Natural Freedom

Bingo!

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The honey doesn't chase the bee.

A wise man once said "I find that a duck's opinion of me is influenced by whether or not I have bread."

Thanks for the feedback Nyph. Interesting points.
I liked this point. Very interesting - can you give more advice on how to go about leveraging her? Or maybe an example?
So if you cannot make yourself change the real answer you give to that question, then how ARE you supposed to change? What you wrote sounds good as theory, but it seems to me that it breaks down in practice. I've made lots of changes in my life and to myself by asking myself questions and not letting my head answer, but instead trying to gauge my gut's reaction to the question. Hence the focus on asking it multiple times (almost like a mantra). If thats not how you go about things, what did/do you do to develop indifference?
But if I don't think they're the kind of person that I'm ever going to want to develop a relationship, why would I practice with them? Its like saying "you need to practice Chinese and learn their customs so you can travel in China more effectively," to which I would respond - "but I don't have any desire to go to China..."

I would love to hear your, or anyone else's (except fufe ), thoughts about these questions...

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"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho

Fufe should be somewhere experiencing muscle failure.

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EVERYTHING in life is conditional...EVERYTHING.

Pimposophy Revisited is now finally available on Amazon in all territories!

it is easy to be relax and a peace alone in your place, but out there you have to interact with others and some people triger some emotions that's not easy that's what requires practice an pattience to relax in whatever scenario and respond , i don't know others but to me at the beggining it is painfull it is like a constant movememt the more you get attached to one point of view the more painfull becasue is easy that's why people hold on on their beliefs.

it is a skill becasue most people have a difficult time being honest i include myself, so interacting with them it is a movemmetn between the security of coming to an agreement or meeting their needs of what they really want to say or what you really want to say

I am not experienced enough to give you advice here. However, The Kidd!!'s covert tactics articles are a good start. The answer you give to the question can change, but you cannot make it change. Bending the spoon is impossible, yet the spoon can bend. If you do not think the spoon can bend, it will not bend, because you are focusing on the spoon.
I did not develop indifference, I simply stopped the fight against myself and things have been falling into place since.
Why do people play instruments, even when they are never going to make money with it?

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You cannot win a fight against yourself.

If you use yourself or this forum as a reference point for people you meet, you will have a hard time finding someone who meets your expectations and more often than not end up frustrated. Consider your interactions experimental, have fun and accept the status quo as it is. Leave deeper, more sophisticated and scientific issues out of the equation, for the time you spend with yourself.

With "normal", average persons you will have "normal", average communication, interaction, conversations, behaviour etc. If you don't feel like it, then you are not bound or supposed to socialize and pretend you enjoy being around others. I am a lone wolf and I like to view my interactions with other people as experiments, as case studies of psychology. Pure logic, much fun, respect. No attachment to the outcome, reasonable emotion or obsession. What I really love is nature, astrophysics, metaphysics, philosophy. They blow my mind, so challenging, mind-boggling and yet so relaxing, enjoyable topics which take you to another world.

As far as the girls at the gym are concerned, how can they qualify themselves to you if you don't give them a chance? The same hold for everyone of us. Apart from a charming vibe of confidence and a meaningful look, how can others look deep inside us and discern the beautiful, mysterious world that resides there?

The external appearance is just the first frontier, in my opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. If she passes the test, we proceed to the next. I respect "hotness" because we live in a world of obesity, binge and lack of restraint. Thus, individuals who appear human with natural, fit bodies are considered unique merely by their looks. In other words, if she doesn't respect herself, why should I?

Odds are they are your typical girls. They will become your mirror. If you are weak and let them manipulate you, they will be your guest and follow suit. Be objective, unbiased, start with a clean slate.

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The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.

Nyph - Interesting. I think we're talking past eachother here, even though I think we're talking about the same thing and we agree on it...
I'm I'm not asking myself this question to force a change from my mind, but rather to bring the question into my conscious and subconscious minds, let them work on it as they will, and then to gauge my own gut response. I'm not "making it change," but rather bringing it into my awareness, and then periodically checking to see if it has changed.

Every time I ask myself that question, my conscious mind (ego) responds, and then I ignore its response and try to listen to my gut to see if my deep down response is the same. If I ask myself the question, and my ego says yes, but at the same time my chest feels a slight constriction and I feel my heart rate increase slightly (a stress response), then I take that as my gut not agreeing with my ego...

