Self-Transformation & Build A Better You.

Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
That's why I quoted Emerson much to your disgust in that thread - the pit doesn't believe in the surface, and visa versa.

Whatever that means.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Skirting the edges, telling yourself this time you won't fall in but knowing your lying
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
To me being in the pit is just energy sapping.

You end up feeling like you've not got the energy to get up, you'll never get up again.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.
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From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy.
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Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.
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The Voice of the Devil​
All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors:—
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1. That Man has two real existing principles, viz. a Body and a Soul.
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2. That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone from the Body; and that Reason, call’d Good, is alone from the Soul.
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3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.
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But the following Contraries to these are True:—
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1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discern’d by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
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2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
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3. Energy is Eternal Delight.
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Those who restrain Desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or Reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling.
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And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of Desire.
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The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, and the Governor or Reason is call’d Messiah.
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And the original Archangel, or possessor of the command of the Heavenly Host, is call’d the Devil or Satan, and his children are call’d Sin and Death.
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But in the Book of Job, Milton’s Messiah is called Satan.
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For this history has been adopted by both parties.
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It indeed appear’d to Reason as if Desire was cast out; but the Devil’s account is, that the Messiah fell, and formed a Heaven of what he stole from the Abyss.
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This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the Comforter, or Desire, that Reason may have Ideas to build on; the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming fire.
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Know that after Christ’s death, he became Jehovah.
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But in Milton, the Father is Destiny, the Son a Ratio of the five senses, and the Holy-ghost Vacuum!
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Note. The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet, and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.
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luka

luka

Well-known member
constant escape said:
You're asking me to read posts that aren't mine, but fine.
Click to expand...

Proverbs of Hell​
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
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Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
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The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
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Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
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He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
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The cut worm forgives the plough.
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Dip him in the river who loves water.
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A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
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He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
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Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
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The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
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The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.
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All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap.
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Bring out number, weight, and measure in a year of dearth.
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No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
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A dead body revenges not injuries.
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The most sublime act is to set another before you.
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If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
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Folly is the cloak of knavery.
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Shame is Pride’s cloak.
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Prisons are built with stones of Law, brothels with bricks of Religion.
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The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
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The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
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The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
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The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
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Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
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The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man.
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The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
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Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
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Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the fleece of the sheep.
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The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
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The selfish, smiling fool, and the sullen, frowning fool shall be both thought wise, that they may be a rod.
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What is now proved was once only imagin’d.
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The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit watch the roots; the lion, the tiger, the horse, the elephant watch the fruits.
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The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.
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One thought fills immensity.
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Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.
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Everything possible to be believ’d is an image of truth.
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The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the crow.
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The fox provides for himself; but God provides for the lion.
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Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.
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He who has suffer’d you to impose on him, knows you.
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As the plough follows words, so God rewards prayers.
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The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
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Expect poison from the standing water.
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You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.
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Listen to the fool’s reproach! it is a kingly title!
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The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth of water, the beard of earth.
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The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
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The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow; nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take his prey.
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The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
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If others had not been foolish, we should be so.
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The soul of sweet delight can never be defil’d.
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When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius; lift up thy head!
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As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
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To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
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Damn braces. Bless relaxes.
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The best wine is the oldest, the best water the newest.
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Prayers plough not! Praises reap not!
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Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!
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The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands and feet Proportion.
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As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
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The crow wish’d everything was black, the owl that everything was white.
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Exuberance is Beauty.
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If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning.
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Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of Genius.
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Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
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Where man is not, nature is barren.
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Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ’d.
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Enough! or Too much.
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constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
poetix said:
I don't find that I value effort in general. I've always been a "work smarter, not harder" sort of person, i.e. extremely lazy and coasts as much as possible on such talents as I natively possess. I'll spend endless hours on something I care about, like learning to play something on the guitar or writing some interesting code, but I don't regard that as effort: it's something else, a kind of absorption, which is if anything anaesthetising: nothing like the nerve-wracking grind of real work.
Click to expand...
This jumps out at me. Makes me think about how certain activities are libidinally infused, if even in minor enthusiasms. And then there is the quality of certain activities that is productiveness. It seems like people who happen to be able to libidinally infuse productive activities are the ones who, in principle, capitalism (as a network of conscious and unconscious energies) favors.

I think the libidinizability of activities isn't fixed, but plastic. Which isn;t saying much, seeing as passions and enthusiasms change. However, I also think this plasticity can be steered. That through sheer brute willforce one can infuse a given task with libidinal investment.

At this point, you are, in a way, willfully nudging your desires, shifting your libidinal investments. Not that its a fixed-sum game that one needs to be economic about. I think the sum can be raised, provided one works to contain higher and higher sums. It would require a more enduring crucible.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
people who happen to be able to libidinally infuse making money and getting rich are the ones who, in principle, capitalism (as a network of conscious and unconscious energies) favors.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
But other than that I agree with what you are saying in principle, as an aspiration, but with the proviso that almost no one has been able to achieve such a thing
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Part of it has to do with guilt, which could just be one particular facet of one particular strategy, rather than an essential component.

Its about forming habits, training your desire to whatever extent you are able to. That is, when I am drawn into some activity that doesn't register as productive, I use guilt as a negative force to propel away from that activity. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

The point is that eventually, you don;t need to keep using guilt in such a manner, but just follow your newly defined instincts.

Like I look forward to watching hour long lectures now. I am even getting to the point where I can instantaneously exert willforce onto psychic libidinal fluctuations, the ebbs and flows of attention that would otherwise not stay attached to the old white guy talking behind the podium on the screen.
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
It boils down to a kind of focusing, a kind of tightening of the psychic grip on the current activity. Same kind of focusing/tightening that enables people to reach great height in this or that activity. Sustain it long enough, and you get a flow state, some kind of self-perpetuating superfocus that manages to renew itself without the kind of brute willforce I'm talking about.

No doubt some people just enter such a state when engaging in a given task, but I'm not convinced it is beyond the grasp of the will.
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Using the term libidinal may make some people think of erotic energy or whatnot, but I'm using that term in its broadest sense. Investing passion into a given activity, libidinizing it, makes working through that activity seem effortless.
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
And I think we can excel capitalistically, but in ways that are abstracted beyond finance and stock and whatnot. In this abstract sense, excelling capitalistically amounts to the seeking and securing of ever higher rates of progression, advancement, in whichever domain. Being able to better tune your mind into that superfocused state, bein able to sustain it for longer and longer periods of time.

Of course, the periodic decompression needs to be integrated into the practice. A means of relaxing, but not too much.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
constant escape said:
Part of it has to do with guilt, which could just be one particular facet of one particular strategy, rather than an essential component.

Its about forming habits, training your desire to whatever extent you are able to. That is, when I am drawn into some activity that doesn't register as productive, I use guilt as a negative force to propel away from that activity. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
Click to expand...

Yeah, to a degree, but for most of us we have old habits and old desires which will only take this subservience and repression for so long before reasserting themselves.
 
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