@Teej wrote:
It's from your personal perspective that I want to hear @Silenus. I very much am someone who loves to hear/see lots of ideas and then try to find the ones that 'suit' me.
Just to start - do you believe that you need to feel something to be able to do it. I have very much in the past had to 'feel' things before I could do them? I am questioning this lately.
Hahaha @Former-Member... don't go putting your own writing down. It made perfect sense to me... 🙂
Do I believe that I need to 'feel' something to be able to do it?
What a thought-provoking question... let's see how far down the rabbit hole this goes... hahaha...
I could start down the Krishnamurti path, and pull the whole question apart, exploring who the "I" is that needs to feel something to be able to do it... which conception of self is it that is looking within for a particular feeling, and then making a value judgement in order to engage in a response or action?
I would then observe myself, turn the eyes inward, observe the pathless land of the truth, and perhaps gain some insight into where the very concept of action, of doing something, springs from...
That could then perhaps lead to a speculation about whether or not there is free will. Are we just meat robots, programmed by our past experiences and memories, responding to punishments and rewards, bouncing off each other, shuffling through this life, defined by our past hurts and/or future fears?
It's free will versus determinism, Nature versus nurture, folks, and the octagon is looking hot tonight... hahaha...
Hmmmm... but that's maybe a little too heavy for now... I don't know if that is the right approach...
But I would like to explore what it means to do a thing. What string of events cause us to do a thing? Why do I do one thing, and not the other? Why do I respond to something with certain emotions. and how does that affect my life choices and my actions? These questions are all popping in from that first question of yours @Former-Member... hahaha...
So, where to start?
With my own self. That is all I can base anything on, really...
I urge anyone who is reading this twaddle I am writing...
[Sqwuaaarrrrrk!!]
Yes, yes, Cyril, not now...
Ignore the poop, folks. Cyril is sometimes a little incontinent when he squawks...
It's hard to find a good parrot, folks...
Anyway, back to the twaddle...
I urge anyone who is reading this, to not just take my word for it, but to turn their own eyes inward and explore the truth of it for themselves, to observe what is actually going on inside your self - your thoughts, your emotions, and all that sort of thing. Take it off autopilot for a while, and fly... hahaha...
THAT is a very Krishnamurti thing to do... I know I keep banging on about him, but he was a unique and very deep thinker that arrived at some remarkable insights through his many years of life...
Now, let's have a look at depression... and more specifically at a wonderful word... Anhedonia...
Anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities... it's that 'dead inside' feeling where nothing is enjoyable. You are numb, but still hurting... a terrible paradox...
There is nothing that saps your energy more. It robs you of all your vitality, and you are left totally without desire, without motivation...
There is another thing too - a dissociative state. This is when you are retreating from reality or self. Everything lacks substance. Nothing seems real. All of your emotions just go totally flat. There's basically nothing except a great big emptiness, and you don't even care about that...
When I am depressed, I find it very very difficult to actually do anything. I have spent months in a darkened bedroom; too uncaring to answer phone or door; resting fitfully in my bed; showering maybe once a week; eating tomato sauce sandwiches, then just tomato sauce, because the pantry is empty and I simply cannot make myself do this simple thing - walk the 400 metres to the shops and buy some food...
So, from that perspective, I would say that it is important to feel something in order to be able to do it. Without feeling, where is the motivation?
But it is not essential to feel something in order to do something. You can force yourself to do it. I have been treating my bipolar depressions and my bipolar hypomanias in a similar way - with a balance of challenging and accepting...
Sometimes, you need to just lie there and recuperate, or bounce off the furniture, or scream into your pillow, or whatever, so you just accept it and go with it instead of wasting valuable life energy fighting yourself. Other times, it is doing unacceptable damage to yourself or those around you, and you need to challenge it...
What are you good at? If you ask yourself this question and start exploring within yourself, in the vast majority of cases, the answer to that question is that you are good at the things you enjoy. You feel fired by them, you feel challenged by them in a good way, you get a rush when you are engaging in this thing that you are good at...
Chicken and egg time - which came first - being good at it, or enjoying it? Hahaha...
If you enjoy something, if you "feel" a firing of your reward centres in your brain, if you feel like you've "done a good thing, done a good thing", then you will more than likely try to do that something again, whatever it is...
You will be motivated by it, energised by it, and it will feel good, even if there is some pain (for example with physical exercise). You will do these things because they make you feel good in various ways...
