The Self and Drug Addiction

The problem with being selved all the time is that since the self is a way of thinking, our perspective invents the self with imagination, then it invents the ever-presence of threats to the self with imagination. It becomes the case with some of us then, that anytime we are selved, we are worrying about the things that threaten the self. Life becomes a misery with few breaks except brief moments of being unselved, during sleep, or drug use. The self program stops us from sleeping, so we rely on drugs or some other perversion.

The self program is like the zoom out feature of the - person shooter video game. Our consciousness learns to zoom in and out. When a threat is right before us, we can just run from or attack it. But if it might be way behind us, we have to zoom out, and then, we don't really see it so we have to invent the threat and ourselves and imagine it. Sometimes, we get to the point that we are always zoomed out to imagined threats, and always super stressed.

The problem with being unselved all the time is that then you cannot anticipate threats.

There is here an insight into why people do drugs. They have constant traumas that menace the self. It is close to paranoid schizophrenia, except that they have some conscious control over their perception of the realness of those threats.

Anyway, we often wonder why some people will do drugs which are not pleasant. It makes them mad, or sleepy, or some other state that isn't pleasant to them or anyone around them. Might they be doing it simply to be unselved. Anything that deranges the mind a bit will give you a break from constantly worrying about your life. People even abuse benadryl. There's not much of a high to be had, but there is dissociation, it will stupefy your ability to worry about yourself. One of the mechanisms of action of antidepressants are blunted memory and depersonalization, both of which simply decrease one's ability to worry about onself.

Also See:

http://dysautobot.blogspot.com/2017/09/what-does-it-really-mean-to-lose-self.html
http://dysautobot.blogspot.com/2017/09/bipolar-disorder-and-self.html

Bipolar Disorder and The Self

In our last blog, I wrote about losing the self.  I have subsequently wondered if it may be helpful in bipolar disorder.  For background on what it means to lose self, click here: What does it mean to lose self?

The Self Progam

There is little doubt that the self program can wreak havoc in bipolar disorder.  Metabolically, we react with things in our environment, and also with things in our minds.  The mind is able to dream up endless horrors to menace us.  When our moods are up and down and we have a lot of anxiety and depression, we will tend to ruminate, which means to think about these things that threaten us, over and over again.  We may even do it when we are asleep and hence have nightmares each night.

The things that threaten us, threaten the self, which is a memetic program that organizes our conscious experience, especially to help us anticipate and avoid threats.  The self is often hypothetical, just as the threats it faces are hypothetical, anticipated.  Those threats may never come to pass.  And the more frightened, manic, or depressed we get, the more we dream up unlikely threats.

Getting Control of the Self

Can dissolving the self help us to avoid this suffering?  I suggest we test it.  Here are ways to dissolve the self:

1.  Through flow activities, activities where you focus so fully, you are no longer aware of yourself, like sports and video games.
2.  Through meditation.
3.  Through outwardly getting rid of your reliance on reputation.  That can mean moving to a job that doesn't require reputation, such as online website building, coding, or writing.  Many online jobs only require you be able to do the job, from project to project.
4.  Using the self program while recognizing it is an illusion.

Let's examine reputation.

Reputation

Reputation can be especially difficult for those with bipolar disorder.  We have episodes where we may do things way out of our usual character.  We may become sexually promiscuous during mania, spend too much, do too many drugs, or hurt people's feelings.

The Birth of Reputation

How did reputation come to be?  Well, here's a just-so history.  In the past, we needed a way to predict how others might behave toward us.  Might they beat us, or love us?  This is probably way back before humans were humans.  Gorillas appear to be able to recognize individuals and remember their habits.  So this ability reached it's furthest evolution in humans with our ability to talk about reputation.

Reputation is a part of identity, which is a part of the self-program.  Identity and reputation are social creations, and creations of the brain.  We could for example, have no past reputation.  No one talks about what they or other's did in the the past, no one keeps a tab.  In our pre-history it could possibly have been that way, but we learned to use reputation->identity->self, because it is useful.  It helps you predict how people will act based on how they acted in the past.