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess thats the idea of a keeper, right? Someone who DOES live up to the standards that guys here would generally agree with. However, you pretty much address this with:
That seems like a pretty salient point. So what I'm getting is that, if I want to, I can give them a chance to interact with me in order to:

1) See if they live up to higher standards, regardless of what their outward appearance/behavior seems to indicate.

and

2) even if they don't live up to my higher standards, then I get to experiment with them (or mess with them ) as case studies of psychology.

So, maybe girl #1 at the gym was a manipulative soul sucking woman, but maybe she wasn't. Seems likely that she wouldn't qualify according to my standards, but I guess I flat out shut the door on her without knowing 100% for sure. If I had wanted to, I could have created space for more of an interaction to occur simply to verify my initial assessment, and also to gain a deeper understanding of how she works.

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"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho

No, I do not think we are talking past each other.
You are doing this in an attempt to change yourself. You project that you are trying to force a change with this question here:

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You cannot win a fight against yourself.

Well, yes. I guess perhaps I am motivated to change, and am "trying" to change, however I do not "try" to do this through ego, but instead through awareness and letting my subconscious work on it as my subconscious will.

I'm curious about your experience though. Help me more fully understand where you are coming from. You said:
What was that experience like? Was it a process, or a sudden event? What precipitated it? Was it things you did, or things you did not do? I'm very curious to hear more about it, if you have the time to share it.

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"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho

You should rewatch that scene in the Matrix

Trying to change the answer is like trying to bend the spoon it's impossible. When you realize there is no spoon, and its not the spoon that bends only YOURSELF

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"The heart is deep beyond all things, and it is the man. Even so, who can know him."

My interpretation.

I may make a thread in the Letting go and self-realisation forum at some point detailing my experience.

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You cannot win a fight against yourself.

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1339

She is still your average woman intellectually, not really differentiated from the average man nowadays. You can have the typical everyday, mundane conversation and that is all. My standards are relatively low regarding my social life compared with my private life, the holy time I spend with me. I know it is highly unlikely to meet individuals who are interested in time travel, simulated reality and similar issues and I have made peace with it.

If you can't change something, change your attitude toward it. Adjust yourself, your mindset, so that you are able to benefit from it when and if you choose to interact. Change yourself and only then you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. Align your perception of reality with reality.

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The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.

Ok Nyph and Zogler - you guys are confusing me. I feel like I have made distinct progress, but I'm also perfectly aware that I have more work to do and need to be patient and learn from those with more experience in this process than I. It just seems to me that the advice I'm getting is directly contradictory...

On the one hand, I should "adjust myself, my mindset." I should "change myself and only then can I change my world".

But at the same time I "cannot make myself change". "Changes can happen, but I cannot make them happen".

I'm having a hard time holding both these ideas in my head at once without feeling that they contradict eachother...

Does anyone have any insights that could help me gain clarity on this?

From this thread:

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"The society gives you a map; I give you only freedom. The society gives you character, I give you only consciousness. The society teaches you to live a conformist life ... I give you an invitation to go on an adventure." - Osho

fun starts when there is no sensei around

you just need more time, thats it. (you just not ready or arent enough desperate)

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“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Viktor E. Frankl

that's a good thing in my opinion

Trust what your gut is telling you.

It is telling you something, so listen to it.

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In building a statue, a sculptor doesn't keep adding clay to his subject.He keeps chiseling away at the inessentials until the truth of its creation is revealed without obstructions. Perfection is not when there is no more to add,but no more to take away.

I like this quote, A LOT. This statement, coupled with the one in Grinus' signature complement each other well.

One's success is not defined by the achievement of the goal (bending the spoon/conjuring up a statue), but rather by contentment with their perceptions. Perceptions should not drive us, our perceptions should be dictated by our mindset, which, ideally, is one of indifference.

