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· Sep 27, 2021

when people say they don't want to be inundated with "negativity" what they mean is that they don't want to feel powerless. it's confusing terminology tho because in this sense the opposite of "negativity" is not "positivity," it's action

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so, there's an idea i think i got from

@Malcolm_Ocean

, about a fundamental asymmetry between "approach" and "avoid" in high-dimensional state spaces: "avoid" is badly underspecified. there are many directions in which to run away from something

in order to guide action in a high-dimensional state space you need something more specific than that. "approach" focuses your attention on a specific destination and then you can try to work out how to get there, with your whole being

this is maybe excessively technical language but i think the technical metaphor is quite sharp and helpful for those who have a rough sense of it. to give a more phenomenological flavor: "approach" means good feels, happiness, joy, "avoid" means bad feels, fear, disgust

and to give a more phenomenological flavor of what i mean by avoidance being badly underspecified: if you spend a lot of time searching out new and exciting things to be afraid of and anxious about, you learn a lot about what *not* to do but not about what *to* do

so, next, i recently finally got around to reading

@dschorno

's "null call" and it's really good. i was very struck by his description of the signs of potential shamanism. this bit about being "wired for danger" especially arcove.substack.com/p/null-call

Elle Denisova

fascinating, i've got literally every thing on this list except for the self-harm. i think the optimal config for shamanism is a combo of these genes with other genes for approach-orientation (aka aspd traits)

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Elle Denisova

· Dec 18, 2021

going into my 6th day of kundalini awakening. just realized the bizarre, torturous symptoms i'd attributed to a phenibut "reaction" Mon were the violent early stages of this process, which i'd been unknowingly laying the groundwork for since this summer. preliminary observations:

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Elle Denisova

this explains why we've got so many EDSers here. also: was never at all anxious until illness and contact w toxic social control mechanisms. i've lost this artificial anxiety through a post-ego death process, anxiety is imo the worst obstacle for most on this path

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