Aella

Getting Smaller and Quieter

Once, when I was lying on the floor in a hotbox of a room, one of my friends was leaving, and she said “Goodbye! I’m going to get smaller and quieter now!”

This was surprising to me at the time, but years later ended up being a great example of the sort of translation I find ideal – view things as close to granular perception as possible.

I don’t think ‘smaller and quieter’ is sheer perception itself, really – you still have to have the constructed concepts about smallness and quietness in the first place – but it’s at least a good stone’s throw down the scale. Here’s some examples of shifting down the spectrum:

* “Killing is evil” —> “Killing makes me feel bad”
* “I prefer objective facts over feelings” —-> “The sense of my beliefs matching something outside of myself is something that makes me feel safe”
* “I am such a disgusting person” —-> “I fear the rejection of others”

The idea is that all upper-level thoughts can be broken down into more basic emotion building-blocks; fear, love, pain, pleasure, etc. – it is the idea that, at the core, thinking is just sensation. It takes exercise to realize this regularly, to have the realization of it continually present in thought. It is not immediately obvious that someone walking away is “getting smaller and quieter”, much in the same way it is not obvious that our preference for “objective facts” is a learned frame to explain “a feeling of predictability.”

Communication feels much easier and covers a broader range with people who tend to shift to the “smaller and quieter” side. The building blocks are easier to share and harder to misinterpret, and if you can communicate more basic sensations, it is easier to trigger corresponding upper-level frames.

Permanent Mental Effects from LSD

These are permanent changes I’ve noticed after doing a fuckton of LSD. It’s been about 3 years since I ‘quit’ (though I still dose about twice a year), and these are the effects that still seem to linger.

Please don’t worry any of these will happen to you if you take LSD once in a while like a sane human being.

1. Worse memory. Or, rather, less accessible memory. All the things seem to still be in there, it’s just the queries pull out the wrong thing, or take longer than normal

2. Gaps in thought. Pre acid, ‘thinking’ felt like a tightly wound stitch, or stones in a river very close together, and now they often feel very far apart. I still get to the place I’m going, but a lot of the process of getting there feels like a suspended leap between two points, where I look down and I realize my thought is not beneath me, and I wonder where it went, and I see so much of everything else instead, until suddenly the next piece hits me and I’m like ‘oh yeah.’

The thoughts themselves don’t seem to be affected, but sometimes it makes conversation harder.

3. Feeling less like I am the thing that is thinking my thoughts – especially during periods of intense concentration or problem solving.
I ‘catch myself thinking’ from the outside much more often, in more unexpected circumstances, and during more mentally intensive periods.
Like, normally I am sitting in a glass box, and I’m popping out colorful little ‘reasonings’ and ‘conclusions,’ and of course I know they are popping out *from me* – but then sometimes I find myself standing outside the glass box looking in, and I am surprised to find that the ‘reasonings’ and ‘conclusions’ are continuing to pop out of the empty air where I used to sit. I realize that the “reasonings” and “conclusions” are independent of me, that I’m not the one popping them out.

4. Access to an intense altered mental state that usually lasts around 5-10 minutes. Triggering this generally long-term cures any stress, anxiety, or insecurity I’ve been going through recently. The effort it takes to trigger it is really inconsistent though. I often try to avoid triggering it. Sometimes it happens in dreams. I’ve written more extensively about this here.

5. Permanently increased wellbeing in a way it’s hard to put my finger on.

6. Shifts in beliefs about myself, the way I work, the things I’m curious about, epistemics, philosophy, and ethics. These shifts were pretty severe and appear to be permanent. I like these beliefs a lot better.

7. Altered mental reactions to alcohol. Getting drunk now feels like a slightly psychedelic experience to me, which is incredibly weird and makes zero sense. Since acid, while drunk, I am more easily overtaken by awe, more likely to get the outside-the-glass-box feeling, and more in danger of saying cliche hippie phrases.

8. My internal experience and feelings of thought processes are now way more nonverbal, whereas pre-acid I used to be full of ‘words.’ I feel silenced, but not any less quiet.

9. The mental processes I take to explain my own behaviors to myself have shifted drastically – particularly ones surrounding the sense of agency. I rarely use mental movements around ‘sense of agency’ anymore. It’s like a word that’s dropped out of my internal vocabulary.
For example, in point 6 I mention ‘shifts in belief’, and the phrasing implies it ‘happened to me’ – doing LSD rearranged my beliefs. The glass box analogy also supports this – that I am clothed in ideas I did not choose to wear. But I equally could have phrased it as though I did all the choosing – “Doing acid helped me realize x, and I came to conclude z” – and it would still be true.
Whether or not “I did something” or “it was done to me” is no longer a relevant question, internally. I find no important distinction between the two.

