ED4AW - "... I Would Never Do That." Why are we so Loyal to Parts of Ourselves?

Intro

You've tried everything except the thing you told yourself you definitely would not try. 

Hi and welcome/welcome back to the blog.

Unfortunately I have some mild-moderate post covid symptoms (boo). They say it affects your brain, I'd say my brain is affected. 

I'm super conscious of my "energy envelop" now, and hence questioning a lot of the things I dedicate my time and attention to. 

A combination of these neurological changes, plus the general crapness of being ill means I'm a bit untethered. Untethered from things I perceive as working or not working in my life. 

I think why I'm writing this blog is that I am looking for some kind of shift in my life? Not necessarily to change everything all at once but at the very least point in a different direction, and I kind of feel like exploring what is in and out of character for me is like a interesting shortcut?

Lot's of question marks because I'm questioning things. Acting out of character doesn't have positive connotations, it's the first thing the police ask witnesses or relatives when someone commits a crime. At least there's an acknowledgement there that we're all playing characters so why can't I try something new, like trying on shoes?

I don't want to come across as crazy... but I genuinely think long covid means mentally I am not firing on all cylinders....

The more I type the more it becomes clear. There is energy, potential, curiosity around deliberately acting out of character. Potential-energy.

I don't know, I feel like it means you're able to draw new things in. Do something you don't normally do, experience something you don't normally experience. Plus there's probably a lot to learn from the things we're so desperate to hold on to and defend.

So each day for a week, I will be challenging/exploring what is in and out of character for me.

Day 1, 12/08/2024 -  Precedence and Permissions

First out of character thing, the need to justify living a different kind of life. Feeling like I need justification to step into a different kind of life.

I was watching this video,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBetFoVhZ14 - Edward Art, Imaging Making.

The guy was basically talking about how life springs forth from our (image)ination, we think in images. He said we should try and furnish our minds with images of things we actually want.

I've put what I lifted from the video in italics:

• Don't be concerned with the where and the how, or the rules of the world.
• What you find loving, what you find is beautiful what you find is redemptive. 
• Making a new image regardless of what the outside is showing, it' s a test of imagining beyond what your reality is showing.
• Imagination is the source of all expression. 
• Add layers to it to make it more like reality.
• Fearful thoughts feels real straight away, loving thoughts require more layers to feel real and more satisfying. 
• Do what you need to do to imagine you have it. 
•  Keep creating good images, redemptive images. 
• When your imagination becomes a nightmare it doesn't feel like home anymore, your imagination is guarded, filled with rules you don't want to follow. Your freedom to believe is stripped away.
• If you dislike the reality you're living in you can expand it to something different. You start making images of something you do want.
• What I imagine today will happen tomorrow (tomorrow could be any tomorrow I guess).
• Start making images you find redemptive, beautiful and lovely. 
• He said if you can't imagine it, try and experience it instead.

If I'm being honest I can't even bring myself to do step 1 of the exercise he's describing. Why is that? I don't even know what sort of images I want to make..

Maybe my imagination has become a bit of a nightmare, guarded, filled with rules I don't necessarily want to follow. I can't say it doesn't feel like home, but it definitely feels like a home I'm growing out of.

Attempts to think and imagine outside of that guarded place feel disorganised or illegitimate somehow.

Part of it is a moral thing, I pride myself on doing the right thing. It's probably getting in the way.

A different way of thinking would be: I deserve everything I want, without permission, without a precedent - what can/should I do to feel like this is true?

Maybe I start with exploring the resistance around it and go from there...

My initial thoughts are that honestly I have been knocked down a lot, and it's sort of conditioned me to expect less. I addressed my childhood trauma, but not the micro-trauma associated with trying to be socially mobile in my 20's. I just kept it moving, but maybe it's affected me more than I think.

I reached my limit on thoughts about this idea so I did some art therapy. 

In summary, I felt like there wasn't a good enough reason to leave the warm and comfortable womb of taking what I can get and knowing my position. Believing that there has to be a precedent for the good things in my life, an audit trail, is also part of that comfort. 

