I write this post knowing that I am NOT the only one who does this ...
First off - I love reading youtube comments because I love watching what other people are thinking of the same person. They are often the same comments as mine, but sometimes they have backstories. For example, what the music makes them think of.
Basically everything in youtube comments are judgements. Where else do we better have the option to see what everyone's judgements of other people are? Of their work, their entertainment value, but also of their bodies.
You can't get through a youtube video without commenting on the person. You just can't. It makes sense, the audience is staring into another person talking, who could help but comment on looks?
Here's what I've noticed - beauty is exalted. Beauty is talked of - she's so pretty - her eyes/ hair / voice/ laugh. Lack of beauty is not said outloud, but it could be noticed in its absence. A less than beautiful person is simply not commented on so much on their appearance. Adele gets so many comments on her voice, but only a few 'big boned and beautiful' type comments about her looks.
The silence does say something.
Its not ratemyprofessor.com, is it? Its ratemypersonality.com, everybody just wants to comment on the professors personality and looks. Isn't that all we want; just a big comment board; isn't gossip all just talking about another person?
Everyone is beautiful, though.
It is interesting though, at what point someone becomes an object versus at what point you are looking at them for the first time and learning, describing, forming judgements, and taking in. Then soon enough, they are simply familiar and you stop looking at all the parts - the eyes, the face, and only see a whole. That concept you judge less so than in the beginning because, whether you like the person or not, you are accepting of them as they are, as an object.
I find that I accept everybody, even the ones I don't like, for their personality, as they are. And yet for myself, I am constantly wanting change, wishing I were someone and something other than I am. How could I behave so differently towards myself than towards others?
Lastly, the idea that being short is awful, because bigger is better. What it comes down to is that, humans are obsessed with humans. Being larger is more to see, more human, and we like that. Bigger eyes, bigger breasts, and longer bodies are all more. This is why being short feels like a detriment to me.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Bodies, Judgements, and Quandaries
"If a body catch a body coming through the rye."
Catching a body - making contact with another. Feeling their presence alongside yours, this is what we want and need. You, in a field of swaying rye, but alone no longer.
Really, what do you see when you look at somebody? Is somebody just 'some body'? What do our bodies give away about us, what do they really show about us, what is worth judging someone over, being attached to? Are people just some body? Where does all the stuff thats contained in our mind - our memories, desires, and histories, reside? Are our bodies the ultimate vehicle for our existence? Could it be different? Could we not have physical bodies? Whats so attractive about the physical body, then? What of when it gets ugly, and when it gets old and breaks, or diseased and harmed. Whats our relationship to our bodies and to other people's bodies? Whats our continual judgement of our bodies based on, when body characteristics are not something anyone chose? What of when we dislike our bodies?
To start, some facts about bodies:
The only thing you can see is the present moment. The body is a material object, and it is 3-d and has space. The only thing you can see is how it presently appears. You know someone's general age by looking at them.
The only thing you can do is make judgements. I know of no way to simply discern someone's bodies without making judgements. There is no way in which I could see a body and not associate it into terms of beauty and ugliness.
Think of all those people you see daily who you will never know. At first glance, you take them in. You immediately make a form of judgement; are they friendly, nice people? Are they chill? Do they look angry? Would they be your friend?
You derive these judgements from their bodies, and at first, everybody is a new body. Every person is this walking creature, and I judge from my eyes what I see.
This has been bothering me for ages that I don't know what to think when I look at a person. Their body, their image seems to never correspond well to who they in fact are. For example, I tend to see people in suits and think that they are uptight. I look at little skinny Asian women and think they are sort of foreign and not friendly, with clanging temperaments.
But whats worse are their bodies - that I make these snap judgements on people's faces and height. I tall person I see as more confident. A black person as more - black. A beautiful person as stuck up.
It becomes less important to judge people after the first time you've met. You know them, you are used to them, and you fully accept them as the body that you are percieving. Anyone's personality and image is wrapped up in their body, but you cease to notice your initial snap judgement of the body after its been multiple times of seeing them. Then, your idea of the person becomes a stereotype of their body. But you are aware of their personality mixing into the image and that differentiating how you think of each person.
When you look at somebody, you have no way of knowing anything about them. Their face, their body, even their sense of style tell you nothing about this persons history. You look at this face, this material object. But you have no way of knowing the utter amount of history that the body and mind contains. One look at a person, zero insight into their past - into loves, abuses, struggles, triumphs, hurts, passions, pains. You don't know what they used to look like, either - if they used to have dreads, or long or short hair or facial hair, fat or skinny as a kid. All you can see is where someone is presently at.
To me this is a massive discrepancy. How can the body, the only vehicle we have to see others through and percieve our own existence, be so mysterious? Really, you can only see someone's skin color and guess their family origin when you look at someone.
