Sunday, April 14, 2013

Dante's Inferno

In my last article I wrote about the levels of emotional stupidity through which all of us must pass to reach freedom. Today I want to write about my actual experiences with this and some things I've learned from them. This is probably some of the most difficult stuff I've written, bringing together everything I've learned and done so far. We all participate in creating our own experience, and for most of us that experience is a nightmare, a prison made of fictions of who we think we are. If we know how, we can also create a dream of truth, a work of art. It's a battle between heaven and hell, waged constantly in your heart and mind. If you want to know heaven, first you must fight through hell. I hope to show how the battle is waged.

Update: added some things to the weapons list.

Symbols, Agreements & Belief

We all live in fear. Fear of living in a different universe from the one we actually live in. In the universe we live in, there is only perfection, harmony. Everything is art, everything is music. Everything, even pain, suffering, loneliness, war and death. There are no mistakes, no accidents and no coincidences. The world, just as it is, is heaven. Each of us is an artist and prophet in the unfolding masterpiece. Life is your paint and canvas. Symbols, agreements and beliefs are the tools and brushes with which you choose your colors and place your strokes.

We learn to use these tools from our parents, teachers, peers and life experiences. You can make sense of what I've written because of these learnings, because you agree that the words have a certain meaning. We each learn countless words, symbols and concepts and agree to give them certain meanings that we use to understand the world. Some of these refer to real things in our experience, while some of them refer to ideas that exist only in our minds.

As tools, we can use them to create science, art and even magic, however symbols are not the pure experiences they refer to. "Sitting in a chair" is not the experience of actually sitting in a chair, and "art" is not actually the experience of viewing a particular painting. When we believe that symbols are truth, we give them a life of their own, the tools become the user. Our accumulated knowledge becomes a wall of fog and noise, blinding and deafening us to the truth of ourselves and everything in our experience.

The Road to Hell

The path to hell starts with a single step. That step is judgment. We learn to judge from a young age. Naturally, children tend to explore and create, to seek pleasure and avoid pain. However, we learn from others; our parents, teachers, peers, pastors, etc, that when we do what they want, when we are the person they want us to be, we get rewarded with attention, praise, affection and things. When we don't, we're punished with rejection, anger, ridicule and even physical violence. We seek their attention to see ourselves, to learn who we are and what we can do in life, but out of fear of punishment and fear of not being rewarded, we accept their judgments and deny the very thing we sought.

Fear begets fear and judgment begets judgment. We learn to judge everything and everyone, ourselves most of all. Good and bad, beautiful and ugly, fat and thin, smart and dumb, perfect and imperfect, valuable and worthless. Our thoughts and words become weapons which we use against ourselves and others. We judge out of fear, in order to try to control things so our fears don't come true. Judgments are always one-sided agreements, and in our effort to control we end up doing the same thing over and over, either giving and serving while getting little back, or trying to take and manipulate while giving little to nothing in return. The imbalance generally continues until the person either snaps from giving too much, or others snap from being imposed upon; there is no peace in hell.

The War of the Heart

The path to heaven also begins with a single step. That step is awareness. By becoming aware of when you are judging, you can decide to take a different step. This is where the real fight begins, and I suggest taking people you care about as opponents.

Leashes & Walls

The first thing I usually notice that tells me I'm in for a fight is what I call 'leashing'. Leashing is one-sided agreements in action. Either the other person will try to control or manipulate you in some way, or they may try to hand you control (ie throwing themselves at you), or you may find yourself putting yourself at their feet. In the first two cases, I politely decline to either accept control or being controlled. In the last case, I fight to break the leash.

When you follow any leash, at its end you find what I call a 'wall'. I experience them like a solid barrier, and they're like a felt experience of the denial of self and the unwillingness to experience the pain of that denial. I used to smash into them quite painfully, but now when I realize I've hit a wall, I stop and stare it down. I'll look it over, look for a way through or around, chisel at it, smash it, punch it, kick it, ram it, and fight through it until it breaks. Ultimately, getting through the wall means acknowledgment; a full recognition of the judgments which you accepted into your identity. In my experience, the usual way to get to that point either involves yelling or crying, or both. When it comes to heart issues, it seems to be inevitable, although some people seem to change more easily than others, and it probably depends on a lot of things.

