[Angela]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

The image that comes to mind is those little clear plastic domes on wheels with a handle that they give to toddlers. They push them along the floor and little balls pop around inside the dome. The insides of some people's heads must be like that.

That is a very colorful image! I love it.

I don't know why this is but I won't disrespect the journey or the pain of others by assuming that it is nothing more than a wrong choice on their part.

Me, neither. There are no wrong choices, as far as I'm concerned.

I don't mind disrespecting inauthentic pain, though, in the sense that I don't buy into it. For example, the "pain" recently expressed by people who declared that the "lipstick on a pig" remark was sexist. I don't respect or feel compassion for that "pain." Or the emotional pain that is kept alive solely by the story that is incessantly repeated about something that happened in the past. I respect the person, popping-ball-head or not, and I'm sorry for their pain, but I don't respect the habitual negative thought pattern or the pain that comes with it. Including my own!

Which is not to say that there's not loads of value in "talking it out" and that that sometimes takes a good chunk of time for the unpracticed. I'm in favor of therapy, talking with friends, spewing and wallowing -- I'm in favor of all that because talking it out is one (but not the only) great way to let it go. I don't advocate sweeping it under the rug or denying it's there, because as has been mentioned, it tends to come out inappropriately and bite you in the butt.

Many people have no intention of letting it go, though, and that's fine with me. They are attached to the story of their pain, they're married to it -- and again, there's nothing wrong with that. Suffering is pain with a pay-off, though, and when you get a pay-off, you don't need my respect or compassion. I respect folks' right to think whatever they want to (or are "forced to" because they have no choice in the matter ), but that doesn't mean I have to respect the thoughts.

I can see how people developed the concept of karma. It's a story that would explain a lot, although in a way that only accentuates the dispassionate, indifferent, impersonal nature of existence in ways that I can't easily accept.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. How does the concept of karma explain a lot that accentuates the dispassionate, indifferent, impersonal nature of existence? Why are those ways not easy to accept for you?

Nothing that others would find earth shattering. I am just finding some interesting ways to assemble what is left of me into a new configuration that may work well going forward. ... I did consider fundamentally, non-negotiably crucial to my happiness, the stuff that absolutely had to be a certain way. It turns out that it's amazing what you can live without and what you can do with what is left. It makes me feel like I'm acting out a script written by someone else, which annoys the hell out of me. And yet at the same time, if my script hasn't worked and this one does ... WTF. Might as well go with it. What have I got to lose?

Thanks for that answer, and I wish you well with your new approach. What is it exactly that has you feeling like you're acting out a script written by someone else and being annoyed by that? Do you mean that you feel like your choices are being made for you? Or is it something else?

I think that one of the most profound aspects of my Dopamine Superpower is that the more I let go of having fundamental, non-negotiable, absolutely-has-to-be-this-way conditions before I'm willing to be happy (peaceful, joyful, free), the more easily and quickly those qualities bubble up and flow into my life. I would say my feeling good has a lot more to do with letting go of stuff I don't need than trying to be something I'm not. The more I let go, the more room for feeling good. Once again, simple, but not necessarily easy!