Rudolph Mondal
Banned
The past 2.5 months for me have been very revelatory. It marks the time I started trying again.
Initially it was a real struggle just to sit at my desk and get some work done. But I managed and slowly, little by little I started regaining my functionality.
I began to appreciate the various aspects of what I was learning that I ignored before. I began to enjoy things I once claimed to hate or at least dislike fervently. I wanted to challenge myself into being able to do things I once avoided or thought I couldn't do.
School began again. I thought the desire to learn and immerse myself in the various structures would disappear again but this time, 5 weeks on, it's still present. Of course, it hasn't been a smooth journey, there were lots of bumps along the way but I managed to pick myself up each time and I know I'll do so for the bumps I'll encounter in the future.
Even so, initially into the school term I had a very arrogant demeanor about myself. I looked down on others, I was adamant to prove that I was the most intelligent of them all. Fortunately, all these attempts were futile. Each time I looked down on others or tried to prove my superior intelligence, I'd get burnt badly and feel embarrassed and awful.
So I learned to curb my ego, I learned to focus on the subject at hand, on the task at hand. I learned to shift my priority to learning the subject or the task instead of using it to prove my superiority. I'm still learning, of course.
Conversely, when I'd get burned, I'd feel really awful and start hating myself and wish i was someone else who was much better at X and Y and Z etc than I was. I'd get upset that people didn't like me even though I liked them (I'm talking about both aplatonic and platonic cases here) and then I recalled something that many had told me previously. In this forum as well.
I recalled that in order for others to like you, you have to like yourself first.
When I actually grokked what this meant, it was sort of like an eureka moment for me. I often fantasize about being someone else. When I do so, I realized, it's because I'm deeply dissatisfied with who I am but instead of doing anything to fix it, I escape to the world of fantasy instead where I vicariously am able to fulfill my dreams and aspirations.
It's hard. I've learned that there is a two step process to overcome this tendency to wish and fantasize about being someone else. The first step is to aim to improve oneself but actually really try to do so instead of escaping to the world in fantasy but the second, more crucial step, is to immerse/melt yourself into an external structure. Focus all of one's energies on assimilating and mastering that external structure such that eogtistical issues regarding the self no longer floats up to conscious awareness. This is what I've been trying to do. I'm still learning how.
So it seems that the crux or most essential teaching I've received this past 2.5 months is that suffering is due to desires of the self and to curb suffering, one should melt oneself into an external structure and forget about one's own self.
Initially it was a real struggle just to sit at my desk and get some work done. But I managed and slowly, little by little I started regaining my functionality.
I began to appreciate the various aspects of what I was learning that I ignored before. I began to enjoy things I once claimed to hate or at least dislike fervently. I wanted to challenge myself into being able to do things I once avoided or thought I couldn't do.
School began again. I thought the desire to learn and immerse myself in the various structures would disappear again but this time, 5 weeks on, it's still present. Of course, it hasn't been a smooth journey, there were lots of bumps along the way but I managed to pick myself up each time and I know I'll do so for the bumps I'll encounter in the future.
Even so, initially into the school term I had a very arrogant demeanor about myself. I looked down on others, I was adamant to prove that I was the most intelligent of them all. Fortunately, all these attempts were futile. Each time I looked down on others or tried to prove my superior intelligence, I'd get burnt badly and feel embarrassed and awful.
So I learned to curb my ego, I learned to focus on the subject at hand, on the task at hand. I learned to shift my priority to learning the subject or the task instead of using it to prove my superiority. I'm still learning, of course.
Conversely, when I'd get burned, I'd feel really awful and start hating myself and wish i was someone else who was much better at X and Y and Z etc than I was. I'd get upset that people didn't like me even though I liked them (I'm talking about both aplatonic and platonic cases here) and then I recalled something that many had told me previously. In this forum as well.
I recalled that in order for others to like you, you have to like yourself first.
When I actually grokked what this meant, it was sort of like an eureka moment for me. I often fantasize about being someone else. When I do so, I realized, it's because I'm deeply dissatisfied with who I am but instead of doing anything to fix it, I escape to the world of fantasy instead where I vicariously am able to fulfill my dreams and aspirations.
It's hard. I've learned that there is a two step process to overcome this tendency to wish and fantasize about being someone else. The first step is to aim to improve oneself but actually really try to do so instead of escaping to the world in fantasy but the second, more crucial step, is to immerse/melt yourself into an external structure. Focus all of one's energies on assimilating and mastering that external structure such that eogtistical issues regarding the self no longer floats up to conscious awareness. This is what I've been trying to do. I'm still learning how.
So it seems that the crux or most essential teaching I've received this past 2.5 months is that suffering is due to desires of the self and to curb suffering, one should melt oneself into an external structure and forget about one's own self.