Weapons of War

The fight out of hell is extremely difficult, and for most people (myself included) might be insurmountable without tools to aid in the fight. Here I present a list of agreements which have helped me to survive the battles thus far and to see truth where I might otherwise have been blind.

Focus Your Awareness: A natural consequence of judgment is that our awareness is constricted and fixated on a few limited things at the exclusion of everything else. You stop seeing, you stop hearing, you may literally close your eyes or be unable to look at what's going on. Simply by opening your eyes and looking at what's in front of you can make a big difference on whether you're able to fight or not. It may help to start by focusing your attention on random nonthreatening things to help you climb out of your head. This also means paying attention to your own feelings. They can tell you a lot about what's out of whack in your life. In Zen, they say that the path is always right in front of you. Can you hear the birds chirping? Can you see the trees sway in the wind? There is the path.

Put Your Heart on the Line: Putting your heart on the line means saying and doing exactly what you mean to, or at least refraining from saying or doing what you don't mean. This also means being honest with and about your feelings, even when you feel like shit. When things get tough, you may very well have to slow down a whole lot in order to be able to do this well.

Start With What's Most Important: Figure out what the most important thing to do is, and when you're sure of it, do that. Then figure out what the next most important thing is, and when you're sure of it, do that. Repeat until finished. The hard part is being sure. A trusted second (or third) opinion can be valuable here.

Do Your Best: You will screw up. You will blow up, you will crash, and you will have days where only the dog can understand you. It's an absolutely necessary part of all this. All you can really do is do your best, which will vary depending on how you're feeling, your health and your zodiac sign. If you've done your best, you have nothing to blame yourself for.

Take Nothing Personally: Everyone lives in their own experiential world. If someone else judges, ridicules, blames or tries to fight you, that comes from their own fear and pain, it has nothing to do with you. Let responsibility fall where it belongs; take responsibility for your own emotions, and to others the same. I can also point you to the beautiful Litany of Gendlin.

Question Every Assumption: Curiosity and doubt are some of the most powerful tools in my arsenal. If you don't ask questions, you won't find answers. Ask good questions long enough, and good answers find you. It's doubt of the self that produces judgment, and likewise it's doubt of your judgments that sets you free of them.

Know Nothing: Give yourself permission not to know. It's perfectly ok to say "I don't know". This is actually probably a large part of how I keep my sanity these days; I answer most questions with "Hell if I know!". Also give yourself permission to not know who you are, or who other people are either. Existing in this universe means continuous change and evolution. Nothing is as solid or unchanging as we experience our concepts to be.

No Merit: There is no good or bad, right or wrong. Everything is perfect, and nothing you do gains you (or loses you) any points towards everything. You do what you do because you want to, simple.

Throw Paint: When all else fails, throw paint. Do whatever, say whatever. Usually works out ok, as long as you've got nothing else.

The Stick: This is one of my favorite koans, and although it's rather subtle it speaks for itself:
Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.
Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no relaization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."
Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.
"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon, "where did this anger come from?"

Dying to Live

Probably the biggest disappointment I've ever had was finding out just how difficult, painful and tedious it is to fight your way out of hell. Pain, misery, fear, anger, hatred, confusion, headaches, rinse, repeat. There's occasional glimpses of love and freedom, but just enough to frustrate you near to death. Most days it's like crawling in a barrel and rolling down a rocky hill, and feels about like dying pretty much every time. Up and down, back and forth, and I think I've forgotten what sleep is. I think the only reason I'm still able to fight is because I started seeing other people fight right along with me. It's the first time I can recall that I've gotten back exactly what I've given.




References

The Toltec Wisdom Series (1, 2, 3)
Positioning Opens Up the Lines of Sight for the Whole Situation and Very Brief Psychotherapy by James P. Gustafson
Zen Meditation in Therapy by C. Alexander Simpkins & Annelen M. Simpkins
Trances People Live by Stephen Wollinsky

Sunday, March 10, 2013

"Relationship" is a Verb!

Things have been pretty rough recently, but I'm learning a great deal and I hope to write some about it now that I have some space to think. I'm always looking for depth, and I haven't been disappointed to find it (although disappointed for other reasons, perhaps). My last few articles have been basically about relationships (sexual, mainly), but I haven't really said much about what makes a good one, or how a relationship is even defined.

