Mystic Boldness, Courageous Pymp, OF3 journal

[Mystic Pymp]

Since I have nothing better to do at this moment I thought I'll make this long post about my major fears. I have no idea how long it will be as I will try to make it as a stream of consciousness.

I like to compare life to a game of cards. You can think of poker if you have to but I think more abstractly. The rules of the game are simple. The God/Fate/Universe/Whatever is the dealer. They give you cards and your role is to play the game. You start with some cards already - your looks, who your parents, where you were born etc. Some people are dealt great cards, some terrible. And then, throughout the life, the dealer gives you more and more cards. Some of them are beyond your direct control, some of them you earn and yet some you influence to increase the chance of getting them without any guarantees.

The game is all about playing your cards right. If you've been dealt a talent of sort you should use that card and not waste it. If you have a dream you should try to collect a set of cards that will allow you to play that dream to completion. And you have to play these cards as there is no win scenario and you lose the moment you die. So you better not strife towards some ultimate goal and instead make the game itself as enjoyable as possible.

I've been dealt a good cards in my life. And I've earned a lot of great ones as well. At this moment I have a very strong hand and it should only get better from now on to be honest. But that's my problem - I view life as this game. I plan, I scheme, I wonder. I have emergency plans on top of emergency plans in case something goes wrong. I don't have 1 hand of cards - I have several, I just choose to play the best one I've got and if game rules change I can always change my hand.

And that's beautiful but I hardly view it as such. I'm extremely used to my hand. I hold onto it with my dear life. The thought of going the emergency route is scary as hell. Not because it's bad. Because of my pride. Because I'd feel like I've failed in the game, like I've lost it. I want my playthrough to be perfect, 100% platinum trophy run that everybody would be jealous of. And obviously that's impossible not to mention the game is not about that. But the thought lingers and it doesn't let go. So I'm left here, analyzing my hand, waiting for the next cards and planning next moves.

What makes it even more frustrating is that sometimes you can have a great hand and still lose. The rules of the game are a mystery, you learn them with time and sometimes you even discover rules barely anyone else knows, but it's still a mystery. This is why that recent rejection hurts so much. I've been dealt a amazing card, I played it and everything seemed well. Up until all of the sudden it appears I lost the round. Not because I played weak cards, not due to my fault. I simply lost, due to no reason.

And who knows, maybe she will contact me again. I lost the round, not the game. You cannot lose the game, it goes on. Cards I've played are still in game, somewhere out there doing their part. With each passing day it seems like indeed not only the round but entire match is lost. And that's infuriating. Sad. Tiresome. Unfair. But this is the game. That's LIFE. There is no fair, there is no justice, at least not at the first glance. And the best you can do is just live it.

If there is one thing I hope OF will do for me is that it will help me go away from this view of life. To embrace chaos of life and the world. Life is not card game! It's chaos, anarchy, primordial whatever! I almost sound like Peterson and that's not the point. The point is I need to let go. I need to let go of scheming, planning ahead and analyzing. I need to just live, day by day, and enjoy what may come. No more near-obsessive-compulsive BS. Just. Let. Go. Trust the Universe, don't try to outplay it.

Will OF do this for me? I hope it will.

[Shannon]

Consider an alternate point of view about life. You may not have the same experiences that lead you to this conclusion, but consider it anyway. It may make a difference for you to see tings from an alternate optional point of view, or be aware of that option at least.

In the beginning, you are created through the will and desire of something bigger than yourself. From there on, you are making your own choices. Your goal is to learn, about the universe, yourself, others and What Is. There are multiple ways to do this; one of them is to incarnate on a physical world like Earth. Doing so, instead of something else you could choose to do, or somewhere else you could choose to incarnate, is a choice you make.

If you choose to incarnate on a physical world to learn about What Is, and you choose Earth, then you also choose what your major life lesson and your minor lessons for that life will be. Once that is decided, you have a set of options to choose from as to which body you use to experience this and learn through. Picking a body, by default, picks a set of parents and circumstances. All of it is something you chose.

