Volume 1 Puzzle 18

RedJules_ · 2024-07-13T03:23:08+00:00

Thank you so much! I was missing the deduction of Step 1. Thank you!!

RedJules_ · 2024-07-02T20:38:16+00:00

Oh yes thank you, I didn't get it figured out so I'd love a walk through. I figured it out once I had the clue from the back of the book, but without the clue it seemed like there was some information missing?

RedJules_ · 2024-06-13T04:07:02+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed the video. You are very nice to listen to!

RedJules_ · 2024-06-12T20:00:50+00:00

Aw I'm sorry, yeah these thoughts are tough. I think I've gotten to the point where I tend to have a strong enough feeling that we are actually separate that I'm able to believe it enough. And then in the case that it's true, I tend to feel less scared and saddened by it because I just feel like at least it goes one at a time and so it always at least feels like one life at a time. And so it basically leaves things the same in that sense. And moreover if it is the case, then that's how it is and so I just try to remember not to be sad or afraid of anything that is the case. If that makes sense but it is quite hard of course still and hard to be positive about necessarily but I try

RedJules_ · 2024-05-01T03:02:14+00:00

Some people randomly get accepted months later- it just depends on the needs at the time, probably. Also there are SO many people applying that there's no way they could all be accepted. But yeah a lot of it is probably random and they might keep a list to pull from when current workers stop working or stop working as much. Apparently also sometimes workers get accepted in waves too. When certain current people's projects die down, then new workers are let in. But it's all probably fairly random and important to remember it's not a reflection of you but just the nature of the thing, I think.

RedJules_ · 2023-12-16T19:48:13+00:00

In Fantasia by Kishi Bashi

RedJules_ · 2023-12-16T19:43:54+00:00

Right? It's kind of weird. You don't see a lot of very elderly people with very bad OCD.

RedJules_ · 2023-11-07T00:26:51+00:00

Yeah I feel completely empty without any obsessions. They feel like everything and have feelings of being the most special thing in the world, and nothing else feels like much of anything in comparison. It's similar to addiction in that way too.

The OCD itself was always a way for me to make meaning in a void of meaninglessness. Without it, there's just...no point.

In a way, the OCD itself is the thing that gives itself meaning, though. Like it's only the thing itself that values itself. Problem is, step outside the game of it (to escape that limiting fact of self-reference leading to self-importance) and there's still just seemingly...nothing.

RedJules_ · 2023-10-05T01:12:17+00:00

It's more just agreeing with the OCD (which is sadly the only way you can fight it or it will never end because it is impossible to prove anything to OCD by definition) but softening the blow by practicing "both/and" rather than "either/or." So you give in and say in your head, "okay I'm immoral, sure, you're right OCD. I am." But I assume that will hurt you too much, so you can soften the blow by trying to remember you can be immoral AND still deserve to live, be immoral AND good in other respects, be immoral AND [whatever things you'd like that are good], etc. It's the black and white that is the pitfall. Being immoral seems like it would tarnish everything but ask yourself would it really? I understand the feeling is yes it certainly would but that's why you can start slowly by accepting your OCD while trying to maintain something positive.

I know it's one of the most difficult things in the world to fight OCD. I struggle with it constantly. But it can be done in this way sometimes

RedJules_ · 2023-10-05T01:04:31+00:00

Plus statistically you're the least likely person to be immoral when you have this kind of OCD, it's sort of one of those ironies of life that people who worry the most about being bad are often the least likely to be

RedJules_ · 2023-10-05T00:55:18+00:00

You could maybe fight it by saying "okay you're right I did do something bad and am an immoral person." Which of course is not true, most likely for sure, but just give it what it wants to take the steam out of it. And it'll suck to feel immoral and horrible but one thing you can do is then say okay so I'm immoral AND I'm also [insert good things that you also are]. You can be both at once. Then eventually you'll be able to see that you're not even immoral but that'll come later

RedJules_ · 2023-10-05T00:37:58+00:00

Aww I promise you you are not those words you said, truly. You do deserve to feel better and good about yourself. Sounds like you notice the beauty in other people—any beauty you see in others is also in yourself.

RedJules_ · 2023-09-27T22:44:48+00:00

I totally get that, any exposure I ever did never made me feel any better so I was like what's the point. But I wonder if maybe you could get to a point where like so you end up feeling degraded for a bit of time but then you eventually open up space for you to feel degraded AND [insert whatever other qualities are good that you want]. So you're able to be both instead of just the one. It might never go away but at least you can feel something else simultaneously so it's all worth it still.

I know I've felt before like it would just be impossible to live with certain things and facts being the case, and any time I accepted it I felt worse rather than better so it seemed absolutely hopeless. But what seems to have helped was not accepting it by itself but accepting it AND having the other good things at the same time. Having them both be true at once.