Nominalizations, Groupthink and Possession

The first thing I can say about the word "relationship" is that it's a 'nominalization', that is a verb which has been converted into a noun, and thus objectified. There are many words like this; "relationship" (to relate), "government" (to govern), marriage (to marry), etc.

Some of these words also objectify a group as an independent thing that can think, decide, etc, which is not true. Every group is made of individuals each having individual thoughts, making individual actions, and so on. When the capacity to think is attributed to a group, bad things happen. Words like "couple" and "government" exemplify this. Even the simple word "we" can lead you down a slippery slope.

Finally, when it comes to relationships, there is a tendency to cling to the illusion of posession. "My" boyfriend/girlfriend, "my" husband/wife, "my" country, etc. In every case, some exclusion is claimed in general by external coercion. You serve one country, one significant other, one God, etc. to the exclusion of all others, and to do otherwise is a betrayal. It is by this means that everyone is converted into a slave, to their job, their spouse, their country and so on. This is based on a fundamental distrust, and creates a lot of resentment which is ignored until things start to break at the seams.

To Relate

To understand how a 'relationship' works and what makes it good or bad, you have to start with what actually makes it up; actions. The words you say, the gestures, touches, the jokes, laughing, provocations, teasing, activities you do together, and so on. What each person does and how they do it speaks volumes for the nature of a relationship. I should note that 'to love' is also a verb, although it can be strange to consider feelings as actions.

The most important thing is what it is you're actually interacting with. Most people are unable to see the person/people in front of them. All they can see is their own hopes and fears, or else the hopes and fears of others. Unable to see both at the same time, they can't make an intelligent compromise between their own wants and those of others, so they try to manipulate the situation to get what they want.

To Consider

The theme of "being considerate" has come up a lot for me lately, but it hadn't really occurred to me just what it means to consider. To consider what? Well obviously, the other person's feelings. Stereotypically this is something women complain about to men, although the reverse also happens.

To be considerate is a very difficult thing to do no matter what's between your legs. Not only do you need to be able to consider the other person's feelings and context, but you also have to respect your own and strike a fair deal between them. Even if you're willing to do that, figuring out a person's feelings and what's important in their context is not a simple task. That's the kind of stuff psychologists have been arguing about for more than 100 years now. It occurs to me that it's not really so complicated, it's just that they try to stick really complicated names on things that are absurdly ordinary. This is also where the depth is at, and what gives relationships the potential to be great.

To Present

If consideration is the depth, to be present is what brings the depths to the surface. What is it that you present when you're "being present"? No less than your awareness, attention and influence (which are also nominalizations; to be aware, to attend, and to influence). Usually these are preoccupied in thoughts; hopes, fears etc. There is an entire class of meditations (focus meditations) which focuses (facepalm here) on developing presence. This requires a practice of developing flexibility and depth of focus, shifting from the big picture to various levels of details, and expanding your senses as far as they will go, then extending your influence through your awareness. Usually people do the opposite: they look at reality, then at their desires, and try to manipulate reality to get their desires, only looking later to see if they got what they wanted.

Deeper Meaning

This has been the topic of a few arguments I've had recently. How do you know what relationships are worth pursuing? Is it better to have just one romantic relationship or many? Where do you draw the line?

I think there are really two important points here. The first is that, in order for a relationship to be functional, it must be fair. If one partner gives everything and gets nothing back, then it isn't much of a relationship. This doesn't just mean in terms of physical things or favors, either, but also in terms of being considerate and emotional closeness. This requires that both people can see and work out a fair deal, otherwise you get dependency or co-dependency, or one person or both are getting used.

The second is that it is best to maintain only relationships which are truly awesome and which you would keep up with forever. Meaningless self-gratification is an avoidant behavior, a symptom of some imbalance in your life. Time spent satiating that instead of dealing with it is time wasted. It takes time to accumulate worthwhile relationships, but always time well spent. I think it's worth mentioning that there ought to be at least some common interests in such a relationship, although a perfect clone of yourself is obviously not reasonable to expect.

