Something to make you feel this world is real or not real
- Thread starter tarantulanebula
- Start date
S
Seems like you need a site this:
https://www.7cups.com/
It's an online therapy site in case you don't have access to a therapist.
https://www.7cups.com/
It's an online therapy site in case you don't have access to a therapist.
Tarantulanebula,
Warning - I am very definitely not a psychiatrist or counsellor!
My experience is that sometimes you plan an idea and speak to someone about it, and get a totally unexpected response -sometimes positive, and sometimes negative.
The problem is, I think, that it is easy to become so focused on whatever the idea is, that you don't really observe the reactions of others until it is way too late. I think you should think of this as part of normal life.
As regards meeting girls and becoming mentally involved before you realise they already have a boyfriend, or are married - well this is also a common problem. Probably the best solution would be to try meeting girls using internet dating - then you both know roughly where you stand from the start.
You certainly seem rather too sensitive to the things that life chucks at us. But the mistake is to start to think that you are somehow fated to be unhappy for ever.
You are welcome to discuss your problems here, but I am not sure you will get the help you need.
I feel sure there are free depression forums to be found on the internet - probably many of them.
Regarding your original question as to whether the world is real or not, it seems to me that this may be one of those questions that ultimately has no meaning. I mean, conventional science will tell you what you are made of, and if you think of a person as a mass of charged particles, they may see less real to you - but what does that really mean.
I don't think artificial intelligence is the same as real intelligence, but obviously real people have varying degrees of real intelligence.
Feel free to PM me, but take note of my first sentence!
David
Warning - I am very definitely not a psychiatrist or counsellor!
My experience is that sometimes you plan an idea and speak to someone about it, and get a totally unexpected response -sometimes positive, and sometimes negative.
The problem is, I think, that it is easy to become so focused on whatever the idea is, that you don't really observe the reactions of others until it is way too late. I think you should think of this as part of normal life.
As regards meeting girls and becoming mentally involved before you realise they already have a boyfriend, or are married - well this is also a common problem. Probably the best solution would be to try meeting girls using internet dating - then you both know roughly where you stand from the start.
You certainly seem rather too sensitive to the things that life chucks at us. But the mistake is to start to think that you are somehow fated to be unhappy for ever.
You are welcome to discuss your problems here, but I am not sure you will get the help you need.
I feel sure there are free depression forums to be found on the internet - probably many of them.
Regarding your original question as to whether the world is real or not, it seems to me that this may be one of those questions that ultimately has no meaning. I mean, conventional science will tell you what you are made of, and if you think of a person as a mass of charged particles, they may see less real to you - but what does that really mean.
I don't think artificial intelligence is the same as real intelligence, but obviously real people have varying degrees of real intelligence.
Feel free to PM me, but take note of my first sentence!
David
China has a big female shortage problem, due in most part to Confucian social values, so I am not surprised you are having trouble finding a mate. Aside from therapy, you could interest yourself in what the pre-communist Chinese culture has to offer. You are living in a country that created Taoism, synthesized and enriched Buddhism and spawned a host of martial art techniques. Start meditating or even go to study under a Buddhist master if you can, do some Tai Chi and Qi Gong, walk in nature. Some of us don't have much luck with the female gender, but that shouldn't be a source of despair.
S
I don't think any of these things are happening. There's no evidence of a deity manipulating you, no evidence I can see that her husband is a bad man planning on discarding her?
Yet let's say there was a spirit manipulating you - that would seem to be further reason to just leave this woman's private life alone unless there is some strong evidence indicating you should intervene?
Yet let's say there was a spirit manipulating you - that would seem to be further reason to just leave this woman's private life alone unless there is some strong evidence indicating you should intervene?
This is becoming a rather strange testimonial thread. I'm not a therapist, but I suspect you have obsessive personality disorder coupled with an inferiority complex. The woman is married and pregnant, so from a romantic standpoint she is unavailable. I had a friend who tangled with a married woman and his experiences were quite unpleasant, so I wouldn't advise trying it.