The problem is, I'm learning over and over and over that my snap judgements are bullshit. My judgements that look at someone's face and body are so inconsistent with the person's actual behavior and sense of self worth. I know this because I keep on looking at therapist's images in trying to pick one, and they always come out so different from the therapist's acutal personality. I thought Jennie would be mean and she's so friendly. And I thought Debbie would be warmer but she can be lacking. And Susie, I won't say it, but I did misjudge.
And lastly, we do treat people based on their current outward appearance. What are homeless people? We seem to forget they ever had the dignity of being someone who lived in a house and had a family and relationships. All I see is the current person.
Can a homeless person walk into a coffee shop? Take up the perfect environment - the pleasantness of furnishings, the coffee aroma, the air temperature that everyone longs for - AC when its sweltering out, heat when its freezing. If I was homeless, I would want to bum at a coffee shop. I don't do it much, but I have bummed at a coffee shop looking for internet. If I have every right to, what about a homeless person? What is it about being smelly and unnatractive (they would scare off customers) that makes us have to put up barriers? There are no signs sayign 'no homeless people allowed'. What would happen if someone walked in? Would they be escorted out? Would people find it unfair that they bring in their troubles and smells? Or would people be sympathetic? I'm not sympathetic, if I was I'd be giving money out to bums. Lastly, Edward gave out a dollar to a bum and he has no money, and I'm very consumed with guilt over this actions at my clinging to my valuables.
Post ending: You feel that you are an ant walking across an art painting of a natural scene. The ant is so small within the landscape that it only sees huge mountains and valleys. But in fact, you are the art.
Catching a body - making contact with another. Feeling their presence alongside yours, this is what we want and need. You, in a field of swaying rye, but alone no longer.
Really, what do you see when you look at somebody? Is somebody just 'some body'? What do our bodies give away about us, what do they really show about us, what is worth judging someone over, being attached to? Are people just some body? Where does all the stuff thats contained in our mind - our memories, desires, and histories, reside? Are our bodies the ultimate vehicle for our existence? Could it be different? Could we not have physical bodies? Whats so attractive about the physical body, then? What of when it gets ugly, and when it gets old and breaks, or diseased and harmed. Whats our relationship to our bodies and to other people's bodies? Whats our continual judgement of our bodies based on, when body characteristics are not something anyone chose? What of when we dislike our bodies?
To start, some facts about bodies:
The only thing you can see is the present moment. The body is a material object, and it is 3-d and has space. The only thing you can see is how it presently appears. You know someone's general age by looking at them.
The only thing you can do is make judgements. I know of no way to simply discern someone's bodies without making judgements. There is no way in which I could see a body and not associate it into terms of beauty and ugliness.
Think of all those people you see daily who you will never know. At first glance, you take them in. You immediately make a form of judgement; are they friendly, nice people? Are they chill? Do they look angry? Would they be your friend?
You derive these judgements from their bodies, and at first, everybody is a new body. Every person is this walking creature, and I judge from my eyes what I see.
This has been bothering me for ages that I don't know what to think when I look at a person. Their body, their image seems to never correspond well to who they in fact are. For example, I tend to see people in suits and think that they are uptight. I look at little skinny Asian women and think they are sort of foreign and not friendly, with clanging temperaments.
But whats worse are their bodies - that I make these snap judgements on people's faces and height. I tall person I see as more confident. A black person as more - black. A beautiful person as stuck up.
It becomes less important to judge people after the first time you've met. You know them, you are used to them, and you fully accept them as the body that you are percieving. Anyone's personality and image is wrapped up in their body, but you cease to notice your initial snap judgement of the body after its been multiple times of seeing them. Then, your idea of the person becomes a stereotype of their body. But you are aware of their personality mixing into the image and that differentiating how you think of each person.
When you look at somebody, you have no way of knowing anything about them. Their face, their body, even their sense of style tell you nothing about this persons history. You look at this face, this material object. But you have no way of knowing the utter amount of history that the body and mind contains. One look at a person, zero insight into their past - into loves, abuses, struggles, triumphs, hurts, passions, pains. You don't know what they used to look like, either - if they used to have dreads, or long or short hair or facial hair, fat or skinny as a kid. All you can see is where someone is presently at.
To me this is a massive discrepancy. How can the body, the only vehicle we have to see others through and percieve our own existence, be so mysterious? Really, you can only see someone's skin color and guess their family origin when you look at someone.
The problem is, I'm learning over and over and over that my snap judgements are bullshit. My judgements that look at someone's face and body are so inconsistent with the person's actual behavior and sense of self worth. I know this because I keep on looking at therapist's images in trying to pick one, and they always come out so different from the therapist's acutal personality. I thought Jennie would be mean and she's so friendly. And I thought Debbie would be warmer but she can be lacking. And Susie, I won't say it, but I did misjudge.
