listening to: Cyril Scott 'Neopolitan Rhapsody for Orchestra'
mood: english language isnt that descriptive, sorry.
Idealized Fantasy and Self Esteem
The wish to attain perfection - the striving after an ideal image while exluding from our perceptions the realities that surround us and inhabit our own consciousness - is known by psychologists to be a primary contributor to feelings of low self estee. In believing that we cannot appeerceive truth through ouw own senses, we devalue our own existence by negating or ignoring gifts that are not highly valued in a technological and performance-oriented culture. Our first article delve into the mythology that epitomizes this behavioral bias and provides as unravelling of the psychological know into which we, as a society and as individuals, are too often tied.
If the ideals of a culture are often at odds with individual desires and creative impules, this anomaly is esepecially so in a culture which is dominated by heroic thinking. The "perfectionist" images that ful feelings of inadequacy are usually linkded to idealized fantasies and, through a cycle of fantasy and self-rejection, people become addicted to an ideal impossible to achieve.
The idea of perfection in Wester culture goes back to Plato' theories of original Forms, in which he proposes that there is a world of eteral ideas that we can only know through reason and logic, not through the senses. Plato, whose thinking WEstern culture has adopted, places the highes value on the idea of beauty which he sees as synonymous witht he idea of the good. Both of these concepts are equated witht he sun, which he sees as masculine, setting the stage for the hierarchyu that is still the driving force of Western Society.
Perfectionish is connected to an imbalance between solar and lunar states of mind and occurs whenever solar values are inflated over lunar values. In solar society, achievement ansd success are valued far more than a rich inner life,a nd performance expectations are so ingrained into the very fiber of life that sometimes it seems like performing provides the very meaning of life itself.
We pay great honors, for instance, to those who have made afortune in business, or been successful in various professions, yet we have little regard for the more lunar gifts of the waiter or watress who can make anyone who sits art their counter feel at ease. This same value system is also revealed by our failure to support the arts.
While solar oriented people are more likely to strive to meet culture expectations and thus ugnore lunar wisdom, lunar orientatted people have often been so beaten down in a solar society that they find themselves operating below capacity. It is thus thier challenge to recover their solar fire from deep inside and to have the courage of their passions. faced witht he soncstant bombardment of a solar culture, which sets so many idealized standars, lunar oriend people of ten make the statement, "I do not know who I am."
The solar/lunar dilemma is qute eloquently deomstrated by exlporing the characteristic of narcissm. In examining people with narcissistic problems, one will find quite often taht they have developed an inflated sense of Self, dervived from being admired at an early age for some prized physical trait or special talent. In such cases, though it may appear that a child is love, he or she may not really feel loved. This discrepancy arises because admiration is attached to a particular characteristic of the child rather than to the child's being as a whole.
This delemma illustrateds the degree of suffering that occurs even for those who meet our culture's idealized standards of beauty. Tracing the history of this image of perfection to its roots in Western culture, we arrive atht he Greek myth of Narcissus. The central drama in the myth concernes a young man, a hunter who continually rejects the countless suitors who seek relationships with him. One day, as he is bending down for drink of water forma pond, he falls in love with the imge of himself he sees reflected. This fization becomes a consuming passion that in due time destroys him He dies obsessed with what is essentially an idealized fantasy of himself. Eventually, at the spot where he dies, a flower appears which accordingly is name the Narcissus.
The myth of Narcissus accurately portrays the need that narcissists have to play to an admiring audience in its depiction of the nymph who falls passionately in love with the hero. Appropriately, the character is named Echo. In the story Echo is cursed with statying silent until someone else speaks to her. In order to be acceptabel to a narcissist, instead of expressing her (or his) own ideas and desires, a lover must mimic what the narcissist wants to hear.
Thefact that Narcissus is characterized as a hunter in the myth cptures te aspect of control needed to maintain an idea image that is essentiallly illusory. Moreover, the hunter is preedatory, concerned with controlling others rather than developing authentic relatednessl in contrast, the mysteries of love require vulnerability. In the contemporary world, the hunter aspect of the narcissist often translated into a driving desire to achieve goals, the narcissist is often closed off to intimacy. Wheterh narcissists are trying to excel in politics, industry or the arts, they often see their partners' need for lovign attention as an irritable disturbance. They look for "hunting partners" who not only admire them but who will make few claims of their own, for those claims are perceived as 'smothering', a limitation of freedom, and selfish demands.
Indeed, the true self can only be experienced and thence loved when one can see one's true reflection.
-Howard Teich, Ph.D.
The next 2/3 of this article will be typed at a later time. have fun sg folk.