But our management of our own reputation is crazy-making.  Can we use it to our advantage, but not to our detriment?  Take the good without taking the bad.  I think we can.  Once we learn how to dissolve the self, eradicate reputation, then we can turn it on and off, use it when we like, and not use it when we don't want to.

Decrease psychological reliance on reputation

The first step is to decrease our reliance on reputation inwardly.  It must be done inwardly before it can be done outwardly.  Inwardly, we can see the arbitrariness of how we create reputation.  We look at what people have done in the past, and judge them based on that.  That is an okay thing to do.  However, we get crazy worrying about and trying to manage our reputation.  We are fragile to criticism and full of shame about things we did as kids.  Once we realize that this is just a pattern of thinking evolved over thousands of years, that we inherited but don't have to always use, then we realize that with ourselves, we don't have to judge.  We are what we are.

Decrease reliance on reputation outwardly

 After losing the baggage of reputation inwardly, we may try, if we can, to do it outwardly, in the world.  Find a job that depends less on reputation.  Don't go to award shows to be honored because if getting the award feels good, not getting it will hurt.  Also, award shows are generally incredibly uncomfortable.  So, kindly decline unless you do it not for praise, but for practical reasons of advancing in your career or other reasons.  When you are called a bad name, or people say that you are stupid, or a whore, or ugly, don't defend yourself.  If you get upset, let the emotions come and go, without giving them persistence by fighting them or rationalizing.  Your past, your self, doesn't matter.  You are a living, breathing being, right now, that's all that matters.  So, don't think positive things about yourself, and you won't have to defend yourself when people suggest to the contrary.  Also, don't think negative things about yourself.  Then, the things people say cannot hurt you for long.  You may have an immediate reaction, but you will stop that reaction from continuing.  As long as you are alive, you are on your own side, no matter what you do and how your-self or other selves judge it.

Conclusion

Once you learn to use the self program for practical effect, while not believing it is the only way to think, then you will have the option of choosing when to be selved or not.  You will not care about your reputation, but you will instead us it for practical purposes.  However, you can not be actually offended by threats to your reputation.  Eventually, that kind of grace builds trust in others.  When they finally figure out that you have allowed them to think bad things about you, because you are not protecting the self, they will learn that asking you is the only way to get the truth about things, because if they don't ask, you are perfectly willing to allow them to believe that which is false about you.

In bipolar disorder, our reputation is sometimes in tatters.  What we are saying is, stop caring about it on the inside.  You may need to protect it for practical purposes, for making a living.  But you don't care about people's assessment of your past self.  You are a present person.  Take care of you.  Once you learn not to protect the self, you biological swings will no longer be triggered by selfish thinking.  It may still be triggered by environment, temperature, and diet, but it will no longer be intensified by self-judgments.

Let me know that you think.  Thanks for reading.

Thank you,

Daryl Seldon, MS

Contact me at knowflow1@gmail.com to talk about any issue that affects your quality of life.  Confidentiality is taken very seriously.
Add @darylseldon on Twitter.
Share on Facebook, friend Daryl Frank Seldon.


So, we have 3 goals:
1.  Using self with the knowledge that it is an illusion.
2.  Dissolving self through meditation and flow activities.
3.  Losing identity by failing to protect reputation.
If you see someone acting with freedom, you can expect they either have no reputation or a bad reputation, so they have nothing to lose by acting as they please.

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4.  Go to your blog, make a new post, and post a link to this blog page.  http://dysautobot.blogspot.com/2017/09/what-does-it-really-mean-to-lose-self.html
Make sure the link is active
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What does it really mean to lose self?

What is a self?

We often hear that the self is the root of all problems, all conflict.  We are told that we have to dissolve the self, become self-less, and unselfish.  This is a central imperative of Buddhism and many other religions and spiritual practices, but what does it really mean to lose the self?  Does it mean to just be unconscious or is it a total transformation of consciousness that some of us are not capable of.  Let’s examine these questions with a few thought experiments.