Common Stupidity

As with everything else, there's plenty of common 'wisdom' regarding relationships which is dead wrong and yet it's how people really treat each other more often than not. This is the kind of sickness you should watch out for and either avoid or smash when you run across it. I'm not gonna plagiarize, so you can read it here.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Feminaziism Explained

Now that I've actually had some time to acquire stats, I've been kinda surprised at what I've seen. Apparently I've got readers, regular or random, from every continent except Antarctica (screw you Antarctica!). There's a definite US/english speaking skew, but I've gotten plenty of hits from many places that aren't (and some that I'd hardly heard of). I'm rather pleased with the diversity.

The #1 most popular search that leads people here, ironically, is "is the diamond approach a cult?". I never expected that small comment to be a breadwinner, but there it is. Virtually all of the searches that lead people here are psychology related (go figure) and evenly cover the Diamond Approach, Internal Family Systems, and Milton Erickson. Psychology is definitely a big part of this blog, and there will definitely be more to follow on that, but I'm kind of disappointed that there are few if any people purposefully reading this for any other reason. For now, oh well. Part of it is probably lack of much content, or at least of content that stands out. The rest is advertising in the right places, which I am very lazy about, not that I don't have places I could do that. Maybe later :).

Today's article is somewhat psychology related, and is brought to you courtesy of Valentine's Day and some insane experiences I've been having recently. And no, not the "awesome" sort of insane, either. In particular, I'm referring to feminism and its consequences.



Contradictions and Doublespeak

On the surface, feminism claims itself to represent "equality for women", i.e. sufferage, the abolishment of discrimination and exclusion, and so on. Great, awesome. Except that's not really what they're asking for, nor does that accurately represent the policies that feminists have actually pushed into law. Also, we're no longer living in the dark ages, the "glass ceiling" is nothing more than a myth today (at least in the west) and exclusive men's-only clubs and things are virtually extinct.

What you can see plainly today, rather, is a growing number of exclusive women's-only activities, clubs and so on, justified by "equality", but plainly discriminatory. And that is precisely what they want; positive discrimination. They want to have their cake and eat it, but they don't want to buy the ingredients, do the work of making the cake, or clean up the kitchen when they're done. They have "affirmative action" laws that force businesses to hire women even if they basically refuse to work or do a poor job, laws that force businesses to employ and pay (non-working) mothers, "no-fault divorce" laws that allow a woman to walk away with everything a man owns based solely on her word, and laws around rape which provide no meaningful punishment for false-accusers (and offer zero protection for men who are raped). There's your 'equality'.

And those are just the legal consequences. The social consequences are much more pervasive and insidious. "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" has increasing become the battle cry of the now feminised media. Both in advertisement and on television shows, men are now portrayed as thuggish, stupid, helpless children being 'humorously' guided only by the wise and benevolent nagging of a woman. In public school, it's now apparently mandatory for teachers to repeatedly spout the "fact" (which they pulled out of their feminist asses) that "women on average are smarter than men" (but equal!), since you see so many of them in engineering fields, or actually doing anything meaningful besides filing their nails and occupying a spot on front of a TV, of course. "Sex education" is practically nothing but pseudo-scientific misandry, thinly veiled by the paper authority of the government run school system. Men are portrayed as nothing but sex fiends and rapists, looking to fuck and chuck as many women as possible, and basically implicates them as walking STD infections or potential unplanned pregnancies.

The sort of sickness that feeds feminism (and misandry) comes from both sexes, though, and is a deeper problem than feminism itself. In female "tribal wisdom", "Welfare is only a man away", and in male "tribal wisdom", "the man is supposed to be the provider". Both sexes apparently agree that (strong, independent) women need to be taken care of by a man, nay they are entitled to it and the nearest man is obligated to do so for them immediately (in exchange for {the promise of} sex, of course). In other words, all the woman should have to do is wiggle her ass (or other parts) and the man then offers his paycheck for the mere privilege of being manipulated.

I've noticed personally that women tend to automatically place men into one of three categories. 1) Walking welfare check (ie free lunch), 2) Sex object (the thugs they actually sleep with, married women included), or 3) a creepy loser. In general, women think themselves terribly clever at being able to manipulate and shame men into these roles (and then taking advantage of the free ride), but if you refuse to comply their reality tends to fall apart.