---------
Ejaculation. Every time it happens to me, I noticed that I feel less motivated, have less creative energy, feel less like myself, and dont feel like I want to be around people. I need to find ways of getting my chi flowing again more quickly, so that I can recharge my batteries and feel normal more quickly, so I can go about usual creative activites. A wet dream sparked that thought. Sigh. A wet dream. What a waste of an orgasm. Maybe I should masturbate more often. But I dont want to squander my chi. Squander my chi? Oh whatever, Im fine.
Anyway, a friend and band member is coming down on his birthday tomrrow from Cleveland. The rest of my band members will be converging upon my house hold to spend some time setting up in the studio, and then partying a bit.
Of course, the bass player, out of nowhere has to leave town, so now we are stuck teaching bass parts of complex songs to the another guitarist.
Things are generally looking great though besides that.
Once we are done in the studio, maybe in a month or so, Ill put up a website for people to download .mp3s.
Well, I hope you are all have an interesting weekend, and meet interesting people with big hearts and share great experiences....or you at least eat some good food. Yeah, food. food is good.
---------
Have you ever walked around outside before dusk on a certain day when somehow due to the interaction between the sun, moon and sky and clouds, that it is as if color lense was placed over the sun and everything is bathed in a different color? And all the colors of everything are super saturated, casting a surreal perspective on your surroundings? That is my favorite time to run around outside, as if civilization didnt exist and I stepped into a different version of reality, or lifted this version of reality into a dream. Its rare when it happens, but its always so cool. I love the feel of the wind, I love to stare up at the sky and wander around the woods, on an adventure. What a beautiful world. Now do your part and protect it.
---------
I got to see Micheal Angel Batio again, it was awesome. Chillling out and drinking with a guitar legend was great. The guy is so down to earth. And I won a guitar in the raffle, A Fender Strat Traditional. Though I like my guitar much better, its free, and signed, so cool. Had band practice, and then smoked some blue lotus and salvia divinorum, and wandered through the woods afterwards.
---------
Famous gurus, authors, philosophers, and teachers are great, but now its time to quote yourself. If you were to quote yourself, what would it be? Silly, or serious; lets hear 'em.
"Reflection is like flapping your wings.
Upwards and downwards,
backwards and forwards,
inwards and outwards."
-Eric Belcastro
"If one were to remove the associations between sleep and escape, one would cure insomnia."
-Eric Belcastro
mood: english language isnt that descriptive, sorry.
Idealized Fantasy and Self Esteem
The wish to attain perfection - the striving after an ideal image while exluding from our perceptions the realities that surround us and inhabit our own consciousness - is known by psychologists to be a primary contributor to feelings of low self estee. In believing that we cannot appeerceive truth through ouw own senses, we devalue our own existence by negating or ignoring gifts that are not highly valued in a technological and performance-oriented culture. Our first article delve into the mythology that epitomizes this behavioral bias and provides as unravelling of the psychological know into which we, as a society and as individuals, are too often tied.
If the ideals of a culture are often at odds with individual desires and creative impules, this anomaly is esepecially so in a culture which is dominated by heroic thinking. The "perfectionist" images that ful feelings of inadequacy are usually linkded to idealized fantasies and, through a cycle of fantasy and self-rejection, people become addicted to an ideal impossible to achieve.
The idea of perfection in Wester culture goes back to Plato' theories of original Forms, in which he proposes that there is a world of eteral ideas that we can only know through reason and logic, not through the senses. Plato, whose thinking WEstern culture has adopted, places the highes value on the idea of beauty which he sees as synonymous witht he idea of the good. Both of these concepts are equated witht he sun, which he sees as masculine, setting the stage for the hierarchyu that is still the driving force of Western Society.
Perfectionish is connected to an imbalance between solar and lunar states of mind and occurs whenever solar values are inflated over lunar values. In solar society, achievement ansd success are valued far more than a rich inner life,a nd performance expectations are so ingrained into the very fiber of life that sometimes it seems like performing provides the very meaning of life itself.
We pay great honors, for instance, to those who have made afortune in business, or been successful in various professions, yet we have little regard for the more lunar gifts of the waiter or watress who can make anyone who sits art their counter feel at ease. This same value system is also revealed by our failure to support the arts.
While solar oriented people are more likely to strive to meet culture expectations and thus ugnore lunar wisdom, lunar orientatted people have often been so beaten down in a solar society that they find themselves operating below capacity. It is thus thier challenge to recover their solar fire from deep inside and to have the courage of their passions. faced witht he soncstant bombardment of a solar culture, which sets so many idealized standars, lunar oriend people of ten make the statement, "I do not know who I am."
The solar/lunar dilemma is qute eloquently deomstrated by exlporing the characteristic of narcissm. In examining people with narcissistic problems, one will find quite often taht they have developed an inflated sense of Self, dervived from being admired at an early age for some prized physical trait or special talent. In such cases, though it may appear that a child is love, he or she may not really feel loved. This discrepancy arises because admiration is attached to a particular characteristic of the child rather than to the child's being as a whole.