And lastly, we do treat people based on their current outward appearance. What are homeless people? We seem to forget they ever had the dignity of being someone who lived in a house and had a family and relationships. All I see is the current person.
Can a homeless person walk into a coffee shop? Take up the perfect environment - the pleasantness of furnishings, the coffee aroma, the air temperature that everyone longs for - AC when its sweltering out, heat when its freezing. If I was homeless, I would want to bum at a coffee shop. I don't do it much, but I have bummed at a coffee shop looking for internet. If I have every right to, what about a homeless person? What is it about being smelly and unnatractive (they would scare off customers) that makes us have to put up barriers? There are no signs sayign 'no homeless people allowed'. What would happen if someone walked in? Would they be escorted out? Would people find it unfair that they bring in their troubles and smells? Or would people be sympathetic? I'm not sympathetic, if I was I'd be giving money out to bums. Lastly, Edward gave out a dollar to a bum and he has no money, and I'm very consumed with guilt over this actions at my clinging to my valuables.
Post ending: You feel that you are an ant walking across an art painting of a natural scene. The ant is so small within the landscape that it only sees huge mountains and valleys. But in fact, you are the art.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
When Metaphors Are vs Arent Appropriate
Sage psychotherapy tries to give you alot of metaphors to combat anxiety. They sometimes work.
Metaphors they've used so far - cognitive defusions are like a chess game (I can add the one from Buddhist ananda group, thoughts are the waves and weather while you are submerged), 'sitting with' anxiety and that also being used literally in metaphor if that makes sense, not using a shield against anxiety while your thoughts are hitting you but instead using acceptance, juggling and witholding, let thoughts pass like leaves down a river. They really like to use metaphors, which maybe is part of the overall touchy/feeliness of the program. They want their metaphors to resonate.
Basically I have a maybe negative obsession against using metaphors that I developed in high school. So I have to think about this and decide whether or not the metaphors provided are useful to me. I did appreciate the 'anxiety is life getting narrower' pseudo-metaphor, and did appreciate that 'sitting with anxiety' was literally sitting with the thoughts.
I could've just told Julie that ' I didn't engage in her metaphor', like I was thinking. I'm maintaining aloofness from my thoughts. The pieces of paper really were just pieces paper, they had no relation to my thoughts. Aside from the fact that they were 'being thrown at me'; so the manner of the thinking process was truthful. Julie kept saying - there you go, removing them from your side. I hadn't even realized I was doing that. Then when she said, 'try leaving them there - just sitting with them', that did make sense to me. It wasn't a fight because they were just pieces of paper and I hadn't established any negative value to them. But it was interesting that I kept pushing them aside and it eventually ended with simply 'sitting with' them. So I did appreciate the metaphor then, but I found it irritating that she changed - she threw the papers nicer and slow than she had been doing when I had the shield.
I did appreciate that Julie got me giggling and laughing during the throwing part.
I did appreciate that Julie maintained 'coping strategies that haven't worked in the past and that maybe you are done with.'
I was witholding with Janet too that I was frustrated and that I have obsessions, not compulsions, and didn't say it in individual. But we never got around to talking about how I used to believe I 'can't drive because nowhere to go', or that I feel bad about the gas when I could be biking, or that I'm in alot of conflict about navigating, rules of traffic, glare, that I can't concentrate through mind wander, timing - being late, and there were just so many worries.
So, back to metaphors. When are metaphors appropriate? Clearly the 'sitting with' anxiety metaphor worked well for me in that instance with the shield, and the shield worked well as a metaphor too- things you do to protect yourself from your thoughts. These worked because they were metaphors that were hands on. I got to actually see the shield, and try-while-doomed to protect myself from my thoughts. Even 'let go of your shield' could be a metaphor. Literally, put it down,
By the way, this program would be such bullshit if I hadn't done CBT before and have some degree of self love and the knowledge that I'm not only my anxiety. Because they harp on it so much.
The only way they win is
Metaphors they've used so far - cognitive defusions are like a chess game (I can add the one from Buddhist ananda group, thoughts are the waves and weather while you are submerged), 'sitting with' anxiety and that also being used literally in metaphor if that makes sense, not using a shield against anxiety while your thoughts are hitting you but instead using acceptance, juggling and witholding, let thoughts pass like leaves down a river. They really like to use metaphors, which maybe is part of the overall touchy/feeliness of the program. They want their metaphors to resonate.
Basically I have a maybe negative obsession against using metaphors that I developed in high school. So I have to think about this and decide whether or not the metaphors provided are useful to me. I did appreciate the 'anxiety is life getting narrower' pseudo-metaphor, and did appreciate that 'sitting with anxiety' was literally sitting with the thoughts.