I had to have sacrificed something, there had to have been labour and discomfort. 

I think when I "dream" or desire something, I am dreaming about this precent, dreaming about the labour, fantasising about the work I would have done or what I would have accomplished to be in a certain room, in order to have a certain experience, that would give me the feeling I'm looking for.

The feeling, is really the only thing I want. I could just go to straight to that, surely?

I even practiced saying I deserve everything I want, without permission, without a precedent in the mirror. It felt unnatural and weird. But that is the aim of this week; to explore what feels unnatural and weird for me.

I deserve everything I want, without permission, without a precedent - what can/should I do to feel like this is true?

• "Bookmark" how it feels to think this way, consider how someone who thinks this way might act. 
• Challenge myself to find things I like, and then things I like more than those things. 
• Believe for one day that this precent, this permission has already been satisfied.
• Feel excited, feel grateful.
• Affirmations.
• Seek out opportunities to reinforce all of the above. 
• Talk to yourself in a way that makes it feel like it’s true .

Let's see how tomorrow goes...

Day 2, 13/08/2024 - Models and Modelling

I kept affirming to myself, I deserve everything I want without permission or precedence, and it started to gradually feel a bit more true. Like breaking into a shoe. My mind start coming up with why it could and should be true. I started dreaming of final results as opposed to work required to get the final results. 

For the point from day 1 around challenging myself to find things I like, and then the things I like more than those things, I created a Pinterest board. It made me realise that a lot of creating the life you want has to do with looking the part. Looking like the type of person who would have that life because "why else would they look that way?" I've always downplayed the importance of looking the part because I told myself, it's what's inside that matters, but I think that was ignorant and naïve. The modelling industry is huge, garments have had a substantial influence on the world ever since we figured out how to make clothes. 

I though about models, and what it means to be a model. What it means to make a model... if I make a model of a theme park, or a train station, or a school, or a hospital, it is a downsized, still image of the real life version that still captures its essence. The way it captures its essence, allows us to understand important aspects of how the real world version works. Maybe this is similar to what supermodels do, maybe this is similar to what we as humans do when we "Look the Part.", we are capturing a still image, an isolated component, a downsized version of the bigger broader life we want as a whole. It still captures the bigger and  broader version, but puts it on a scale we can handle. What I want is to be saturated in culture, to be on the leading edge of culture, to make avante garde and thought provoking work, to be refreshing, to create shifts, to make people uncomfortable in the best way possible. This is the macro version. The micro version starts from within, starts from looking the part, starts from images, as was described in the video mentioned in the previous day. 

Let's see how day 3 goes...

Day 3, 14/08/2024 - Why am I doing this again?

This is the day where I started to feel like I don't actually know what I'm writing about. 

Am I writing about challenging things about myself that I hold very close and dear? Or am I writing about challenging myself to truly live authentically and mould my life into what I would like it to be?

If I can't answer the questions above I also can't know what progress looks like.

I wrote in my notes app something about challenging self imposed limits. For example needing a certain amount of money, or needing to be a particular way physically. Or, needing to have met a particular person or group of people. These are all self imposed limits.

I wrote down "Desperation, how is that involved?" I don't even know why I wrote this, I think it's something to do with believing things in my life have to pan out in a certain way for my work to be valid.

Bringing back this quote from the very start of the blog, which is acting as a northern star and helping me stay on topic:

You've tried everything except the thing you told yourself you definitely would not try. 

Maybe this blog is about not making excuses. Maybe when I was writing about modelling on day 2, I meant you can model out discrete, compact pieces of your hopes and desires, and that is enough. Maybe that's always been enough, I think this "modelling" exercise is something we do quite frequently without realising. 

I knew day 3 was going to be super abstract.

But maybe excuses like not having the money or means to model the life we want, are valid. Capitalism has a chokehold on most aspects of our lives, normal-capitalism bleeds out in social-capitalism and cultural-capitalism. 

