Sometimes I get anxious over the thought that people lying about me. Repeatedly I will obsess about that thought.
However, I know that it isn't true.
When I think other people are lying about me, it actually is me lying to myself. This is why it's hard to write truthfully about myself, because I don't know if the truth I write about myself is actually a lie or the truth.
Overall, that uncertainty leads me to falsely assume other people are lying to me.
Sometimes when I'm this candid in my blog, a few people might object to it. However, that's their choice.
I am certain that my thoughts are better managed when I write about them. Just thinking about them isn't what the problem is.
By obsessive thinking about a concern until it becomes a worry — that is the problem.
Here is the solution:
Writing about it relieves that worry because of the change of focus from thinking about it to writing about it.
Furthermore, writing about my thoughts requires critical thinking and reasoning. In contrast, thinking when anxious only requires the irrational fear of untruth.
By writing candidly about my thoughts, I am reducing the risk factors associated with anxiety and narcissism.
Self disclosure has the risks associated with exposing my vulnerabilities to the scrutiny of public opinion, but it is counteracted by the narcissism inherent in maintaining a blog.
Thus the benefits of writing about my thoughts and feelings on my blog outweigh these risks.
Showing posts with label obsession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obsession. Show all posts
20141026
New Age Guru Helping the People of the Ghettos and Inner City: a Meditation on Addiction, Meditation and Otaku (satire)
"That's the goal now," he says, "to spread into the ghettos and inner cities."
Deepak Chopra has ventured to Harlem, N.Y., and Reno, Nev., talking to blacks, Latinos and Asians about people being rivers of energy. He tells them their mind is wired into every cell of their body, that nasal breathing techniques can effect brain activity, that ayurvedic herbs can pack as much punch as any drug.
How does Chopra think it's going so far? What do city folk make of his New Age wisdom?
"They say, 'Deep stuff!'"
This is the challenge for rehabilitation centres for addictions: to convince drug addicts and especially alcoholics that the inner energy of meditation is a high higher than any known drug that they got their hands on.
Yet addicts are well known for their ability to detect BS if and only if they have been totally honest with themselves that their addictions are not due to "bad parenting", but their rebellion against the basic social rules that govern our very lives.
While they may do so because of the unwillingness to live by the rules society imposes on us all, addicts pay a price for their so-called freedom, a freedom that is an illusion behind which a licentious lifestyle crumbles into the abyss of darkness that so many addicts face due to abuse of their freedom to choose.
However, meditation will work for anyone who meditates due to their willingness to cut through their own BS, of which the main one concerns their so-called ability to detect BS in people wiser than they are.
In short, they have to also cut through the white lies that society imposes on us all to create working communities, and accept that they are completely different in their use from lies, both blatant and subtle, that actually destroy communities.
For example, if a friend I just met asked me what I did on last Friday, then if I wanted to remain discreet, I could merely say "I went on an errand", and changing the topic, rather than being candid about paying my bills since my Fridays are my paydays.
In contrast, I am usually candid with my roommates and my best friend because they are in my inner circle of friends, and not someone I met off the street.
Although I admitted to how I spend my Fridays in the course of my argument, I will not reveal details because they are personal facts that are private and are known only to me, my employer, my bank and the government through their tax department.
Regarding bills I pay, I will only be candid about debt collectors due to the fact that they consistently tell white lies in order to obtain a lot of money right now (preferably over $100 a month but far less than what I owe Fido and Rogers Mobility) in a short period of time (usually within 48 hours but that could be negotiated).
I am mentioning this because of my addiction to technology - and it is evidenced by the late hour spent writing this article.
By being this candid, I hope to share the word that meditation works. If I didn't put positive effort into meditating on my debt, then I would still be in denial and the debt would not get paid.
Therefore, in my mind, I am a recovering addict with an addiction that no one else takes seriously except myself.
I think in Japan, they call people like that "otaku", though in the West, otaku are great for information content but lousy on emotional affect.
However, there is some overlap between addiction and the collections of knowledge and experience of otaku, even though otaku are likely to chew me out for "labeling" their intense love for technology or even works of art as "addiction."
Overall though, we otaku could be so gung-ho about anime and manga, why not meditation too? For the most gentle of meditation is combined in many therapeutic settings, and is borrowed from Asian sources more so than Western sources.
Though I will say that even me blogging online is therapy. It is also a form of vipassana meditation when I focus on cutting through the initial negativity toward the positive outcome.