10. Existential masochism. The sense of pleasure and pain – in a mental sense – have been seriously churned together. It’s not that pain is any less painful, or that pleasure is any less pleasurable (probably the opposite, really), it’s that they more often coexist, and tend to coexist at greater extremes.

11. Way easier laughter. More things delight me and I’m much quicker to giggle at things, anything. Everything is funny. I’m more easily entertained.

Overall I’m glad I did it and would do it again

Dating: Accordions Vs. Sitars

The accordion is much easier than it looks.

Each left handed button is an entire chord, and it’s arranged in an easy-to-memorize pattern. You pick it up, press down, and it booms with harmony. The instrument is constructed that you only need to engage with it minimally to get the song you want out of it.

Similarly, ‘accordion style’ partners are easy to play – engaging in a relationship with them is simple, and you need to engage with them minimally to get the ‘song’ of a good relationship out of them.

Accordion relationships don’t cost you a lot of energy. I don’t mean energy as in ‘they don’t talk a lot,’ I mean energy as in ‘they perform actions that make relationship-specific aspects with them very easy’ – such as excellent communication or being self-motivated about exercise or whatever it is that’s necessary for your relationship to function.

Aspects that might bump someone towards the ‘accordion’ side of the spectrum are things like equal status to you, physical and emotional stability, identity independence (separating their self worth from their relationship with you), independent wealth, or their own social network.

The Sitar

Have you ever played a sitar? It’s leagues more difficult than an accordion. Not only do you play one note at a time – no easily organized chords – there are dozens of strings, and just holding the instrument properly is a lesson in itself. The process of using the sitar requires understanding the instrument well, and engaging with it closely is an integral part of making it sing. The accordion may feel like ‘playing a song,’ but a sitar feels like ‘playing the instrument.’

Sitar partners are high cost – in that functioning in the relationship takes a lot of energy. Mental or physical disabilities, unresolved childhood trauma, poverty, significant introversion, jealousy, or practical dependence can all contribute to being a sitar partner, as maintenance of the person themselves must be done before maintenance of the relationship.

Of course internal factors can contribute too, such as having very specific needs in order to feel satisfied in a relationship, requiring high amounts of actions in order to feel safe in the relationship, and sometimes general stuff like insecurity, perfectionism, or neuroticism.

The accordion/sitar spectrum is also not the same thing as casual vs. committed relationships, or compatible vs. incompatible preferences. Casual relationships can still require a lot of energy, and incompatible preferences can take very little energy to handle, if lubricated with good communication and self awareness.

Now, this might start to sound like I’m calling Accordions ‘desirable and good’ and Sitars ‘undesirable and bad’,

but I want to steer away from that sharply. Inheriting a lot of money from a relative might push someone towards the ‘Accordion’ side of the spectrum, and getting into a car accident might push them towards the ‘Sitar’ side – frequently a partner’s cost is affected by things entirely outside of their control, and having these things happen to a partner probably doesn’t affect how much the relationship is ‘worth it’ or how much you love them.

The benefits of Accordion partners might sound ideal, almost romantic, but I think a lot of people find relationships to be like the Sitar – it’s only fun when it’s hard.

Sitar partners have the ability to provide an intense sense of specialness – if they require a lot of energy to date, then you are set apart from others more distinctly by being the one to spend that energy. Not just anybody could/would spend all this energy! They also lure in people who feel they need to feel like they must work hard to feel like they deserve love from the other person.

There may also be a greater sense of satisfaction and meaningfulness when progression is made in the relationship. And often, the sense of ‘suffering with someone’ is tragically romantic and incredibly bonding – often we feel sharing our pain is a core component of achieving intimacy, and comforting a suffering partner – and being comforted by them in turn – can make you feel fused to each other so completely that it soothes that gnawing itch of constant aloneness. Such is the appeal of unhealed wounds.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone explicitly verbalize that they are looking for a partner who will cost them a lot of energy, but it seems very obvious from observation. For example, a few years ago I watched the dating life of one of my old roommates – she shifted through a lot of attractive, easy-to-date men, only to end up disappearing to love/take care of someone who was extremely high cost – aggressive and neurotic, with a few mental disorders. It took me a while to realize that she hadn’t been duped – she was doing this deliberately, and this is what she wanted. She didn’t date him in spite of the fact he was a Sitar, she dated him because of it.

