todo

I met an ex of mine yesterday. In a way, it was nice and we had a fun time. She's changed. Grown even. I had the feeling I was doing the same, but as the evening progressed, I felt that she was keeping a distance.

Logical, considering she just had a new partner and since there was a chance we'd end up sleeping together if he wasn't in the picture. In a way, that's a compliment, somehow I'm 'dangerous' or at least attractive at some point.

But there's something wrong in the way I'm dealing with emotional stuff. As the evening progressed, I felt rejected. Something that made me go back into my needy mindset, meaning I couldn't enjoy myself anymore and got sad.

It's not that I'm desperately in love with her anymore, it's been over a year. There's something else wrong that I still have to fix. I guess I'm afraid of rejection, like every other guy, but somehow it makes me act irrational and emotional. I need to get rid of this if I'm ever to get into a healthy relationship.

*click*

Stuff is starting to click. Life is on track and I'm adding things because I want them. It's funny how actively starting with a new way of living gives you a chance to completely rebuild the way you live and by extension, the person you are.

I like this. A new year of affluence and growth, coming up

Boundaries & reflection.

After some asian enlightenment stuff i've been talking with a good friend about why some people seem to get somewhere in life, where others seem to lack the faculties to get there.

I get the feeling that the ability to get ahead in life partially relies on the ability to reflect upon whath appens to you.

And I remembered something about boundaries. We put a boundary between ourself and the rest of the world, isolating ourselves from the world outside and vice versa, isolating the world from ourselves inside. Alan Watts has some nice points about this.


Though classifying people is a bad, bad thing to do, as it is mirrored in the way you look at yourself, I do wonder if looking at this boundary between yourself and the world leads to different types of people.

It should be easy to divide people into four categories:

Non-reflexives, or those that do not look at themselves or the world.
World-reflexives, or those that reflect upon the world but not themselves.
Self-reflexives, that reflect upon themselves but not on the world around them.
Full-reflexives, (Bi-reflexives just sounded..bad) that reflect on themselves ánd the world around them, applying the reflections from the world on themselves and vice versa.

I'm going to look at this for a while, and update later.

cynism

In every cynic, there's an optimist who is afraid that they might be wrong.

Elements of personality

There seems to be a transition in my thinking. More and more, it's simply doing what I want and less trying to appear like something I feel I should be.

In my theatre classes, we used something called the theory of elements to determine our playstyle. Fire, water, earth, wind. All of these were explained in terms of a cowboy walking into a saloon.

Fire walks in with zest and flamboyance. He's not afraid of anything because he's faster on the trigger than anyone. Anyone shoot at him, he'll just shoot them first. Balls first, loud, full and sure of himself.

Water walks in like a cyclone that embraces the entire saloon. If he gets shot, he shows and shares the pain with those around him, so they can see that shooting him is a bad thing. He's like a little vortex drawing out the emotion in people.

Earth, ah. The stoic. Earth would simply stand quietly. Walk inside without saying anything. Earth would get shot and look at the gunshots and think "Hm. I appear to have been shot" without changing his demeanor. He's unshakeable but within the confines of himself, where fire is so outside himself.

Wind is the neurotic. His eyes dart from point to point, always looking for dangers, threats, planning, adapting. If someone goes for their gun, he'd outsmart them by always being prepared. Hands fidget, thoughts jump from point to point. Always prepared and always reacting to everything.


These are characters you use on stage, but they have their merit in knowing yourself. I used to be water with a lot of earth and air mixed in. Now I'm starting to become more earth. More grounded in my own choices and less reliant on the outside world to determine my behaviour.

I've got a girl whom allows me to simply be, instead of proving myself all the time. I'm choosing my own path and starting to plan the rest of my career or at least my life path. It's not a sudden epihany, but a slow change creeping in your every day behaviour. I'm not sure if it was actions or thoughts that made me change first. But they're both aligned more now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a superman, but something is changing. I like this.

Love

And for the first time, it feels completely relaxed and natural. She gives me that feeling in my stomach when she does something nice and I notice I want to make her happy. But it's not as frantic as I'm used to. It's great to talk but the rest of the world is still there, instead of head-over-heels insanity.

Am I finally growing up? I sure hope so. I think she's healthy for me. I'm showing more of myself, consciously trying to drop barriers. It's scary at first, but so great afterwards. It makes me feel a strange calm. Everything will be allright.

I hope I can give her what she needs too.