Imagine you are just now born.  Your mind is new.  You have a field of vision but you’re like a running camera that just records and broadcasts to a screen that shows the scenes of your life.  You are that screen.  You have no distinction between the world and you.  You have no extrapolated perspective.  Many animals appear to be this way.  The cat will attack your hand if you form it into a spider and walk with your fingers because the cat has no enduring concept that the hand remains connected to you and cannot morph into a spider.  Sometimes in pathological states like sleep paralysis, stroke, and drug intoxication, we go back to this perspective of just viewing the world with no self.

So how does the self develop?  Well, first off, you begin to see as a baby that your arms and legs are doing things.  You see that you can directly feel things that touch your arms and legs.  People keep saying a word at the tv screen which is your experience.  This word is your name.  The arms and legs from which you can feel direct stimuli, this is your body.  And this body is in the world.  The world is inherently dangerous and you receive stimuli you want to avoid.  So now, on your tv screen of experience, there isn’t just the screen receiving anymore, but there is a person on the screen trying to avoid danger, and that person is you, yourself.  This is how the self developed.  It is how it develops in infants and possibly how it developed in humans.  Just like walking, it took a period of time for humans to learn to walk upright, and as a microcosm of that, it takes time for a baby to learn to walk.  Some animals’ babies are born already knowing how to walk.  Not so with humans.  So also, we are not born already having a self, we learn it over development.

Self-Consciousness

In our example, consciousness is the TV screen, self-consciousness is the TV screen with our bodies in it, seen in third person.  It’s the difference between a first person shooter game and a third person shooter game.  In first person, your body is not on the screen, you are just a perspective you shoot from.  In a third person shooter, you see the character you are controlling.  So consciousness is like the first person shooter, self-consciousness is like the third person shooter.

So, what’s wrong with being self-conscious?  It is this.  The first person perspective must merely deal with what is before it.  Once a threat is out of site, it is out of mind.  However, the first person perspective has to dream up the self.  It gives it characteristics.  It persists over time, it has a personality.  Further, socially we learn to keep a running tab of our behavior, so we feel guilty about things in the past.  Eventually, our third person shooter is carrying lots of weapons and he is weighed down.  Threats to the self are infinite, because they are imagined, just like the self is imagined.  The first person perspective just deals with what happens, the self deals with what might happen, based on the past.  So the threats in the past, the self stretches out to infinity, and there is not a second where one should not be in fear over what might happen because one never knows.  The self becomes obsessed with past traumas and reputation.  It becomes afraid of dissolving, drifting, meditation, flow, becoming aloof.  It wants to be on at all times.

"Threats to the self are infinite, because they are imagined, just like the self is imagined."

So this self-consciousness is of tremendous importance in our present social and physical lives.  Indeed it does help you preserve your physical body and navigate social politics.  But there are parts of the self that lead to constant pain, and there are times the self needs to be forgotten.  Isn’t it amazing that it is possible to forget the self?  We all do it, we become so engaged in some activity, we forget we exist.  What has happened is that we have reverted back to the first person perspective in order to focus all of our hardware on the task at hand.  This is proof that the self is a creation of the mind, otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to forget oneself.

Pathological self

Identity 

Identity becomes part of the baggage of the self.  I am a lawyer.  I have to dress this way, act that way.  I am not to be seen with street-walkers.  I have to eat a vegan diet because those in my social group do.  One’s identity results in a lack of freedom and constant struggle and conflict.  I am a black man.  I have bought into all the baggage of slavery and oppression and I am destroyed mentally by it.  It is identity that becomes pathological.  Identity requires a regularity that becomes a prison.  I have to be nice, so when I’m not nice I have to feel guilty and make excuses, I can’t just leave it alone.