I don’t think that any pairing of Sitar/Accordion Sitar/Sitar Accordion/Accordion is bad at all, but it does seem difficult for people who’ve ended up in the relationship rather accidentally, and not because they were actively seeking it like my old roommate actively sought it.

I’ve seen a few people who prefer Sitar partners date an Accordion partner and end up a bit unsatisfied. Usually their complaint (not explicitly verbalized!) is that of lack of passion – their Accordion partner is a little boring, or just friendly, or cold. And the other way around is just as bad – people who prefer Accordion partners are unhappy when they date Sitar partners, and the experience for them is exhausting and often feels like an unnecessary distraction, or a chore.

I think that often, in both of these scenarios, the people would still say their relationship is ‘worth it.’ Once you cross the familiarity threshhold, there’s no going back really until other factors break the relationship down from the inside, or they deal with it and grow old and die. The best cure is prevention.

This is why I think learning to explicitly identify the kind of labor you want to put into a relationship –

without judging that desire at all – would be very useful, because then you can avoid getting into a mismatched relationship in the first place. This may be difficult, as I suspect most people would tell themselves they want an Accordion one, because that seems like the ‘right’ answer.

I think the reason for this is that Sitar relationships tend to feature more intense points of unhappiness, and there’s a big “unhappiness is bad” narrative going on, and it’s nearly taboo to say “unhappiness can be fulfilling and meaningful.” Go watch a tragic movie goddamnit.

And sometimes people who want a Accordion relationship end up dating a Sitar partner – often because they feel that they would be a bad person if they let the difficulties affect their love for someone, or out of a sense of duty, or an unawareness that Accordion partners are an available option, or because they failed to recognize early enough that their partner was a Sitar. I usually see this in people who are so passively nice it ends up being a defensive maneuver. I belong in this category.

Basically, my point is make sure you research the instruments you buy beforehand, so you can learn to recognize signs of whether it will easily make you a beautiful song or if it will make you bleed as it slowly absorbs into your flesh and you don’t know anymore whether it is you or the instrument who is shedding those tears.
But hey, I respect the intensity.

“Me Too”: on Sexual Assault

I want to preface this by emphasizing that I in no way want to trivialize experiences people have had as victims of sexual assault. All feelings are valid, and it’s ok to feel hurt even at something that might seem trivial to others.

People on my Facebook and Twitter are posting “me too,” which is meant to indicate that they’ve been victims of sexual assault. The comments talk about how rampant abuse is, and I’ve read many anecdotes over the last few days of experiences that have left people living in a state of fear. “The world is not safe for us,” seems to be the message.

I felt weird and confused, because I have never felt this, despite having been a sex worker and living in a lot of different cities. I’ve generally felt quite safe my entire life, and never really witnessed this systemic harassment that I see people talk about. I don’t know what’s going on – how is it that everyone’s getting abused around me and I’m left untouched and ignorant to this? I started to write a post about this.

But then I remembered – I actually was a victim of sexual assault. There were many instances in my life that might qualify – I was molested as a child, stalked and chased in deserted streets, groped at a party, forced into a handjob despite clearly and repeatedly saying no, kissed without consent, and I once had to physically chest-kick a man out my front door who’d followed me home after I drunkenly flirted with him. Also let’s not forget catcalling whenever I go outside alone wearing anything form-fitting.

So, I could also post “me too,” if I wanted! But posting it still didn’t feel right. Remembering these things didn’t make me feel less safe – in fact I had actually completely forgot about a few of the events up until this point. I never really considered them an issue.

I think this is because very few of the events made me feel afraid for my life or well being. The forced sexual contact was really annoying and uncomfortable, but I wasn’t afraid they would hurt me, and I think on a gut level I don’t view ‘having my hand shoved onto a dick’ as much different than ‘having my hand shoved onto a forearm.’ It was mostly uncomfortable because of social anxiety – I wasn’t sure how to effectively communicate without ruining my social ties later on.

The only thing that left lasting impact was being chased through Istanbul’s deserted streets by a hooded man – to this day I have trouble walking alone at night, even in safe areas. But I never really considered this part of a systemic problem – I don’t know if he wanted to rape or mug me, but both of those things seemed equally physically threatening, and I know several other people who’ve been mugged, most of them men, and I sort of classed it as just an unfortunate thing that happens sometimes. I never once thought of this as having to do with rape (or mugging) culture, and more thought of it as “sometimes psychopaths get born, and sometimes I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I don’t feel like a victim.

I have a weirdly high resilience to these experiences, but I don’t want to insinuate that those who don’t are weak. I did not choose to be unaffected, and it’s likely that the reasons for this are random factors in my childhood, or a genetic balance of brain chemicals, or something different and unknowable. I am not stronger, I take absolutely no credit, I just happened to find myself in this position.