If anything that I have written confuses you, then you are not ready to truly free yourself of your addiction and become a true otaku who is essentially free of whatever he obsesses over.
How dos you tell when that happens? When you can go to a convention, a group therapy session, or even a family reunion to help friends and family get to know you well, that is a start.
Another sign that you are otaku is that you vacillate in your writing between first-person (I and me among similar pronouns), second-person (you and the names of people), and third-person (they, them, and often one or it).
Returning to the quote from an anti-cult website, I can certainly support the use of meditation techniques. However, that quote is not a product endorsement of Chopra since it has been taken out of context for me to promote meditation on my terms, which I am free to do.
I am merely selling the idea that otaku are harmless when they become more socialized with fellow otaku. As well, any obsession that leads to social isolation on the long run really is worth the effort of abstaining.
As for addiction, that is only when your lifestyle is negative affected by your obsessions e.g. you spend more time watching anime than socializing with friends, using excuses to avoid brushing up on your social skills.
Anyway, I am not proud to be otaku, nor am I ashamed to be otaku. Otaku is a neutral word in the West, yet is misused by lazy Japanese journalists who turned it into a badge of shame.
Yet even journalists are closet otakus as pararazzi when they obsess about celebrities such as Morning Musume and stalk them.
Finally, the ultimate freedom is to use less technology in the public sphere, and to occasionally use technology. First, one day dedicated to using your smartphones less and your senses more, including using the mind to ask questions about matters other than technology.
Originally written on May 10, 2005 at 2310H PDT
Reference:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/deepakchopra/deepakchopra20.html
Deepak Chopra has ventured to Harlem, N.Y., and Reno, Nev., talking to blacks, Latinos and Asians about people being rivers of energy. He tells them their mind is wired into every cell of their body, that nasal breathing techniques can effect brain activity, that ayurvedic herbs can pack as much punch as any drug.
How does Chopra think it's going so far? What do city folk make of his New Age wisdom?
"They say, 'Deep stuff!'"
This is the challenge for rehabilitation centres for addictions: to convince drug addicts and especially alcoholics that the inner energy of meditation is a high higher than any known drug that they got their hands on.
Yet addicts are well known for their ability to detect BS if and only if they have been totally honest with themselves that their addictions are not due to "bad parenting", but their rebellion against the basic social rules that govern our very lives.
While they may do so because of the unwillingness to live by the rules society imposes on us all, addicts pay a price for their so-called freedom, a freedom that is an illusion behind which a licentious lifestyle crumbles into the abyss of darkness that so many addicts face due to abuse of their freedom to choose.
However, meditation will work for anyone who meditates due to their willingness to cut through their own BS, of which the main one concerns their so-called ability to detect BS in people wiser than they are.
In short, they have to also cut through the white lies that society imposes on us all to create working communities, and accept that they are completely different in their use from lies, both blatant and subtle, that actually destroy communities.
For example, if a friend I just met asked me what I did on last Friday, then if I wanted to remain discreet, I could merely say "I went on an errand", and changing the topic, rather than being candid about paying my bills since my Fridays are my paydays.
In contrast, I am usually candid with my roommates and my best friend because they are in my inner circle of friends, and not someone I met off the street.
Although I admitted to how I spend my Fridays in the course of my argument, I will not reveal details because they are personal facts that are private and are known only to me, my employer, my bank and the government through their tax department.
Regarding bills I pay, I will only be candid about debt collectors due to the fact that they consistently tell white lies in order to obtain a lot of money right now (preferably over $100 a month but far less than what I owe Fido and Rogers Mobility) in a short period of time (usually within 48 hours but that could be negotiated).
I am mentioning this because of my addiction to technology - and it is evidenced by the late hour spent writing this article.
By being this candid, I hope to share the word that meditation works. If I didn't put positive effort into meditating on my debt, then I would still be in denial and the debt would not get paid.
Therefore, in my mind, I am a recovering addict with an addiction that no one else takes seriously except myself.
I think in Japan, they call people like that "otaku", though in the West, otaku are great for information content but lousy on emotional affect.
However, there is some overlap between addiction and the collections of knowledge and experience of otaku, even though otaku are likely to chew me out for "labeling" their intense love for technology or even works of art as "addiction."
