diary
Euphoria assumes:
“I deserve this.”
Despair assumes:
“This shouldn’t have happened to me.”
A disenchanted framing dissolves both:
events don’t reward or punish,
they unfold.
Responsibility remains, drama exits. Trading highs and lows for stability and clarity.
Most relationships are not built to accommodate ego-light people.
They are built to stabilize ego, not transcend it.
The usual path: holding a girl's hands and losing sense of time. That drug loses potent. Then the physical intimacy. Romanticism. Stages. Continuous upping of doses through novelty and using the intelligence to fuel the same. It saturates. The emptiness comes in (or becomes visible). Everything that which is valued, losing relevance. The penchant to find new ways to keep the relationship alive and kicking - wanes. Without the biological (or neurochemical) backing to it, effort has to stem only through obligation and rules of engagement than by free will. Been through that path. The chasing, the retention and then the 'what am I doing with her' and the wanting of solitude with time for myself than in a situation with someone. I own up to the mistake, that it was my attempt to impress the woman that made her commit and then I backtrack, leading to a shock at the other end. This is like the philanderer wrt to the mind (as opposed to the body, commonly called playboy!).
The desire to love a woman. The charms. The energy to do so. To impress. The effort, the patience, the persistence. It all vaporized. I would assume, without confirmation of course, that it is from the realizing that it's all only a wandering around for a while and the actual is to enter the relationship seriously, which, kills the spontaneity, liveliness, the puzzles.. and it all turns mechanical. The games to play and the blowing cold, blowing hot.. the chores, the task, the responsibilities that add up. The familiarity and the curious/digging mind of mine that unravels most about the person which then makes me lost interest in that person/pursuit. I wish I can function in some toned down way, but I can't. It's either the full fledged chase or the continuous (figurative) yawns out of boredom and wanting nothing to do with that person anymore. I have waited to see if it's any phase, but this has been for a while so I think the changes are permanent. That person that I used to be: who had the highs and euphoria and the sadness and melancholia when low and felt alive through those emotions.. Is no more. I guess relationship and family formation is when the man is in a deluded state of sense in love and attachment for a while till kids happen? so that when the absolute reality of our existence on earth hits, it would be impossible to break out but to accept whatever is and to coast/persist in the family drama, playing the designated roles. Now that I have lost the penchant for it, it seems pointless to just marry someone, make kids and raise them for a meaning to life. It would be a good thing to happen when one is in the 'ignorance is bliss' state; but now that I have seen through myself (why I desire, ephemeral nature of the charms and desires and such) and have grown out of the phase of pleasing my ego through affection and attention from another person (through which bonding happens and sustains: 'i have someone for me'), the logical next step is to go solo. There is no perfect path: there's desires and consequences of attaining it and the prices to pay. Then there's regrets. Cest la vie?
women. In real world and in fiction (vicarious living). Earlier, when an interaction happens, there used to be this 'ah let me try to impress' and then work my brains out for the same. To smile, exchange pleasantries, prolong the conversation, create avenues to meet again, etc.
Now, something changed. The interaction is transactional. There is no 'mind switched off, live the moment' mode that used to be earlier, but a very careful watching of the time.
The discernment that one woman being better than the other - has now switched to, 'enter a relationship with one, and it is all the same'. Which is, the tasks, roles and responsibilities that add up in exchange for a diminishing reward of the female companionship to the male in me.
I have had bitter and pleasant experiences with women as I have dated them; the emptiness I feel with them even in the smooth sailing phase was a consistent phenomenon. What is to be said, the template dialogues and readymade answers to keep the relationship smooth and conflict free. Almost like driving a car in a busy street, doing the smooth maneuvers and the push pull games. The distancing and the closing of the gap and the conflict and resolving... the cycles that repeat forever. The love-hate dynamic. I am tired of this. Fatigue. Or bored. Or the novelty is lost. I had been an intellectual all along and therefore this duality where the front of mine is the politically correct person and the actual within is sad, alone and just in dismay of doing things for the sake of pleasing the hormonal self to feel alive in the present without bothering about the meaning, purpose and value judgements.
