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Noticing the Delusion

SimonSays

Van Dweller
V.I.P Member
I used to live in what I'd describe as a singularity. As if what was in my present would always remain the same. I know nothing ever does, but the singular mind lives life as if it will. There is nothing but this moment. It is a good way to be.

But I experience something different now. I live in a place that I do not really like, and yet I am here, and for the most part accept it and make the best of it. I've been able to accept that I have to be somewhere, and while this is not where I would prefer, if I take away the idea of preference and be grateful that I am somewhere, then for most of the time I can just get on with it.

But every so often I notice something. I can't deny that something is missing. I haven't found my place in the world. My home. My people. I certainly haven't found my purpose. I accept certain things that should really be dealt with, almost as if I do not deserve better, even though in many ways the idea of ‘better’ is just an idea. I can definitely imagine there is something better, and yet I find myself pushing away its possibility; what would need to be done, and instead live in a simple present filled with whatever I want there to be.

My choices are really simple. Reading, writing, listening to a podcast or audiobook, watching a documentary, film or TV show, commercial free, and I can choose from the very finest creative output from around the world, none of which costs me a penny.

So I can be constantly entertained if I want to be. Made to laugh and to think, be surprised by amazing drama. In many ways it is a perfect solution for somebody who spends most of his time inside a little room. If the weather is bad, I have plenty to occupy myself with. I am never bored. If the weather is good, I will go out for a walk, perhaps to the park or the nature reserve. Sometimes make a recording if something is on my mind. There is no ambition to do anything else. It is my path of least resistance.

But every so often a feeling appears that reminds me that things could be different, and when it does, I start to feel unsettled. I've tried reaching out for help when this occurs, and yet everything I do from this unsettled place quickly becomes complicated and overwhelming. It makes sense not to keep this up and just continue to do what I always do, what I'm used to doing, what I've been doing for so long.

And with acceptance comes peace of mind again, and peace of mind matters more than anything to me. When I have it, it doesn't matter what my circumstances look like.

For a moment the grass had looked greener over there, and yet the idea that it is, for me at least, is an illusion. An idea of a future that doesn't exist. Alone is alone. And I just need to have somewhere to be. I keep myself clean, eat the food I like to cook, come and go as I please.

I even feel like I'm better than I've been of late, and I can tell that because I've noticed that sometimes I don't put my earplugs in after I remove my earphones when I go to the toilet. I don't feel so affected by the noise of the flushing mechanism that would only recently have hurt me to hear it.

I don't want to hear the noises of this place, nor the constant traffic that people just accept in the background. I need silence or a very muted version of it at the least. It allows me to live in my world, almost as if the things ‘out there’ don't exist for me.

I'm concerned that this may be a kind of denial state though. I am avoiding that which I don't want to experience. I'm not always able to avoid everything of course, but I do for the most part, and it makes a difference in how I'm able to live.

I overcome personal challenges, which I seem to need to do, rather than always try to seek the easy path. Perhaps I have become institutionalised, making it easier to accept what once seemed almost unacceptable. This might be good from a spiritual path perspective, and it certainly would explain a thing or two, or it may just be part of a delusion that I am so very lost in. I just can't tell.
 
Are you familiar with the oroborous?
"Ouroboros, emblematic serpent of ancient Egypt and Greece represented with its tail in its mouth, continually devouring itself and being reborn from itself. A gnostic and alchemical symbol, Ouroboros expresses the unity of all things, material and spiritual, which never disappear but perpetually change form in an eternal cycle of destruction and re-creation."
Ouroboros | ancient symbol

220px-Serpiente_alquimica.jpg


The eternal cycle of destruction and recreation. Consider this your personal symbol. Yes, there is certainly more to experience in life but ultimately the human drive for spirituality means that once a thing is experienced we go forward until the old way no loger is desireable and in chooseing a new path, the old is destroyed. We repeat this pattern over and over until we arrive exactly where we started.

You can certainly seek something new but in doing so you may find that where you started is your ultimate goal afterall.
 
@Suzette
That is an unexpected perspective. It is certainly interesting to interact with you.

In pondering what you said...

I get the feeling we always end up where we started. But by the time we do we are most certainly not the same as when we left.

