CoffeeDrinker
Bluelighter
Yay for confidence! Now that it comes down to it, this is merely just another pick-up advice guide, how typical....
Yo, from where does your idea of "should"s and (as implied) "shouldn't"s come from?
You have indeed taken part to create the world around you, but you were learning from others, who learned from others, etc. And you did the learning inside of an institution of some kind, and a culture, and a society, which explains the other people being in places to influence what you do, and it explains that fact on many levels.
You are absolutely right though, in that your conscious thought, and therefore energy/effort, is in control of your unconscious in a fascinatingly symbiotic way. There's a chain of cause and effect in the relationship between your conscious and unconscious mind, sometimes one "side" seems to be more in control, but no matter how much ground your unconscious seems to have gained over your conscious efforts, you can exert any amount of will necessary to overcome the inertia of succumbing to one way of thinking or being by your conscious effort. Though, I'm speaking in extreme vagaries here, because it's all "you" all the time.
Let's take the example of a person who is addicted to heroin to explain what I mean: By the commercial/pharmaceutical view of addiction, it is a disease, and therefore the addict has no control over his actions (and now, to quote from Dr. Drew) when an addict is "in his disease" he is not thinking clearly, and he is "just doing things to feed his disease."
To relate back to our discussion, this is, essentially, attributing the addict's behavior to the unconscious mind's whims, and all the guilty pleasures that it shamelessly harbors. Apparently some vague combination of genetics and upbringing that we had little to do with, and there exists some nebulous combinations of the two forces that constitutes a disease, and various combinations that don't. In this view, the addict is little more than a dopamine-craving zombie, or a person continually sleepwalking through life. To me, it just looks like another one of the many ways people like to think less of others. Everybody's "asleep" unless they behave the way "I" deem them to be appropriate. And so on.
Tangent, sorry, anyway, if you actually examine the behavior of an addict, it is rational decisions every step of the way, except, of course, when they're "fucked up," but it took many logical actions and thoughts and efforts to get fucked up. And "wanting" to quit, really, is just a question of how much are you going to put up with to feed a habit, and what you're going to do about it. And it takes a LOT of effort particularly because you are trying to overcome the sensation of feeling good all the time by learning how to live sober, and it just sucks to the conscious mind that's used to being in a doped up daze.
I suppose it feels most comforting to feel that I am creating everything I experiences. If this has no limits, then we truly can live any life we want simply by shifting our beliefs.
BUT...I wonder sometimes where this idea would come from. It seems many books and "teachers" put forth this idea. And perhaps it does bring more peace to feel this way. But I can't help but be skeptical and think that this would be a great state of mind to actually disempower an individual by create a false sense of control. If in fact it were NOT true, then this would be a wonderful idea to spread to those who prefer that individuals remain passive rather than actively engage in attempts to create change.
I tend to see things in black and white, which isn't necessary helpful. If my life unfolds according to my own mind, then I should be in control of it. There should not be others that are also in control of pushing me in this direction or that. I either am, or I'm not. Having experienced creating certain beliefs in my mind and having them apparently begin to take shape in my life; it seems that this is a possibility. What seems more confusing is whether or not this is a "reality" being created or simply an experience that I am living but which has no real effect on anything else around me.
The "paranoid" side of me tells myself that if there is in fact only an objective reality, then what better way to distract people from it than by convincing them that their own mind can create the world they want simply by believing it to be so. Or the concept that fear is only real if we believe in it; "darkness has no power when there is light", etc. etc. This could be the way things work, but it could also be a huge distraction from people seeing certain things the way they really are.
I just don't know much at this point and so I try to just not concern myself TOO muchBut I find it fascinating indeed.
Yo, from where does your idea of "should"s and (as implied) "shouldn't"s come from?
You have indeed taken part to create the world around you, but you were learning from others, who learned from others, etc. And you did the learning inside of an institution of some kind, and a culture, and a society, which explains the other people being in places to influence what you do, and it explains that fact on many levels.
You are absolutely right though, in that your conscious thought, and therefore energy/effort, is in control of your unconscious in a fascinatingly symbiotic way. There's a chain of cause and effect in the relationship between your conscious and unconscious mind, sometimes one "side" seems to be more in control, but no matter how much ground your unconscious seems to have gained over your conscious efforts, you can exert any amount of will necessary to overcome the inertia of succumbing to one way of thinking or being by your conscious effort. Though, I'm speaking in extreme vagaries here, because it's all "you" all the time.
Let's take the example of a person who is addicted to heroin to explain what I mean: By the commercial/pharmaceutical view of addiction, it is a disease, and therefore the addict has no control over his actions (and now, to quote from Dr. Drew) when an addict is "in his disease" he is not thinking clearly, and he is "just doing things to feed his disease."
To relate back to our discussion, this is, essentially, attributing the addict's behavior to the unconscious mind's whims, and all the guilty pleasures that it shamelessly harbors. Apparently some vague combination of genetics and upbringing that we had little to do with, and there exists some nebulous combinations of the two forces that constitutes a disease, and various combinations that don't. In this view, the addict is little more than a dopamine-craving zombie, or a person continually sleepwalking through life. To me, it just looks like another one of the many ways people like to think less of others. Everybody's "asleep" unless they behave the way "I" deem them to be appropriate. And so on.
Tangent, sorry, anyway, if you actually examine the behavior of an addict, it is rational decisions every step of the way, except, of course, when they're "fucked up," but it took many logical actions and thoughts and efforts to get fucked up. And "wanting" to quit, really, is just a question of how much are you going to put up with to feed a habit, and what you're going to do about it. And it takes a LOT of effort particularly because you are trying to overcome the sensation of feeling good all the time by learning how to live sober, and it just sucks to the conscious mind that's used to being in a doped up daze.
