We are foolish.
We love to focus on an impressive mansion or a dramatic skyscraper.
The real value is in the non-dramatic ground upon which the mansion and the skyscraper can stand.
Establish your non-dramatic ground. This is the best thing that you can do.
Doing so takes real work. And it’s worth every bit.
I think when I say “ground”, I’m talking about being in a balanced and functional feedback relationship with your little circle of life, your small ecosystem.
I didn’t work hard enough to find my interlocutors.
That has always been my failing.
What does that mean? If you don’t mind me asking
Guess you’re referring to the post right before yours?
I was audio-journaling today. Sometimes the posts I write here are the tips of audio-journal icebergs.
Interlocutors are people with whom you are engaged in conversation. People who are cooperating with you to create shared narratives.
So that post above is kind of in the vein of Inner Circle.
I think that, in my life, I’ve faced challenges regarding getting into the right conversations. Or creating the right conditions and spaces for the conversations that I need to have.
That may sound odd or curiously vague or abstract. But I suspect that in my case it may be utterly spot-on.
I’m noting it as a reminder to give it the attention it deserves.
I find that when it comes to the experiential process of inner development, sometimes the really crucial insights can be very slippery to hold onto. The factors that are most challenging or critical for a given person may not necessarily be “complicated” from an analytical standpoint. It’s more that they’re just difficult for you to hold onto for whatever idiosyncratic reasons.
I think it’s important to respect that and to do whatever you need to do to focus on those key points or key areas that just happen to make a big difference for you at this time.
Typically, when you try to translate an experiential crucial point into verbal-analytical concepts for someone else, it’s going to come across sounding trite or simple. That’s just the nature of experiential insight.
But I think that you can understand this, @Yazooneh, because you train very seriously in a somatically-grounded context. When you contemplate the process of your growth and your accumulation of skill or understanding, there are probably important parts of it that are tricky to convey in words. Or even if you convey them very effectively in words, another person may not grasp the significance and power that the point has for you.
I think this is true in general about all of our experiential learnings.
And I think that when we learn to really respect experiential learning, it causes us to become more humble. We see that there are many unexpected people who have mastered various elements that we have not. Even though we can talk about those things, but that other person may have mastered it experientially.
Okay, I’m digressing. Hopefully, there’s an answer to your question in all of this somewhere. 
If not, just tell me to clarify.
i understand enough of what you mean, my friend.
this reminds me of my first 8 months or so of Wanted until recently, probably more than 8. I used to believe i had short quick insights that were sniper-like in their approach to how people needed them to find more harmony, money, love. I also phrased it in a way that was never really “listen up kid, this is how it’s done” but more of a quick glancing wisdom under the desk.
i recently found out that, while it must have had SOME degree of effect, it probably didn’t have the effects i was looking for, because 95% of them were, as you said… Trite and simple, blame my naiveness i suppose.
i completely understand though, i too believe in your theory because i remember your journal once taught me something which was “try to remember the first thought that pops into your mind about a subject, the one that instinctively makes you go: Na, that cant be it, it’s too simple… I must ponder this more.”
Love your journal my friend, have a good one.
@Malkuth something that strikes me about your writing is how it feels like I’m reading something abstract but profound, like an old philosophy book that speaks in parables. Like how one would write in academia for research papers, specifically those related to philosophy and psychology. There feels like a layer of gaseous abstraction that I need to penetrate to gleam some hidden wisdom within. So I’m at the moment where I’m feeling like I’m only catching the reflection of what you truly mean - if that makes sense.
Not that I dislike it, in fact I quite enjoy reading it. Just that my development hasn’t reached a stage where I can truly internalize it - like a teenager reading complex philosophical subjects. It may have something to do with your background, an avid reader that likes to deal with subjects beyond the material which reflects itself in your writing. I wonder if you ever thought about it or maybe it’s something very natural that doesn’t deserve much thought of at this point in your life?
Hi @Beowulf. That’s interesting, and I appreciate the feedback.
“A layer of gaseous abstraction”. That one is funny.
Here on the forum, and especially in my journal, I tend to let it hang out and I express myself in the way that is most natural to me. In contexts of daily communication, I tend to hold back and to tone down the nuance.
I’d say both of those are true. One, I have thought and do think a lot about how I’m choosing my words, and, two, it is something that is very natural; but natural to me. The thinking–or more accurately, the experiencing–is natural. The experiencing comes first. That is what matters most to me. I then choose the words to try to be true to that underlying experience.
Have you ever tried to say something that was definitely true?
It’s not easy.
That sounds frustrating.
As if I might be making things needlessly complicated.
Part of it is probably me being careful in how I phrase things.
But another part of it probably comes from my not revealing the real-life situations that contextualize some of my statements.
If I ever write anything that seems interesting to you, but that also seems too abstract, feel free to just ask me to clarify. If I can, I almost always will.
I did spend a lot of time in school. But I don’t blame school for this. I was already like this before the schooling. I did study some academic psychology. I did not study much orthodox academic philosophy. But social and cultural studies, which I did do quite a bit of, also has major philosophical influences.
