Rough plan

A couple of posts ago I mentioned this girl. Well, I expected to bump into her again in just a couple of days. It's a small town and I've often met old acquaintances right after thinking of them. However, this has not worked on this girl yet. I figured I wasn't ready and needed to learn as much as I could from this experience.

Throughout the first week after seeing her, I tried to use the image for concentration practice. After about 2-3 days of concentration 24/7, the image started to fade. The more the image faded, the more frustration and depression crept in. At first I was able to counter that. Considered creating a construct of sorts to sense her whereabouts. Thought I got a hint of the part of the town where she might be.

During the weekend of the first week, I had become really clumsy so I decided to do some sports. This helped temporarily. A couple of evenings later I thought I saw a bat-shaped shadow flickering against the light in the corridor. Only saw it in the periphery and it disappeared when I looked directly at it. Felt sick, had a headache and could not focus for a couple of days. Hadn't practised concentration for a while, probably strained it a bit.

Exactly two weeks after the event with the explosive empathy, I felt her reach the bus stop, think of me, wait for me, wait for the bus and leave. I couldn't, as my course was still on-going. While her image in my mind has lost some of its depth, I can still feel something within me and it's soothing.

I find it amazing how technically I haven't even met her yet and she has already taught me this much about myself, human psychology and spirituality. However, this has brought me back to an old problem which I used to face in a completely different way. In the old days I could make things difficult for myself and enjoy my ego burn through the hardship if I just detached from those that seemed close. Now I can't detach this easily because it would mean losing the chance to meet someone that's already close without really having met them in the first place. Based on prior experience I've deduced that empathy is probably bidirectional, so I can't just enjoy the pain of being unable to meet up with her and use that for spiritual progress. At the same time, I can't do much to alleviate the situation, either. What I can do, is try to make things easier for myself by resolving my own burdens, as well as to change my attitude towards things. This should make things less painful for her. I'm sorry, for I have been ignorant of the consequences of my own actions as well as the consequences of the lack of my own actions.

One of the realizations a day or two ago was (once again) that everything I think I "have" is a privilege because not everyone has them, they cannot be taken for granted. Thus, I ought to be thankful for absolutely everything that I think I have, as well as to take the best care of these things (for they're not mine). It is a privilege to have a functional body, it is a privilege to see the world in all its colors, it is a privilege to know that a girl like that exists.

I'll try to use the situation for inspiration. A rough plan:

• Remain humble towards everyone and everything,
• avoid whining, ranting, thinking out loud to make it easier to keep the mind clear,
• maintain clarity of mind while working in order to turn work meditative,
• enjoy sports at least once per week,
• practice pranayama each morning,
• meditate each evening before sleep.

Family reunion

Times are changing. Also at work, one good colleague has left and another is planning to leave soon. It has become nearly impossible for things to continue the same way that they used to. Things will change, both at work as well as in my life.

Dream: Family reunion

On Wednesday morning I saw a family reunion. Sister slept on the floor in my room, and father slept on the balcony floor. It was cold outside so I opened the balcony door to let some warm air out and make it less cold for him, even if just a little.

In an unknown spaceous living room I saw uncle's family with a new kid. Grandpa stood by their side and cheered the kid.

Explosive empathy

Vortex on top of the head

A colleague gave a lecture at my course, which in itself is nothing special. Though, she used white slide background and sat in front of the projector screen. I got to witness the translucent cone / vortex that humans seem to have on top of their head. It's barely visible, unless one looks directly over the head of another person and they move in front of a bright background. In such case, the cone can be seen as a shadowy triangle pointing down to the top of their head.

I noticed that it seemed easier to focus on the top of her head than mine. Probably due to some blockages in my system. Found it mildly interesting but left things as is.

Just act normal

While waiting for the bus, an unknown girl in blue jacket approached the bus stop. For some reason, there was an "explosion" of empathy similar to what I've experienced once before. Couldn't find the references though. There were numerous acquaintances around so I tried to act normal, having small-talk while monitoring the behavior of that girl.

She stared and glanced at me while trying to hide it and act normal. It seemed as if she wanted to tell me something that she considered important but couldn't get to it because I was always busy chatting with someone else. She grew more and more annoyed as her stop approached. Ah well.

Tariff-man ..

.. to flip the tables at Wall Street.