Thing is...I can’t say where I started. It might be where I feel most like home. I think that’s what I’m actually looking for. I don’t know if it’s a place or a person, or a combination of the two, but to feel like I’m home. I’d know it if I found it. I’ve felt like I’ve been close a few times. But it wasn’t the real thing.

They say home is where the heart is.

I have a need to be settled, in one place, secure in its familiarity, and I suppose that is where I am. I don’t always think something is missing. It probably is though.
 
Do you know of Oblio and the Land of the Point?

Oblio was born with a round head in a land where every one else was born with a pointy head. Oblio is an outsider. He is picked on, ignored, etc. And so he concludes that the secret to happiness is to have a point. So Oblio sets out in a grand adventure looking for a point and after many months, he suceeds. He has a point! So he returns to his former lands thinking that with his new point he will fit right in. Yet, when he arrives he discovers that points are no longer the fashion and everyone has a round head. Thus Oblio realizes his search has been pointless.


It is the hardest lesson, happiness is an inside job. Round or pointy, you are as you are and you will always take YOU whereever you go.

That is not glib advice. It is straight from my heart and heartache of the search.
 
I guess I was lucky in a way that Growing up I understood little of the world, so, despite my social dysfunction I accepted early on that the world and life was constant change that I somehow needed to accept if I was going to make my way by myself. I guess I learned independence that way, and came to accept the contingencies that we all face without walling myself away from wonderful experiences that the world offers. Some of the experience was traumatic, though. While I do enjoy entertainments, once spending six days in London taking in seven plays, I live by a precept that Joseph Sax expounded on in Mountains Without Handrails which can be generally applied. He said:
"The parks are places where recreation reflects the aspirations of a free and independent people
They are places where no one else prepares entertainment for the visitor, predetermines his responses, or tells him what to do. In a national park the visitor is on his own, setting an agenda for himself, discovering what is interesting, going at his own pace. The parks provide a contrast to the familiar situation in which we are bored unless someone tells us how to fill our time." That someone can also be a well-worn routine.
 
Do you know of Oblio and the Land of the Point?

Oblio was born with a round head in a land where every one else was born with a pointy head. Oblio is an outsider. He is picked on, ignored, etc. And so he concludes that the secret to happiness is to have a point. So Oblio sets out in a grand adventure looking for a point and after many months, he suceeds. He has a point! So he returns to his former lands thinking that with his new point he will fit right in. Yet, when he arrives he discovers that points are no longer the fashion and everyone has a round head. Thus Oblio realizes his search has been pointless.


It is the hardest lesson, happiness is an inside job. Round or pointy, you are as you are and you will always take YOU whereever you go.

That is not glib advice. It is straight from my heart and heartache of the search.
Perfect. I have a BIL who has moved many times trying to escape what he believes is gang stalking and people entering his house to rape him as he sleeps (despite locks and cameras everywhere). I have told him that wherever you go, there you are. The only common element in his paranoia.
 
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The purpose is what we make the purpose to be. I love my life though l need less busybodies, more people minding their own business instead of my business. Lol.

I give my last dollar for a boring simple life, l guess l am too independent as a female. Maybe you need to embrace independence?
 
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The purpose is what we make the purpose to be. I love my life though l need less busybodies, more people minding their own business instead of my business. Lol.

I give my last dollar for a boring simple life, l guess l am too independent as a female. Maybe you need to embrace independence?
Independence? I think you hit it on the head. Independence requires activity to maintain a good sense of self, and that implies acceptance of oneself. And from some of your posts I surmise that your independence was hard won. Independence ain't for sissies. Not everybody is ready for it.
 
Independence? I think you hit it on the head. Independence requires activity to maintain a good sense of self, and that implies acceptance of oneself. And from some of your posts I surmise that your independence was hard won. Independence ain't for sissies. Not everybody is ready for it.

Well if being independent means not dating very much, and a very small social life then yes, that's me.