But with the “Me Too” campaign, I felt a pressure to view the things that had happened to me as part of this ‘systemic abuse’ narrative, as important somehow, as something I should be more upset about. Was there something wrong with me for being so unaffected by sexual assault? Should I get more angry? The idea of offering up my experiences as part of the cause felt sort of appealing, like it granted me special status within this storylline.

And the problem here is that if I did choose to label my experiences as something important and troubling, that I would become unhappier and more fearful. People who view their experiences as important and troubling seem to also have a lot of distress associated with it, and it seems like it would be an improvement if they could reach a mental state where they no longer saw them as important and troubling.

I’m not at all saying they are failing by “Me Too”ing their experience, only that the state of “Me Too”ing is more unpleasant than a state without labels – and more importantly, that the “Me Too” program might actually increase the amount people feel their experience has been traumatic for them. I’m reminded of my experience leaving home. I was raised a homeschooler in an incredibly sheltered environment by an abusive father. The experience itself really sucked, and was very uncomfortable, but I did not assign it a special label. I didn’t know that my experience was special or important – until I left home and started talking to people from the outside world.

People reacted in horror when I mentioned things from my childhood that I thought were normal and common. They said things like, “are you okay? How are you coping?”. As I integrated with my new culture, I took on the horror they felt about my childhood. I started to feel angry at what I had gone through, and this caused me pain at least as great as the experience had been itself. I felt like I was living with a gaping wound in my chest. I felt injustice and crippling rage and suffered through nightmares for years. I defined myself as a victim, and thus I felt like a victim.

I would not have been able to heal without shedding my label and the narrative about what I had gone through. The label and the narrative helped me adjust to my new culture, but it also locked me into suffering. I no longer consider myself a victim, and as a result I no longer suffer like a victim.

Now, I’m not necessarily arguing that people shouldn’t have reacted in horror. I think probably rejecting my upbringing as ‘deeply not right’ was super important for integrating into a healthier perspective, and I think to some extent suffering from an updated narrative was inevitable – but I do wish deeply, at some point, that someone would have told me to not make it special. I wish someone would have told me that I should feel and process whatever pain I need to feel, but to refuse to give it an identity, to refuse to make it part of me. I wish at least one person would not have reacted with horror. I wish someone had told me this didn’t need to be a story about the poor abused Christian girl who must feel the way a poor abused Christian girl should feel.

And in the same way, I sort of want to reach out to the people saying Me Too and I want to tell them that it’s okay to hurt, but this doesn’t have to be anything special. It can just be pain, and then healing. I’m afraid that the cultural attitude that sparks Me Too will lock people into the pain.

Please realize I’m not necessarily making an argument against the “Me Too” campaign. It’s very possible that the benefits are greater than this cost, especially in a world where sexual assault is a hidden harm – but I wanted to introduce the concept that going about it this way might also have a cost. I don’t know if Me Too is a net benefit or not, but I see nobody discussing the potential downsides, and I feel a cultural pressure not to. There’s a reason I’m posting this here on my blog and not on my social media.

It’s just, despite having a list of ways in which people have sexually abused or harassed me, I am happy. I don’t feel any urge to label those experiences. I don’t feel afraid, and I feel completely free. I want others to know that this is possible, and that maybe one path is by rejecting the urge to put those experiences into a storyline that designates them as special.

Tripsitting Tips and Tricks

This is written mostly for higher doses of acid, usually 200ug+, where a tripsitter may become seriously needed. This is all written with the assumption that you’ll be indoors, which is strongly recommended unless the person tripping has a lot of experience with the dose they’re taking.

1. Don’t try to interact with them too much.
Tripping people are closer to children. You won’t be able to communicate any normal adult things with them, they won’t always understand the questions you ask, and the experience they’re having is so different from yours that trying to talk to them will be more trouble than it’s worth. The amount of mental effort they need to put into understanding what you’re saying will be more distracting than useful.

2. Your role is parental.
You’re there to serve as a buffer between them and the scary world around them. Answer the door, take their phone, give them coloring books and glasses of water. Asking what they want usually won’t help and will be distracting – instead of asking them if they want water, or to hold your hand, just give them a glass of water and see if they refuse, or take their hand and watch how they react.

