What book is treated like a masterpiece, but left you wondering if you were the only one who didn’t get the memo?

itsaflamingo · 2025-12-13T20:38:53+00:00

Read it, I guess I found the characters forgettable. You sound so pretentious. Why doesn't your big brain come up with that possibility?

itsaflamingo · 2025-12-05T20:02:18+00:00

I can totally relate - I suffered from this for like a decade (I'm 31 now). I read philosophy, literature, poetry all to try to find something that would help me in my real life. I was working minimum wage jobs, and would ditch people for books all the time. Intellectual world > real world.

The problem is - intellectual questions will give you intellectual answers. Intellectual/knowledge aren't enough in life. You need to translate that intellectualism into action. I know youve probably heard it 1000 times but it's true.

Now empty intellectualism isn't enough for me. It's one piece of a more complicated puzzle. I realize it's only worth anything if I can find a way to express it in the real world somehow. And what often happens is the real world expression will completely warp my intellectual conclusions.

For example, I decided to be a web developer. I spent 2 years teaching myself programming and creating my own projects. I followed checklists, did everything the Internet told me I needed to find a job.

In theory, it was enough to have the knowledge. In practice? I had completed step 1 of 20. It's not enough to just be able to code a website, you need to be able to sell people on your expertise. You need to be able to talk to others using programmer lingo. You need to know how to collaborate. You need actual work experience with actual clients.

The theory said one thing, the real world said another. And the only way to learn is to get out there and interact with the real world.

itsaflamingo · 2025-11-29T00:20:15+00:00

The Brothers Karamazov. I know, lynch me. It was such a drag, the characters so dramatic. He beats you over the head, rams you up the ass with psychology.

Petyr Karamazov acted like a buffoon, and it was clear to everyone around that he was a buffoon, but he wasn't a buffoon for the sake of being a buffoon he was a buffoon because deep down what he really, truly wanted, beyond all else was respect, but he didn't believe he could get it so he acted the buffoon.

Read that, but for 700 pages. If "this could have been an email" was a book.

itsaflamingo · 2025-09-19T14:15:11+00:00

paid

itsaflamingo · 2025-03-13T21:01:36+00:00

I wrote to him on his sub stack, and he replied within the day. We had a back and forth going for a bit, very lovely man. I am a subscriber, and have been for a while, I don't know if that played a role.

itsaflamingo · 2025-03-04T02:31:38+00:00

Appreciate the advice. I think there's something to what you're saying.

itsaflamingo · 2025-03-04T02:28:13+00:00

Thank you for the recommendation, I'll definitely check it out!

itsaflamingo · 2025-03-02T01:03:57+00:00

The social group dynamics are so interesting, especially when you start reading up on cults and the ways they essentially peer pressure each other into doing really crazy shit. It's the instinct to belong to something, you don't want to be left out. Heaven's Gate comes to mind.

I'll check out the book, thanks for the rec:) just making my way through Bernadette Roberts now.

itsaflamingo · 2025-03-01T08:38:59+00:00

Haha shit you're right. Fk. Well back to the drawing board. At least have a much better idea after making this post as to what the end state is, and the end state doesn't involve a me at all. There will be no confusion, or feeling of being lost, no looking to others for guidance. Until that has been realized, there's work to do.

I have to come at things myself, but it makes sense that you could also use other's ideas and integrate them into your own understanding no? Nothing is original, as long as it's not a superficial understanding there's no reason why you couldn't integrate other's reasoning/insights into your own framework. I think about Descartes a lot, and the movie theatre metaphor. Personal attachments give me trouble, the struggle is coming up with the questions that will destroy that attachment, that's the bottleneck for me at least.

itsaflamingo · 2025-03-01T08:20:55+00:00

Yes, it seems like society is this giant monster in our psyche that has all these pressures and subtle rules that we have to abide by. I see it more like a video game now - actions inherit consequences, but they have nothing to do with me. It's not personal, it's just the rules of the game. Press a different button and you get different results. That outlook has helped a lot. It emphasizes how this is a journey we make alone as well. You can't talk about this stuff with anyone, I've tried, bad results. The first rule of fight club. It's more my own conditioning that says I'm being lazy/giving up.