In regards to Buddhism, Taoism etc. what I was specifically recommending was meditation, that is sitting cross-legged on a cushion and trying to empty your mind by focusing on the breath. Spiritual benefits aside, it reduces stress and helps you gain a little more control over your overactive mind. Qi Gong and Tai Chi can also be used as meditation aids. There are several scientific studies done on these that have produced impressive results such as increased immune function, bone density and cardio-pulmonary benefits among others. Links are below if you are interested.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085832/
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welco...ww.google.ro/&referrer=https://www.google.ro/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ly-changes-your-brain/?utm_term=.6a7d68ddf4c0
In regards to Buddhism, Taoism etc. what I was specifically recommending was meditation, that is sitting cross-legged on a cushion and trying to empty your mind by focusing on the breath. Spiritual benefits aside, it reduces stress and helps you gain a little more control over your overactive mind. Qi Gong and Tai Chi can also be used as meditation aids. There are several scientific studies done on these that have produced impressive results such as increased immune function, bone density and cardio-pulmonary benefits among others. Links are below if you are interested.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3085832/
https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welco...ww.google.ro/&referrer=https://www.google.ro/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ly-changes-your-brain/?utm_term=.6a7d68ddf4c0
This thread reminds me of a movie, "The King and I". In one of the exchanges between the main characters, the king says, "I make better questions than you make answers, hmm?". Of course there is a lot of humour in that film. But here in this thread you ask questions to which perhaps there aren't any answers.
Except that eventually, perhaps many years from now you will tell yourself the answers.
Except that eventually, perhaps many years from now you will tell yourself the answers.
My suggestion would be to give yourself the benefit of time. These sorts of extreme, emotional events are taxing for all of us. They can take a primary place in your conscious thought; pushing everything else to the side. In the vast majority of cases, perspective on what you are feeling and the questions you are asking come with time and only time.
I would also suggest seeking the company of any close friends or family with whom you have a trusted relationship. Often talking situations through with those who love you unconditionally can help speed the path to perspective.
I would also suggest seeking the company of any close friends or family with whom you have a trusted relationship. Often talking situations through with those who love you unconditionally can help speed the path to perspective.
Tarant, it sounds like your mind is controlling you rather than you controlling your mind. It sounds like the demon you're referring to in one of your posts is your mind which is stuck in a story and in ideas you're making about yourself and your life and that you are not seeing that it's your interpretations and thoughts that are making you suffer, not your situation. (IMO.)
I've got obsessional tendencies myself and I've been getting into some Eckhart Tolle and it's been helping. If you want to try this door, maybe one of these videos may help:
Maybe this one might speak a bit more directly to some of the torturing longings you've expressed (and seem to be completely identified with):
I've got obsessional tendencies myself and I've been getting into some Eckhart Tolle and it's been helping. If you want to try this door, maybe one of these videos may help:
Maybe this one might speak a bit more directly to some of the torturing longings you've expressed (and seem to be completely identified with):
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S
Sure you can control it - but you have to abandon the idea that you really know this person and what they would be like as a romantic partner.
I've said the same things to myself when I was younger and obsessed with a girl who many tried to warn me wasn't right for me. I even would tell myself I loved her, that while there were people I was more attracted to something bound us --- basically all sorts of dramatic emotions because the fix I thought I would get if we could be happy together seemed like something almost religious, like the very feeling of God's grace in a person....
But looking back I can see it was all projection, and more than that the girl was just a human with the usual good & bad qualities but also ones that made us completely incompatible. I just didn't want to admit it because this feeling I'd built up seemed like it would be so incredible - but that expectation was also mere fantasy.
I've said the same things to myself when I was younger and obsessed with a girl who many tried to warn me wasn't right for me. I even would tell myself I loved her, that while there were people I was more attracted to something bound us --- basically all sorts of dramatic emotions because the fix I thought I would get if we could be happy together seemed like something almost religious, like the very feeling of God's grace in a person....
But looking back I can see it was all projection, and more than that the girl was just a human with the usual good & bad qualities but also ones that made us completely incompatible. I just didn't want to admit it because this feeling I'd built up seemed like it would be so incredible - but that expectation was also mere fantasy.
The feeling may not be generated by your conscious mind (like a decision), but it is nevertheless your mind. In relation to obsessional love, from the age of 5 to 20 or so I was almost constantly "in love" with one girl after another. (Like the Woody Allen character in Annie Hall, I never had a "latency period"). 