3. Reassurance
If they ask what’s going on, tell them, literally and exactly: “You took some acid about 3 hours ago, and we just got back from the walk. Now you’re in my house and we’re sitting on the couch.” You may need to tell them what’s going on repeatedly, but even with repeated questioning they usually still want the same literal answer, over and over again. If they insist that something is going on that isn’t, for example “I need to give you this object so you can go back in time,” don’t tell them they’re wrong. Play along. They will probably forget what they’re doing soon. They might be insisting on something false that is causing them a lot of discomfort, such as “my family hates me.” Don’t tell them they’re wrong, just listen. If it’s getting serious, you can try to redirect them, but don’t push back directly. For example, “your family doesn’t hate you” is not very good, but “your family took you out to dinner and hugged you last week” is better.

4. Language
Use very simple words and short sentences. Speak slowly and clearly. When tripsitting I talk to them the exact same as I do to children. They may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, and so will have trouble hearing what you’re saying. Their attention span will almost definitely be shortened, so they won’t be able to follow along complex concepts that require multiple points of data. More ideally, communicate with them physically, by demonstrating things with your body, using your face, pointing or laughing, or even drawing.

5. When not to comfort
Don’t ask them if they’re okay. You want to allow them to process things without worrying that they’re distressing you, so don’t act distressed or like you’re trying to fix the situation. Allow them to suffer if they need to. If they’re in pain, or sobbing, don’t say anything. Hug them if you think they might want that, or put a hand on their back. If a sad song is on and they’re obviously affected by it, don’t stop the song unless they ask for it (rather make sure a more happy song plays next, if you think that’s what they want; keep in mind they may want deliberately painful songs.)

6. When to comfort
If they’re experiencing fear, this is the time to comfort. They trust you (hopefully), and their ability to read minute body language is probably heightened, so make very sure that your body language remains calm and your smile gentle, even if you are stressed or worried. This is maybe the most important thing, to act as a stable and calm center for them to use to reassure themselves. No matter what, never allow them to see concern, even if you are actually concerned. But again, be careful of directly contradicting things they say. Redirect, don’t tell them they’re wrong. Don’t try to debunk any delusions they might develop.

7. Loops
Sometimes people get caught in loops, typically between 5-60 seconds, where they will repeat the same series of phrases or ideas over and over again. This is usually easy to handle – if they’re upset, they’ll forget in a few seconds, which means they’ll have trouble actually acting out on being upset. Figure out the things to say to reassure them. I recently tripsat someone who thought his hand was bleeding, and every 30-60 seconds he would say ‘am I bleeding?’, and every 30-60 seconds I told him he wasn’t bleeding. This went on for hours.

8. Mania
Some people, on high doses, lose contact with reality and become loud, aggressive, or just generally super physically active. This is really annoying to handle, because it’s extremely difficult to get these people to take vallium or whatever helps them calm down, and so usually you just have to ride it out. Never tripsit someone who is bigger than you, if you are alone. Be prepared to call a friend to help deal with them. Sitting on someone at this point to prevent physical damage is generally not troubling to the person tripping, as they’re probably going to experience memory loss and aren’t really that aware that you’re sitting on them, even if they say things like ‘get off.’ Thought loops at this point usually tend to be 5-10 seconds long.

9. Paranoia
They might not trust you, or think you’re from the CIA or something. This particularly pops up when you’re in charge of their belongings, such as their phone or keys. This is very difficult to deal with. If the paranoia gets to the mania stage, just sit on them and then you’re good. If they’re not manic, be sure to act very calm, not very defensive, and as gentle as possible. Your goal here is not to eliminate their paranoia, but to keep them calm until it ends. A possible technique here is to ask them questions about what they’re paranoid about – if they accuse you of being in the CIA, try to gently ask them what it means to be in the CIA, why they think that, and followup questions about whatever they are saying. Getting them to express their opinions is a good distraction.

10. Timing
You want to wait to see how intense a trip will be before taking them outside, and for this I generally recommend waiting 3-4 hours, assuming by that point they aren’t showing any signs of increasing the trip. I have seen trips get more intense after this point, though this is rare. You should start to see a comedown around 5-6 hours, though this can occasionally last as long as 8-9 hours.

11. Don’t fuck with them
Seriously, this is one of the cruelest things you can do. If you don’t understand why you shouldn’t, you need to take a high dose of acid. If you wouldn’t do it to a 4-year-old, don’t do it to the vulnerable person trusting you to care for them.

12. Beneficial tricks
These are mostly to use for anxiety or fear, not for sadness (you should not try to stop sadness!). Scenery change (from one room to the other, lights on or off, or music changing) can be extremely effective. If they’re of a state of mind to follow instructions, try to have them sit cross legged with their back straight, and guide them in deep breaths. Mostly demonstrate this in front of them and gently encourage them to follow, but don’t worry or say anything if they just start rolling around or something.

