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each individual takes the side that allows them to scream out their existence at the maximum volume. even those who on paths that have entire tomes of literature on ephemerality of identity and self. "this is my REAL name." "i've found my TRUE path." "everything else is a LIE"

an "Identity Trap" is that which gives you the illusion of being More Real than someone else and thus a sense of superiority.

e.g. "i've revealed more vulnerable info about myself on this social media site where i use a portrait pic under perfect lighting at the perfect angle doing sth sexy & cool, always saying the right things, etc..." most ppl prolly wouldn't recognize the hooman in real life!

an "Identity Trap" is so named because like all traps, it LIMITS some form of freedom. every action is filtered first through "does this make sense for this identity, who has attributes X, Y, Z and is part of in-groups A, B, C and believes in 1,2,3"

every action is first measured against whether or not it affirms or erodes the identity that took so much energy to build. this isn't necessarily bad. like Mecha Suits, powerful identities have powerful effects.

but because there is a layer that intermediates between self and reality by adding layers of moralistic judgement, it creates friction that jams up any activity that requires Flow. life gradually ends up consisting only of activities that don't require flow, like spreadsheets.

egoic identities generate power in "reality" while your degree of "non-identity" (if that makes sense) measures your power in the "spirit world"https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1349454312724783104 …

it doesn't make sense for an "identity" to have a whole bunch of "Non-Identity Energy" though so to rephrase in a non woo way it'd be: "the power to push things through is opposite the power to let things go."

notice how this is a common trap for many gung-ho spiritual seekers? they try to use "Ultimate Push Through" to get to the state of "Ultimate Letting Go". an emo teenager going "the world is shit" is better at letting go!

there is only one real benefit to Pushing Through that Letting Go can be of help to and that is to let go of having to push through specific things.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1304696095159640064 …

if you were to model the hooman as a computer, it would be equivalent to immunity to infinite loops by having some conscious control over the halting mechanism. you lose some (quite a bit actually) raw power but gain the ability to say "Enough".

the core issue of trying to claim Realness is that everything, by definition, is part of reality. (people differ in whether or not they consider the spirit world part of reality but that's just a semantic argument of the word)https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1349454307939127297?s=20 …

to claim to be MORE Real than another or to accuse another of being LESS Real is to split the world into heaven and hell and create the source of all conflict. *yes* your side may be smarter or average, or kinder on average, or richer on average, or has dealt w/ more pain, etc..