I would sometimes spend a year or two years, daily and sometimes hourly, consumed by desire and romantic yearnings for that person. Every time I was convinced that THIS person was perfection, an angelic incarnation, the face of Beauty itself.
I don't pretend to know how or why this comes about for some people and not others. I'm thinking I probably had some predisposing sensibilities for that sort of intense attachment. But I know think there was also probably unconscious pain and yearnings below that, knowing more about my troubled developmental history. (If I can allow myself some 2 cents-worth armchair psychodynamic speculation, you do express a lot of negative feelings/thoughts about yourself, "stupid" and so on, and the idealized other person might be a curative fantasy, i.e. "if this Perfect Being loves this ugly me, then I will be lovable and perfect (and no longer depressed)". All this would be unconscious of course.)
Tolle (and other Zen- and "mindfulness"-oriented teachers) would probably suggest some form of gentle meditation where you just focus on your breathing or inner body sensations and create stillness. When the ideas about this person come, you try to just focus on the emotion without getting into the thoughts of that person (Tolle would call this some manifestion of the "pain body"), and just stay with the "pain" until it eventually dissolves (while, though the meditative "techniques", not identifying your sense of self with your thoughts, emotions and sensations - you create a spaciousness around the pain.) You start seeing this bundle of emotions-sensations-thoughts as an "entity" that is trying to possess you. I don't pretend to think that this is a quick, one-time process.
Funnily enough, Tolle does mention (in this first video just beneath) that your "pain body" might include genetic information. (Maybe there's also energy fields from past lives, who knows.)
I would sometimes spend a year or two years, daily and sometimes hourly, consumed by desire and romantic yearnings for that person. Every time I was convinced that THIS person was perfection, an angelic incarnation, the face of Beauty itself.
I don't pretend to know how or why this comes about for some people and not others. I'm thinking I probably had some predisposing sensibilities for that sort of intense attachment. But I know think there was also probably unconscious pain and yearnings below that, knowing more about my troubled developmental history. (If I can allow myself some 2 cents-worth armchair psychodynamic speculation, you do express a lot of negative feelings/thoughts about yourself, "stupid" and so on, and the idealized other person might be a curative fantasy, i.e. "if this Perfect Being loves this ugly me, then I will be lovable and perfect (and no longer depressed)". All this would be unconscious of course.)
Tolle (and other Zen- and "mindfulness"-oriented teachers) would probably suggest some form of gentle meditation where you just focus on your breathing or inner body sensations and create stillness. When the ideas about this person come, you try to just focus on the emotion without getting into the thoughts of that person (Tolle would call this some manifestion of the "pain body"), and just stay with the "pain" until it eventually dissolves (while, though the meditative "techniques", not identifying your sense of self with your thoughts, emotions and sensations - you create a spaciousness around the pain.) You start seeing this bundle of emotions-sensations-thoughts as an "entity" that is trying to possess you. I don't pretend to think that this is a quick, one-time process.
Funnily enough, Tolle does mention (in this first video just beneath) that your "pain body" might include genetic information. (Maybe there's also energy fields from past lives, who knows.)
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I agree with the other wise old* men here who have survived the hellish single-lonely-obsessive phase of life.
I don't know how else to help you other than to try and convince you that what you think you want so badly is not really what you would want if you knew everything about the situation and how it would play out if you actually did get what you want.
Like others, I wasted so much mental and emotional energy in my younger years thinking about this crush or that crush. My (now) wife was the first girl I ever dated, but before that it was one stupid crush after another. I understand your mental anguish and in years past was guilty of sappy Facebook posts bemoaning my lonely state... posts which screamed emotional weakness and probably turned off any female reading and would make me want to vomit if I went back and re-read it now (thank god I don't have Facebook anymore...actually thanks to my wife )
I have sometimes wondered: if I have a son, how do I keep him from going through what I went through? My Dad apparently went through the same thing in his single years and tried to warn me, but of course I didn't or couldn't listen.