Western women (and women in general really) tend to base their value on how good of a sex object they are, or rather how well they can control men with their bodies and whatever else. In conversations regarding relationships, they usually refer to themselves in the passive-objective form "me". "Romantic stuff should happen to me", "My boyfriend took me on a date", "My boyfriend went shopping with me" and so on. Rarely, if ever do you hear a woman say something like "I decided to do x", or "I took responsibility"; making themselves an active subject just does not occur to them. And yet in the same breath they want to cringe and whine about men treating them as sex objects, but they whine even louder when they don't. They want to be a passive object, with no responsibilities and all the privileges of a relationship, and they also want to be treated as a real person at the same time, again just as long as there are no responsibilities to this (like considering other people's feelings and needs).


The Man Trap

In order to successfully shirk all responsibility for contributing anything to anyone, women require a man that they can manipulate into shouldering that responsibility on their behalf. Unfortunately, in the modern western world, governments are more than happy to assist them in forcing men at gunpoint to do their frivolous bidding. It grants politicians more control, after all, so why shouldn't they?

Probably the most obvious is that divorce courts are extremely biased in favor of women. Even a woman who has no children and contributed nothing to a relationship is entitled by law to alimony for life, to sustain the "lifestyle she's used to". If there are children, she's entitled to them, too. They came from her vagina, after all, and so they must be her sole property. And to child support, since she's a helpless (strong, independent?) woman who can't take care of them without a cash cow to pay for it.

If the man tries to do anything to protect himself, ie a prenup (or stronger contract, preferably), the woman inevitably complains that it's an "unromantic legal contract". Mind you they have no such complaints about marching down to the government office to sign your life away in an unromantic, legal marriage contract. And hey, they even get a big, shiny expensive rock and a huge narcissistic party thrown just for them as a bonus.

If that's not bad enough, in many places they are trying to enact laws that imply that any woman who even lives with you for a certain amount of time is entitled to the full benefits of marriage; ie all of a man's possessions and income. Of course, even if you avoid that, governments have plenty of programs; single mother ghettoes, single mother welfare and so on for which they will force you to pay taxes. Consider yourself successfully parasitized.


Society Pays

Whenever someone tries to get privileges while neglecting any responsibility, there are negative consequences. Aside from the huge legal-economic vacuum that feminism represents, there are social consequences that are far worse.

In the UK especially, women are basically never held accountable for their actions. If a woman does something deliberate and criminal, it's written off as "she couldn't help it, she didn't know any better, she needs a counselor or therapy". As a result, women commit heinous crimes (often against men) and walk free. It's also very popular in the UK for women to abandon newborns in dumpsters, parking lots, and so on which occurs all the time. Of course, all they did was install "baby drops" at hospitals so now women can abandon their children at whim without facing any emotional consequences for it.

Not only that, but if a woman wants welfare without the bother of marriage, she can just have babies, then collect welfare and child support and get a free house on top of that. It's the children who really get screwed, since they're stuck with a manipulative parasite of a mother who tears the family (if there ever was one) apart at whim. They get to live in a ghetto and go to crappy schools while their mothers drink and pop prescription pills all day (and of course screw around with their thuggish boy-toy of the moment).

Indeed, the destruction of the family has created an entire generation of thuggish-whorish delinquents and criminals. And the government, of course, then steps up to "save" everyone from the criminals they created in the first place. So you get fascism as a final cherry on top.

Things aren't quite as extreme in the US or Canada, but there is still a significant burden, and a very significant degree of entitlement and demand for instant gratification that plagues most wealthy societies. Implosion from a critical mass of parasites is only a matter of sooner or later.


A Political Movement

In no way am I trying to suggest that women are inherently insane, or parasites, or that no woman ever takes responsibility for anything, or that women are somehow less intelligent. The real problem is that, from a young age they are trained (in general) to expect infinite free lunches forever, as a part of an ongoing political movement called "Feminism" (free lunches for women only).

The thing is, regardless of what individual women may think, the women who are actively engaged in the political workings get rewarded simply for doing so. You can get funding, prestige, and political power just for whining about having a vagina and about life being totally unfair on account of that fact. Just like every other politician, they are driven by greed and power-trips.

The government also likes feminism, since it allows them to control men through women, and to control women through free-lunch programs. Ultimately, group-think makes people stupid, and totalitarians have no use for intelligent serfs. It's much easier to control a group that undermines itself through competition and groupthink than one of individuals who cooperate and think for themselves. Divide and conquer, and all that.

