinking coffee, and eating meat, a little wine will seem acceptable. Then some selfish, unfufilling sex. Then porn. Then getting drunk. Then gambling. Then working an unfulfilling, unethical job. Then... where does it go to? Buying clothes from sweatshops? Paying for hookers? Abusive relationships?
It also goes the other way. If you deny the material world too much you'll become schizo. You'll go too deep.
So what to do?
Define an acceptable limit before becoming more materialistic or too spiritual?
I guess that's what I am trying to figure out...
How can I avoid losing sight of the ultimate reality, how can I free myself from other distractions – how can I avoid distractions – how can I focus on the moment – but not go schizo.
I need to find a job that doesn't overwork me. Make time to meditate.
Have a purpose behind my labour.
But don't get caught up in vices and distractions.
I may soon leave this country on a wild bet. To go to a European country for a couple months. Work in my friends business – completely unrelated to the industry I’ve been in for 5 years.
How to toe the line?
Between quasi-schizo awareness of reality
(what I call the white void)
or a sense of perfection/unity
to insanity
aka the creation of fear/anger/terror
out of the boredom
or the unbearable lightness of being
or the pain of ultimately being alone
(Btw, why would the universe/godhead care about being alone? If it never knew anything else? Why would it ever care about being unified?)
The shallow, distracted, frantic existence of ego-driven life
The helmet on
Protected
Yet naive
Ignorant
Unable to see properly
And probably able to do a whole lot of harm too.