May have some previous-cycle (or this?) bloom. No tiredness or hand pain today, was able to react much faster in foosball.
Feeling the Emperor jadedness I felt on my first time running it.
Hah I said I was feeling jaded but my demons come back with the weekend.
Feeling weariness and frustration of having to put 100% effort for 20% reward whereas others have the reverse.
Technically it’s my incapabilities and my struggle to improve, and questioning why I even bother to keep up with my pursuits.
Socially it’s perceived double standards and watching how two-facedness is actively rewarded in my physical environment. I feel held up to a lot of “do as I say, not as I do”.
Mood lifted yesterday when attending class, but come Sunday and it’s back to dwelling on grievances.
It’s hard to get rid of the need for external validation when my major environments make a point of it.
As I finished typing the above out the emotional impact suddenly passed, so there’s something good.
Interested to know more about this point.
Hm a large part of it stems from the increased social pressure with more humans filling into my environments (office). As a result the social part of things become very prevalent, and it’s not something I’m good at.
In my office external validation is used against me by some - I observed some games, called them out and they responded with ostracism - ignoring me, or coming into my space and ignoring me/talking shit about me within earshot. Younger staff who came in this and last year, I witnessed very different behaviour when they need something from me, and when they don’t. The “official” solution is to remove oneself from these people, but as the office becomes more and more crowded, the disparity with how others treat others and others treat me become loud, so I find it hard to shake off.
A ‘loss’ of my oldest friends (nothing bad, they moved, or have kids now) also contributed to loneliness, as I don’t have people like them in my life anymore. More modern ‘friends’, I’m coming to observe that I’m a battery for validation, but when my battery runs dry and I need someone to talk to it’s often not reciprocal. But the plus side is when people confided in me that’s how I knew that I’m not the only one facing some of the games, so sometimes I can say “I’m not the problem”.
On technical stuff, some of my current pursuits and hobbies, as well as my old ones, fade into obscurity. Several are/were niche interests so few care to begin with. The loss of my oldest friends affects this too as there’s increasingly little opportunity for our shared interests.
With more mainstream interests I’m somehow not able to mingle with people through them. Like learning drumming this year - this weekend I revisited the whole “What’s the point? Will I ever play with anyone?” question that I still can’t resolve. Or sometimes people give very different reactions towards me and others - a couple of times in foosball, or people raising topics and I chip in. Sometimes I think it’s my ineptitude, and then I pressure myself to work harder and become better. But this weekend I feel held up to standards others aren’t.
Back in 2021/22 this was much less of a problem and I was pretty comfortable doing my own thing, but now there are more and more people in my environment and so social interaction and its rewards become so much more emphasized. I try to become more socially competent, get harsh feedback, then I try to go back to my 2021 self, but I find it hard to as I keep witnessing the buzz around me.
Outside of my personal matters, it seems like people are increasingly tying success, intelligence etc to fame and attention, and perhaps I’m getting influenced by that as well.
This ended up being a long jumbled rant 
sorry about that.
More edit: The last two cycles I daresay I’m getting better weaning off external validation, just that it’s slow and hard, and kind of relying on telling myself “it’s not for me” which is a bitter pill to swallow.
Some more stuff over the weekend: I binged several chapters of Lord of the Rings, and analyses of the Battle of Helm’s Deep and Siege of Gondor:
Some melancholy related to previous post: Not having the people to nerd out with over such things anymore. It’s been years since my circle played Middle-Earth Quest and War of the Ring, with the Tolkien expert going into discussing how lore-accurate the mechanics are each time.
Other endeavours: Borrowed a Ukrainian recipe book and tried making crepes for the first time. Going to try again and see if I can knock off a few calories.
On my stack: Since Refinery is in the stack, I’ll try to phase out KB for October, and see if I can focus on two subs.
Maybe my need for external validation is a problem of being too much of a direct-reinforcement person.
When life is results-oriented, the lack of results leads to a loss of faith/motivation.
When actions yield nothing, over time I’m too disillusioned to continue. When an action backfires, I’m sure not going to try it again.
An old trauma manifesting just reinforces the trauma. E.g. helplessness, when blocks manifest against even routine actions. Aren’t scabs not to be picked, pimples not to be poked, broken fingers not to be hammered, cuts to be sealed and not shanked?
What are the right actions to take to cut through the walls and blind darkness?
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Last evening: had an urge to subhop back to Stark Black, but decided to continue with Emperor.
Decided to push this and go 6min of Alchemist 2 and Emperor each. Head denseness but otherwise so far so good.
Frosthaven session at last, and I finally retired my character. Bone Horde was fun.
Today: had a 10-0 foosball game during lunch break. Was paired with one of the strongest among us amateurs, but at least I didn’t disappoint him on defence. What was surreal was several times my arms just adjusted without thinking and stopped a shot, which is cool to this slow-af me. Since the only guy with serious experience says I’ve improved, I’m taking it.
Thought I had solved some work issue but didn’t. Goddamn Swift. One more thing to try.