A Case of Brainwashing

From a young school age forward, kids in school are indoctrinated with feminist double standards, and then especially so in "sex education", which is more like part religious part feminist propaganda. There's a long list of such double standards which degrade both men and women, and create a culture which actively enables female entitlement (to basically anything they want). The gist goes something like this:

“Us women don’t need men…
…what do you mean men are on a Marriage Strike? How are we meant to cope! Grrrr.”

“Children don’t need fathers, and are probably better of without a man in their lives…
…but men who walk out on their children are scum for depriving kids of a father.”

“Women are financially independent from men and can cope easily enough on their own…
…but we still want – nay, demand – child support, alimony, welfare benefits for single mothers, etc.”

“Men and women are equal…
…but women are better.”

“Gender roles are pure social constructs; no behaviour is naturally male or female…
…but men are naturally bad and women naturally good.”

“Women are just as capable as men, if not more so, in the workplace…
…but we do insist on positive discrimination/affirmative action to ensure we can succeed.”

“Women are actually stronger emotionally than men, better able to handle stress and emotional pain…
…but we demand to be wrapped in legal cotton wool to protect us from the evils of sexual harassment.”

“Women are the more gentle, nurturing and caring sex…
…but we want the right to gleefully abort our babies at whim.”

“Feminism is not about hating men, it’s about equality…
…(insert random Andrea Dworkin or Germaine Greer quote here.)”

“Making wide generalisations about a gender is unfair and nasty…
…and all men do it all the time.”

“It is terrible that women are objectified and equated with their sexual organs…
…come on fellow lezzers, let’s watch The Vagina Monologues!”

“Women are not in anyway impaired by PMS…
…but we reserve the right to use PMS as an excuse to justify murder.”

“There is no excuse for domestic violence or child abuse…
…except having a vagina of course.”

“For a woman to sleep around it means she is liberated and free…
…but a man who sleeps around is a womanizing sex-crazed bastard!”

(from another blog)

"Many women do behave as if equality means getting their way all of the time. True equality means equal consequences, equal effort, equal expectations, etc. Many women want their cake, they just don’t want to have to pay for the ingredients, make the cake or clean up the kitchen afterwards."

Links

Eternal Bachelor : Scary tales of feminist reality in the UK.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

What I Learned from PUA

Whew! Recently I've been distracted by a conversation with Joe Fobes, who introduced me to a whole lot of new psychology stuff that I'll have to write about later. I've also been working 8AM to 4 or 5PM, and haven't had a whole lot of time to do anything. Now that I've got things reasonably settled, I'm going to try to get at least something written. There's plenty of topics that I haven't touched on yet, and plenty more side stuff to talk about, so as usual it's more a matter of getting it down coherently in text. And having the time and energy to do so.

I've also been having an interesting conversation with Jimmy, who has some very cool (although sometimes hard to follow) insights into Ericksonian Hypnosis. He also links to some very good articles on lesswrong, which I never would have been able to dig up myself. I've also been re-reading Erickson's collected works, and I've edited the second Erickson article to include some clarifications and insights. If you can't tell, I've had a lot on my mind lately.

Today I want to talk about something that I kind of hate, but is also kind of cool. If you've never heard of the "pick up arts", you might want to google it quickly to understand just wtf I'm talking about. Before I even start on what I thought was cool, I think I should preface it with everything that is garbage about the whole industry and the concept in general.

The Lame Stuff

When I first learned about 'game', all I heard about was all the techniques, how to dress, how to make them jealous and how to tell stories about yourself. I got the stupid idea into my head that I could use hypnosis to enhance this, but could never figure out how. That sort of seemed to work the way they said it would, but none of it led to actually getting laid, nor to anything resembling a meaningful relationship. At the same time, they were saying that it doesn't matter what you say, but rather how you feel about what you're saying. I observed this directly myself; sometimes I would say virtually nothing and yet the result was far better than when I tried doing all that stupid acting crap. I decided then that hypnosis would be better used as a therapy rather than a means of control.