13. Body quirks
Acid is extremely safe. People may experience temperature fluctuations, numbness, limb shaking, jitteriness, fast heart rate, nausea, or headaches. This is normal (unless they’re symptoms of an unrelated condition that happens to be striking at the same time). Be prepared to reassure them for any weird things their body does. The only real danger is environmental damage (if they run into a glass table, for example).

Up and Down Definitions

A tribesman from a hot place points at what you’re wearing. “What is that?”

“A jacket,” you say.

“What is a jacket?” he asks.

What he wants to know is the purpose for which the jacket is used, and so you tell him “It keeps me warm. It protects me from the sun. It is very fashionable.”

A computer compiling information about the world is trying to fill in gaps in knowledge. It scans you and asks “what is that?”

“A jacket,” you say.

“What is a jacket?” the computer asks.

What the computer wants to know is what it matches to most closely in its existing stored knowledge. You tell it, “It is like a trenchcoat, a sweater, a coat, or a hoodie.”

An alien artist is unfamiliar with the structure of your world. It gestures its tendrils at you and asks “what is that?”

“A jacket,” you say.

“What is a jacket?” the alien asks.

What the alien wants to know is what it is that gives rise to the jacket, what the essence of jacketness is. You tell it, “It is a bunch of pieces of fabric stitched together with some thread.”

—

These are three ways in which a word can be ‘defined’ – the role it plays in the world around it (the up-definition), synonyms (lateral-definition), and the parts which construct the thing (down-definition).

Generally speaking, up-definitions are the most commonly used and the most practical. What we want to know about an object is what we can do with it. The same is applied to concepts – Love is “the thing we have for our children or parents,” surprise is “the thing that happens at a birthday you thought everyone forgot about,” and “existence” is “all this stuff you’re looking at.”

Up-definitions is also one of those things that can ‘feel like’ a satisfactory answer when what you really need is a down-definition. Discussions about morality frequently fall into the up-definition trap, where everybody’s idea of ‘wrong’ is a strictly functional thing, and then people get into conflicts over why different functional ideas are clashing with each other.

I’ve seen a few discussions of free will that also fail to recognize down-definitions; the up definition of free will is something like ‘making decisions independently’ or ‘conscious choices’ – or lateral definitions like “agency” or “my soul.” To ask about a down-definition is to ask about the fabric and thread of free will, about what little bits that idea has been built out of. Generally the down-definition I like the best is “a specific subjective sense”.

Up-definitions are useful, but down-definitions aid in presenting a more cohesive idea of what your mind is doing when it thinks. With some concepts it’s difficult to put any down-definition into words, but paying attention to the feeling of thinking about the concepts can also suffice.

Probably all concepts we use are built out of many smaller concepts, and those built out of smaller still, and oftentimes we forget this so deeply that as soon as we identify an idea like free will, we view it and wield it as a solid unit, and our debates with others feature challenging how our solid units serve functionally in the world around us. It’s like knowing how to swordfight without any knowledge of what swords are made out of – it works just fine, but it’s not holistic, and might one day prevent advancing to an expert level.

The Abyss of Want

disclaimer: this post is very silly and should not be taken seriously if you don’t take it seriously

If you ask the question ‘what do you want,’ and then follow it up with an infinite series of ‘why do you want that’, and ‘well why do you want that?’, it quickly gets murky.

When I took acid, my primary (goal?) activity was learning and fulfilling what I wanted. I realized that I wanted to become more confident. To fulfill this, I had to then realize what I actually wanted was to avoid the pain of rejection. To fulfill this, I had to then realize what I actually wanted was to know myself more. To fulfill this, there was more to know, and more to do, and more to know…
Over time I progressed down each rung of the ladder, shedding bits of myself each step, until I got to what I thought was the bottom. I thought it was the bottom for a long time. It went like this:

“I want nothing. I am nothing. I know nothing. I am no one. I have no attachment, because there is no one to have it. There are no beliefs. There is no difference between what ought to be and what is.”

I had wanted to fulfill my wants. The fulfillment of want meant the abolition of want, for a fulfilled want is no longer a want at all – and such was the floor of the abyss. In full self knowledge, there was nothing else to look for.

I was a mess of contentment. I was nothing, I was dead.

The experience of being dead is a funny thing to think about, because we always substitute something in to serve as a model for ‘death.’ We think about being huddled in a dark room forever, or sleeping, or the loss of everything we loved, or a great cloaked figure with a scythe, or our loved ones who’ve passed – but death isn’t any of these things. As soon as you think about “what death is,” you aren’t thinking about death at all, you’re thinking about an experience that you might have. What “death is” is every experience you are not having, right now, and haven’t before, and will never have again.