Can we merely use identity for practical purposes?  We need a name to function in the world, but surely one name is as good as another.  We have had online avatars or alter-egos become another self online, so we can see how easily selves are created by the mind, given identities.  We know how to drop the identity of our online characters.  We can either erase the account, or we can stop caring what happens to the avatar.  Many people become so selved in a pathological way, they find it impossible to ever forget themselves.  They may turn to drugs and alcohol which force the mind to forget.  That one becomes both forgetful and out of control on these drugs are not side effects, they are a primary effect the user is seeking.  The user wants to forget.  He is menaced by constants threats to the self.  The self is partly memetic, a piece of software running on the hardware of the brain, so being fragile, it is ever in danger of being harmed.  It is harmed by information questioning the desirability of its qualities, suggesting it is stupid or ugly.  It is threatened by physical harm to its hardware.  It is threatened merely with daydreaming and moments of drifting off into forgetfulness.  It is threatened by antidepressants that causes depressed persons to focus outward rather than ruminating in the self.  Antidepressants affect memory and they can cause depersonalization, an uncomfortable sense of not being a self.  This is no coincidence.  When they are effective, they interrupt the self-obsessive program.  The self says “focus, remember your self, remember your problems, don’t drift off into forgetfulness.”  So, it is always on, constantly activating the stress drives and hormones.  When the self becomes overburdened, it needs to shed some baggage.

 Ways to shed the baggage of the self

Since the self is very important, what we want is to be able to use the self when it is helpful and forget it when it is not.  The self is a program on the brain that contains many apps associated with worry and fear, and it can eat up all the resources of the system.  So, we need to be able to sometimes close the program.

First, we must learn not to cling to identity.  If someone says you have been rude, don’t take it as a threat to your self, merely try to fix it and move on.  Don’t think, ‘I am not rude, she is wrong.’ Nor, “I have been rude, I’m a bad person.”  Identity is for practical use, just like an online avatar, we should not take what happens to our avatar personally.  Do not become consumed with trying to defend yourself against stereotypes or the negative judgments of others.  There is no success in that, the more you fight, the more miserable you are.

                                                               

So I can understand the desire to shed the baggage outwardly, but it really should be done mostly inwardly. If you do it outwardly without having done it inwardly, that is the definition of not being ready for it. If you haven't shed the baggage of identity inwardly, to for example quit one's job outwardly would be a very dangerous thing to do. Once it is done inwardly, it's obvious what to do outwardly. And it can be done without pain.

"Shed your baggage inwardly before you do it outwardly. Once you have done it inwardly, it will be obvious what to do outwardly an it can be done without pain."

Flee from the prison of reputation

Ever been somewhere where no one in the whole country knows you?  Don’t you discover that a lot of what seemed like such hard fast identity was indeed just a way of thinking.  Because here you are now and your identity is totally different; you are nobody.  You could act most out of character and no one would notice because they have no beliefs about you.  Identity can be a trap that makes it impossible for us to be free.

The great thing about the past, is that it is gone.  It is no longer real.  It exists in the present.  When you are free from the past, you can see more clearly how to act in the moment.  You can stop clinging to reputation in the mind, so that you are not touched by it, but can still use reputation in order to function in the world and make a living.  Or, you can actually find work that does not depend on reputation.

"The great thing about the past, is that it is gone.  It is no longer real."

A job like teacher, depends highly on reputation without also paying much monetarily, so it may not be for a person who does not enjoy it enough to trade freedom from reputation for the job.  Being a doctor can at least pay well, but the reputation is fragile.  Out of character behavior in personal life or work life can derail a doctor, as can malpractice suits.  So, for someone who doesn’t love the job, or doesn’t need the pay, it may not be worth it.  Some may choose ways of working which do not at all depend on reputation.  For example, programming, and many online jobs only require you to be able to do the job.  There is no delving into your personal life or identity at all.  Lucky is the person who can make a good living at a job that is not fragile to reputation.