In Cali, it's okay to be independent female at any age. The state l am in now, it's unheard of to be a female who prefers not to meet men. In fact, our state is constantly in the news for our crazy man stories like the guy who rode his lawnmower to the liquor store. No, l am not making this up.☺ Or my 69 year-old female cashier friend, who was approached by a man who just lost his wife. He told her at lunch, l need someone to pay half my mortgage and walk around sans the garments. She politely explained to him maybe that wasn't the best way to go about it. This really happened. Welcome to the alligator pit. My other story, an older walmart cashier lady, who a guy tried to hit in the parking lot because she wouldn't go out with him.
 
HOME. That is the feeling I've known and now miss.
It was not only a way of life, but, also feeling whole by being with a certain person.
At my age, I know I'll never feel it again.
Part of the home feeling was as @SimonSays , a denial of the rest of the world.
Living in the bubble that only one person was allowed to share with me.
Seeing the world, but, shutting it out.

These lyrics fit:

Home in the valley
Home in the city
Home isn't pretty
Ain't no home for me
Home in the darkness
Home on the highway
Home isn't my way
Home I'll never be
 
The eternal cycle of destruction and recreation. Consider this your personal symbol. Yes, there is certainly more to experience in life but ultimately the human drive for spirituality means that once a thing is experienced we go forward until the old way no longer is desireable and in chooseing a new path, the old is destroyed. We repeat this pattern over and over until we arrive exactly where we started.

You can certainly seek something new but in doing so you may find that where you started is your ultimate goal afterall.

Not sure why, but this makes me think of our solar system moving through space. We usually imagine when we reach January 1, we have gone through another cycle and are back in the same place where we started last year and the year before and the year before that, etc…

But this is not the case, for not only are we revolving around the sun, but the sun is revolving around the centre of the galaxy, so that we are never in the same place, never back to where we started, even though it seems like we are.

It is the hardest lesson, happiness is an inside job. Round or pointy, you are as you are and you will always take YOU where ever you go.

That is not glib advice. It is straight from my heart and heartache of the search.

I appreciate you are speaking from the heart. I have always known that wherever I go that is where I am.

I can decide to focus on taking a more superficial approach, make sure I'm as comfortable as I can be, have the right view, get to look at the ocean again or see the trees. I have experienced all of those before, and also taken them for granted, which is what seems to happen when I make it all about the outside.

If I make it about the inside, then in many ways it doesn't really matter where I am. I stop seeking validation and happiness, and do my best to accept myself as I am, rather than look to change, to fit in or be accepted. I could say that I am me, but that would assume I know who I am, when in fact I am only aware of aspects of myself, and these seem to come and go. Each time I feel I have reached an understanding of self, I come to understand that this is just an illusion. I keep having to let him go. Again.

Does this mean there is no place for me? Where I get to feel at home? Or is even the idea of home just an illusion I hold about the way things felt once before. Holding the idea of what I thought it was and hoping I might come to feel that way again. And if none of these things are real, then maybe I'm not either.

I don't wish to dwell on the past. But I don't hide from it either. I am where I am, and I am who I am within it. Until such time as things change, and I become who I am now. I live independently, and have even done so in other countries, making journeys and living lives without really understanding what would happen. But I've always had help, without realising how much I needed it. So it's not easy to describe what it's like to be truly alone. To have nobody I might rely on or who can rely on me. I suppose I'm just in potential now. A box full of tools that aren't getting used anymore.
 
Well if being independent means not dating very much, and a very small social life then yes, that's me.

In Cali, it's okay to be independent female at any age. The state l am in now, it's unheard of to be a female who prefers not to meet men. In fact, our state is constantly in the news for our crazy man stories like the guy who rode his lawnmower to the liquor store. No, l am not making this up.☺ Or my 69 year-old female cashier friend, who was approached by a man who just lost his wife. He told her at lunch, l need someone to pay half my mortgage and walk around sans the garments. She politely explained to him maybe that wasn't the best way to go about it. This really happened. Welcome to the alligator pit. My other story, an older walmart cashier lady, who a guy tried to hit in the parking lot because she wouldn't go out with him.
The headline; Florida Man . . . . . says it all. Carl Hiassen and Tim Dorsey need to get their inspiration from somewhere.
 
If I make it about the inside, then in many ways it doesn't really matter where I am. I stop seeking validation and happiness, and do my best to accept myself as I am, rather than look to change, to fit in or be accepted. I could say that I am me, but that would assume I know who I am, when in fact I am only aware of aspects of myself, and these seem to come and go. Each time I feel I have reached an understanding of self, I come to understand that this is just an illusion. I keep having to let him go. Again.