The moment you start telling the world how it really works and should be is the moment you are so disconnected you need to get out of your mind and just experience again. It's so easy to just sit back and just think, instead of taking part.

With inmalafide quitting, I've been reading up on his blog. Then I found this little bit of poetry by Rudyard Kipling:

“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!”

Growth

With the premiére of the musical I play in I've noticed something new. I feel some stage fright and tension building up to the big show. Normally, I'd get stressed or try to focus, but now, for the first time in ages, I've been enjoying the excitement. Instead of feeling a negative emotion, actively try to value and enjoy the sense of adrenalin running through your body, your mind racing to make sure you did everything. It's much nicer to sit back and enjoy the fear and anxiety, instead of being a victim of it. It feels like growing.

realpolitik

"When ideology collides with reality, reality is rarely the damaged party." I don't remember which philosopher said this, but there is mention of a sorts of natural law, that is, simply what is in the world. Any human-made law must abide by natural law, lest it lead to conflict and ultimately, useless demise in a conflict that cannot be resolved. In short, any thought, law or impulse that is laid upon the world must fit that world, else the law is stupid. A great example of this is realpolitik, which is a form of politics where nor idealism or ideology are used to decide what kind of policy is to be implemented, but a simple goal is stated (which could be the result of ideology or idealism), after which a realistic path to that goal is charted. It's the political variant of red pill knowledge, where one has to accept that practicality leads. A good politician will have to be able to let go of his or her morality and do that which is practical, even if it isn't moral.

Asian enlightenment stuff

Funny. There's little changes everywhere but it does not feel as if I myself really changed. It's the same with sports, I've changed in what I believe I can do, but the self-image must transform with the changes to allow you to accept them. All this time I've been longing for a ritual, some way to formalize a transformation. I'm feeling more and more that there is a lack of ritual in modern society, mostly felt in the transition from boy to man.

Many thanks to Krauser for this. Though his blog is mostly about pickup and his dark arts have been utilized to their full extent in procuring me an icecream from a nice girl, these little tidbits of insight float around those who try to improve themselves, be it in pickup, meditation or simply trying to become the best they can be. But it seems to be a journey that goes hand in hand with men trying to find their place in relation to women and eventually, the world.

progress post

Well, a lot of things have happened.

Training has been going well. I'm exercising with an english friend of mine, Chris, whom seems eager to train with me. It's fun. We talk inbetween sets, crack jokes and tease the other when we fail. But it did get me in a rythym. Tuesday is now training day, with 2 hours on that day reserved for exercise.

Results? I could post numbers, but I've seen my strength on certain tasks improve. My muscles are becoming visibly bigger, while my weight is staying the same. I'm losing fat and gaining muscle. People note that I'm walking more upstraight and that I seem more fit.

And in the end, it is always a mental barrier, not a physical one. Train your body well and enough and it will show results. But the mindset needs to change. I still am afraid to see myself becoming a really fit person with a great body. Afraid to accept the challenge, because I feel I might fail and that I could never attain that.

But on the other hand, this issue isn't a problem. Progress is being made. And I can see the glimmer of the self-image that is forming around this fitter, stronger shell. I think I like where this is going.


And what happened beyond sports? A fling with a girl whom still had a boyfriend. Something I feel I should feel guilty over, but I simply could not. We bonded while I tried to give advice to help her failing relationship.

I always considered relationships to be sacred. A promise is a promise. But there is more than simply a word that is given here. A relationship is a living, breathing thing between two people and no matter how often you invoke a word, beating a dead horse will never get it going again.

Not that it worked, she chose her boyfriend over me, in the end. In a way, I'm glad about it. I doubt we would have workd in that way, but the attraction was there. For a few weeks, I was her casanova and she was my secret lover. As dubious as it sounds, I hope she and her boyfriend can get things going again. I hope I taught her more about the world.

She taught me more about women. About the primal part that rests in all of us, about how when both of you open up, being earnest of what you want, sparks start flying. By being a very feminine woman, she allowed me to become more masculine than I previously was. It was strangely liberating and nice to feel how the masculine and the feminine fit together.
Though if this sounds vague to you, maybe it should be. It's about making the other feel safe in a relationship by taking control. It's about proving that you can handle her, so she can give herself fully.

And lastly, old passions returning. I've spent more time reading, I've lost myself in dance again, with women claiming me as a partner as soon I was free. I'm starting to believe there might be a dancer in me, somewhere. 30 sounds like a nice age to discover new talents and growing them.

Good night world.