More than any of that, my lifelong project has been my own path of mysticism and experiential exploration. This has involved trying to develop that path, trying to find decent concepts for it, and trying to ground it and integrate it with the other aspects of life.
That probably explains most of it.
Anyway, thanks for reaching out.
Am experiencing a personal challenge phase at the moment.
My sensitivity or awareness of subconscious, subliminal, magick, energy, etc., is fairly low. (That’s not the challenge. It’s just a fact.) I’ve felt that I’m in a more contractive, grounding place. The contraction and grounding feel natural and feel right. But it’s also easier to get into discouragement. The discouragement feels more feelings-based and mood-based than reality-based. It’s just a place that is easy for my mind to go to at the moment.
Today has been Monday 24 January 2023. So my 6th processing day since last playing my stack on Tuesday 18 January.
[CORRECTION: It was Tuesday 24 January 2023 (yesterday) when I wrote this post. And it was my 7th processing day since last playing my stack on Tuesday 17 January.]
It’s funny. I went back and re-read the first journal entry that I ever made on this site. It’s from 13 September 2019. 3 and 1/3 years ago. At that point, it had only been 2 weeks since playing any subliminal at all. In that first journal entry, I was urging myself to focus on action. That’s still my admonition now.
And the beat goes on…
Haven’t composed any music in a couple of months.
And that seems to fit right in with where my energy is right now.
But just to remember: here’s a sketch composed last May
Electric Dragons, Swimming in the Ether
nice one. I like it. I see you’re a musician too. 
As a person who criticized himself for having his head in the clouds, I cultivated a philosophy of anti-narrative and non-intellectualism at certain points in the past. I would tell myself that words are useless.
But, I’m noticing that words and talking are the bridge for me. And that bridge connects in both directions. Words can take me away from groundedness, but they can also bring me back to grounded action.
When I’m having trouble acting, words can help me to connect with Vision and Motivation.
Sometimes, I’ve made the paradoxical error of insisting only on action. “No words. Just do it.” The result is that I’ve done nothing. At such moments, taking time to remind myself of what I’m about, how things feel or look to me, or what I’d like to try to do, can bring me back into action.
I’m noticing this.
The keys are flexibility and responsiveness. Use words when words are needed. Once they’re not needed, stop talking.
Learn how and when to switch gears.
As always, remember: just because a particular area or behavior has caused trouble for you in the past (even significant trouble), that does not mean it is the “bad guy”. You probably still need it. You just need to learn to relate to it more skillfully (and flexibly); with enhanced vision and discernment.
28 January 2023
First day back to stack after the usual 10 processing days.
meditated 12:50 pm to 1:50 pm with my subs.
There was a gently energized depth and drawing-in feel to the practice. It’s lingering now still.
Moods are physical sensations in the body that are (often unexaminedly) associated with characteristic thoughts and judgments.
A “bad” mood is a sensation of discomfort, slowness, heaviness that is combined with thoughts about ‘things’ not ‘being good’.
It’s good to deconstruct these kinds of things. Makes life somewhat less oppressive.
Lying is not only unwillingness to tell the truth; it’s also incompetence to tell the truth.
That part of it can be a little trickier to deal with.
One thing that I truly appreciate about my job/work is that it gives me regular opportunities to experience deep, genuine, and meaningful interactions with (or sharing from) other people. That’s really valuable to me. It’s the part of my job that I value the most.
There is a lot going on with my stack.
Still largely beneath the surface.
But I’m feeling the stirrings and the implications of those stirrings.
My stack has three fully tricked-out customs.
I introduced the first custom on August 12, brought in the second on September 7, and since October 1 2022, I’ve been playing all three.
That’s 4 months.
But because of how much I’ve put into this stick, maybe 4 months are more like 1 month. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I’m still feeling the Building Up of energy, development, and manifestations. I’m thinking that I’m looking towards October 2023, when I’ve been playing this stack for 1 year, to really take stock of what’s happening.
There are small changes the whole time. And today, in journalling, I’m aware of even more.
It’s hanging together. It’s coherent. It’s working.
And it’s happening at human-speed.
This is a journey; with many destinations along the way.
There’s this feeling of dynamic possibility, of scale and of scope; that seems (to me) to be the major component of nostalgia.
It’s not actually about the past at all. (Be honest, with how much of ‘the past’ were you really intimate and competently familiar?)
It’s more so about a desire to access certain states of mind and of perception. Those states seem to be located in the past. Part of the reason for that seeming is due to the distorted and deluded ways that we construct the past in our imaginations. We do a whole lot of heavy editing on our accounts of The Past and What Happened and How I Was Feeling At That Time.
Despite my willingness to wait a year for results, I also notice that, after a 10-day break for processing, I played my stack again yesterday, and by today a stream of thoughts and ideas came to me.
Seems like things have already started moving right now.
Have you checked out “sonic charge” instruments?