Subliminal Talk

(05-22-2019, 06:08 AM)Zane Wrote: [ -> ]Good too see that NoFap is one of your goal.

I have been on USLM3 for six months a d tbh the amount of progress on NoFap I have made is pretty satisfying than I have made in year. Its an 18 year old severe fapping addiction which is linked to my severe OCD so its good to see the amount of progress I have made.

Besides NoFap amplifies the result of the subs.. You can feel it.

In the book I'm reading right now there was an interesting case for free will. I won't get into details here but one important idea was that people are driven by their desires. Of course there is hierarchy of those. And it was argued that when someone acts against their desires, what happens in truth is they act in accordance to their more powerful desire, even if they don't recognize it at that time.

I mention it because this is exactly what I believe is going on right now. Imagine desire to eat. It's a powerful desire. However, even if you haven't eaten in 2 days you won't eat poisoned food because it might help with hunger, but it will also kill you. Desire to live is stronger than desire to eat. It's similar here - I want to masturbate, it's only human, it's pleasurable and great stress relief. However it has consequences and some stronger desires outweigh the weaker one. It's incredible that only now this desire is strong enough and it's scary that I'm not even sure what desire that is exactly? Desire to self improve? To find a proper relationship? I have no idea, it works somewhere in my subconscious and maybe with time and meditation I'll find it out.

What I find without a doubt is LTU is to be blamed for it. None of the DMSI versions could come even close to motivation and resolve I have now. With DMSI there were times I tried this with "strong will" approach, but it would always fail. Without proper mindset strong will is only as strong as it's weakest moment. The secret is to WANT to do (or to not do) things, not force oneself in the long run.

Notice how I'm not claiming masturbation is "bad" or "shameful" as you'd often read on some forums. It the "desire framework" for lack of better term there are no good or bad desires. There are only stronger and weaker ones. Even if desire is leading someone to self-destruction, well, they apparently want it and that is the beauty of free will. And I'm certainly not ashamed of doing it before.

As for "NoFap amplifies the result of the subs" I believe there is what I called positive feedback loop. I'm more confident so I lose weight so I have more resolve so I go NoFap and so on. One positive change can reinforce if not cause the next ones, just as it is the case with negative changes. And with what I notice I'm on a very good path.

I'm sure I will masturbate again one day. I will have weaker day or I will get unbearably horny for some reason. Mindset is not set in stone, it's flexible and dependent on emotions and other stuff which is hard to control. But this will happen orders of magnitude later than before LTU.

Day 32

Currently on day 9 of NoFap and still going strong. It's 1.5 days longer than my previous record broken during New Year resolution. I had some time to think about WHY I am managing to do this now.

Just so you know it's not all sunshine and rainbows. I want to masturbate and once I almost cried out of frustration. It really depends on the moment. However even at that moment desire not to do that was stronger.

External motivation is important, but not crucial. I don't think I'm gonna have any encounter worth saving my sexual energy for (like it was the case with that girl I mentioned before) and still I want to keep moving.

Benefits of NoFap you read about here and there are pretty meaningless for me. You know, things like more energy or better concentration. It would be great to have these but this is not the reason. If anything I am curious if I get any and how it will synergize with LTU and other changes happening in my life right now.

For sake of curiosity and challenge (and stupidity) I went ahead and watched some porn at my porn sites "to catch up". I got aroused but that porn got simply boring for me. Like I was questioning at that point why did I ever fap to that! Obviously if I started masturbating my brain would switch and I'd go past the point of no return back to the starting point, but staying on this side I was just... confused.

The most important thing right now is simply challenging myself. The great plus of me keeping account of my habits in the past months is I can follow my progress and at this moment I'm mostly curious how far I can go with this. Challenging myself was great part of my self improvement in recent weeks and it works great for NoFap. I was worried that after beating my record I would have no goal but now every next day is a goal and I think I'm gonna keep on going strong for at least a couple of days.

Day 35 (1)

It is done, with 10 days and 7 hours on record I masturbated on Sunday. And that's fine.

I thought for a bit how I want to word this post and I decided I want to be sincere. Could I have done better? Of course. But still it's a great achievement for me and with my current mindset I'm sure to push the limit even further.