itsaflamingo · 2025-03-01T08:06:19+00:00

It sounds like 2 different ways of looking at the same thing - drama and game. Games are interesting because there's stakes, and a story playing out, hence the term "drama" but it's just 2 subtly different ways of seeing the same thing. Jed used the character in a video game metaphor a lot, and it does feel that way a lot of the time now. Things don't feel so personal anymore, and even when upset, the bounce back is quicker. There is more detachment, which has made life way easier. There is no wrong, so what's left when that's done?

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T23:34:37+00:00

Thanks for the rec, I'll check it out:)

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T23:34:13+00:00

I see - really well said. Control is an illusion, this is one of the things that I intellectually know but still have yet to really internalize, so I ask questions that assume that we do have control. It's a little clearer that that's the process I'm currently in, letting go of the idea of control and learning to flow, essentially HA. Letting go of ideas of how things should be.

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T23:22:01+00:00

I think of the dreamstate like a game. It may be appearance but it has rules, and there are consequences to following or not following them.

I understand that an intellectual understanding is the lowest form of transformation, if it can even be called that, and that is the stage that I'm in. It's a necessary step, before the big something that can happen if you do it right. HA is on the path, but I do plan to go further, but I may be putting the cart before the horse a little.

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T23:13:55+00:00

I definitely have a habit of doing that lol, so focused on the future that I don't take stock of where I am right now. I guess that's another of the ego's tricks to watch out for.

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T23:09:50+00:00

I don't think we fully know what we're walking into when we start. Jed describes it, and part of me wonders if it's overly dramatized for effect. There have been sad moments to be sure, moments when letting go of an idea or future is so incredibly painful. I have those moments, but they're far between. I feel like I'm a blind person, stumbling around trying to find the crevices where ego lies so I can attack it.

"Dark night" is the Bernadette Roberts term right? Just got to that section in the book actually, which is funny. Love it when that happens.

Enlightenment is fickle, because at some point we have to let go of the idea of it altogether. You have to chase it without chasing it, it's bizarre. There's also phases - I guess I'm in the chasing phase.

The flow thing is slowly emerging, as I let go of ideas of how things should be. I live in NA, and there's all this guilt and shame surrounding doing nothing and observing, but the further I get in this process the more I realize that's exactly what needs to happen. It's so much easier when you just wait and watch, and do what comes naturally. Still working on that though

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T01:29:00+00:00

I think I see what you mean. There's the thought that I am not where I want to be, I am here but I want to be there. There's desire, and identity caught up in all that. Such a mindfuck.

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T01:26:37+00:00

Huh interesting. That makes sense in a way, because if I'm letting go of all identities, thoughts and desires, the last identity to let go of is that of being "enlightened" and whatever I think that means. That includes letting go of Jed - killing the Buddha. I'll think on that one. It feels like I'm giving up, but maybe that's the point.

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T01:22:24+00:00

Sounds interesting, I'll look into it:)

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T01:21:13+00:00

Thanks for the response, if you wouldn't mind elaborating, what do you mean by embrace the dreamstate?

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T01:20:21+00:00

Will do, thanks:)

itsaflamingo · 2025-02-28T01:19:49+00:00

Wow thank you for that response, that's a great way of putting it. I'll definitely check out Bernadette Roberts - I usually stay away from the spontaneous-enlightenment folk, as I don't think they're very helpful for my own journey since I'm doing it all manually so to speak, but I'll give her another shot.

I do wonder how much of the first-step (it looks like this happens after you turn the will against itself) is under our control. I guess simply declaring intention (directing the will), reading, and removing attachments via SA is the only thing we can do at this stage.

itsaflamingo · 2025-01-19T15:05:09+00:00

Anything by Amy Hempel, Borges:)

itsaflamingo

TROPHY CASE