Friday, 23 August 2024 ------------------------ Hello. All is well. God is love. In my 92nd writing, I write there's something to this idea of oneness. Then I wrote that you must go with the flow in my 93rd writing. That sounds nice and all, but what does that really mean? Have you been binge watching Alan Watts videos with inspirational background music on YouTube? Why yes, but, you see, there's something to it. Humans and how they express themselves are complex. As we read in my 4th writing, variation is the norm. Our brain constructs a simplified version in line with our wiring or imagination. You know, top-down processing. This can be a disservice to us as our imagination may, to varying degrees, be misaligned with reality. Therefore, we have to give bottom-up processing a try. We have to actually look at people. Gasp. The issue is that it can be scary for our brains, so we must realign our imagination to a place where we are less afraid. How do we become less afraid? By understanding that people are not flat characters, including you. If you fear other people, you fear yourself. If you hate other people, you hate yourself. If you love other people, you love yourself. Before, I'd say that's a nice story, but not really resonate with it. Now, on my walks, I start to see myself in everyone. It's fascinating, but there are some caveats to this that I'll get into later. In my 67th writing, I wrote that we can see things differently intellectually but more easily connect emotionally. There's some truth to that. I have found that people's tone and how they greet you differs a lot, but if you meet them with love, you get a better sense of their character depth and which state of mind they're currently in. You become less surprised and more understanding. You may not fully grasp their expression, but you will interact more competently by allowing yourself to sense their vibe. That's at least been my experience so far. In my 20th writing, I believed my fear of losing my peace would eventually fade. I'm approaching that point by understanding I will never be in one state of mind forever. You know, that impermanence thingy. As I fear losing my own peace less, I fear other people losing their peace less. You reach this acceptance by realigning yourself to reality. There's no wishful thinking needed. Interestingly, this allows you to meet yourself and others with more compassion and competency. For example, you can experience these moments of bliss, thinking this is the way, and then get upset when it's all crappy again. Being upset that you feel crappy is the issue. That upsetness is what leads you to do unwise things, keeping you stuck in that crappy feeling for longer. Likewise, basing another person on their current state of mind keeps them stuck. Social connections are powerful, because you can lift each other up if you understand what and who you are. But, they can also do the opposite, drag both of you down. This is only one dimension, and it's more nuanced, but I'll leave it for now. What difference have I experienced by meeting others with love instead of fear? In my 36th writing, I wrote how I reacted to something before being aware. When I fear, my focus is on my thinking self, top-down processing, not present in the moment. When I love, I focus on my acting self, bottom-up processing, and present in the moment. What's the difference? When present, I allow myself to slowly react and more competently respond to my environment. Working on my imagination or spiritual self has allowed me to go more with the flow. Also, there is another thing that is a bit weird that I don't fully understand yet. People greet me a lot more now. Most of the time, they greet me before I even look at them. One explanation is that my body language expresses openness when I'm not in fear. But, another interesting thingy. Whether they greet me also depends on the context. The fewer people around, the less fear people have. When I meet groups of people, they will interact differently, whether I look at them as one group or as many individuals. This makes sense with the idea I've been talking about that emergent social behavior arises in groups, but I can sort of break that if I allow myself to see them as individuals. I say sort of because, as I've said in previous writings, I'm slow regarding these things and quickly get overstimulated. Today, an older man was walking ahead of me on a path. When I passed him, I told him I was in a rush to catch a train, pointing into the woods. He responded that it was no problem and to go ahead. I think that was fair. It was so absurd that I don't think it fooled anyone. I like to say silly things sometimes, but I will always try to be real if people challenge me on my silliness.