[:January 18th, 2022:] • As a follow-up to the practice given on January 1st, 2022, I want to record an example session here. I'm starting this at 23:48. • Relax: I am sitting on my couch lengthwise with my back against a cushion and my feet stacked. I am taking a few deep breaths and appreciating the feeling that they bring. I am turning my attention to my body. There is some tension in my stacked feet, so I am unstacking them. I feel tension in my shoulders--probably emotional--and am swinging my head back and forth to help relax them. I feel tension in my lower back--possibly also emotional--and so I am scooting back further into the cushion to promote a straighter spine. I am taking another deep breath and continuing to focus on my body. I am noticing that the corners of my mouth are pulling a little into a frown. A shiver goes across my body. I am noticing how I am having such a full experience from nothing but my own body. I feel reasonably relaxed, and am moving on. • Explore: I feel mild. I know that there are many issues tugging at me right now, but they feel distant at the moment. My shoulders tensed up a bit, so I took another deep breath and relaxed them again. i feel dull, lacking in motivation or excitement. This may be because I have many "todos" right now. I don't feel particularly anxious: there is just a touch of anxiety in the upper part of my stomach. Many thoughts flow through my mind, often related to Olivia, but not always. My body shifts into a slightly more comfortable position. I feel sleepy, but not overly so; I keep yawning. No particularly strong emotions are presenting themselves at the moment. I will move on. • Seclude: I am independent of the clothes I wear currently. I like these pajamas, and I like this sweater, and I like this shirt, and there was a time in my life when I was without them and there may be a time in my life where I am without them again. All of the food here is meant to be consumed, to play a role in a process and then be gone. I am rather fond of my water bottle and my glasses and my earrings and my choker. Again, there was a time when I was without them, and these things are not guaranteed to my future self. I am independent of these things; I am beyond them. Maynard without his glasses is still Maynard. Maynard with different clothes is still Maynard. Maynard after losing weight, or gaining weight, or going through physical trauma with lasting damage, will still be Maynard. Maynard in a different state, in a different house, around different people, will still be Maynard. These things are all temporary states through which I pass. (I notice that one may remark that a person's surroundings affect them greatly, and that it may be even more appropriate to consider a "person" as being them plus their surroundings. I would like to consider this more and boil the truth out of this practice down to a functional core.) Moving on. • Disidentify: The current boredom that I experience is not me, but rather a temporary state that I am passing through. The weight of my stomach that I feel, and in fact my stomach itself, is also not me. The smell of my own breath is not me; it is of the body I inhabit, and only for this moment. The tension in my shoulders is not me. The intrusive thoughts of Olivia, my horniness, my sensation of my body and my penis: all not me. They are my avatar. They are to be experienced with fascination, like a game, and realizing that, fundamentally, I am beyond them. I look down at my hands. These are not mine: they are tools that I wield to exist in this physical dimension. I stand up. I feel a pain in my left big toe because I was picking at it earlier. This pain does not bother me: thought it can affect my body, that need not affect me, as I am not my body. I refill my water bottle at the sink. The sink is full of of dishes. A reaction arises: these are dishes that ought to be clean. This reaction enters my mind, my stream of consciousness, and I see it, but I do not mistake it for being myself. I may wash the dishes, or I may not; I will be unscathed either way, because the dishes are not me, and the vessel through which my dishes-related emotions propagate is also not me. My cat makes a funny noise at the sink. I laugh a little bit. I stroke my cat. She is soft, and cute. The experience is joyful, but I am distant from it: it is a blip in time, to be taken with curiosity and detachment. Any action that I take tonight cannot affect me, it can only affect my vessel, but my vessel is not me. The trauma that I am experiencing with Olivia is not me; it is yet another curious episode in the series of life. The joy that I experienced two nights ago, playing OpenTTD with Sam, was not me: it was gift, from the universe, from Sam, from myself, to me, to be enjoyed in that moment, playfully, and then released. I may play OpenTTD again, or I may not. The meals that I cook are not me, because I can learn, and change, and forget again. I think of a dog I saw near the bus stop today. It barked at me, and I thought it wanted to play, but the owner said that it was being protective, not playful. I left. I felt a loss, as I may never now go out to see that dog again. I feel a loss--among other things--around Olivia. This feeling of loss is not me. This feeling of loss is not even for me; it is for my vessel. And it may pain my vessel, and that pain may be joyful for me, as it's another creative event in the unfolding of life. I am an intangible actor with a tangible body. • Play: The world is my oyster. At this moment, there are infinite potential directions that I may take myself. So often we forget this and see only a single path. But the other choices never go away: they are just forgotten about. But fundamentally I am free, within physical bounds, and within mental bounds--which expand with every word--to do as I please. And though my vessel may be hurt in the process, I never will be, as I am distinct. So I encourage myself to play, and to explore, and to be free, and to experiment, and to fail, and to remember that I cannot be hurt. • The time is 00:15; that went for 17 minutes. • I feel that I had an experience with it, but it did not affect me fully in the anticipated way. Even if I recognize myself as free, I still don't feel particularly compelled to go and play right now. Tonight, these words felt a little to much like just words, missing a meaning behind them. • I want to expand on a parenthetical that lay within my meditation: within Seclude, "(I notice [...] functional core.)". Ah, yes. Much of this meditation is given in language of truth: "I am not my trauma", or "I am free". Statements using the grammar of absolutes. This absolutist presentation strikes me as varyingly appropriate depending on the statement at hand. Generally speaking, I will find it relatively easy to accept as truth the idea that I am not my water bottle. Much more difficult for me is the idea that I am not my body, or my emotions; most difficult is the idea that I am intangible. But the truth is not the point anyway; the reason I tell myself that I am not my trauma is not to tuck that fact away for intellectual use later on; it is to help myself disidentify from my trauma. We are using intellectual claims of truth as means to an emotional end. And since I struggle with these truths, it impacts my ability to achieve the emotional goals stated: because I struggle with the idea that I am invulnerable, I struggle to feel so. But since emotional change is the goal in the first place, why not just go there directly? Without solving the puzzle of identity, and therefore without being able to claim that I am or am not my emotions, I may still take steps to disidentify from my emotions, which was really the point to begin with. I am not confident on the grounds of truth on which this practice currently sits, but I feel that they are unnecessary anyway.