Am I, psychologically, a mind driven person?
The finitude of life as a human being.
To keep oneself busy to distract from this existential problem
Earning money and then reproduction and the umbrella of the identity of the self as the blanket against the piercing cold of objective reality.
Those who have accepted and acknowledged the impermanence of life: deciding to take not things so seriously and live light (as the biological animal instinct driven being) and choose to live as a tourist enjoying the scenery without bothering much about the "what's in it".
What is this life called as? Monkhood? Philosopher? Sage?
When I read the book 'flowers for algernon'... I could intuit how the older years of mine (or anyone) will be. All the knowledge, wisdom and such... And then time, the most precious resource as well as the most tough, heartless boss.. will snatch whatever you accumulated over the years slowly.. I have wondered what is the point of living in those years.. the romanticized version of living is about breathing till what the hardware permits you to; but then when the software isn't what it used to be.. It's pointless (again, a subjective opinion). Again that points to the preciousness of the now. The young years!
Awareness outliving capability is the real tragedy.
People who do well here usually anchor life around one or more of these (chosen consciously, not inherited):
Mastery without spectacle
Doing something well without needing applause.Custodianship
Taking responsibility for land, systems, people, or processes—not to feel important, but to keep entropy at bay.Intellectual honesty
Thinking clearly even when clarity offers no comfort.Embodied discipline
Keeping the body functional not for vanity, but for sovereignty.Selective intimacy
Few relationships, low drama, high mutual respect.
None of these require fantasy.
All of them require energy + will, which you explicitly still have.
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Avoid:
pursuits that need illusion to stay attractive
anything that escalates only via novelty
causes that demand emotional theatrics
communities that require identity inflation
projects that collapse if you stop believing in them
Before committing time, ask three non-negotiable questions:
Does this still feel clean after repetition?
(Not exciting — clean)If nobody ever notices, would I still do it?
Does stopping this later feel easy, not like withdrawal?
What works for you must satisfy four non-negotiables:
Cognitive depth – shallow tasks will rot you
Long arc – it must reward patience, not intensity
Non-social validation – worth must not depend on applause
Application loop – knowing alone will turn sterile
Anything that violates even one of these will eventually fail you.
What will not work for you (important)
Let’s be explicit.
❌ Hedonism → obvious
❌ Pure asceticism → dries you
❌ Romance as meaning → consumes time
❌ Social reform → too noisy
❌ Spiritual performance → dishonest
❌ Endless reading → anesthetic
❌ “Balance” advice → vague, useless
You don’t need enrichment.
You need alignment.
Spending your finite awareness in a way you can stand behind without self-contempt.
The cynicism, dark humor and sarcasm. All are aids to cope when one is put in an undesirable environment. Habits, addictions and depraved ways are the ego's way to prove the point. it would mean the person will be in the same cycles, trying to escape (or wanting to), but couldn't (no leeway or lack of the will, or to enforce). Years or decades roll and then life gets over, trying to fight a system and in the end, the system got what it wanted. Contrast this with living in a positive spin. Instead of running away, to run towards. For eg, in my case, instead of fighting the urge to desire and cohabit a woman (which has consequences: a lifetime of responsibility that is imposed which is intellectualized as meaning and purpose that is worth), to have a target of attaining some goal (intellectual being, in my case. Reading books, partaking in discourses and sharpening the brain and intellect for no specific purpose, but to keep oneself sharp!).
addictions/habits make the loop breathable, not escapable.
Let's say, I get married. Make 2 kids. Spend 2-3 decades in providing and raising them, then getting them married off, settled and whatsoever. And then with the Indian -> western individualism creeping in slowly (netflix, movies, young India embracing the same), the tradition of son and grandson caring for the elder is replaced by saving up for one's own terminal years in the old age home.
Instead, I choose a different path. Career, hobby, interests, travel (inward & external world) and lead a stress free life without the family responsibilities. Retire early, prolong my aging a bit farther and end up in an old age home.