Subjective death, by its own definition, is impossible to understand, and that which is definitionally incomprehensible is synonymous with nonexistence.

I’m attempting to explain the reason why the floor of the abyss was not the end. Life is inevitable. The movement away from nothingness is an absolute necessity.

The floor opened up and I fell (because falling was an absolute necessity) to a level that looked familiar. And it was here that I realized that moving away from wanting nothing meant that now I had to want something, because what else is there?

I wanted to feel tension again, answerless and longing. I wanted to unknow what I had learned. I didn’t want to feel the benevolent god of my own watching eye, in all its infinite love, destroying my ability to feel unsatisfied – because being something again meant being unsatisfied.

I was back at the beginning, and it was here I saw that the abyss of want was a circle.

This realization was deeply humbling. A good friend once told me that the very last trap on the path to enlightenment is thinking that you are enlightened, and this has come back to knock me down again and again. The circle brought me right back around to where I had been before, to where everyone else had already been all this time. What I’d ‘truly’ wanted was to feel desire, and everyone else had already been doing it. I felt a little sheepish, that I’d had the audacity to think my chase had been better than anyone else’s. Everyone I’d looked down on, even a little – deeply religious people, shallow people, angry people, ‘overly rational’ people – they were all exactly where I was, desiring things even more than I was. They were the ones who had beaten me to my destination, without even moving.

Enlightenment is a great joke. Enlightenment is nothing at all. I am something now, clinging hard to somethingness, and so I am not enlightened. Neither are you, or any other something in existence; really, you should only try to go get enlightened if you are fond of great jokes.

How Taboo Are These Sexual Fetishes?

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The correlation between tabooness and sexual interest was statistically significant at p < 0.01.

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Fuckers Vs. Raisers

Disclaimer: Pure conjecture, riddled with a ton of what-ifs – probably none of which are original.

One day in a stereotypical medieval town, a bard comes through.

This is a very sexy bard, violet-eyed, good with a lute, and experienced in the ways of women. During his short stay he sleeps with four of the village wenches, and then bounces off to a new village, to seduce more wenches.

The men in the town don’t know about this, of course, and when one of the wenches gets pregnant, everyone assumes her husband did it. Years later, a new child with violet eyes is running around. Life goes on.

There are two sexual strategies for men – Fucking and Raising. Fuckers, like our friend the Bard, do the ol’ fuck-and-run. Move frequently, shoot seed everywhere, and hope that this results in violet-eyed toddlers getting raised by other men. Raisers, by contrast, shoot seed into comparatively few women and end up raising the children they produce.

A society probably can only tolerate so many Fuckers, because Raisers are doing all of the work. If too many men are Fuckers, the kids will stop getting raised, and then the Fucking sexual strategy loses effectiveness.

Kind of like charity/hospitality/welfare. A society only has so much excess to give to people who take advantage of it.

—

My question then is why are women attracted to Fuckers? Is there any female advantage to this?

Women are attracted to men who indicate they would help their child survive – and to a woman, only Raisers will help her child survive. Having a child by a Fucker is dangerous – if she doesn’t have a Raiser lined up, then she’s on her own, and historically this is Very Bad News. If she does have a Raiser and he finds out the child isn’t his, again – Very Bad News.

So when the Bard fingers his lute, why do all the women around him sigh?

I think their sighs don’t have anything to do with the fact he’s a Fucker – I think it’s because his traits, if they were present in a Raiser, would be ideal. He’s presenting confidence, skill, and high social standing. If a Raiser like that moved into town, all of the women would be trying to wife themselves at him like crazy. The Bard also is a potential Raiser in the women’s eyes, and he probably has to emphasize that idea in order to get her to sleep with him.

This is maybe where the trope of “guy tells girl he loves her in order to sleep with her” comes from. Women don’t want to fuck Fuckers, but they will fuck Fuckers disguised as Raisers. And when they find out, they usually describe the feeling of “being used.”

This makes me think that women’s sexual strategy involves defending against Fuckers at all costs, and that there are minimal or no evolutionary benefits for women to be charmed by the Bard (beyond maybe getting some fresh gene material into the town?). Fuckers only succeed by disguising themselves as Raisers.

This frames things a lot more in terms of ‘battle’ between the genders. I have held the idea until now that human sexual strategy is a lot more of a complimentary competition, but this seems like it has really disproportionate benefits.