So from that perspective, it definitely helps to feel something to be able to do it...
Me? I'm good at writing. it is never work for me. It is a joy. It is pleasurable. I get a real buzz from writing something I am happy with...
But this then starts me thinking... am I just being a meat robot, chasing after my rewards, following my programming? Hahaha...
As a child, I had a heck of a temper. From a very early age, I used to sleep walk at night (like when I was 3 or 4 years old). I would also get night terrors - terrible nightmares that I would awaken screaming from...
I was a whole lot of crazy, sometimes. When I lost my temper, I would see red... too much Viking in me, probably... hahaha...
My emotions were ruling me. I was very much more a meat robot back in those days. But this is probably normal, as children's brains slowly develop and grow. Sometimes, the wiring gets a little bit mixed up...
I have come to a place now, in my personal journey of self evolution. It's taken me 44 years of life to get to right here, right now...
I used to be ruled by knee-jerk reactions (often over-reactions, fueled by my bipolar). The feelings would be so strong and so sudden that I often acted impulsively. Don't get me wrong, impulsive behaviour can be great. After all, it's about living in the Now, right? Hahaha...
But too much impulsive behaviour can get you in trouble. it can cause hurt to yourself or to those around you. At some point, you have to take responsibility for your actions, to own the consequences, because ultimately I do not believe that we are meat robots, that we are slaves destined to respond to life situations merely based on how our previous life's experiences have programmed us to respond...
I observe myself. Once more, there is this whole paradox of the various fragments or parts of your self that this concept suggests...
I observe myself. But who is the "I" that observes?
I don't get too far into it, to tell the truth. I just observe. I don't get too hung up on semantics or deep philosophy about various parts of our selves, yielding to each other, fighting each other, or agreeing with each other and supporting each other...
But it is a valuable exercise to do this, to observe it happening...
I feel something. Is it a need? If so, I seek to act in a way that fulfills that need, without it impacting badly on myself or others...
I follow the same basic procedure if I feel something, and that something is a want, or an urge, rather than a need, although there may be more internal questioning as to whether I seek to act to fulfill the want or urge...
It's about being Mindful, partly. It's about being aware, being present. I used to do so many things on auto-pilot, and would get through a whole day and stop, then wonder what the heck I had been doing all day...
I was living a second-hand life, a life that lacked authenticity. I wasn't being fair to myself or true to myself. I like my current level of awareness much more than what I had before. Life is so much richer...
Not just the external world of things, but the internal world of thoughts and emotions is so much richer, now that I pay attention...
And I believe that it has made me a better person...
Here's a small example...
Currently, my lovely partner and I are staying with my lovely partner's sister and her husband. We all get on famously. My lovely partner and I have just completed a 2 year motorhome roadtrip around Oz...
Anyhoo, we have dinner every night. Proper sit-down thing. It's great...
My lovely partner's oldest son is getting married this coming weekend. The other son had called me earlier in the day, and had asked me when we were getting to the wedding venue (it's in a winery region - yay!) and I had forgotten to mention that I organised a tasting for the wedding party (20-30 people) at a winery I'm a member of. They're doing a pig on a spit and lots of yummy food too... wooot...
For some reason, my forgetting to mention this to son number 2 was a thing that the girls jumped on, and they asked me why I didn't mention it. I said that surely it didn't matter, because it could easily be fixed by calling him or texting him, so no problems whatsoever...
They continued to express concern, and I stated that I failed to see a problem and why was everyone making so much fuss about it, and then I was informed that I was the one who was making a fuss about it...
The old me would have gone into a big thing and gotten upset about it all...
The new me, the currently me me, saw the start of the argumentative urge, observed the self defensiveness that was ready to come into play, felt the emotions...
...and then took a different course of action. I felt something, but I did not do the something that the feelings were wired to make me do...
I stepped away from my life experience programming, and just stopped it all in its tracks, smiled, defused the situation, and continued eating. Everyone had a great night. No one was adversely affected...
The power of observation and action.
So, as a really long-winded answer to your question, @Former-Member - a lot of the time, it helps to feel something before you do it. It's motivating. It "feels" right. But some of the time, in order to break long-held beliefs and established behaviour patterns, in order to evolve your self and grow, you need to feel something, and then have the wisdom to know whether to do a thing or not...
Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you all. This has been another Si ramble... 🙂