Overall though, we otaku could be so gung-ho about anime and manga, why not meditation too? For the most gentle of meditation is combined in many therapeutic settings, and is borrowed from Asian sources more so than Western sources.
Though I will say that even me blogging online is therapy. It is also a form of vipassana meditation when I focus on cutting through the initial negativity toward the positive outcome.
If anything that I have written confuses you, then you are not ready to truly free yourself of your addiction and become a true otaku who is essentially free of whatever he obsesses over.
How dos you tell when that happens? When you can go to a convention, a group therapy session, or even a family reunion to help friends and family get to know you well, that is a start.
Another sign that you are otaku is that you vacillate in your writing between first-person (I and me among similar pronouns), second-person (you and the names of people), and third-person (they, them, and often one or it).
Returning to the quote from an anti-cult website, I can certainly support the use of meditation techniques. However, that quote is not a product endorsement of Chopra since it has been taken out of context for me to promote meditation on my terms, which I am free to do.
I am merely selling the idea that otaku are harmless when they become more socialized with fellow otaku. As well, any obsession that leads to social isolation on the long run really is worth the effort of abstaining.
As for addiction, that is only when your lifestyle is negative affected by your obsessions e.g. you spend more time watching anime than socializing with friends, using excuses to avoid brushing up on your social skills.
Anyway, I am not proud to be otaku, nor am I ashamed to be otaku. Otaku is a neutral word in the West, yet is misused by lazy Japanese journalists who turned it into a badge of shame.
Yet even journalists are closet otakus as pararazzi when they obsess about celebrities such as Morning Musume and stalk them.
Finally, the ultimate freedom is to use less technology in the public sphere, and to occasionally use technology. First, one day dedicated to using your smartphones less and your senses more, including using the mind to ask questions about matters other than technology.
Originally written on May 10, 2005 at 2310H PDT
Reference:
http://www.rickross.com/reference/deepakchopra/deepakchopra20.html
20090904
Just One More: The Nature of the Mind
'"Just one more" is the binding factor in the circle of suffering,' said the Sakyong Jamgon Mipham Rinpoche.
Yet this is the root of addiction and of obsession. It begets suffering.
Such a thing arises in the mind. Listen to what Sakyong Mipham writes about this:
'The mind is where we live. It is how we experience things. Through the practice of meditation, we see past the superficial waves of discursiveness and discover the noble qualities that are the true nature of mind.'
For the true nature of mind lies beneath its surface.
Without meditation we cannot discover it; with meditation, we know intimately its true nature.
Reference:
It's All in Your Mind. - http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2996&Itemid=247
Yet this is the root of addiction and of obsession. It begets suffering.
Such a thing arises in the mind. Listen to what Sakyong Mipham writes about this:
'The mind is where we live. It is how we experience things. Through the practice of meditation, we see past the superficial waves of discursiveness and discover the noble qualities that are the true nature of mind.'
For the true nature of mind lies beneath its surface.
Without meditation we cannot discover it; with meditation, we know intimately its true nature.
Reference:
It's All in Your Mind. - http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2996&Itemid=247
20080617
Hikikomori who act out their violent fantasies may be influenced by a continuum of horror films
One significent factor in social isolation is the amount of time devoted to obsession about a single interest. Usually for males, it may consist of pornography, and for sociopathic predation, it has to be violent pornography. Horror films can be considered soft-corn "porn" since sometimes gratuitous sex and sexualization of gratuitous violence occurs. Thus it is not abnormal for breasts to be exposed in certain horror films. As well, violent pornography is merely hardcore adult horror.
Therefore, the continuum of horror ranges from classical to adult violent i.e. classical to violent pornography.
The viewer may fantasize revenge on his former oppressers, who may have bullied or teased him in childhood. Both horror films and violent pornography may fuel this obsession.
What this indicates is that such viewing of violent films need to be monitored since a fan who is social isolated may mistake fantasy for reality, and try to act out what he sees on the screen.
IMHO video rental places who refuse to monitor their creepier clients' viewing habits are as morally reprehensible as drinking establishments who pickle the gills of their patrons to the point of alcohlism.
As well, hikikomori is not unique to Japan.
The etiology for some serial killers consists of the triad of bedwetting, torture of pets and small animals, and arson. As well, in the case of socially isolated individuals, which is often a given for this class of serial killer, it also includes collecting violent pornography - both movies and anime - and classic horror films.