Why did I do this? I think there are two reasons. The first on Saturday was tough and tiring day for me. Second one is after I beat my record I kind of lost the goal from my sight. When you run 5K, do you rush to the finish line or do you think "OK, one more kilometer that is"? My finish line was my record and when I beat it I became vulnerable. I tried to make 30 days my new goal, but it was way too distant goal and, at least in my imagination, unrealistic.

I don't want to become "that NoFap guy on LTU" so from now on I will only sparingly post about it on this journal. However, I will post my number of days in the brackets on the top of the post. This way I can stay honest without bringing the topic too much. Also I'll try to post more frequently, there is a lot to talk about (examples being: me continuously checking girls out, my weight loss progress, my work motivation, my nicotine and alcohol consumption, time management, interest in occult and much more) and I won't this journal to be a forum where I can share and discuss all these changes I notice.

Whatever. There's nothing wrong with masturbating, especially if you're doing it sparingly. I think people focus way too much on going for as long as possible without fapping when really, that just sets them up for failure because they're gonna fap eventually and if they don't well, you're body getting used to not being aroused around arousig stimuli will translate into not getting it up when you've got a hot naked chick in front of you. So I say don't worry so much about it, but then I don't do NoFap anyway. Still, I think my 2 cents have validity to them.

(05-22-2019, 02:58 PM)Mystic Pymp Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-22-2019, 06:08 AM)Zane Wrote: [ -> ]Good too see that NoFap is one of your goal.

I have been on USLM3 for six months a d tbh the amount of progress on NoFap I have made is pretty satisfying than I have made in year. Its an 18 year old severe fapping addiction which is linked to my severe OCD so its good to see the amount of progress I have made.

Besides NoFap amplifies the result of the subs.. You can feel it.

In the book I'm reading right now there was an interesting case for free will. I won't get into details here but one important idea was that people are driven by their desires. Of course there is hierarchy of those. And it was argued that when someone acts against their desires, what happens in truth is they act in accordance to their more powerful desire, even if they don't recognize it at that time.

I mention it because this is exactly what I believe is going on right now. Imagine desire to eat. It's a powerful desire. However, even if you haven't eaten in 2 days you won't eat poisoned food because it might help with hunger, but it will also kill you. Desire to live is stronger than desire to eat. It's similar here - I want to masturbate, it's only human, it's pleasurable and great stress relief. However it has consequences and some stronger desires outweigh the weaker one. It's incredible that only now this desire is strong enough and it's scary that I'm not even sure what desire that is exactly? Desire to self improve? To find a proper relationship? I have no idea, it works somewhere in my subconscious and maybe with time and meditation I'll find it out.

What I find without a doubt is LTU is to be blamed for it. None of the DMSI versions could come even close to motivation and resolve I have now. With DMSI there were times I tried this with "strong will" approach, but it would always fail. Without proper mindset strong will is only as strong as it's weakest moment. The secret is to WANT to do (or to not do) things, not force oneself in the long run.

Notice how I'm not claiming masturbation is "bad" or "shameful" as you'd often read on some forums. It the "desire framework" for lack of better term there are no good or bad desires. There are only stronger and weaker ones. Even if desire is leading someone to self-destruction, well, they apparently want it and that is the beauty of free will. And I'm certainly not ashamed of doing it before.

As for "NoFap amplifies the result of the subs" I believe there is what I called positive feedback loop. I'm more confident so I lose weight so I have more resolve so I go NoFap and so on. One positive change can reinforce if not cause the next ones, just as it is the case with negative changes. And with what I notice I'm on a very good path.

I'm sure I will masturbate again one day. I will have weaker day or I will get unbearably horny for some reason. Mindset is not set in stone, it's flexible and dependent on emotions and other stuff which is hard to control. But this will happen orders of magnitude later than before LTU.

I understand what you are saying.. Channeling that desire from being something unproductive to productive. I am a different person on NoFap Streak..

Day 36 (2)

(05-27-2019, 03:35 PM)EvolvingPhoenix Wrote: [ -> ]Whatever. There's nothing wrong with masturbating, especially if you're doing it sparingly. I think people focus way too much on going for as long as possible without fapping when really, that just sets them up for failure because they're gonna fap eventually and if they don't well, you're body getting used to not being aroused around arousig stimuli will translate into not getting it up when you've got a hot naked chick in front of you. So I say don't worry so much about it, but then I don't do NoFap anyway. Still, I think my 2 cents have validity to them.