Anyway, scheduled an order for buying some more stocks on Friday. Glanced at the wall of green and wondered if I should buy some other shares as well .. probably not, the price is up quite significantly.

Then on the weekend a buddy shared señor Trump's tweet regarding his market wars with China. On Monday all shares were about -5% already in the pre-market. Ah well.

Dream: Electronics

Saw a lot of different kinds of electronics in the dreams.

There was some kind of a simple device made of fairly robust components (old soviet BJTs, electrolyte caps, through hole diodes, etc.) that I had powered up on my shelf. Whenever I touched it, there was an arc of ESD from my finger to the closest component. However, the device didn't seem to mind. So I just poked at it and watched the arcing for fun.

Then there was some kind of a device which had an integrated circuit. I looked at it with quite a lot of zoom so I could poke around on the chip die. Accidentally chipped the die and had to undo.

Not electronics but there was also something plumbing-related (means energy-work) in one of the dreams.

Iron bucket

Watched Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 on Wednesday. One of the most realistic dramas that I've seen so far.

There's something with the forks recently. For the past couple of weeks there have been a statistically significant number of forks dropping. A couple of days ago the institute director lost her fork at the canteen. We looked around but couldn't find it right away. Eventually found it right next to my feet which seemed a bit strange because I was sitting some distance from where the fork was dropped. While dropping knives or forks is supposed to symbolize visitors, I haven't noticed any visitors. Hmm .. now that I think about it, sister did pay a visit last week.

Flipped the header and footer of the bed. Since then I've been sweating more while asleep. I wonder if it's because the air circulation beneath the mattress is not as good on the other side.

A couple of dreams have stood out recently.

Dream: Aunt-in-law

I had spent most of the night in our garage at the farm and started preparing for a return. While I was tying my shoelaces, aunt-in-law appeared and we started chatting about clothing. I complained that I haven't found reasonable pants nor shoes at the stores anywhere. She suggested that I order new shoes online. Although I had considered doing that, I've been somewhat worried about them not fitting too well.

Even though the discussion topic was nothing special, I found it weird to see her. I used to think she wasn't the type to roam about in dreams. I was also amazed at the clarity of her speech which I've found to be indicative of the ability to remain conscious while asleep.

Additionally I was a bit surprised to see how realistic my pants looked like. However, my shoes did not - I haven't put forth conscious effort in making them look realistic yet.

Dream: Treasure hunting in a castle

Today morning I had a dream where I visited a castle with a gang of 4 (I think). The underground levels of the castle had not been fully dug out yet, but the archaeologists had found a chain descending down into the dirt. Our gang set out to carefully extract it.

It turned out to be a small iron smelting pot or bucket. Not a very good symbol. I told the guy who had uncovered it to gently put it back. We fled as fast and as quiet as we could (to avoid displeasing the spirits).

Woke up for a moment, turned around in bed and fell asleep again.

I was still in the castle, trying to find my way out without displeasing the spirits. There was some kind of an event at an auditorium. Others went straight through some plants to reach the exit. I tried to avoid any kind of interaction, for which I eventually ended up spiraling out of the room clockwise. Just before the exit, I passed the podium from the left. This seemed to have been the path which the king used to take to reach the podium (for some reason this just popped into mind while sneaking my way through).

The next room was as large as the auditorium, just reserved for a museum. I think it was easier to leave from there (unlike the previous room it didn't have a crowd of people and a maze of plants in the way).

Due to the way the people were often walled in while building castles, these places are generally haunted and one needs to tread very carefully in order not to wake their spirits. I think I've had a few dreams of visiting castles before but either me or someone else from the group has managed to piss off the spirits which has released all hell. This time the gang seemed to have been careful enough.

Auto-psychoanalysis

There's a logical fallacy in my thought patterns that I've ignored for a while.

If one were to assume that they're alone in this world and nobody cares, then there would be no place for sadness and depression. Sadness and depression seem to work on the assumption that there's someone else out there that starts to feel pity and somehow tries to help. These are emotions most often used to manipulate with others and if there are no others, then these emotions are useless because there's nobody to manipulate. One could, of course, try to manipulate themselves into self-pity but in order for it to work, one would need a split personality or something which is quite useless as well. None of these could help to make one feel any better nor make them progress faster in any particular field. While detachment does seem to boost progress, in order for it to work, one would also have to detach from the aforementioned emotions that tie them to others.

I don't know if this can be generalized to more people or just me.