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BugBear:
Hello Weird. Please disregard all of my previous advice on how to replicate that process.

Turns out there are a few ways to do this. That's the "get tossed into the deep end and swim your way out" version. The big problem with it is that if you don't swim your way out, you sink.

I swam. There are multiple reasons for this, bit it's not wise to try to force. Not everyone manages to pull themselves out.

I did.

I learned some stuff. I learned a lot of stuff, actually. I am currently making my way across the country doing a bootleg mashup of a 1 man Scooby-Doo act, with the tone of inspector-fukkin-Clouseau, and apparently, with the thematic structure of Journey to the West.

Which I have never read. I saw it out of the corner of my eye on an airplane once, as a movie.

I didn't actually watch that movie. It was in Chinese, and I don't speak Chinese. I had a Dresden Files book and some other fiction, at the time. I recognized the shape of the crown, though.

It's been pretty weird.

Highlights include:

Baiting a gang and some corrupt police into tailing me at the same time. I went a way that no one should really go normally, then pulled over, and watched as the fucking parade of vehicles followed me, decelerated as they finally noticed each other, and then all had to pass me without pulling over and getting into a tangle with much more bitter rivals than the mouthy... cold reader, let's say.

I was laughing my ass off. I made sure to be wearing my stupidest fucking driving glasses, so that's the image of the guy laughing at them they'll have to carry for the rest of their lives.

The gang stole my truck temporarily. The corrupt cops steal from the poor. They had it coming.

Also: An aggressive, unarmed dance off (okay, I had an aluminum telescopic cane) with a mountain lion. Say what you will, it worked and I'm alive.

Oh, and I was stranded in the middle of the Arizonan desert for days with no water source. I'm from the suburbs. Just had to follow the right stars.

Hijinks for practice aside, I'm developing an easier, safer, and more stable way to get where I've gotten. Something sustainable over a lifetime, not bursts of enlightenment that risk insanity every time.

Atm I can get people to enlightenment, but they'll stabilize too much. The outcome to that isn't unpleasant, but it's an evil fucking thing to do to a person imo. Still working on how to help others create a proper balance.

I'll keep you updated.

Dina:
Ey Regen! I hope micro had a great birthday! And later, tell us about the trampolin park. They are quite popular here too and I think it looks like fun. I am far too fat to try them but I think I would have love them when I was a child.
I hope your mom is doing well and please keep us posted about the swimming classes.
Bug, you seriously confused me, but I hope you are safe. I will say I did not read Journey to the West either, but I watched some adaptations and I liked them, especially the one with Thomas Gibson and Bai ling one, who had a modern twist.
Well, now I have to go, sorry. But I had forgotten to answer for a while and decided a short answer is better than no answer. Take care of yourselves and don't forget to have fun!

BugBear:
Thanks Dina. It's been a dense few weeks. I can never sell an autobiography. No one would believe it. It's too absurd.

To summarize:

Enlightenment is possible.
Enlightenment is *dangerous.*
Do it wrong one way, and you go crazy.
Do it wrong the other way, you become blissed out and compliant, like a zombie addicted to a cross between communal love and heroin.

The way I did it, and many artistic types do it, is the way that risks insanity. I didn't go insane, obviously. Now, Jim Butcher on the other hand...

(Kidding, kidding. He's overly stablized, if anything.)

I can help someone do it in the way that risks blissful, stable, choiceless happiness. I figured out how by paying attention to my own process, and using myself as my own test subject. Because, you know, I had to. Still have to, tbh, I'm not finished.

There *is* some utility there in doing it a little bit and stopping before it finishes, for treating anxiety. I'm running that experiment now with a volunteer now to collect data. No preliminary results yet. We had to reset from incorrect methodology, and are waiting on them now.

(It's low risk, informed, consensual human experimentation, and I'm not part of an institution with an (inaptly named) ethics board.)

Going 100% with it? Where it moves from turning their reactions down enough for them to get a handle on them, and turns into total non-reactiveness? It's the equivalent of them erasing themselves and their personality. Everything that wasn't okay with the way the world works gets "deleted" from their consciousness.