I could've just told Julie that ' I didn't engage in her metaphor', like I was thinking. I'm maintaining aloofness from my thoughts. The pieces of paper really were just pieces paper, they had no relation to my thoughts. Aside from the fact that they were 'being thrown at me'; so the manner of the thinking process was truthful. Julie kept saying - there you go, removing them from your side. I hadn't even realized I was doing that. Then when she said, 'try leaving them there - just sitting with them', that did make sense to me. It wasn't a fight because they were just pieces of paper and I hadn't established any negative value to them. But it was interesting that I kept pushing them aside and it eventually ended with simply 'sitting with' them. So I did appreciate the metaphor then, but I found it irritating that she changed - she threw the papers nicer and slow than she had been doing when I had the shield.
I did appreciate that Julie got me giggling and laughing during the throwing part.
I did appreciate that Julie maintained 'coping strategies that haven't worked in the past and that maybe you are done with.'
I was witholding with Janet too that I was frustrated and that I have obsessions, not compulsions, and didn't say it in individual. But we never got around to talking about how I used to believe I 'can't drive because nowhere to go', or that I feel bad about the gas when I could be biking, or that I'm in alot of conflict about navigating, rules of traffic, glare, that I can't concentrate through mind wander, timing - being late, and there were just so many worries.
So, back to metaphors. When are metaphors appropriate? Clearly the 'sitting with' anxiety metaphor worked well for me in that instance with the shield, and the shield worked well as a metaphor too- things you do to protect yourself from your thoughts. These worked because they were metaphors that were hands on. I got to actually see the shield, and try-while-doomed to protect myself from my thoughts. Even 'let go of your shield' could be a metaphor. Literally, put it down,
By the way, this program would be such bullshit if I hadn't done CBT before and have some degree of self love and the knowledge that I'm not only my anxiety. Because they harp on it so much.
The only way they win is
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Can Flow be Eternal?
Here's a question I pose to the internet masses who have yet to comment on my blog. hint hint
So at a yoga retreat I remember being told that from a teacher that really, what most people are looking for out of yoga is lasting happiness. The happiness that is true bliss, that doesn't fade moment to moment, that doesn't require attachment to an object to keep it going. The happiness that is fullness and content but does not go away into the next moment of slightly less than happiness, and then longing and wishful thinking for what was had. The happiness that is never the slightest bit detracted from, and which no and nothing, no circumstances, can take away from you.
So given that goal of buddhism, I'm curious what others would wish for. Maybe its because I can't see myself as being happy, but I was thinking it might be more fun to wish for a permanent state of flow. Flow as in, total occupation with whats going on, without any extra unnecesary thoughts to detract from your experiences. What would it be like to be in a permanent state of flow? You'd be highly attentive, aware, and available to others. You'd be extremely efficient, as well as acutely able to ascertain the needs of others and yourself since you aren't preoccupied with mind wander.
Would this be tiring? I'm not saying you're always on alert, so it shouldn't be tiring. While it sounds hard to keep up, in theory it should be very freeing. Because when you're in flow, you lack worries, anger, etc. In fact do you even have emotions? Or are you on neutral? But is it different from autopilot?
What would you wish for eternally? Just some of the ones I came up with were eternal happiness, eternal flow, eternal security, eternal life, eternal creativity.
Do please share, since, one of the reasons I have this blog is to learn from others. I notice that I also learn from myself through writing. But moreso, I want to share myself with others.
So at a yoga retreat I remember being told that from a teacher that really, what most people are looking for out of yoga is lasting happiness. The happiness that is true bliss, that doesn't fade moment to moment, that doesn't require attachment to an object to keep it going. The happiness that is fullness and content but does not go away into the next moment of slightly less than happiness, and then longing and wishful thinking for what was had. The happiness that is never the slightest bit detracted from, and which no and nothing, no circumstances, can take away from you.
So given that goal of buddhism, I'm curious what others would wish for. Maybe its because I can't see myself as being happy, but I was thinking it might be more fun to wish for a permanent state of flow. Flow as in, total occupation with whats going on, without any extra unnecesary thoughts to detract from your experiences. What would it be like to be in a permanent state of flow? You'd be highly attentive, aware, and available to others. You'd be extremely efficient, as well as acutely able to ascertain the needs of others and yourself since you aren't preoccupied with mind wander.
Would this be tiring? I'm not saying you're always on alert, so it shouldn't be tiring. While it sounds hard to keep up, in theory it should be very freeing. Because when you're in flow, you lack worries, anger, etc. In fact do you even have emotions? Or are you on neutral? But is it different from autopilot?
What would you wish for eternally? Just some of the ones I came up with were eternal happiness, eternal flow, eternal security, eternal life, eternal creativity.
Do please share, since, one of the reasons I have this blog is to learn from others. I notice that I also learn from myself through writing. But moreso, I want to share myself with others.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)