This delemma illustrateds the degree of suffering that occurs even for those who meet our culture's idealized standards of beauty. Tracing the history of this image of perfection to its roots in Western culture, we arrive atht he Greek myth of Narcissus. The central drama in the myth concernes a young man, a hunter who continually rejects the countless suitors who seek relationships with him. One day, as he is bending down for drink of water forma pond, he falls in love with the imge of himself he sees reflected. This fization becomes a consuming passion that in due time destroys him He dies obsessed with what is essentially an idealized fantasy of himself. Eventually, at the spot where he dies, a flower appears which accordingly is name the Narcissus.
The myth of Narcissus accurately portrays the need that narcissists have to play to an admiring audience in its depiction of the nymph who falls passionately in love with the hero. Appropriately, the character is named Echo. In the story Echo is cursed with statying silent until someone else speaks to her. In order to be acceptabel to a narcissist, instead of expressing her (or his) own ideas and desires, a lover must mimic what the narcissist wants to hear.
Thefact that Narcissus is characterized as a hunter in the myth cptures te aspect of control needed to maintain an idea image that is essentiallly illusory. Moreover, the hunter is preedatory, concerned with controlling others rather than developing authentic relatednessl in contrast, the mysteries of love require vulnerability. In the contemporary world, the hunter aspect of the narcissist often translated into a driving desire to achieve goals, the narcissist is often closed off to intimacy. Wheterh narcissists are trying to excel in politics, industry or the arts, they often see their partners' need for lovign attention as an irritable disturbance. They look for "hunting partners" who not only admire them but who will make few claims of their own, for those claims are perceived as 'smothering', a limitation of freedom, and selfish demands.
Indeed, the true self can only be experienced and thence loved when one can see one's true reflection.
-Howard Teich, Ph.D.
The next 2/3 of this article will be typed at a later time. have fun sg folk.
---------
Ejaculation. Every time it happens to me, I noticed that I feel less motivated, have less creative energy, feel less like myself, and dont feel like I want to be around people. I need to find ways of getting my chi flowing again more quickly, so that I can recharge my batteries and feel normal more quickly, so I can go about usual creative activites. A wet dream sparked that thought. Sigh. A wet dream. What a waste of an orgasm. Maybe I should masturbate more often. But I dont want to squander my chi. Squander my chi? Oh whatever, Im fine.
Anyway, a friend and band member is coming down on his birthday tomrrow from Cleveland. The rest of my band members will be converging upon my house hold to spend some time setting up in the studio, and then partying a bit.
Of course, the bass player, out of nowhere has to leave town, so now we are stuck teaching bass parts of complex songs to the another guitarist.
Things are generally looking great though besides that.
Once we are done in the studio, maybe in a month or so, Ill put up a website for people to download .mp3s.
Well, I hope you are all have an interesting weekend, and meet interesting people with big hearts and share great experiences....or you at least eat some good food. Yeah, food. food is good.
---------
Have you ever walked around outside before dusk on a certain day when somehow due to the interaction between the sun, moon and sky and clouds, that it is as if color lense was placed over the sun and everything is bathed in a different color? And all the colors of everything are super saturated, casting a surreal perspective on your surroundings? That is my favorite time to run around outside, as if civilization didnt exist and I stepped into a different version of reality, or lifted this version of reality into a dream. Its rare when it happens, but its always so cool. I love the feel of the wind, I love to stare up at the sky and wander around the woods, on an adventure. What a beautiful world. Now do your part and protect it.
---------
I got to see Micheal Angel Batio again, it was awesome. Chillling out and drinking with a guitar legend was great. The guy is so down to earth. And I won a guitar in the raffle, A Fender Strat Traditional. Though I like my guitar much better, its free, and signed, so cool. Had band practice, and then smoked some blue lotus and salvia divinorum, and wandered through the woods afterwards.
---------
Famous gurus, authors, philosophers, and teachers are great, but now its time to quote yourself. If you were to quote yourself, what would it be? Silly, or serious; lets hear 'em.
"Reflection is like flapping your wings.
Upwards and downwards,
backwards and forwards,
inwards and outwards."
-Eric Belcastro
"If one were to remove the associations between sleep and escape, one would cure insomnia."
-Eric Belcastro
VIEW 18 of 18 COMMENTS
I also feel that there's a block in my chi flow at the moment. i feel tired and out of energy and not so creative a have a lot of headaches. but it can't have something to do with orgasms. i often use orgasms to calm down and fall asleep :-)
...then you go to your journal and it opens up with 'Ejaculation'.
Now that I've gone back and read the entry I'm sure that they would approve but they weren't really interested in reading it after they saw that.
Sigh.