gringo

Another great Jung quote

“Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life... If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature... Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.” ― C.G. Jung

Another great Jung quote

“Be silent and listen: have you recognized your madness and do you admit it? Have you noticed that all your foundations are completely mired in madness? Do you not want to recognize your madness and welcome it in a friendly manner? You wanted to accept everything. So accept madness too. Let the light of your madness shine, and it will suddenly dawn on you. Madness is not to be despised and not to be feared, but instead you should give it life...If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature...Be glad that you can recognize it, for you will thus avoid becoming its victim. Madness is a special form of the spirit and clings to all teachings and philosophies, but even more to daily life, since life itself is full of craziness and at bottom utterly illogical. Man strives toward reason only so that he can make rules for himself. Life itself has no rules. That is its mystery and its unknown law. What you call knowledge is an attempt to impose something comprehensible on life.” ― C.G. Jung

Choosing between faith and mysticism…

Came across reddit.com/r/holofractal last night.

Essentially, this “holofractographic unified field theory” says that within everything there is everything.

Within every single cell of every single person there is a copy of the whole universe.

And that’s something that I’ve had intimations of before.

It certainly fits in with the idea of eternal recurrence, certain moments being eternal, the now being all that exists…

And also my feeling, during ayahuasca, that if I “looked to any side” at any moment, I would “create” or be sucked into a new reality.

And it also fits in with panpsychism which I also consider to be possibly true: animals do seem to have feelings, loves, fears, hopes, and memories, just like humans – and even plants and mushrooms do very intelligent stuff.

While reading about it I felt curious, a little afraid, yet more than anything quite calm. That was interesting. I usually feel a bit scared, sick, and like my brain is breaking.

I even felt calm as I considered the idea that the “observer”, i.e. the consciousness experiencing life through “me” (my body, my brain, my eyes, my person) – could switch to observing another instance of reality.

In that case, “I” wouldn’t notice at all, recollect at all, nothing. Maybe this has already happened many many times. Maybe it is always happening.

In whatever case, I think this quote is very true:

The schizophrenic drowns in the same waters that the mystic swims in delight.

Only problem? I don’t know if I am the mystic or the schizophrenic.

I certainly have had terrifying psychedelic experiences.

It seems wise to assume I am the schizo… and hold off further trips.

And to add to that…

I came across this thread on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/RenOfMen/status/1592548991736348672

The guy talks about the disadvantages of taking ayahuasca: that it opens up the world of spirit, we aren’t meant for it, the shaman can only protect you to a limited extent.

But I don’t fully agree with that either, as he says people take it in exchange for material success, for sex, for pleasure, to get a moral license to “do what thou wilt.”

I don’t think that was the case with me. I mostly did it for healing – I thought. Or for spiritual insight.

Yet that too could be bad. I like the comparison of “plant medicine” to steroids – it’s an unhealthy, accelerated, fake version of the real thing.

If you instead have faith, and sacrifice your life to Jesus – or be willing to give up everything for him, to live out God’s rules… then maybe you have better results.

I also had a synchronicity moment:

The same tweet author wrote this: https://twitter.com/RenOfMen/status/1592726018401644546

And at the Airbnb I have just moved in to? What is the top book on the table?

Uma realidade aparte – by Carlos Castaneda.

But you know what? Fuck it all. I don’t want to passively experience everything that comes to me. I want to take an active direction in my life.

Choose God, or choose synchronicity and mysticism? I am learning towards the former.

Frustrated. I don't like my haircut. I didn't want it cut this short. It's really short. Right next to the fucking scalp. With a faggot quiff on top. Fuck this. I wanted it grown out. Nice and long, for swimming and running. Even my skin has gotten worse since cutting it. My fault. I shouldn't have let my wife dictate to the barber what I wanted. I should have paid more attention to what he said. I should have decided what I wanted, clearly, before getting it cut.

---

But hey, there's a reason that this is pissing me off so much. It's because growing my hair out is the only achievement I've had in the last 3 months. I have made zero progress in any other area of my life. My business has failed. We have failed our clients. We have failed to sell the business. I have gotten fatter. I still can't properly flex my left foot. My acne has worsened. I've got anxiety. I have barely participated in the program I paid $750 for.

Now what? I am at a coworking. I have the ability to work. Get work done?

Try it!

A point of relief. I feel good. I am seemingly accepting of hard philosophical questions. I am curious and relaxed. Not terrified and feeling like I'm going insane. Grateful. This is as good as it gets. If this isn't happiness, I don't know what is. By not holding onto happiness, it seems to last longer. By not wishing for a quick end to despair, it seems to end quicker. Now... time to get some work done? Hahaha. Emails – then upstairs and work?

Perhaps the biggest red flag about my wife:

We moved in together because I got scared about her threatening to kill/hurt herself.

She said she felt nothing, numb, so wanted to jump out the window.

I figured well fuck it there might not be an actually good relationship to work with here but maybe I can save her life.

I should let her go when she can finally earn her own money, maybe.

Potential reasons for divorce.

The same red flags that you ignore in the beginning will be the same reason the relationship ends.

Now, I like the idea of a lifelong marriage. Being with one person and deciding that I’ll make the best possible relationship I can with them.

However, relationships are like friendships, we only get one life, etc etc.

Or, we only get one life with this unique set of personality traits.

Red flags I ignored about my wife:

• Trickle truthing about her past with sex work (including cheating on me in the first weeks of our relationship.)
• The way she had a photo on her Instagram story archive, until I asked her a question about whether she’d been in quarantine the week before I met her, then removed it and denied it ever existed – or that she knew how to delete stories from her archive. Basically, she pretended to be dumber than she is.
• That she almost reported me to the police during an argument for a made up crime.
• That she told me I raped her during our first month of living together. Then later apologised saying “I didn’t mean it, I just wanted to hurt you”
• Her vindictive/punishing attitude.
• That she has a history with panic disorder and schizophrenia runs in her family.
• That she couldn’t handle ayahuasca.
• That she has previously had sex for money.
• That she had a large amount of credit card debt when I met her; and that she would ignore the calls of the collectors.
• That she plays TV to fall asleep.

Basically I could see myself divorcing her for sex work, for lying, for being prone to mental health issues (meanwhile, I’d like to have babies with a mentally healthy woman).

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

Don’t be so reflective.

What good is light if it’s trapped inside a small mirrored room?

Instead, spread the light outside onto the world.

Change the lives of others for the better – never by force, only by example, kindly offering your hand.

I am largely at peace. I am bothered by the understanding that others, out there, made of the same stuff as me, are suffering.

If I get out there and help people reduce their suffering, there’s a high probability that I return to that sense of peace.

I also need to stop letting the anxiety of inaction poison me. I am eating a lot of sugar. I am eating unconsciously. I luckily am not drinking much coffee, but still…

Action will cure my anxiety. Helping others will cure my depression.

I’m nearly 10 years older than I was when I first got into entreprenuership.

Shit.

And what have I achieved?

Nothing.

But I’m fine.

I am no longer young to be entering university.

My wife’s biological clock is ticking.

But it’s alright.

Choose if the universe is friendly or not.

If you choose hostile, then you’re basically assuming that any good experience is just there to make the suffering more impactful later.

If you choose friendly, then you’re assuming that any suffering is just there to make the relief more impactful later.

Maybe it is neither hostile nor friendly. Just indifferent. That’s a bit hard to grasp, but it might be true. Or true in some sense.

There is a lot to be grateful to our ancestors for. They tamed a lot of nature’s worst elements.