Closer look at Cliche's: Depression is a choice

This is gonna be a rather quick, poorly written one, but I had a thought while mowing the lawn today after reading a post by Andy Richter (Conan's couch buddy) on twitter. 

The post said: 

“Depression is a choice” = “your pain is your fault”
“You can overcome this if you just try hard enough” = “Your pain is making me uncomfortable. Please shut up.”

My thoughts on that were immediately: "Is your anger a choice?"

I've struggled with real depression throughout my life, to the point several times where it was suggested that I get medical help, and of course more frequently, professional help. I experienced situational depression like everyone else, but mainly the non-situational depress, where there's simply a black cloud over you and nothing really changes that. 

All feelings are ultimately chemical. I am not for a moment denying that people simply become awash with depression, in fact I advocate that myself. We don't get 100% control over our brains natural tendencies to regulate hormone levels, but we can develop a tremendous amount of control through the power of our thoughts. 

Just as some people are born with physical and mental deficiencies they did not choose, some are born with chemical deficiencies or have traumatic events that cause them. While there is ongoing research in that field and some medicines are available to assist, I cannot speak of the effectiveness of those things as I have never used them. If you use them and they help you, then I think that is great, however my conviction is that negative thought patterns can overthrow any positive state of mind. The mind is incredibly powerful in it's ability to overcome states, positive or negative. They can change on a dime, so if your medicine isn't helping, it can very well be the habits your mind is driven by. Sure, no one wants so feel depressed, just like no one want's to feel angry and no one wants to be poor, and yet our choices bring repeating patterns of all these things into our lives. No one wants to feel angry, but they choose to hang onto thoughts and perspectives that keep them angry. No one wants to be poor, and yet they consistently make decisions that keep them poor. 

As usual, there's a nuance and the ability to think critically  required in all of this. When states wash over us, it can be highly beneficial to pay attention to them, because theres always the chance that upon further inspection we'll realize that there was a specific moment or event that things changed. Most people aren't aware of this, but the bacteria in your gut is highly linked to your emotional state. Eat shit food that hurts your gut environment and you are basically choosing to fuck with your emotions. What else can be a catalyst? Any values we hold that come under fire. And guess what? Most, if not each value, can be chosen consciously. 

It is always a mix of what happens to us, and how we respond to it that matters. 

First of all, it is okay to feel depressed. All feelings that are possible to be felt, are okay to feel, the conundrum is that pain hurts, so it naturally feels like it's not okay to feel pain. Resisting whatever pain we are feeling, never makes it go away, but instead amplifies it because we are focusing on it acutely and it becomes more encompassing the narrower our focus. Whether it's homicidal rage, suicidal guilt, passionate love or insane jealousy, it is there to be felt and will be a natural occurrence given the right stimulus. Balance is the key though. Just like pain in the body is a trigger signaling the need to pay attention and assess the trigger, so is emotional pain. 

Beneficial and healthy thinking is a habit that can be developed, and I have long held (with much supporting evidence) the conviction that I can develop beneficial thinking. 

So let's go back to the post: "Depression is a choice" = "Your depression is your fault" lets look at these statements from other angles.

If Andy is saying that your depression is not your fault, he is also saying that your anger is not your fault, which is total bullshit. I don't care if someone shoots my wife and kills her, my anger is ultimately my decision, because I made the choice to attach my energy. It is my responsibility to focus on what ever I choose to focus on.The real problem is that many people are unaware that they can shift their emotional states. Instead, they become fully submerged in what they are feeling. The thing about feelings, is that they are so fucking powerful, inexperienced people can become hypnotized by them, thinking that the feeling coursing through them is the infallible truth. The reality of it, is that it is and only ever is, one perspective of which there are multitudes of. But emotion blinds us from perspective, be it love, fear, happiness, indecision... you name it.

"You can overcome this if you try hard enough" = "Your pain is making me uncomfortable, please shut up"

Those are unrelated in my opinion. First of all, you can't escape any feelings at all, as a human with an ego (an identity/emotional attachments to things and concepts).

No one every really overcomes any emotional state permanently, they either magnify it, minimize it, or delay it. 

On the other hand, trying "hard enough", whatever that really means, has some actual validity here. Building habits takes effort, and if you put enough effort in you can develop the skill to handle these states better. 