I also thought about how not feeling strongly about aspects of yourself might create opportunities and open doors, how it might make excuses for not modelling the life you want hold less weight. I don't know, I'm honestly just freestyling at this point. 

I thought about precedence again. I can believe bad things without precedence super easily, but good things always need precedence, permission, an audit trail, a well articulated backstory. I thought that was super interesting...

I watched another Profound Pondering video, the timing of their videos are so great and they're always so relevant to what I want to write about !!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2iGxwF-6z8

What you don't get from the world, give to yourself.

He mentioned something about instilling in yourself,  what you feel like you want from the world...that sounds a lot like what I said about modelling !!

As he was speaking he also mentioned a lot of things that I interpreted as excuses/things to challenge in the work of modelling the type of life I want to live:

• Always projecting out into the future vs thinking about everything I can achieve right here and now.
• Thinking about how I will impress a lot of people vs things that make only me happy.
• Thinking negatively vs Thinking positively.
• Thinking about the end goal vs appreciating each step of the process.
• Half arsing things vs trying my very best.

He spoke about building a foundation, I thought "hmm maybe I need to reorganise my thinking." Maybe I want to approach it the way one would approach constructing a building. Analogies are helpful, it also makes me think of modelling again and I'm a fan of the consistency. 

I mentioned the importance of not feeling especially strongly about where you are at the moment; thoughts come and go, you are the controller, and if we're talking about reorganising our mind (so we can construct a building), it's important to be a bit more intentional, a bit more impartial. 

Anyways, so we're constructing a building...

I suppose, the finished building is the life I want to live (or I think I want to live). To make a building, we start with a strong foundation. Positive thoughts, appreciation, curiosity, letting go of poor excuses or at least raising challenge to them. Anything you build on a good foundation, will be good. 

There is also a point about being honest with ourselves, about what's not working, about where I'm struggling. 

Day 3 is a bit of a mess, but still 4 days to go

Day 4, 15/08/2024 - Trying to Try

Actually writing this on the morning of Day 5 because I was way too tired on day 4. 

Maybe when I say "I deserve everything I want without permission or precedent" I mean everything I can personally give myself right now. Maybe we start with what we can give ourselves right now, and build this model up with ever increasing layers of sophistication. 

You can't build up the whole building without first building up level 1. 

Deferred gratification, perfectionism and any other lines of thinking that makes us hesitate to just get started, are a symptom of late stage capitalism so we have to extend ourselves some grace. 

We don't want to appreciate the work we're doing in the moment because we're so focused on the end result. 

I am reading a fiction book about a single mother with a hoarding problem, and she described how she has to try to try, to address the clutter.

Try to try, that's landed somewhere in me. 

If I'm honest, I don't put a sincere effort into a lot of things. Maybe that's my main problem, I struggle with feeling stuck but I won't even put a sincere effort into things; it's an internal conflict.

They way I would describe what it feels like to put a sincere effort into things is potentially failing to the point of completely falling off, putting in such a sincere effort that you can't even see a way back. That sounds like the way to seek brand new experiences and opportunities, right? I don't know I'm just talking. 

Maybe that completely falling off point, is what I meant when I was describing wanting to do things out of character, that I wouldn't normally do; I wouldn't be held back by any pre-empted consequences. 

I want to reference another Edward Art video called Cleanse Your Mind 

https://youtu.be/yYNBFshOlzk?si=YTJqxzNPc5ToYrjf

Here are my key takeaways, I would say the focus of the video is a kind of emotional autonomy, which I think makes a case for trying to try, makes it feel safe to do.. anyways:

He says "An artist paints without wondering what everyone else would think"

Be in tune with yourself, commune with yourself, practice self convincing, self persuasion. I think this self persuasion idea is why I write my blog.. I feel like I've persuaded myself of something by the end of the 7 days. 

He says "leave the world alone and seek security within yourself... leave the world as it is and if you want to change things, change yourself."