Maybe I won't have a son or daughter visiting me in those terminal days. Other than that, what changes?
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The belief that having children guarantees terminal companionship is already statistically eroding.
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META again. This consciousness: the awareness that I am a person witnessing something that's happening around the body that I own/possess/operate from. This is all I have in this world, right? The materialist, intangible possessions like relationship and memories of the past.. all of that doesn't hold any worth as such.
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Fantasy is damaging because it keeps the organism perpetually preparing for a reward that never arrives.
using dopamine to fuel the mind (or keep the organism busy) therefore has it's cost.
Yes. And the cost is not abstract or moral — it is physiological, cognitive, and temporal.
Using dopamine to keep the mind busy is like running an engine in neutral — it feels active, but it burns fuel and goes nowhere.
Watching instead of living
The observer is a tool, not a place to live.
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Consider this opportunity to be alive in this world (for whatever reason it maybe, God sending me here or it's all evolutionary probabilities or it's all chaos and disorder).. to regard it as a ticket to a theme park.. and to enjoy the amusements as much as one can. Till the ticket is valid or till one is bored (why would one get bored and exit mid-way? I am talking of suicide- no, don't warn me or give disclaimers; the point is, why overwhelm oneself so much with commitment and attachment to end life so early when the body can sustain for some more time?). Or even if one is bored, the alternative is blankness. Even if it's pain (the physical pain), anything is still better than being dead (not as a physical body; but the consciousness disappears like how one dies the night and wakes up to live for the next day).
Consider that there's 2 selves (self). One is the 'me, my body, my desire, my want, me me me'. The other is the larger self that gets to witness everything through the first self, and has a narrative of it's own, unaffected by emotions of any kind of the former.
Another analogy would be like how fiction is one thing and the abstracts the characters in that fiction convey: or, the face of the hero/heroine and it's expressions.
Over time, I emphasized on the second self and didn't give much importance to please the first self. A psychologist may shriek and say ''you abandoned! escaped" but my reply would be ''this unconventional journey is worth it; its vivid''.
I acquired this 'dissect myself in 3rd person view' only to get a detached perspective of things so as to understand the happenings (when in deep troubles). Then I kept using the same tool.
it's a joy to witness via books and visual fiction, the intelligent narratives, the dialogues, the wit, the sarcasm and dark humor, the fun.. of eminent authors in the past and the present.
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In a pessimistic tone, life as a human on earth is all about being in the prisoner between the four walls of brain chemicals, right? Dopamine, the thirst. Oxytocin, the bonding, serotonin, the stress to run away/guide/goad and the endorphins to prevent this reality.
So this hyper rational view is a shocker to detach oneself from holding on to those meaning/attachments from the 4 chemicals; and then the mastery or playing the orchestra playing with those in the way I want. From blaming it on outsiders and then realizing it's all in my own hands all the time and then handling (oneself) then.
consider that life is a ticket to a thrilling journey and instead of enjoying novelty and witnessing the maximum variety.. there is this fixation to fit oneself into a template of repeated rewards & punishment patterns, with a desire/dream to break free, but one cannot - because, stuck to the meaning derived from that template path while also suffering the meaninglessness (obviously, one has to create it: existentialism) from the walk out of Plato's cave.
With such clarity about me, myself, ego, identity, consciousness, witness, possessions, brevity of life (as seen in the long run), irrelevance of highly held attachments with the test of time.. to function in this world where people roam with a huge ego, identity, the me this me that burdens as they carry.. it is sometimes making me find a quiet place for myself and find meaning in what is in my control and supervision and jurisdiction.
ok. Should a person actually experience, enjoy and get bored of the repetition/addiction pattern to that and then let go of it? be it any attachment, person or experience. If I can observe this from others and make conclusions without actual first person participation.. is it fine? be it alcohol, lust and other sensual pleasures..