“Your goal is not to find love, but to remove all barriers which are preventing you from receiving it.”
- Rumi

So true. It's easy to spend all my energy in finding someone to get the love I feel I need from. But it's never about the love they give, but the lack of it that I have for myself.

I'll quit trying for now and just be. There's other avenues that require my presence and energy more.

vulnerability

I've recently stumbled upon the site postmasculine.com which has been awesome in giving a well-needed and broader view in self-development. Starting from the field of pickup, Mark (The writer) indicates that pickup is a way to deal with the symptoms of deeper, usually emotional issues. He also states that game is all fine and dandy, but that men who pursue the notion of "Getting every woman they want" are deeply flawed themselves.

And in a way, he is right. Game is mainly a method of faking that you are awesome to attract women, while it does not change your core being (much). Mark advocates a route that is more like inner game : Improving yourself and your self-image to such an extent that you become attractive instead of faking it.

He gives simple advice for men who want to become more attractive.
- Go to a gym. Get in shape. Enjoy your body and the energy you give it.
- Dress well, show that you care for yourself and present yourself well.
- Practice dealing with women, build attraction, seduce and tease.
- Be vulnerable.

The last one, being vulnerable is very interesting. It doesn't mean telling your date that you have mommy issues and piling all your troubles on them. It does mean that you simply show your true face.

This is a problem with many insecure people, posers and nice guys who would rather keep up a front than showing who they really are.

I've been doing the same. Not only have I created an emotional mask to wear when insecure, tired or just scared to be vulnerable. And I've learned to obfuscate really well, to place a layer of words and reasoning between what I really feel and what I show the world.

A layer that my ex hated, but that only became really visible when a friend showed me where it was and showed displeasure at me keeping that layer there. He asked me to keep the mask off and told me when I was putting it back on.

At the start, it was really awkward, with me slipping into the mask several times. But as time went on, I started to accept that I actually was good enough to just be myself and that I didn't have to add useless conversation just to "earn" my place in it.

The mask isn't gone. You don't lose something like that overnight. But for now I'm trying to be more vulnerable, to open up and to let things hit me, instead of quickly pushing them away and keeping it all neutral. It's scaring me shitless.

Anger

In general, I'm a "nice" guy. It's hard for me to get angry, agressive or even intimidating. I just fall back to a "nice" level of intensity and stick around there.

This is a thing holding me back. I've somehow been brought up to believe that negative emotions are negative, but they're not. They're just emotions that boil up due to something happening. You might as well say that love is great, but lust is wrong. They are all just mental states I experience and I feel. To ignore or deny that is something that is probably a recipe for years of therapy.

And I've noticed that I can get angry. At stupidity. At things that I find unfair. That anger gives tremendous energy to deal with said unfairness, though it's hard to channel it into a constructive avenue.

Still, looking back, the strongest impact I've had on people was when I got angry because of a view or thought they held which was unfair in my opinion. By showing I was angry and using that anger to adress the unfair situation, I somehow changed the world for the better. So cheers to you anger, for we will probably meet again, and this time as friends.


* For those interested, the most lucid moment was when an asian girl kept saying that mothers love their children more than men and that men could not take care of children as their mother could because of this.
I never heard such idiocy in my life. Angrily, I stated that men have feelings too and actually love their children.
I don't think I convinced the asian girl, but a girl sitting close by confessed that she had never thought of it that way. That girl finally got over her hatred of men that night and would eventually become my partner. Thank you anger, for not letting me sit idly.

The trick in understanding people

A lot of men seem to state that they will never understand women. Women claim the same. Both parties sigh deeply and wonder if they'll ever be able to understand the other party.

Though we differ, we're not that different. The problem is that to properly understand someone else, you must first understand how the differences in your own perception prevent you from grasping their worldview.

Too abstract? Men can't handle distractions while we focus on doing something like driving. Women can. She will talk to him whilst driving. He will ask her to please shut up because he has to drive.
There is no deep mystery here, just a different way of functioning, which leads to conflicts.

Next time you think you don't understand a woman, quit thinking like a man. you'll be surprised how much more easy understanding her becomes.

Observation

Sometimes observation is not just a way to sure that what you see is true, but a way to prevent yourself from being part of what you look at.

Observing people and their behaviour is a poor substitute for being part of their lives.

More like guidelines

Originally this comes from the law of attraction. Personally, I think they're more like guidelines anyhow.

But you get what you give. I keep wondering about the negative view some PUA's have about women. Sure, if that's how you want to see the world, that is how your world will be.