Then you are born, and you start living the life you chose in the body you chose, but you don't know all of what will happen in this life. After all, if you did, there wouldn't be much opportunity to learn. Part of not knowing the answers is to forget that you chose this life and these parents and this body and the particular circumstances. Some cultures embrace the belief in one life; others embrace the belief in multiple lives. You grow up learning from your family and culture a basic framework for "what is" that you then use to try to make sense of the rest of what you experience and "what is".

During this life, you are given experiences that will force you to act to avoid them or deal with them. Some of them can be chosen by your own desire; some can be altered by your choices, but not avoided; some cannot be avoided or altered. Everything you experience, and everything you do in response, is a result of a choice you made, before or after you were born, whether or not you remember making that choice. All of it is designed to result in growth.

There are multiple ways you can choose to grow. You can grow the hard way, which is what most people choose by default, which is learning through pain and fear. You can choose to learn by focusing on learning as much as possible from each experience, and thus minimize the pain and fear through conscious effort to advance yourself. And you can choose to learn by simply observing the lives, choices, actions and consequences others face. Usually a life will be heavily weighted in one of these, but also involve the other two as well.

Your point of view regarding yourself, your life, the other people you encounter and the world shapes your understanding of these things and your responses. Your beliefs and responses shape your experience, which adjust your beliefs, which adjust your responses, which adjust your experience of what we call "reality", Most people get stuck in a rut early n, never questioning their beliefs, the resulting point of view, the resulting choices and actions, or the outward results that these create. They live their lives asleep, on autopilot, running through this program they accepted from their early lives, formed by their choice of parents and family, body and circumstances. They believe "this is the way it is" and never question the option for anything else to be real. They thus imprison themselves within their beliefs, the point of view that results, the choices that result, the actions that result, and the "reality" that also results.

Some people do question. Some question a little; some question a lot. Questioning is scary for a lot of people because it means they have to face the possibility (probability) that what they initially accepted as true is either not true or not set in stone, as they believed. That means they have to re-assess everything they believe, sometimes multiple times in their lives as they come to understand more and more, and be aware of more and more. Most will only question a little, and then get scared and run back to the "comfortable safety" of their previously accepted beliefs. Some will question, and seek the truth to the best of their ability, and follow the evidence. These people will indeed face challenges because they may find that their precious, safe and accepted beliefs do not hold up to scrutiny, and must be "accepted on faith" or change to suit the evidence.

But those who change to fit the evidence will grow much faster than those who seek the comfort of a set of beliefs that do not and cannot stand up to scrutiny and the evidence against those beliefs.

The whole point of me writing this is to present you with an alternate possible point of view to consider. I'm not saying it's right, or that your current point of view is wrong. I am saying that it is often useful to have options to consider that are different than what we come up with on our own. This helps us expand our point of view and our options for how to understand and interpret the things we encounter and experience. The more options you have to consider, the more likely you are to find something that seems to make sense for you and explain what you cannot currently explain. Hopefully this option will give you some interesting and useful options and contrast, compared to your current point of view that life is just a game.

[Mystic Pymp]

Day 8 1 masked

Thanks for the reply @Shannon . I will respond to your post but first I need to read it a couple of more times. To be honest I fear writing in this format sometimes due to forum rules, I'm unsure how far I can go with this. At any rate I mostly agree. Just please, don't think I see life as a game. I was a elaborate, almost Homerian metaphor. A tool used to explain some of my biggest fears. Maybe I went a little bit too far with it.

Tomorrow I'll be leaving for my mother's. It always seems strange to go there. I either feel like home or like some strange place. I'll be staying there for a week, maybe shorter if I'll be growing restless. I want to spend some time with my mother and think about life in a different setting.

I had an interesting dream. I was with my female friend of old I had crash on way back when. Nothing came out of this and now I'm not interested but I got a nice friendship as a byproduct. Anyhow we we sitting, we got close, our lips touched in an unsure fashion, we finally kissed gently and we embraced. I have no idea what it means, especially since I didn't dream of her in a long, long time.

I have another long post pending about my wants and dreams. I need some time to go through this myself though before I post this. The theme is that recently my goals shifted significantly and I think there are good reasons for it.

[Mystic Pymp]

Day 9 off

Damn, I've just noticed I've hit 1000 posts mark. Long time on this forum, for better or for worse.