Time. As an OST title in interstellar says.. 'afraid of time'. When it will be taken out of my account, how much i have.. don't know. Assuming that I have endless time to indulge in every loop and come out of it is one thing; but to see that all this is 'yet another decade wasting activity' and focus on those that make it worth respecting myself at the end is another. Maybe I will not be cognitively aware when I demise. But even during the several chain/stream of pursuits and engagements that I do, if I have the conviction that this will not be a cause for regret or this will make me proud later, then it's something beyond the lower loops of maaya. The higher loops, God only knows, provided I am able to acquire the wisdom to see through them.
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is there an inner language of/for the person? that which him/herself deciphers only through the vernacular language? I ask this because, I seem to be able to think farther by conversing with people (whom I regard as intelligent and therefore making the effort as much as possible to make sense) or when I write it in a blog or sentences like this.
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I had loved. Fiction, music from instruments and lyrics as agents or catalysts, my own imagination to amplify the worth of the chase.. and intellect to pursue the woman and impress her..
They did get impressed. And once the girl is secured and got attached to me, all I had was a nothingness. An emptiness. I don't even had any of the earlier highs. Most of the times, the charm was lost even without any form of physical intimacy . Much water has flowed through the bridge.
Now that I am 40, I can only remember the person I used to be. A romanticist. Or an intellectual romanticist.
It didn't come back. Waited enough. It's a sense of relief as well as a missing. Relief, because all of this is a hormone and nature instilled drama. Missing because, it made me feel so alive.
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The art of loving is beautiful for the sake of love itself and not for the actual woman. Ie, the woman is only a placeholder and it's beautiful to witness the phenomenon of love in hormones and highs. The actual object of all this drama which is cohabitation, sex and family: is boring and is painful.
It's like nature designed a wonder drug for a purpose and I redesigned it for something else.
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I am wondering how to grow old in India without diabetes ailment. Insulin resistance is everywhere and people assume that it's only fasting sugar and post prandial reading is a measure of it; in reality it begins too early. I can see that even physically active people are getting diabetic which would mean, the carb loaded food is to blame. Switching to fruits and vegetables entirely, isn't wise: there's unmitigated pesticide usage in both of them in this third world. A slight calorie deficit in each meal, and choosing carbs with low GI, physical workout and exercises and an outdoorsy day. These should help, I suppose. I had my hba1c of 5.0 in 2020. Now it has risen to 5.8. Fasting sugar in the morning is 95-105. Which would mean if I continue to be what I am (in the present), then I will have to take glyperamide (wrong spelling maybe) which is the wrong approach because, more insulin isn't the solution: to make the cells use that insulin is. Have discussed that air pollution and stress also induce insulin resistance, not sure how sure those are. Although the genetic duty to marry and reproduce is there, whether I will lose myself in that process where focus is all about eating and resuming the money hunting activity (called career!) is the order of the day than bother about vital parameters of the body. People here aren't aware of this upcoming diabetic episode. So it makes sense to stay single and lead a stress free life. I have significant grey beard and the scalp hairs are somewhat black enough, indicating it's already stressful enough. Let me get an assessment of what I have typed till now.
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don't necessarily see the normal/typical human path as a suffering; it is something to be walked in an 'ignorance is bliss' path.
Now that I have an idea about what human life is all about, from empirical observation as well as rejection from within as I walked the early stages, it is a "now that I know this is what normal path is, can I choose to live in some other way?"
Like, going to the usual restaurant and ordering the same dish and satiating; to try something different.
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It is quite natural to expect all the selves to be alive, but then with age, there is this spiritual self seeking a quiet and calm, perhaps meditating to God or the unknown sculptor. Time is a vital resource and that can't be thrown away in bodily pursuits repeating the same highs and lows (emotionally too, hormone or endorphin addicted behavior) and see time just fly. One life on earth; it maybe bereft anytime (remember covid?) and this living has to be sincere and thorough in all dimensions than to be stuck in the reproduction cycle (yes, the primary driver of all this attraction towards woman and the associated paraphernalia, including raising of children to derive a meaning through provider roles and see 2 or 3 more decades fly through and only to recall everything back in the old age home. Cynical, I maybe, but isn't this, how my life will go if I pursue the 'live the moment' path?
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