Anyhow, it's thanksgiving as I am finishing up. I have more work to do and I've basically gotten it out of my system at this point. Cheers!

What You Call Depression I Call Truth

An excellent article from VICE.com. My comments to the writer are below.

http://www.vice.com/read/what-you-call-depression-i-call-the-truth-309?utm_source=vicefbus


PLEASE PLEASE read what I am about to say. First of all, everything you have said I have been through or am going through constantly. There is far too much to say about it in a facebook post, but if you message me we can chat about it. This will not sum it up, but I do have this to say. First of all if you aren't going to read this, go buy Jed Mckenna's "Spiritual enlightenment trilogy". It will explain very well what you are going through and that it is natural. 

I have long held the concept that everything is relative, and that there is no proof (truth), there is only perspective (personal truth). I think depression is simply awareness of a specific perspective, and that the pain involved with it is due (initially) to the unfamiliarity of the situation, and then the dissonance between what our ideals are and what the "Truth" is. Many people's initial reaction is even further depression because what they are seeing and coming to understand, also destroys the meaning in all the things they held so dear for so long. It is important to understand that discovering the things you discovering, does not invalidate the meaning and purpose you formerly held in them, UNLESS you allow it. What's really happening is that your perception is being expanded to include new information. It is natural to be afraid when you feel worthless and that it was and is all pointless. The problem is, most of us know the words "Worthless" and "pointless" as negatives, but think about it this way: In a universe of truly relative values, regardless of contextual worth, all things are ultimately worthless, or, unable to be accurately valued in an absolute way. And that is just fine. If you are the center or your universe because you are the one in context experiencing everything, it is up to you to choose your value system consciously, all the while knowing on a deeper level, that all the choices you've make still add up to the same unquantifiable sum. Try to get past the need for something to have a "point" beyond your personal context. If you cannot get over that need your mind will slip into a feedback loop furthering depression until that feedback loop is broken. This is what I call "Distraction" and it is the ONLY cure for awareness :) 

Look back on your life and you will realize that the only times you have ever been happy where when you were distracted from the things that burden you. Don't judge yourself negatively for being distracted, distraction is an incredible tool in conjunction with the mindset of balance. Just because you felt happiness through distraction does not invalidate it in anyway. In fact, think of it this way, when you are depressed because you are focused on depressing "Truths" realize that you are simply distracted from the "illusions" that made you happy and are simply focusing on the "illusions" that make you sad. If it's all relative, all values are illusory. It's distraction either way, so if you are going to convince yourself that the happiness you felt while distracted was meaningless, it's only fair to view your sadness and depressive moments the same way. 

An Endless bottom could very well be the truth, and I understand how you wonder why people aren't talking about those things instead of the bullshit they do talk about. This may sound ridiculous, but as a person who has been through this for 16 years now, I can tell you from my experience that once you become familiar with it on a certain level, you might find yourself feeling like that is bullshit as well. Not as in "not true" kinda bullshit, but as in its a worn out discussion for you. Anyways I better stop here. If you have any questions please contact me. 

One thought I'd like to leave you with is this: If the truth is that none of this matters in the way you and I are constantly told it does, and it's all bullshit and we are all heading towards the same unknown... Perhaps it is only meaningless if you decide it to be. Perhaps you are now free from the bullshit to decide what parts of the bullshit will mean something to you, on your own, without being told what they should mean for you.

Are there 9 of you? Or are there even less looking twice?

Well well...

we made it to the end of the year. I am sure each one of us has learned at least one thing about life and ourselves this year.

You know, I am not one to really give a shit about most holidays, especially not my birthday because those are just illusions and gimmicks anymore that ring people into spending money and feeling guilt and lack.

And although it's all just one grand illusion, I think it's important for us to have the end of something and the beginning of something else. Seasons change and bring about times and feelings we may have forgotten. Memories. Just like drinking or doing a psychedelic drug and remind you (or show you for the first time) that what you thought was reality, is and only ever was or will be a tiny slice of the big picture.

I've learned things about myself this year. Like a child growing into an adult in some ways, I look back and say to myself "How could I not see that". I say that in respect to trading and in respect to the developments that have become aware to my consciousness as a human.