He says "give up outside worship and don't give it causation power." Being a Christian helps the religious analogies land.

"My I am-ness is the cause of my life and what I want to change."

"I-amness is a present thing, it is the cause of my life."

"When you change the conception of yourself, you will notice different things."

Edward describes how once you practice this, ideas you have in your life about things not happening or not moving will be gone (or at least change).

He talks about how that I-amness is what we're missing sight of most of the time. We keep jumping to the past or present.. there are no 2nd causes. 

This reminds of me of when I turned 23, and realised that my weight loss journey was not just going to jumpstart by itself. I had to get to work now, and here I am at 27 with my level 2 health and fitness diploma, making healthy eating choices and loving to exercise. So I was right in the sense that "it's okay because I'll get it right in the future.", but what I had to course correct is waiting until the future to start.

A lot of abstract ideas here... I'm sure some of it is useful. 

Day 5, 16/08/2024 - Self Sufficiency

I am writing this at the end of day 6 because, long covid etc...anyways.

I have in my notes app from that day:

Has this blog been about getting everything I need right here? Because what I'm really seeking out is a feeling within myself, not things. If I ever do seek tangible things, it's to induce a feeling. That's how things actually work right? Capitalism tells us the things are a prerequisite for the feelings, but I don't think that's true. 

I'm thinking back to what Edward art said about how, when you tell yourself "I am the causation of my life", you start noticing different things.. your problems change...

Is just the feeling really enough?

I wanted to apply the same thought flow to negative thinking... confronting whether or not my life circumstances could have been improved with thinking less negative and more positive is not necessarily something I wanna get into.. But I find with negative thoughts it's really easy to jump straight to the implications of our negative thinking being true.

We're much less likely to think "what if everything worked out for the best." It's an interesting contrast, When it's thinking positive, we line up excuses but for negative thoughts there's nothing. 

I will finish day 5 by saying, jumping straight to the implications of thinking positive, feeling like all the excuses for your dreams and desires have been removed, is not actually completely new for me. I went to school, and got a job as I had always dreamed of doing. 

I think what the challenge is now, is I'm trying to enrich my creative life and the journey is not as clear cut as "go to school, get a job. " Doesn't mean I'm not going to try though. That's part of why I'm writing this blog. 

Day 6, 17/08/2024 - "There's Nothing Between Me and Her."

I'm literally writing this with less than 2 hours of day 6 left. I will try and write a poem:

It will appear on a page,

It will form a faded memory

It will be remembered fondly

Held, definitely not gripped

Between fingers and thumbs, ever so gently

"Oh remember when! So much has changed"

But to be able to say that, so much needed to remain the same.

Canvases in her garden

Her soap operas animated in ink

Her 1 piece symphony orchestra

Manuscripts recited by the kitchen sink

I feel like I'm always saying, 

"As we are so we once were!" 

I commit to being in constant creation because I know now:

There's Nothing, Between Me and Her.

Day 7, 18/08/2024 - Conclusion

How to conclude whatever this blog post is... I want to say something like, give respect to everything you do; everything you invest your time into. 

I want to also say, jumping straight to the implications of anything is a powerful thought exercise and we should use it in a positive way instead of anticipating negative things that may never happen. It allows us to notice different things, pick up different kinds of "clues", and maybe these clues bring us closer to our hopes and desires. 

Am I a completely self sufficient, emotionally autonomous powerhouse who can create every feeling they've ever wanted to without anyone else's input? Idk, I will say something like, I'm too quick to dismiss the feelings or realisation of said feelings, that I can achieve on my own... just because it doesn't look like the end result I've imagined (which relies on a lot of input from other people). I say the work required is diving more deeply into what we can create alone... you do this for long enough and you become the object rather than the subject, the original rather than the reference. 

I think the work is building up ever increasing layers of sophistication, ever increasing layers of detail (in the context of being the object rather than the subject).

All very abstract all very up in the air.. but it's 22:36 on day7.. and time to close.

If anyone made it this far, thank you for reading !!!