I really think you need to hypnotize or de-hypnotize yourself to get rid of this false mental picture you have of what life will be like with this or that girl and train your mind to see that what this or that girl represents is: a lot of pain, heartache, growth opportunities, work, and... if you both have the integrity to stick with it: joy, friendship, and partnership. It's more like climbing Mt Everest than a vacation on a sunny beach or flower-filled meadow: it might be worth it but you also might get frost-bit. Your circumstances will always carry an element of disappointment, but happiness comes from the inside, and what you need on the inside is emotional stability and an optimistic conquering mindset.
Like you, I also had a savior complex wanting to rescue those from bad situations. But don't mistake pity for true love.
It sounds like this girl developed an emotional connection with you while married and that is not a wise move on her part. I know you don't want to ascribe any fault to the goddess, but it looks to me like a serious fault.
Why are women attracted to jerks while nice guys lose? Women are attracted (at least initially) to men who are more successful at climbing hierarchies. Men compete and those who rise to the top are more likely to be stronger physically mentally and emotionally, but the winners are also more likely to be jerks. Nice compassionate guys are more carried away by emotions and fantasy and that is scary for a woman and makes her feel uneasy. So they choose someone solid and then complain he isn't emotional enough. Men and women both seem to have one set of qualities they initially desire which flip to the opposite after the relationship gets serious.
I wouldn't attribute anything metaphysical to this attraction. Not that some metaphysical connection is impossible, but that you are not in an objective enough state to evaluate that. In my church days I heard so many young men say that they thought God had told them to marry this girl or that girl... some girls had 10 or more guys tell them the same thing... lol
I wouldn't be so quick to discount the wisdom traditions. Sure there are many charlatans, but they are attracted like flies to something sweet. The Wu Wei principle would be a big help here.
And your mind needs discipline to control the fantasies and emotions. Discipline comes through various externalities (work, sports practice, music practice) and through internal practice (meditation, forming good habits). Basically discipline builds a stronger mental structure that doesn't melt down to shit whenever stress or problems or longings present themselves.
If you make yourself emotionally strong, you have a far better chance of finding a mate that will bring long term joy into your life. If you remain in an emotional tempest, you'll bring more storms into your life.
Good luck!
I don't know how else to help you other than to try and convince you that what you think you want so badly is not really what you would want if you knew everything about the situation and how it would play out if you actually did get what you want.
Like others, I wasted so much mental and emotional energy in my younger years thinking about this crush or that crush. My (now) wife was the first girl I ever dated, but before that it was one stupid crush after another. I understand your mental anguish and in years past was guilty of sappy Facebook posts bemoaning my lonely state... posts which screamed emotional weakness and probably turned off any female reading and would make me want to vomit if I went back and re-read it now (thank god I don't have Facebook anymore...actually thanks to my wife
)I have sometimes wondered: if I have a son, how do I keep him from going through what I went through? My Dad apparently went through the same thing in his single years and tried to warn me, but of course I didn't or couldn't listen.
I really think you need to hypnotize or de-hypnotize yourself to get rid of this false mental picture you have of what life will be like with this or that girl and train your mind to see that what this or that girl represents is: a lot of pain, heartache, growth opportunities, work, and... if you both have the integrity to stick with it: joy, friendship, and partnership. It's more like climbing Mt Everest than a vacation on a sunny beach or flower-filled meadow: it might be worth it but you also might get frost-bit. Your circumstances will always carry an element of disappointment, but happiness comes from the inside, and what you need on the inside is emotional stability and an optimistic conquering mindset.
Like you, I also had a savior complex wanting to rescue those from bad situations. But don't mistake pity for true love.
It sounds like this girl developed an emotional connection with you while married and that is not a wise move on her part. I know you don't want to ascribe any fault to the goddess, but it looks to me like a serious fault.
Why are women attracted to jerks while nice guys lose? Women are attracted (at least initially) to men who are more successful at climbing hierarchies. Men compete and those who rise to the top are more likely to be stronger physically mentally and emotionally, but the winners are also more likely to be jerks. Nice compassionate guys are more carried away by emotions and fantasy and that is scary for a woman and makes her feel uneasy. So they choose someone solid and then complain he isn't emotional enough. Men and women both seem to have one set of qualities they initially desire which flip to the opposite after the relationship gets serious.