Which I think is bad, and an evil thing to do to someone.

The weird part that I *don't* understand is how I'm living out a story that I've never read. The Sun Wukong stuff. How is it that I came to follow a plot structure that I never learned?

Like, we all act out mini-pieces of the stories we read. Fiction and mythology is like voluntary human self-programming. We "see" other people do things, we see how, and we copy them if we want to do that thing.

We do it with real humans too. That's pretty much how modern education works, in an overly simplistic nutshell.

So living out a plot structure isn't weird. You guys probably live out at least a little bit of Dresden every day. Or, if you're wise, you live out Michael Carpenter.

Becoming aware of it is pretty weird. That sends people insane if they can't cope with "seeing their own code." It's one thing to say you know that psychological conditioning works on you, or that you have bias. It's another thing to see happen in real time, including the parts happening in your head.

I have no idea how you live out a plot you haven't read. That leaves the broad overlap of "magical seeming things that are perfectly explainable (and extremely cool)" that I can personally explain.

The Jungian collective unconcious is my current best bet for a cause. Maybe yes, maybe no, inconclusive data.

I hope that clears things up a little. It's been a weird couple of months. At least I'm in good company.

Regenbogen:
@BugBear:
I admit, I was confused, too. I thought maybe you played some RPG and I just don't get it. And if not, you could be a secret agent, lol.
Also, I am not sure I understand what you mean by enlightenment. But this could be a language problem. For me it reads like some religious stuff.
If it works for you, go for it. And I think you are a good person for helping the volunteer.

And if I understood correctly, you are saying: however you live your life, whatever you do, is not your own idea, but you are basically going through the motions using the experience of others or fictional experiences as a guideline.

What I try to do with my life: I believe I am guided by social norms, social do's and don'ts, rules and laws and whatever I think is right. What I think is right might come from the rule: treat others as you want to be treated. But I admit, I don't always do that: for example, if I think the other is a mean asshole and treats others with disrespect, I can easily live with pissing that person off. If I see someone brown-nosing, I ask if they need some rug to wipe away the slime. They usually understand and some are embarrassed.
It the mean asshole is someone more powerful than me who can get me in real trouble, I try to be more subtle in saying my opinion. And sometimes I just withhold my opinion but make it clear to them that if I can't say anything positive about their actions I'd rather don't say anything at all. Sometimes a simple "ah" as answer is enough to convey: "I heard what you said. No further comment." I always hope that this makes them think it over again.


@Dina: the birthday went well, but the trampolin park will happen tomorrow. 11 kids. Great. As a kid I would have enjoyed that too. I had a very small trampolin of about 1mē size. No saltos possible without hurting oneself, lol.

My mother is well. She is glad that she no longer needs help with grocery shopping.

The swimming lessons also went well, though my pupil is a bit frustrated that she still can't keep herself above the water. This will take time. It is much harder to unlearn stuff than to learn completely new stuff. And she did swim better already. It takes time and training.

Dina:
@Bugbear, it is a little clearer, thank you. It seems that you are working in yourself and others, and that is always good. I admire your awareness.
About what you say about living that plot (what I do not understand, as Journey to the West is a magical things, with gods and supernatural stuff) you did not read, I guess some things lead to convergence. Along the years, many people had similar experiences, because under similar circumstances people with similar characters (personalities) react in the same way. And their actions lead to a similar path.
@Regenbogen. I am glad to hear all that. I never had a trampolin and I only remember had played with them a couple of times, but I do remember jumping in the inflatable things (we call them moon walk) and I loved it.

Today is a not working day. It is not a holiday, because it is in memory of the Malvinas (Falklands) war and the boys who died there. It is the only thing I am going to say about that. But the good thing is that hubby and I can enjoy a cozy day...without annoying noises. That is because our neighbors below are doing a lot of modifications in their appartment and some days the noises are awful, really, really loud. Other days are just the sound of hammers and things like that. And some days there are barely any noise. It is all a lottery! But on not working days we all can rest  :)  Regen, I hope your neighbors who are building things are far away, so their noised do not bother you too much.

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