My thoughts exactly @EvolvingPhoenix , for the most part. NoFap is great and all, but when you spend more willpower fighting your urges than the profit you gain from NoFap it becomes... counter-productive I guess. Some people would try to prove me wrong, but then again some people are wrong

I think (and it tides to @Zane comment) that real profits of NoFap come not from semen retention or cleaning your head or whatever. They come from the positive feedback I described a couple of posts before. When you read stories there are many success stories, but there are also many stories describing how mediocre the results are and how nothing really changed in their lives. Confidence, motivation, social skills etc. are not caused by NoFap, they are reinforced by it. It's like supplement you take during the diet - it helps, but you still need to diet.

Funny thing happened today. I went with my friend to see "John Wick 3". For those who don't know it's a great action movie starring Keanu Reeves. I love movies like that, testosterone filling cinema. What's great about the main character however is not that he kills people with pencils, but how he handles himself, his suits and style, the respect he projects. He's not only skilled, he's knowledgeable, he speaks many languages, he has great memory. You obviously don't WANT to be him, but you WANT to be like him. I started thinking about how much time I outright waste throughout the day and how much closer I'd be to a "perfect me" if I were to stop with wastage.

And it's funny because I'd estimate I waste maybe 50% time less than I used to. For example half a year ago I would be able to waste entire day. Today I wasted maybe 1-2 hours of my life? Those are extreme examples to be sure, but my time management and (especially) motivation to move my ass and do stuff increased a lot recently. Did I mention that I love it? Because I sure love it

I waste a lot of time too. I'm FAARR away from the version of myself I wanma be. In fact, due to depression I spend most of my day sleeping. I just try to go easy on myself and not put too much pressure on myself, especially with what I'm going through lately.

Day 37 (0)

(05-28-2019, 02:30 PM)EvolvingPhoenix Wrote: [ -> ]I waste a lot of time too. I'm FAARR away from the version of myself I wanma be. In fact, due to depression I spend most of my day sleeping. I just try to go easy on myself and not put too much pressure on myself, especially with what I'm going through lately.

I'm sorry to hear that, depression is not a joke. I have friends with depression (one in particular, she copes great but she's had suicide attempts in the past) and I think I've suffered from it for a month after my dad's death. From what I see you take steps to fight this and this is the most important.

As for wasting time what I'm trying to do (and mostly succeeding) is to make this waste useful. For example I exercise while watching things on YouTube. It's not any sort of hardcore exercise, most of the time it's simply 10 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and 10 squats with 15 minute breaks between series. It's not much but it adds up and my weight loss suggests it works.

Other example is that if I feel like procrastinating and watch some YouTube, I try to watch as much educational content as possible. There is so much of it with great content creators that you can spend days just watching it, learning and having fun at the same time. It's not directly related to my work or anything in particular, but I've always prided myself on my giant general knowledge and by this habit I grow it even more every day! This had also an amazing side-effect of making me practice English on a daily basis.

And there is more, I don't remember the last time I've played video game and I started to read books again. I started to listen podcasts during my walks so I can educate, entertain, enjoy nature and exercise at the same time. I spend more time at work, making me wake up earlier and go to sleep earlier, which is great as around midnight is the most procrastinating time of day for me.

All of this started a couple of months ago while running DMSI again, but with LTU it's even more profound. Time is a precious resource and one you cannot get back after it's spent. Using it wisely is hard, it's so easy to slack of. However I'm learning to make most of it while still being able to enjoy slow pleasure of procrastination. Or at least so much so that in a long time I haven't felt guilt over wasting my time.

That's great! I'm glad your finding small ways to be more productive.

Day 38

I haven't felt this bad in a long time. Today and yesterday were rough.

Oddly enough it started when I wrote to my friend and kinda jokingly I started to whine to her to get her attention. But then I really started to feel sad and angry and hopeless, almost as per self-suggestion. That was scary.

Now I'm passed that but I've gotten really stressed out. I'll be leaving for a conference next week and by then I have to have my work done. Sadly I did not manage to complete all of it in time. I don't feel guilty over it, in the past weeks I really speed things up and got back in track, sadly due to my dad's illness and then death I left a lot of things behind and it bites me now.