Of course this is very general, and cultural norms are changing. Birth control means that women aren’t threatened by Fuckers, and so Fuckers don’t have to pretend (as much) to be Raisers to get laid anymore. Sleeping with a Fucker who isn’t pretending to be a Raiser has given rise to the new fun sort of relationship called Casual Sex.

Okay I am done writing now but I don’t know how to do a closing paragraph. I don’t really want to learn.

The Amory Spectrum

In discussions about monogamy and polyamory, I find I’ve recategorized the two ideas into something that feels more functional for me, and I accidentally try to use them synonymously with the original words. This ends up getting pretty messy, so I’m going to do the obvious thing: invent more words and then explain them!

(there’s a good chance someone has already written about this somewhere.)

Presenting: The Uniamory/Multiamory Spectrum

Your position on the Uniamory/Multiamory spectrum depends entirely on how many restrictions you place on your partner’s romantic/sexual behavior. It doesn’t matter what restrictions are placed on you, or what your partner actually does, or what you actually do, or the functional habits in your relationship.

You are uniamorous if you have rules, expectations, or agreements placed on your partner that state they cannot engage in relationships besides you.

You are multiamorous if you have no rules, expectations, or agreements about your partner’s romantic/sexual behavior with people besides yourself.

Remember this is a spectrum, going from lots of rules (no flirting) to medium rules (you can kiss but no sex) to no rules (you can do literally anything you want). For fun I’m going to provide the Amory Spectrum:

0. Exclusively uniamorous; all extrarelationship romantic/sexual expressions are disallowed; no flirting, sexting, nude photos; can include forbidding being alone for too long with other people or ‘leading them on’; usually uncomfortable with watching porn or expressing attraction to others
1. Predominantly uniamorous, only incidentally multiamorous; all obvious extrarelationship romantic/sexual expressions are disallowed, but leniency for flirting or engaging in light touch. Acceptance of expressing attraction to others and porn use.
2. Predominantly uniamorous, but more than incidentally multiamorous. Most extrarelationship romantic/sexual expressions are disallowed, but with strong leniency; can include approval of nude photos, kissing and light petting, or attending sex/nude/kink parties (as a couple, without interacting with others). Most camgirl’s partners fall within this category.
3. Equally multiamorous and uniamorous: Includes swinging, having threesomes, and occasionally allowance of very casual/occasional extrarelationship interactions, but with disallowance of any serious or regular extrarelationship interactions.
4. Predominantly multiamorous, but more than incidentally uniamorous: general extrarelationship romantic/sexual expressions are allowed with several rules, such as strongly enforced relationship hierarchy, and can include regulations of number of partners allowed, the frequency of their interactions, or moderate restrictions on their sexual activities
5. Predominantly multiamorous, only incidentally uniamorous: the majority of extrarelationship romantic/sexual expressions are allowed with few rules; can include light prescriptive hierarchy or minimal regulation of sexual behavior.
6. Exclusively multiamorous: all extrarelationship romantic/sexual expressions are allowed; no rules or requirements are instituted, and no prescriptive hierarchy is instated

Also: rules for the purpose of sexual safety, such as getting tested regularly or using condoms, do not count towards the multiamory spectrum.

If you date someone for twenty years with no rules about what they can or can’t do, but they never actually get involved with anybody else, then you are multiamorous but functionally monogamous.

If you prefer relationships that tend to be functionally monogamous, you can actively search for monogamous partners while both of you remain multiamorous.

If you insist that you and your partner will only love each other forever, that neither of you even experience the desire for others, and you also have rules that your partner can’t act upon desires even if they do have them, then you are both uniamorous and monogamous.

If you have no rules about your partner’s behavior but they have rules about your behavior, then you are multiamorous dating a uniamorous person, in a monogamous relationship.

Uniamory instituted out of fairness does not count; if you are level 6 multiamorous but dating someone who is level 2 uniamorous, and your partner agrees to not take advantage of your level 6 leniency because it wouldn’t be ‘fair,’ and instead acts as though you are level 2 uniamorous too, then this does not make you uniamorous.

Polyamory and uniamory aren’t really compatible, but sometimes you see poly relationships that rank low on the amory spectrum. If you consider yourself poly but are a 3 on the amory scale, then you might be on the uniamorous side of polyamory.

Basically, I think putting “restrictions placed on partner” into a highly defined, separate role to be a strongly illuminating way of looking at relationship structures. Frequently I find people citing monogamous motivations to explain their uniamory implementations (e.g., “We’re level 1 monogamous because neither of us find anybody else to be attractive!”)