I feel so empty today. Like last weekend I have no idea what to do, this idea of aimlessness. I slowly pack my stuff to leave for my mother's but I do this with no commitment. Like I slowly go through the motions but that's pretty much it.

Today is my scheduled day off and to be honest I wasn't even thinking much about running the sub. Like I got into habit of running it first thing I wake up and no I forgot about it completely.

[Shannon]

Congrats on 1,000 posts!

[Mystic Pymp]

Congrats on 1,000 posts!

Thanks Shannon. It's been a long journey and a lot is still ahead of me, but I will keep on keeping on.

Day 10 off

Finally at my mother's. Yesterday we've had a long conversation up to 2AM talking about life, love and all that good stuff. Talking like this with my mom is often times frustrating. She knows me so well and we are similar but at the same time our views differ. She's from the older generation, so much more traditional. Also, despite what I would call "pragmatic religiosity" she's very materialistic, going through the motions and petty problems of life and heeding little attention for higher ideas. That makes her at this point quite a tragic character, being able to find little solace when things are rough.

As for me I had an interesting experience today. I was thinking about my fears and why I sabotage myself e.g. with masturbation. And when I started thinking about being in relationship and how my life would look like without the sabotage - and mind you I've done this exercise already - I got scared. And not subconsciously scared but consciously, I could feel the fear and aversion. I have no idea what happened, maybe OF is pushing these fears out to the open?

I was also trying to do some exercises inspired by the recent Shannon's post where I'd ask myself what are the lessons I need to learn in this life. So far little came out of this, probably I have some serious blockages that keep me from entertaining the ideas than come up.

[findingme]

I was also trying to do some exercises inspired by the recent Shannon's post where I'd ask myself what are the lessons I need to learn in this life.

I'm seeing that thinking rising in me while on OF3. I've always enjoyed the emotional and mental maturity scripting he's put in these subs. It got me writing this morning, in fact, wondering about possible answers.

In my own life, I find that fear has had a full-time habit of preventing this. OF3 is good stuff.

[Mystic Pymp]

I was also trying to do some exercises inspired by the recent Shannon's post where I'd ask myself what are the lessons I need to learn in this life.

I'm seeing that thinking rising in me while on OF3.  I've always enjoyed the emotional and mental maturity scripting he's put in these subs.  It got me writing this morning, in fact, wondering about possible answers.

In my own life, I find that fear has had a full-time habit of preventing this.  OF3 is good stuff.

Not to burst your bubble but that's not OF working. I've always been very thoughtful and self-conscious, sometimes to unhealthy level to be honest. If anything Shannon's suggestion influenced what questions I'm asking myself, not whether I do it.

[Mystic Pymp]

Day 11 ?? ultrasonic

I screwed up big time. I wanted to play one loop at night because it's harder for me now to have 1h of uninterrupted and alone time. Even as I was writing my mom came for some business. Anyhow somehow the player was launched on loop so I got something like 9h of exposure. I feel good though, at least compared to how I felt this weekend.

I feel really frustrated due to the resistance I experience. There are things that I want but still I'm sabotaging myself. It's getting better but I start to realize that in order to get the most out of this sub I'll have to start meditating and really do some deep work consciously just as well. This is something I wanted to postpone for now but with the sub exposing and motivating me to do the work I might have little choice. At this moment every time I give up to the urges, give up to the fears, I feel bad. Disappointed in myself, much more so than I would in similar situations in the past.

Feels almost like negative reinforcement. For example nowadays I feel so much emptier after masturbation than I did before and so I have less and less urge to do that again.

[Shannon]

Sounds like maybe that 9 hours wasn't an accident... maybe it was an effort to sabotage the sabotage. Maybe you should increase your exposure time.

[Mystic Pymp]

Sounds like maybe that 9 hours wasn't an accident... maybe it was an effort to sabotage the sabotage.  Maybe you should increase your exposure time.

Noted. I must admit I need to trust myself more when it comes to my exposure. It's something I'll have to learn, just like everything else.