Anyhow there are two options. The first one is I will let it go, I'll bring to the conference what I have (which is enough anyway I think) and I'll have to swallow not having the optimum I'd like to bring. The second option is to work my ass off for the next week and try to catch up. There are two problems with this: the fact that I need to collaborate with others so the results do not rest solely on me (so I may have to wait powerless and I have to get things done faster so they have time to do their work) and also I have no guarantee that the results will work, so I may default to the first option anyway.

At any rate my hands are almost shaking and my stomach is size of a peanut from the very thought. I don't work well under pressure. To "relax" I went on the 18km walk but it gave me little, I'm still agitated and restless. Hopefully I'll go to sleep early (tiredness from the walk should help), I'll go to work and steadily do everything I have to do.

The conference itself doesn't help either. I've never been into trips like that and LTU doesn't help me getting more social. Add to that the fact that I'll have to get by using public transport while group of my friends skipped me and they'll be going by the car, which makes me angry. Makes you wanna finally do your driver's licence. It's such a shame I'd need it only once or twice per year though...

Funny thing is, after the conference when I'll come back home all of this stress will seem like a joke. It doesn't matter if I'll make it or I'll have to show less than I want to, I will be all relaxed and at peace. At least up until the next challenge like that. I cannot wait till I feel such calm again.

Day 39 (1)

Damn I'm tired and overwhelmed. I've done great work at my job but once I was home I started feeling sooooooo weak and exhausted. Thankfully the work done made me a little bit more at ease, but still anxiety persists.

I don't understand why I'm so stressed about the conference. I react almost as if my life depended on it. What happens I think is it taps to my perfectionist side - I want to do the best job possible and I'm starting to realize I might not be able to. To make matters worse I won't be able to work during the weekend as I have to visit my mother. That would be a good thing if I was able to have some rest, but what it will do is give me set of responsibilities for my stay and will phase me out from my habits and work. Son must do his due however and I'd rather visit her and waste my weekend sitting over my work.

Day 40 (0)

May had been a very good month. Let me summarize some of my accomplishments I keep track of and say a word or two about how I look about them in the future.

I've lost about 4.5kg. This is great and I am extremely happy for the result. However I don't think this is sustainable, quite frankly I don't feel comfortable with 1kg/week weight loss. For the future I will be extremely happy with 2 kg/month. I would be content with 1kg and I would be disappointed with anything less.

I did on average 137 push-ups, 427 sit-ups and 139 squats. This I think is unsustainable. Many days in may I was pushing myself way too hard and I was suffering the next day. Now I will try to do a little bit less, but more sustainable. Sadly due to the conference next week I will "lose" a week of training, but still I will strife toward getting half of the current averages.

I've walked 13.3km on average. This is very good and I will try to beat this result. It was true my entire life but even more so nowadays that walking is extremely enjoyable for me and I would gladly spend 2-3 hours of my day simply wondering through my city's park and other places. Such a walk is exhausting for sure, but I find I can recover from it relatively easily and I want it to be the focus of my weight loss.

I don't count my calories intake, but as a diabetic I keep track of thy insulin usage. I used 58.4 units on average with 70 being rough equivalent of 2000 calories/day (depends strongly on diet, exercise etc.). As long as I burn a lot of calories anything below 70 is fine, I think I would strife for 65 in the future.

I smoked on average 10 cigarettes. It's not too bad, I used to smoke 15 per day on average. I think something like 7-8 per day is achievable given I will be able to control better my stress and exercise self-control. It's way too easy to chain-smoke when you are stress out and there is little you can help for the situation.

I masturbated 9 times, which is relatively small number compared to previous months (typically I would approach around 15). Still I'd love to get down to something like once per week.

As for current news I'm back in the city from my mother's, it wasn't bad and I'm glad I was of use for her. The stress I was experiencing eased a little bit, however as tomorrow (that is on Sunday) I'll have to get back to work and skip day off to catch up and hopefully do as much work as possible, I fear the stress will return. Hopefully I'll be able to work instead of panicking and doing nothing useful. I'm just glad this state of affairs will last only next 6 days, after that all will go back to old, slow and steady every day life.

Last but not least I re-installed Tinder, this is something I want to discuss tomorrow as I'm not even sure why I did this, this was very spontaneous. Stay tunes for my rumbling about that!