So then I got into 'natural game', which focused around dealing with your inner state and being more 'authentic' as opposed to using techniques and acting. They had a lot more interesting things to say, but they were still incongruent in many ways. They still used a lot of cheap "techniques", in spite of the fact that they admitted that they were useless. They advocated forcing your way through your resistances, and that you should go out 7 days a week so that you don't "slip backwards" into your old ways. They also said that men and women are equal, which I agree with, but then they go on to say that if a woman is physically attractive, that is all the value she needs to 'bring to the table', whereas the man should be cool and open and level headed and provide the good time. Utter nonsense. Their focus on actual self-improvement was superficial at best, and as much as they might claim 'radical honesty' or whatever, they were all very artificial in their social interactions.

Aside from that, both 'schools' spoke about eliciting jealousy and making yourself seem "higher value". Jealousy, I found, is a miserable and hateful thing to use, and you invite them to throw it right back at you when you invoke it. As for being "higher value", that's all about living through your own values congruently. That's a topic for another time, however. Flirting is really very, very stupidly simple. All you're doing is demonstrating confidence, playfulness (and general positivity) and interest. Once you understand that, all the other crap they say is superfluous and often backwards. Two out of three works well, too.

The Cool Stuff

The cool stuff I learned was more about social dynamics, and that probably made the whole thing worthwhile. There's a lot more going on in social interactions than most people are consciously aware of, but to which they respond in profound ways unconsciously.

Probably the most ubiquitous example of this is the Reticular Activation System or RAS for short. The RAS is like a visual 'cache' for important reality-objects to pay attention to. This includes both threats (like if you saw a gun out of the corner of your eye, you'd probably freak) as well as desired things (hey, there's a hot girl/guy, or hey, there's a bag of money). When something in our RAS radar comes within our peripheral vision, we automatically look at it without thinking about it, and this happens all the time.

One thing which is naturally almost always in our RAS is to look out for alphas. There's much talk in the PUA community about "being alpha", but they seem to have very little understanding of what this really means. An alpha is simply someone who acts primarily through their values (as opposed to acting through anxiety). A person who acts through their values will tend to produce their own good time, rather than needing to follow along with a group, although there are certainly degrees of 'alpha'. If you go to a club, you can easily observe the phenomena where one person in a group will be the most active leader, and everyone around them will be looking to that person to try to figure out what they should do. This has been called a "chode crystal".

Most of what determines an 'alpha' from a 'beta' depends on non-verbal signals like body language, facial expressions, glances, and voice timbre. What your body projects is interpreted as being strictly more true than what you say. If you say something and your body language or voice projects that you don't believe it, people will think you're trying to trick them or are hiding something. Alphas generally project values which result in a distinct confidence, fluency and grace of movement, whereas betas project uncertainty and a level of disbelief in what they are doing.

In addition to non-verbal signals, people will also use what is known as a "congruence test" to ascertain the social 'pecking order'. Even if a person moves or talks like an alpha, when challenged they may break down and react in a negative or beta fashion. So, people will tease you, insult you, try to manipulate you or get you to be subservient, anything to see if they can put you under them. Essentially, if you violate your own values in your response to them (or sometimes if you respond at all) then you may find your status automatically lowered. It is the strength of your reality or frame which determines your social status and not what you look like, how much money you make or what activities you participate in.

As might be guessed, since displaying "alpha" non-verbal behavior congruently causes people to tend to follow what you are doing, it has a great potential for hypnosis. Instead of trying to copy what they are doing and use that to lead them, you get them to want to follow you (which they may do automatically on an unconscious level) so that you are giving them something when you display similarity to them. Then leading them is nearly effortless.

There are also untold legions of difference social signals that mean "I want to fuck you", which also occur in degrees. One thing I was shocked by is just how quickly a person's attitude can change in that respect, sometimes flip-flopping back and forth in almost comedic fashion. The other thing that surprised me is just how sexually charged almost all casual conversations in all situations are. It seems it doesn't matter what gender you are, or whether they're in a relationship or not, sex is the number one concern for most people. I've also seen that most people are bi to at least some degree under appropriate circumstances. Weird shit, let me tell you.

My general conclusion has been, aside from the three main aspects of flirting, the majority of social action should be directed to people as... well.. people. Surprise? Through a complete lack of understanding of this, PUAs fail to manage meaningful relationships, and usually end up with mentally immature people, and then complain that they don't understand. To those folks, here's a cluebat for you.