Once I'll get back to the city I'll switch to hybrid, but until then I'll stick with ultrasonic. To be honest I have a strange... lack of trust towards ultrasonic format. As if I believed that it won't work for me. Which is weird as I used ultrasonic exclusively for my recent LTU and not even once I had this thought.

[Mystic Pymp]

Day 12 3 ultrasonic

3 loops seem fine. I still have this weird feeling that ultrasonic might not be working but it feels more like paranoia than anything else.

Today I wanna tell you about my recent conundrum so that you have a glimpse of how I think and how fear factors into this. I haven't made a decision yet, I have something like a week or so to decide.

So I've been invited to wedding party by my (soon to be ex-) coworker. The wedding was last year but due to covid party was rescheduled, first to Autumn and second to the first anniversary this August. And I wonder whether or not I should attend.

Recently I had this idea to ask that girl who ghosted me to be my partner. But now that's out of the question. And now thinking about going there alone is painful because of this debacle. Additionally I don't really like people attending there all that much. I don't hate them or anything, but I feel apathetic. Still it would be a good idea to go there just as the last time we properly have a party before I leave for greener pastures.

The biggest unknown is if another certain person will attend. My very, very old sweetheart from 8 years ago is coworker of the wife while I am coworker of the husband. If he invited me it means she surely invited her. Now of course it doesn't mean she will attend, but she might. And I'm not sure if I'm scared of this or if I wanna see where it might lead. She's not the same person she was back then. For lack of the better word she seems to get... I don't know. Wild? Stray? I mean she's so much more distant, less friendly and outgoing. Like she got locked in her own shell. I'm not sure if that's the case, I haven't had contact with her in so long. But that's what I got from the glimpses and rumors.

So will I attend? Probably yes. Even if I'll have to force myself a little bit. And sadly almost certainly alone. I wanna go because I have little to nothing to lose and I do want that send-off. Like always in these circumstances I fear I will not have fun and I end up having great memories. Plus my intuition tells me to go while my resentment pushes me to skip it. I tend to listen to my intuition.

[Mystic Pymp]

Day 13 3 ultrasonic

Today's not my day. The worst thing is I feel both tired due to crappy weather (it's hot and humid and it teases a storm but it doesn't seem to come) and guilty for being lazy. I had kinda sorta an idea that I will work from my mother's but I quickly came to the conclusion that it's gonna be a week off. No though I'm thinking about working tomorrow simply because I fear being overwhelmed come Monday. I'm still unsure what to do, it used to be so much easier to work from here when my mom was working and I had 8-9h of empty house to do whatever I'd wish.

[Mystic Pymp]

Day 14 3 ultrasonic

Nothing came out of work today, first of all I woke up late and tired and second of all my mom takes a lot of attention from and and I want to use the time I have to the fullest while I'm still here.

Because my current working place sucks I had to cash out some of my lowest performing investments. Between playing my new flat off in advance and buying OF I was left with very strained budget for this month. I thought I could save up some money while at my mother's but now that she's retired she needs to be more stingy as well so I need to support her instead of eating off her food. I'm still in a very good situation, a contract work worth about 1.5 of my normal monthly salary is pending but because of "vacation season" and overall crappy quality of bureaucracy it may come tomorrow or in September. So I cashed out, I'll wait for that additional money to come, spend some of it to buy furniture for my new flat and reinvest it in Autumn.

Now come to think of it my greatest fear must be that there my be a situation where I will not have money and I will go hungry and with no shelter. I don't know why. Most probably because both of my parents were in situations like that, coming from families riddles with alcoholism and pathology, and I saw how hard they work to secure everything needed for themselves and me. They experienced hardship so I don't have to. But because I never did and I don't know how I'd behave if I did I want to avoid this scenario by any means necessary. So far it's going great for me, there seems to be no danger of that barring war or some other calamity (and where I live there are no earthquakes or hurricanes) I should be more that fine. But the spectre haunts me.

What's funny is that if calamity came and civilization collapsed I'd be dead in 2 weeks. I'm diabetic which means I need insulin to survive - without it soon I get cathosis and die. I don't fear that one though - I embrace this idea. I don't fear death, it almost seems like a good friend to me at this point, but I do fear painful life.