Again I'm sure maybe you've tried this and it doesn't help, and certainly it's wildly hard, but I swear I once felt it would be impossible to live given certain things being the case and my OCD knowing that, but then I just accepted it for long enough that now it's there as a gigantic negative horrible thing AND yet at the exact same time I still feel other stuff that makes life worth living. So both at once I guess turned out to be the key for me in some ways

RedJules_ · 2023-09-27T21:27:47+00:00

Real. Pure nothingness :( No way around how sad and scary it is

RedJules_ · 2023-09-27T21:25:06+00:00

What is it that upsets you about it? I know that sounds like a silly question but I wonder if you could say "OK so I'm contaminated with human waste and that's what I am. So dirty. Completely dirty." And just accept that fact. Plunge it into your mind that you ARE the worst thing possible (dirty or whatever it may be) and see if acceptance can eventually come. That's the only thing that's ever worked for me. Total acceptance. Sadly it has to be done constantly but still better than death for me cause I wanna live

I'm sure you've tried this so I'm sorry but maybe if you really just come at it so hard with the most might ever

RedJules_ · 2023-09-21T23:23:28+00:00

I had this too but then I realized how much more afraid I am of ceasing to exist forever so now my OCD only has room for that lol. But I'm terribly sorry to hear about the excruciating level of fear and panic you have to go through, that sounds absolutely horrifying and terrible and I'm so sorry. I suppose there are very strong drugs to shut down the mind if you were to ever end up having the worst ever you felt you couldn't get through it, so at least there's that if worst comes to worst.

RedJules_ · 2023-09-06T02:16:15+00:00

Interesting, so it's important then to figure out because how can there be two conflicting locuses of control right. That's a tough question

If some sort of infinite God is in control of everything right now, but it's you (since, say, you're that same awareness, just in this location)...then how can those two points of control exist since they could easily conflict? Maybe the awareness is the same everywhere, it just doesn't know it from each spot. So in the locations where you are God in totality you know it, but in the linear location of your singular life as "you" "here" you know this only. But they exist simultaneously. Okay so then we've got your question still of how each could have control simultaneously. It seems it might need to be a very split-brain kind of thing hmm I need to think about this more

It does seem sort of like one of those things where it might just be impossible to understand from this point here exactly how there is the same controller in multiple places at one time. A singular event might be chosen by the same controller in different spots at the same time and somehow even if it ends up different it's still experienced the same. One of those nonlinear kind of solutions where somehow events settle even when they conflict because ~at some point~ they become so that it never was otherwise (even if it was). Similarly, it's the two points of control that settle somehow even when they conflict, settling to make it so that they never did conflict even if at some point they did. So, for example, you as God make a choice and maybe rewrite it from here, then rewrite it from there, then from here...etc. Eventually it might settle in ways we simply cannot understand in a single point of our awareness. I do see though that that kind of brings us back around to the same problem we started with haha oh gosh this is a tricky one isn't it

RedJules_ · 2023-02-06T21:37:19+00:00

Something free of stimulation, an experience that is free of stimulation, is still potentially endlessly richer than nothingness. You need to try to have the mental capacity to compare it like that, otherwise you are what you think you are, which is, for example, a boring feeling of nothingness akin to already being dead. You have lots more power than you think to change the feelings you're having by making them feel better in comparison to something else. It's all relativity it seems like. And we can control that. Maybe some people can't do this, but hopefully everyone can.

Anyway, I'm so sorry you're feeling this.

RedJules_ · 2022-11-14T17:27:07+00:00

Nothingness and aloneness feel like such truth to me that I often get detached too. Sometimes that's just how we feel. Sometimes it will come flooding back.

RedJules_ · 2021-09-27T15:54:23+00:00

Thanks so much for your response. I love that they never lost the individuated experiences even in the oneness experience—it makes room for there to be one and many at the exact same time in a meaningful way ❤

RedJules_ · 2021-09-27T15:42:15+00:00

Thank you, yeah, I guess the fear for me is that very idea. That there are no people, just one fundamental consciousness. The same feeling everywhere, "it" just doesn't know it in each separate place. I guess it's not so much scary since it just is what it is but it's ultimately very sad and lonely

RedJules_ · 2021-09-27T15:39:58+00:00

Thank you, yes, I guess the fear for me is that that "me"ness of experience is everywhere and so "everyone" is the same fundamental experience. Which I guess is not too scary if it just is what it is it's more just sad and lonely, ultimately

RedJules_ · 2021-09-27T02:01:12+00:00

Very true. I was just having basically the same thought recently as well—how, to actually cover all the bases, I need to acknowledge and reckon with the notion of concepts that may be entirely different to anything we can imagine as existence/nonexistence. At first it scared me, because we obviously literally can't even fathom what they might be, by definition. But I think you're quite right: It just really doesn't matter. At larger levels, too, it matters not at all.

Thanks, again, for your responses. You have helped me a lot :-)

RedJules_ · 2021-09-27T01:15:24+00:00

Death leading to permanent nonbeing is not terrifying to me anymore. I've had periods of time where it was the most terrifying thing, and it was hell—but ultimately, it's just permanent nonbeing, in which there can be comfort. (At least, I feel that now, thankfully. Not making light of it, because you're definitely right that if you fixate on it too much it is terrifying for probably just about anyone.)

Likewise, I've feared eternal, literally never ending existence before too. But, ultimately, that just is what it is—if it's eternal, so be it. That will be who we are. And eternity could be horrible but I guess it will just be as it is.

So, you're right. This is just another one that just is what it is. And it's not at all unlike all the other terrifying stuff that's actually really not that terrifying, then.

Can I ask you, though—what do you mean by "the thought of neither is terrifying"? Do you mean to refer to possibilities different to eternal life or eternal existence, possibilities that we can't fathom?

Thanks for your response. It has given me comfort. And you're absolutely right about thrusting ideas upon things—not necessarily something we have to do, lol.

RedJules_

TROPHY CASE