I wouldn't attribute anything metaphysical to this attraction. Not that some metaphysical connection is impossible, but that you are not in an objective enough state to evaluate that. In my church days I heard so many young men say that they thought God had told them to marry this girl or that girl... some girls had 10 or more guys tell them the same thing... lol
I wouldn't be so quick to discount the wisdom traditions. Sure there are many charlatans, but they are attracted like flies to something sweet. The Wu Wei principle would be a big help here.
And your mind needs discipline to control the fantasies and emotions. Discipline comes through various externalities (work, sports practice, music practice) and through internal practice (meditation, forming good habits). Basically discipline builds a stronger mental structure that doesn't melt down to shit whenever stress or problems or longings present themselves.
If you make yourself emotionally strong, you have a far better chance of finding a mate that will bring long term joy into your life. If you remain in an emotional tempest, you'll bring more storms into your life.
Good luck!
Another thing I learned recently (since you asked about human gene map and mating patterns): we have about twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors. This is because of higher variability in reproduction success in males. In other words some men father a lot of kids with many women while other men never father any, so there's a lot more men who are dead ends in the genetic tree than women. And this is partly because women look for a partner who is equal or higher on the social hierarchy and men go for equal or lower.
So it's hard being a dude because ordinarily you're 50% likely to remain frustrated and alone. The problem is worse in China due to cultural and state mandates that have led to even fewer options for men.
I know what that's like since I went to a Christian university focusing on STEM where the few women students had a saying: "the odds are good, but the goods are odd!"
So it's hard being a dude because ordinarily you're 50% likely to remain frustrated and alone. The problem is worse in China due to cultural and state mandates that have led to even fewer options for men.
I know what that's like since I went to a Christian university focusing on STEM where the few women students had a saying: "the odds are good, but the goods are odd!"
Lastly, a work of fiction you might enjoy reading: Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. It explores three different types of men and their obsession with the same woman: Bathsheba. Initially she is a spoiled princess and falls for the jerk scoundrel soldier. Then she catches the eye of an old rich celibant miser, Boldwood, who loses his mind obsessing over her. Then finally Gabriel Oak who is the most solid and faithful of them all but fell to the bottom of the hierarchy through misfortune and is therefore not attractive - eventually he is strengthened through his struggle back up the hierarchy and she is humbled and matured through her terrible experiences and they eventually become suitable for one another. Interesting love story and well written.
S
This sounds like nothing more than a fantasy but if any of this is possibly real I would not interfere until her husband does in fact leave and she clearly needs your help or there is an actual indication she is physical danger.
Yeah I've said this to myself. In my case I was lying to myself, trying to validate my selfish obsession as something altruistic.
Yeah I told myself this lie as well.
Yup I recall this as well - the truth I had to accept that what I really wanted was security in a relationship drawn from the helplessness of the other person, later combined with gratitude to me in the form of a debt to love me.
That's not how love actually works though. If anything that kind of co-dependence is a barrier to genuine love.
But that would be what distinguishes love from dependence. Seems like you, like past myself, are more worried about being hurt and figure this debt from someone who needs your help is likely to keep the other person from ending the relationship.
Truth is relationships begin and end because love is not a rational thing. Anyone who wants romantic love has to accept this.
I must have missed the part where there was indication she actually needs your help? Perhaps it's so subtle it doesn't exist?
Yeah I've said this to myself. In my case I was lying to myself, trying to validate my selfish obsession as something altruistic.
Yeah I told myself this lie as well.
Yup I recall this as well - the truth I had to accept that what I really wanted was security in a relationship drawn from the helplessness of the other person, later combined with gratitude to me in the form of a debt to love me.
That's not how love actually works though. If anything that kind of co-dependence is a barrier to genuine love.
But that would be what distinguishes love from dependence. Seems like you, like past myself, are more worried about being hurt and figure this debt from someone who needs your help is likely to keep the other person from ending the relationship.
Truth is relationships begin and end because love is not a rational thing. Anyone who wants romantic love has to accept this.
I must have missed the part where there was indication she actually needs your help? Perhaps it's so subtle it doesn't exist?