Forget Yourself

 Meditation is often the practice of forgetting yourself.  Forgetting yourself is rejuvenating to the mind and body.  You can forget yourself when engaged in flow activities, like sports or video games.  You can also forget yourself each day.  Die each night, be born again each morning.  That means put all self baggage, all identity to rest each night.  Awake as a rebirth to full-freedom.  If you need a reminder, it may be helpful to say a small prayer each night and each morning, to remind yourself to die each night and be reborn each morning.  The self does not persist through time without breaks.  The mind activates and deactivates the self-program by the second.  But as it is activated, especially if there are past trauma’s, it is stimulating the body to pump out stress hormones and adrenaline.  So, for some of us, only when that program is off, can we experience growth and repair.  It is off most often during sleep, but sometimes we have stressful lucid dreams where the self is in tact and activating fear drives.  This happens often when there is trauma from PTSD.  Treatment can address this issue as well as meditation, and other means of weakening identity.  The  soldier with PTSD must cease to be a soldier as his identity.  Immerse himself in new, rejuvenating flow activities, and forget the self.  Let the past die.  When asked who you are, answer honestly, ‘I’m a person.  I like to go hiking,’ rather than, ‘I’m a soldier.’  We have to let it be over.

"The persistence of the self is a lie, it comes and goes, but when it picks back up it goes, “I’ve been here the whole time.”

What does this mean?

Well, if the identity and self are creations of the mind, they should work for you.  If they are causing you undue pain, they are not working.  They can be re-calibrate by reducing your dependence on identity and reputation, both mentally and outwardly.  I may for example be a writer, but when I meet people, I don’t identify myself by my occupation, because I want neither praise nor condemnation.  When someone calls me stupid, I don’t respond; I’m unconcerned emotionally with what their self says about my self.  I am no longer protecting my self, my avatar.

You may find when you are reducing your dependence on identity, that you hate your job and was keeping it only because it makes a good identity.  So, you might now decide to do something more in line with what you do well, puts you in flow, allows you to forget yourself, provides for your needs, and makes you happy, rather than what gives you a good reputation.

You may be with someone you don’t love because you need to look like you have a good family.  You only get one life, you spend it controlled by the slightest opinions by others when you are controlled by identity.  In fact, no one cares a whole lot about your marriage but you, they have but small opinion of it, and you are not close to them anyway.  Yet you stay in a bad marriage for their sake.  Once you leave dependence on identity, you may or may not decide to change your life but you will have better reasons in either case.

Becoming selved is necessary for us to have the complicated perspective we need to function in today’s world, but when we realize the self is just a creation of the mind, we can learn not to take the self so seriously.  And we can learn when it is safe to let go of the self, and drift off into pure awareness, flow, and meditation.

Thank you,

Daryl Seldon, MS

Contact me at knowflow1@gmail.com to talk about any issue that affects your quality of life.  Confidentiality is taken very seriously.
Add @darylseldon on Twitter.
Share on Facebook, friend Daryl Frank Seldon.

Addendum:
Discussion with a member of the Alan Watts and Buddhism Facebook group clarified that another aim is not to get rid of self, but merely to use the self program with the knowledge that it is an illusion.  Thus, not being fooled by it means it's no longer an illusion for you.

So, we have 3 goals:
1.  Using self with the knowledge that it is an illusion.
2.  Dissolving self through meditation and flow activities.
3.  Losing identity by failing to protect reputation.
If you see someone acting with freedom, you can expect they either have no reputation or a bad reputation, so they have nothing to lose by acting as they please.

For Blogger users:
If you have enjoyed this blog, make it viral, here's how:

First, follow these instructions.  Then make a new blog post and copy paste these full instructions (starting with 'for blogger users'), making sure the link is active.

1.  Go to your blog page settings and select Email.
2.  At the bottom select Go Email Posts to
3.  Select up to 10 friends, family, or others you think will benefit from the message contained, and enter their emails here.
4.  Go to your blog, make a new post, and post a link to this blog page.  http://dysautobot.blogspot.com/2017/09/what-does-it-really-mean-to-lose-self.html
Make sure the link is active
5.  Your contacts will receive your new post, linking to my blogsite and this therapeutic message will get to more and more people.