Does this mean there is no place for me? Where I get to feel at home? Or is even the idea of home just an illusion I hold about the way things felt once before. Holding the idea of what I thought it was and hoping I might come to feel that way again. And if none of these things are real, then maybe I'm not either.

You miss understand me :)

I don't mean "you take yourself werever you go, therefore there is no point in change"
On the contrary!

I mean "since you take yourself where ever you go, change is easier than you think as you give up nothing".

I am sorry, I should have made sure that message was specifically conveyed.
Happiness is an inside job yes, but that means your sense of security is an inside job too. The oroborous is to convey that that change, growth and new experiences often lead us to discovering that we were already where we thrive best.

This is not "no point in trying" but "try, it may be fun and you won't lose".

Said that way, it's easier all around but yesterday my brain was not quite so direct.:oops:
 
Said that way, it's easier all around but yesterday my brain was not quite so direct
:) That's okay. It's not easy to talk about these things in text form anyway. The fact that we understand each other at all is already pretty good.

I get what you're saying.

I've had some pretty amazing experiences in my life, when I've completely let go of everything familiar and found myself experiencing something I would never have imagined choosing. But in each of those cases, when I finally felt I’d had enough or that it was over, I realised that where I came from was where I wanted to be all along. Constantly drawn back no matter how many times I thought I was leaving for good and would never return. Turns out I was simply on a journey of discovery, to experience something different in order to know where I really wanted to be and not feel like I’d have to leave again.

I no longer feel that call to wander, and yet in some ways I miss it. The feeling of being able to let go, without looking back, taking only what I can carry, and letting life lead the way. I'm not invalidating that as a path, as it gave me something I could never have imagined, and it could be that the issues I've been dealing with these last few years have reduced me or lowered me, vibrationally, so that I no longer recognise it as a path I can follow. Perhaps I've got from it all I can. Perhaps I'm just choosing to settle for what seems to be the easy life. At least right now.
 
I guess my take would be it's ok to be content and not want to take risks and seek out more, better or different, as there is no guarantee that would bring about more happiness. Whereas some need more and strive for more after self-analysis and/or after viewing from a distance what is out there, others may not want to go there yet or ever, as their routines and current life at least brings stability and some comfort.

I think your mind and body will naturally determine what is best for you and if the time is ever right to search out for more, or to do more, or to be somewhere else, you will feel those thoughts in your head more and more. Right now it does not seem like you are there yet, but just questioning things in a general way, with no motivations thus to find that more happiness that you feel may or may not be out there for you.

So, I'd just appreciate what you have now and let nature determine any new bigger path that occurs, if ever such happens at all. It's OK to choose a more static and safer place, with your current circumstances, which do not seem too distressing for you, even if you felt you could be missing out on more, as your mind is not convinced yet that more may be better but just more neutral or worse.

You seem to have a general preference of getting more out of life, but as you seem unsure yet exactly what that is, of course the will to strive for more would not be there, and with you sensing likely any needs to change there could be harder to accomplish without making things worse. If ever though your dreams and extra needs to be happier become more clear for you, maybe then you would be more ready to act.

Right now, especially for those with comfort with sameness, some fear of change, or with more anxieties, sensitivities or self-doubt at doing or accomplishing new things, it could seem many of these persons may be compelled to seek out more pleasure, only when they were either more motivated to achieve something seen as better, or when at their lowest point, rationalizing things could not get any worse but likely improve.
 
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Yes, we are clearly the sum of our choices and mishaps.

I have always chosen to live by water, preferably oceans. I grew up by the ocean and enjoy the serenity of my body neurons and rejoice in that. At the end of my life, l did do this, chose the water as my life guide.
 
Yes, we are clearly the sum of our choices and mishaps.

I have always chosen to live by water, preferably oceans. I grew up by the ocean and enjoy the serenity of my body neurons and rejoice in that. At the end of my life, l did do this, chose the water as my life guide.
I like that. I'd find it hard not to live near The Great Lakes, our inland seas. And it is going to be painful when I no longer can canoe and kayak.
 

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