Day 41 (1)

Work is progressing nicely, however right now I'm doing more "mundane" stuff, which is exhausting and thankless, but not necessarily difficult. Real hardcore will start tomorrow, then we'll see how I'm doing. At any rate I think I will complete today work I intended to complete today while still scoring nice walk and workout.

Like I said I have re-installed Tinder. I was using it twice already, on the first try I did nothing with it (I was too anxious to even start conversations on the platform) while on the second try I found myself a girlfriend. So I guess I have half-decent experience with it when it comes to finding what I'm looking for, in this case relationship. However that was 2 years ago and I was different person then. I wanted to prove myself something and it worked. Now I don't want to prove anything. If anything I'm puzzled why I bother...

I think what I really want to do is change my life a little. Ever since my father died (and LTU reinforced this I think) my life got very... boring, not in a bad sense. More orderly would be better term I think. I go out little if at all, I have little contact with others not counting where it's necessary. Because of this I am able to better control myself, which is amazing.

However having a partner would brighten my life a little, I would have incentives to go out and visit places, go to a pub or a restaurant. I am confident and content where I am now, but it is not sustainable in the long run. So this is a reason I think, this is what I crave. Of course anything serious will wait a little bit, but I can start writing and calling already. And with my confidence boosted in the recent days I think something good might come out all of this.

The problem is... when I browse the Tinder (which I'm not even sure why I bother like I said before) I'm very picky. I swap maybe 1 in 20 or 30 girls? Given, there are few girls fitting my criteria, all fats and feminists and gym enthusiasts and tattooed and pierced are out, not to mention fake accounts which I spot like a hawk. However there are also many nice looking girls I reject as well.

The reason, I think, is my experience with my previous Tinder girlfriend. She was nice and shy and pretty and it didn't work out. I'm not too keen on crossing the same river twice. For example my first girlfriend had tattoos and piercings and so now these are instant red lights for me. Still, I think I'm either way too judgmental or I'm too scared or anxious to try again and current Tinder affair is simply an excuse for myself. Now I can say "I do not sit idly, destiny, fetch me my perfect girlfriend".

Last time I've checked things don't work this way :/

Next time I'll be talking about my current stress predicament, LTU and Nietsche.

Day 42 (2)

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” I think we all know that aphorism or at least its paraphrase. It was said by Nietsche, one of my favorite philosophers and one I have love-hate relationship with. I was thinking about this saying as my mother said it to me while I was complaining to her about my stress. She comforted me, saying it will do me good in the end and that I always stress out over things while everything turns out fine. And that's more or less true. My skin is thick (or at least I want to believe that) and I always have contingency plan over contingency plans.

If anything she was right. I woke up early (typically I need a couple of alarm clocks to wake me up cause I turn them off one by one), I went to work early, did what I set out to do and had some time to spare! This brought me to ease and I think I will simply relax this afternoon and evening, getting back to it tomorrow morning.

However... I don't like this saying. Its implications are startling to be honest. Pain makes you stronger, but also more bitter, tired, cynical. What people need is challenge, not pain or stress. Challenge is what makes me stronger. Pain is not challenge, it's punishment. On the other hand lack of pain does make people weak and lazy, but I think it comes down to lack of challenge and not lack of pain. Challenge is better friend with pain than pleasure.

Look at LTU. It's little more than a shortcut. Potentially everyone could achieve LTU goals by themselves. But it's a great aid and I want to use it to help me, encourage me and provide challenge while avoiding much pain it would otherwise bring. Did I ever say I love LTU?

Funny thing came to me as I saw that girl who motivated me to beat me NoFap record today. I almost feel like I'm in love with her, which is... unsettling? Here I am, going through Tinder while not really wanting a relationship. I feel like I'm falling in love in a girl which is taken and I wouldn't be able to be with her due to circumstances. And still I can't help but look at her and marvel at her smile and deep, dark eyes.

I need to meditate on this but what's happening I think is she reminds of a girl I was madly in love with 6 or 7 years ago. We never were together and I lost contact with her because I was pushing myself way to hard towards her. Still, she was the one setting me on the past of self-improvement I am right now. This new girl might be able to exert similar influence one me. And because of that I do hope she disappears from my life as soon as possible. Such influence is not a bad thing. It is however unhealthy when kept in the distance and she wouldn't even be aware of it.