Damn, everytime I think it's ok to shut the hell up & get back to reading, I come across something else from Meraki that I feel compelled to contribute to. I guess we're both trainees wrestling with similar issues at similar points in development. Anyways: I suspect that we do not really need to make too much effort to leverage women. (Actually, less effort probably leverages more effectively). I have had situations where a) a woman opens up & shows more depth than expected, once I let my guard down and give her a glimpse of my own depth (even if, prior to this, I had seen her engaged in a banal conversation), and b) an extremely cold, icy woman (to the point where others who had interacted with her before felt she had no personality or warmth to her soul, and was practically inhuman) totally warmed up to me. Epecially when I managed to isolate myself from the people I was out with. Also, c) where a woman is smart and beats all the other guys over their heads with her intellect, but seems to (INSTINCTIVELY) shut up and assume a very submissive attitude the minute I open my mouth. Sure I may be intelligent, but she had NO WAY OF KNOWING THIS (or did she? ) before I started talking. The more experienced guys can call me out if I am wrong, but I am really beginning to believe that while guys are fairly consistent in their behaviour, women adapt their behaviour to the individual they are interacting with AT THE TIME. And at the subconscious level.

I would go further to say that their behaviour can even adapt to changes in a man's unconscious intent in real time, MOMENT TO MOMENT. i.e. When I am real, so is she, but when my ego surfaces into my thoughts, her walls come up in immediate response.

And yes, I believe that guys do also respond in a similar way, but I mean that women do it in a far more fluid way.

Meraki, we complain that they (eg the girls in your example) are making no effort (I am with you on this - I feel the same way), but after I myself am involved in incidents like this, I sometimes wonder, especially in relation to my comments on their adaptability, if their aloofness was in response to mine.

I'm not saying to abandon all the progress we have made on this forum by becoming "approach monkeys" - hell no! But I am wondering: since I am still in the latter stages of post-red pill sexual apathy, if I see a woman who APPEARS to have potential, is there any harm in letting her know "hey listen, I am not looking for anything from you, and i'm about to leave anyway, but I wanted to say it's refreshing to see a woman in a gym who's actually there to work out." Now to me, your Woman #1 definitely does not warrant this, and maybe Woman #2, although more real, didn't warrant a compliment either (I do not know, I could only know for sure if I was there myself), but do you get where i'm coming from? Nothing wrong with a compliment PROVIDED IT COMES FROM THE RIGHT PLACE, AND WITHOUT AN EXPECTATION. I CANNOT STRESS THIS LAST PART ENOUGH. AND IT CAN ONLY BE DONE WITHOUT TRYING (i.e. only do this if this is how you feel in the moment). ANY OTHER WAY WILL THEN PRODUCE THE POSITION OF WEAKNESS THAT THIS FORUM WARNS AGAINST.

My feeling is that if I come across a woman who my gut tells me is more REAL than the average moron, and she is attracted to me, even if I am not interested in her, I should encourage her IN SOME WAY (not necessarily using compliments) to continue being REAL. Think about it - if she goes through her life without ever deriving a single benefit from being real, could she not "pack it in" and decide to be like all the other useless bitches? Could this be what is happening now?

Also, I very occasionally interact with a woman who is a total chatterbox (seriously, she once made me over an hour late to another engagement), and I find that although her conversation, while certainly not mundane, is not the deep spiritual or philosophical discourse that I normally enjoy, there was a kind of free, generous giving BEHIND her words (and totally unrelated to what she was saying) that was really soothing to me. 'Grinus is right - conversation is really more than the words. What provoked me to write this post is that even though I had no sexual intent towards this woman, not only did engaging her result in a wonderful experience for me, but even if she turned out to be a moron, I would still get to exercise the art of OBSERVATION (I can still remember what she was wearing, the flaws on the exposed parts of her skin, what excited and animated her, what made her look bored and distracted, etc.)

And since my pride and egoic expectation of "pimp tight" behaviour from myself prevented me from complimenting her on the beauty underneath her conversation, I am now left to wonder: if everyone in her life tells her to shut the hell up, that she talks too much, and she takes it to heart without having received any encouragement from me, when she becomes like all the other vacuous bitches out there, don't I have a share in the responsibility?

Not saying what I posted is right; just throwing this out there.

Having said that, I feel the need to reiterate - if it doesn't feel right: do not engage. And certainly do not compliment. YOU WILL BE EATEN FOR LUNCH.

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"I will not grow in the light, until I pass through the darkest caverns of my heart..."

"Temet Nosce"

Just to clarify - this was in no way meant as advice (and looking at my post it looks as if it was). These are questions directed more to myself than to anyone else. Just thinking out loud....

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"I will not grow in the light, until I pass through the darkest caverns of my heart..."

"Temet Nosce"

Didn't explicitly state this, but it goes without saying that in every case, I had no expectations at the time.

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"I will not grow in the light, until I pass through the darkest caverns of my heart..."

"Temet Nosce"