Leshar,

just sending a hug.

Hi Cow...

I just discovered your thread last night. I got hooked, but it stopped at I think Part 3? It was around February of last year. Is there more I'm missing? Brilliant, and you are just delightful. Thank you:)

Gina

Not confusing, Cow. Makes sense. All of it.

Have you thought of accepting yourself just as you are? Whether you flit between fake Cow self or real Cow self, or even omniscient Cow self ... all of them must somehow be Cow. Parts of Cow. Right? Why not try and accept all of them? So what if you're apathetic, judgemental, and superior feeling at times? That's you. And you're that way for a reason apparently. So, embrace where you are :)

My thoughts, anyway.

Well cow by that description you sound like just the kind of man I used to like.
I am aware cow is female.
Hope I don't offend.

And most people is an ass, when you gets right down to it.

ah Cow; don't know your "most people", but most people i know and meet, are imperfectly non-ass.
it's me whose judgment persists all too often in seeing, finding, concentrating on their ass-parts. not the physical as-parts, i'm talking about.
it's MY limitations when i see most people as asses.

there. new-age lecture over. for today.

sorry you're suffering so.

crumbs, woman! all these threads. filled with non-ass people.
wow!

Don't buy into the Canadian nice myth. My Canadian husband is legendary on the ass scale. I kind of have a soft spot for asses. I find them exciting in a way. I don't like it when he goes road rage but other then that it's pretty funny.

Yay!!! This makes me happy. I am a firm believer in fake it till you make it.

Don't buy into the Canadian nice myth.

exactly!
and no, i'm not delightful nor would anyone who's known me more than five seconds describe me that way.

as for perspective...yeah, i agree. which is why i wrote to you, Cow:)

and it's amazed me how ongoing sobriety has given me the chance and room to see differently. or: to see that things and people aren't as crappy as i used to be convinced they/we are.
ongoing project.

Not confusing here either. You do have a good deal of self-awareness though, which is probably what tortures you at times, the fact that you see and feel this dichotomy intensely and cannot simply identify (long and stably) with what you call "fake self" even though you would like to. And you seem to feel a need to choose between two orders of existence, elevate one to a higher level and devalue the other, and probably keep switching them as somehow none feels "real enough"? But isn't the whole package (default&invented) which is actually closest to what is real about you, and not any of the sub-fragments alone? Again, just speculating but my thinking is along the lines of Soberpotamus' here.

On "reality"...
Isn't the whole flow of reality is one gigantic creative dynamic? There is all the talk about mindfulness and being in the present, my view though is that we cannot discern the big picture from our limited ego perspective in any given moment. I think because the momentary states of the mind can be so cut off from the whole of reality, it needs regular support and reinforcement, otherwise its unreality will be revealed and keenly felt. What then becomes our agenda is to find, create, and sustain a particular identity, to be an individual, the ego goes about this task in the best way it knows how. But when this activity slows down and rests, we become aware of the multitude of vulnerabilities, dichotomies and conflicts again as the origin of our “true" identity (or the emptiness occupying it). To me, this is not a concept, but a direct experience of our very identity. We do not, and cannot, do anything to be more ourselves.

I think what we often experience is that the more we try to become a particular image or idea of ourselves, the more we lose the immediate contact with what we perceive as our "true self”, so the cycle starts again. Then we see that we cannot truly separate from anything, that our true nature and our inventions, identifications, everything participates in the whole of reality, and that the self is an aspect of that creative flow, which cannot be otherwise as nothing truly exists in isolation.

To me, this view results in the clarification of boundaries: we can see through boundaries, recognizing them as what structures the object world. Then we start to understand that participating in the unfolding of reality requires this structure, roles and identifications (identities), and creating these becomes a great source of satisfaction and necessity. However, I think the truth is that there is only one reality, one existence that is all around us and encompasses us, and is happening dynamically in space, time, throughout our individual history and development.

For me when I first felt and saw things this way, it was immediately extremely helpful because I no longer perceived myself or others as objects, my experience split as the external world and the internal world (and so on). All the objects and the background, the space that holds them could be experienced as one substance, one reality, which is non-conceptual. When I see life and my relationships this way, the sense of fragmentation and alienation instantly dissipates despite experiencing intense conflicts (internal or me vs someone or something else) and emotions in a given moment. So I was wondering whether your self-created persona, Cow, is not an actually quite good bridge for you to establish and maintain your connection with the rest of the world, society, reality, whatever?

Oh, and what's wrong with a nice ass covering the view sometimes? :)

I agree cow I find it comforting to be a speck cause so are we all. How are you? I saw my favorite SOB today, an old instructor infamous for dirty jokes, smoking, drinking, being generally offensive. He has mellowed with age and suffers an illness that is incurable and will probably disable him someday but he is still himself to the core and he is one of my favorite people. He knows me well, we have fun together.

Thank goodness I don't have to sorry about the search for truth anymore. Limitations can be liberating, how odd. Sometimes I feel the same about having defective grey matter. $hit's just not my fault sometimes and if I don't have the capacity then screw it.

Just jumping in to say I am a ridiculously nice Canadian.....until I'm not.

And then all bets are off :scared:

not sure if I smell like maple syrup but not the worst smelly thing :lmao

I recently solved some of the hard questions like trying to figure out the mind and why people do the things they do, what is consciousness, is free will as free as we think it is? Easy stuff!! People do the things they do because it seemed like a good idea at the time they did them. Consciousness is hardware and software working together, (The brain and conditioning). Free Will, well that's limited to the choices you have to pick from. Where do I get my Nobel Prize!

BTSO, I'll give you a Nobel Hygiene Prize if you help me drag our Cow into the shower for a good scrubbing and a shampoo.

(I can hear the moo screeching clear to the east coast)

I'm so glad you back with us, dear Cow. I have been wondering if you can get a sense of satisfaction from making progress. I think you are making progress, it's painful but you're doing it.

I'll be checking in on you, I'm a little up to my chin in very boring paper work and exhaustion. I don't know if people are asses. Maybe I'm just feeling charitable at the moment, so I don't despair and book passage to that newest planet, Keppler or something? I don't care, I plan to rename it anyway once I set up house.

Love from Lenina