As well, social isolation and the violent porn, including that in some classical horror films, are symptoms of an underlying personality disorder which has its roots in childhood, possibly due to bullying and teasing in childhood, isolation from one or both parents due to their depression or other psychiatric condition (alcoholism, drug abuse, or personality disorder).
No culture is immune to hikikomori-like symptoms of an underlying personality disorder and its comorbidity with a mood disorder. In certain cultures, a culture of shame implies depression to be inherent. As well, depression may have some types of psychoses present. When depression becomes chronic, bipolar disorder may arise with schizotypal impact on the personality.
However, it does not follow that mental illness will result in acting out of violent fantasies. Psychoses with physical acting out requires some indication of child abuse to be present, whether that is by beatings by a parent or a school mate.
A person with a psychosis will only use violence if violence has been used against it. No one spontaneously harms another person without someone previously harming that person.
Thus, a serial killer "learns" to use violence to meet his perverse needs.
In most cases of violence by socially isolated people, child abuse is a significent factor in the etiology of their personality disorder which always has asocial personality disorder as the predominant disorder. The antisocial personality disorder becomes comorbid when they act hostile (antisocial) towards other people, and some schizotypies are present, but not enough to confirm schizophrenia.
And yes, it is possible to have difficulty communicating, have confused thinking, and some psychotic symptoms without schizophrenia since it is the social isolation that is both symptom and causal agent of these dysfunctions.
So, if you look at the serial murderers of Japan and the recent stabbing incidents, both in March and the beginning of June, one of the factors in the etiology of all the perpetrators is child abuse, be it by parents or even classmate bullying and teasing.
Violence also tends to occur first during the teenaged years.
Therefore, bullying and teasing in school, child abuse and disrespectful behavior of parents towards their children, are all roots of future violence in adolescence and adulthood.
Therefore, the continuum of horror ranges from classical to adult violent i.e. classical to violent pornography.
The viewer may fantasize revenge on his former oppressers, who may have bullied or teased him in childhood. Both horror films and violent pornography may fuel this obsession.
What this indicates is that such viewing of violent films need to be monitored since a fan who is social isolated may mistake fantasy for reality, and try to act out what he sees on the screen.
IMHO video rental places who refuse to monitor their creepier clients' viewing habits are as morally reprehensible as drinking establishments who pickle the gills of their patrons to the point of alcohlism.
As well, hikikomori is not unique to Japan.
The etiology for some serial killers consists of the triad of bedwetting, torture of pets and small animals, and arson. As well, in the case of socially isolated individuals, which is often a given for this class of serial killer, it also includes collecting violent pornography - both movies and anime - and classic horror films.
As well, social isolation and the violent porn, including that in some classical horror films, are symptoms of an underlying personality disorder which has its roots in childhood, possibly due to bullying and teasing in childhood, isolation from one or both parents due to their depression or other psychiatric condition (alcoholism, drug abuse, or personality disorder).
No culture is immune to hikikomori-like symptoms of an underlying personality disorder and its comorbidity with a mood disorder. In certain cultures, a culture of shame implies depression to be inherent. As well, depression may have some types of psychoses present. When depression becomes chronic, bipolar disorder may arise with schizotypal impact on the personality.
However, it does not follow that mental illness will result in acting out of violent fantasies. Psychoses with physical acting out requires some indication of child abuse to be present, whether that is by beatings by a parent or a school mate.
A person with a psychosis will only use violence if violence has been used against it. No one spontaneously harms another person without someone previously harming that person.
Thus, a serial killer "learns" to use violence to meet his perverse needs.
In most cases of violence by socially isolated people, child abuse is a significent factor in the etiology of their personality disorder which always has asocial personality disorder as the predominant disorder. The antisocial personality disorder becomes comorbid when they act hostile (antisocial) towards other people, and some schizotypies are present, but not enough to confirm schizophrenia.
And yes, it is possible to have difficulty communicating, have confused thinking, and some psychotic symptoms without schizophrenia since it is the social isolation that is both symptom and causal agent of these dysfunctions.
So, if you look at the serial murderers of Japan and the recent stabbing incidents, both in March and the beginning of June, one of the factors in the etiology of all the perpetrators is child abuse, be it by parents or even classmate bullying and teasing.
Violence also tends to occur first during the teenaged years.
Therefore, bullying and teasing in school, child abuse and disrespectful behavior of parents towards their children, are all roots of future violence in adolescence and adulthood.
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