Mood’s pretty good so far. Direct reinforcement haha.
It has been a largely positive few days, most downs were from work stuff (goddamn Swift). I managed to not let social crap interfere with my mood too much. Not that it stopped bothering me but I managed to do some stuff to mitigate the emotional impact, so this may be Refinery’s emotional transmutation.
I keep having the urge to stop Emperor. Yesterday it was in the form of reading the objectives and thinking all the wealth stuff are not my prinary concerns and so are “wasted bandwidth”. Not sure if I should be “taking the hint” or stomping on it. Still will continue into the third week.
Very lethargic today. Noticeably lower stamina in class, and too weary to do my own practice.
On the thought about rotating between two subs each cycle, was musing and likening it to rotating my vegetables and protein each week.
The lethargy continued until sometime afternoon. After that started to be able to function with a clear head.
Went up to 10min of Refinery in the late afternoon, no head denseness. May have experienced a bit of concentration from it during an attempt to meditate afterwards.
Now that my phase of narcissism is over, I’m feeling my lack of intelligence and urge to add a cognitive title. But I should focus on the current titles first.
When the bug finally disappears… after using a newer version of Swift.
Head continues to remain ‘clear’ in that I don’t feel lethargy, heaviness, head-anger etc. Focus is still lacking though.
Trying to experiment more with spices other than ginger and pepper.
Tonight I’ve a very strong resistance to listening to Emperor, like unwilling to click on the file, so let it be. See if it happens tomorrow morning, if still resistant I’ll washout. Would be a bit of a shame since I could run 6min without head denseness last listen. I think I’ve read this before on someone else’s post though.
The panadol/jadedness + emotional transmutation combination is good though, received some barbs but was able to not let the anger ‘penetrate’, and then ended the night in a somewhat positive mood with drum lesson and games. Game was disastrous though
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Washing out. It’s been an MWF too. But I’ll keep Refinery until end of October. Idk what to do with this internal resistance to Emperor, not sure if I’m ready to return to ASBR.
Watching an episode of a current local drama. It mostly deals with sexual crimes, but today’s episode deals with someone framed for murder and in prison for 20 years. When he got out he took a coffee shop hostage and demanded the police to reinvestigate.
A bitter thing is that they tried to have his daughter talk him down and she just yelled about how dare he selfishly try to prove his innocence and remind everyone she’s his daughter. Only after he’s proven innocent did she acknowledge him again. He released the hostages before being cleared and the police wanted to end the protag detectives’ investigation, storm the place and shoot him.
Would society have cared to “vindicate” him if he had not resorted to such measures? Even the lead detective remarked “There are things that you know are wrong, but even if you have to pay the price, you’re willing to bear it”. She gets sued by the real murderer’s husband over ‘exploitative methods’ that ‘ruined’ his family.
It’s a fictional drama, but in a somber mood from it.
On a less drastic level I detest the so-called Justice in tarot, which to me is about injustice and power abuse.
Jinxed the Refinery report on Alchemist thread haha, a lot of anger came back in force. But I kind of ‘pushed’ it through my left hand and got over it for the moment.
Quiet good day.
A friendly colleague started a long conversation.
2v2 foosball during break was win-some, lose-some, but I got a lot of (undeserved) hype on my defense.
Cleared the bugs holding my work back, so time to consider the next step.
Home, resting after dinner, then some practice.
Happy to say this is lasting without listening to KB for 1.5 weeks. I’ll like to reintroduce KB after Alchemist 4, maybe combining it a custom, but now curious about the upcoming Alchemist: Singularity.
A con is that this was in the KB3 custom, and the correlation was again observed a few days ago. 
Resistance to Emperor lessened but still there, inclination is to rotate back to ASBR. I’ll sit on it until tomorrow night.
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So uh… I was called daddy, in a context.
Is that a hint of what I should get? 
Tbh I felt more ‘wat’/try-not-to-laugh.
Just listened to Refinery full loop, no head denseness.
Gonna run Emperor Daddy and see if anything amusing happens. But I should get ASBR back in, so maybe three titles?
Or, wait until I’ve figured another custom for ASBR with Fearsome and Limiting People Remover.
Alchemist: Back during LB and DRR1-2 I had this strong thought that this universe is malevolent, and I’m intentionally designed to be Frankenstein’s monster. After 1 cycle of Refinery I daresay that belief has significantly lessened. But when it comes to specifics I get cynical again.
I guess where I am now, I should focus on the thought that came up on Pathfinder: “just focus on energetic practices atm”.
Idk if it’s advisable to meditate while listening, but am thinking that being able to full-loop Refinery is helpful as a timer.
EmpD 3:30. Woke up hungry in the morning, which is unusual for me (usually only hungry ~10am). Checks out with some EmpD comments. Haven’t noticed anything else after.
Similar melancholy today but over other subjects.
Got a stand for pullups at home, intend to assemble tomorrow.
Been quiet days so far. Only downsides are I’ve been distracted and neglected usual practice, and after assembling the pullup stand I realized my pullups have really deteriorated.