Throughout this last year I have become aware of more bullshit inside me than I have in a long time. And at the same time, none of it changes what I have known all along about the world itself.

I've taken the extra effort and time to practice seeing other people and myself as more than the visual image my brain sees. To see the skeleton below... all the muscles moving, the programs and code firing away to produce what seems to be a person. I've felt for a long time now that when I am talking to someone all I am doing is witnessing mechanisms at play. Like the roll of a dice they simple fall as they do and I am witnessing the outcome. I feel like I am no different, and it doesn't burden me at all. I don't feel special, but I do feel a little different and I suspect that is only because each individual entity can not help but witness individually because it is not yet capable of sharing a consciousness.

I look at the market some days and go "This looks so easy". I look at it other days and feel a deep anxiety about how on earth I could possibly keep this up successfully and when in the first place I will actually if ever feel "Successful" at it.

I mean, how much? How much time, money or action will it take before I say to myself "I can do this and I know it".

So far I have only seen "Results" but nothing that feels like a pattern I can place absolute faith in. And then that immediately reminds me that there isn't a single thing in existence I can place absolute faith in, why should trading be any different?

Learning to be at peace in the unknown and the discomfort has been my lifes work.

Not so dedicated all the time, as I like to forget quite often what it is that I know that motivates me to be so uncomfortable.

There are a few base things I see about myself.

#1. I am a sexual being. I am in love with sex, with women and the image feel sound and taste of them. The way they move... I often notice that I literally imagine them as objects of my will, simply because so many of them disappoint me in real life. I spend ample time wandering in my imagination of them as if they were any other thing I enjoy in life. I imagine to most, especially to a woman, I sound like a total dick... and I suppose that is okay with me and I find that completely understandable. At face value it seems like I am discrediting them. But, I am not. What is really going on is that I am simply being honest about the way I practice the freedom of my own imagination. Freedom is so important, and the beauty of it is, I think I do a pretty good job of not letting my imaginations of things like that pour over into my real life interactions with people. I honestly think I am way more genuine and honest with people than most, but it's because I can separate imagination from everyday real life.

I suppose I have just painted a picture that I spend vast amounts of my time drooling over daydreamed scenarios of women in my head, but that is far from what actually goes on.

My attention, as I assume is similar to most peoples, is rather short sighted and easily caught on the next thought.

I think what it really comes down to, is that I am a pretty fucking passionate person. Whatever it is I am feeling, I allow myself to dive down deep into it. When I am envisioning something happening, whether it is a woman, a car, a lifestyle or event... in my head it might as well be real.

I have long realized that I seem to be contrary to a lot of people in terms of remembering a childhood. I seriously have very few memories of my youth. It's almost as if my life started happening when I was 15 or so. It's always made me notice that I can't recall my childhood when others remember and tell of theirs. It makes me wonder, am I blocking out terrible shit?

But then again, I can be in control of an 80,000 lb truck and suddenly realize I couldn't tell you how the hell I've even stayed on the road for the last 15 minutes. I get so caught up in imagination that I am on autopilot. It amazes me. So it makes me wonder if I have just had such a gravitational imagination all my life to the point I never actively paid much attention to my childhood or not...

#2. I want what I want and if it's not worth it for me to compromise I tend not to do it. That leads me to be rather impulsive about things. People in my life have played the largest factor in this regard. I used to have an enormous amount of patience with people as a child, but I am now coming to suppose that it was because I had no concrete value system in place because I had not yet learned to think critically yet.

I was often the tool of others, giving in to their will because I was too busy feeling confused about what was going on and had no instincts to pause and question many things. Now, I am much better at that.


#3. I am certain that I am uncertain.

I don't mean that to sound stupid and comical at all. I guess what I am noticing about myself is that the more time goes on, the less energy I find myself having to invest in anything... or most things. I certainly don't feel like joining the debate about right or wrong, true or untrue much anymore because I've spent years realizing I simply don't know. And in my observation it has become what I think is the single most honest thing any person who is truly paying attention can say to themselves and therefor to anyone else.

I've spent years now, feeling this way, yet also seeing that context is indeed the basis for all so called fact. So to me in the grand scheme of things I see no facts, but in any single minuscule focused context, truth is pretty easy to derive a fact from. The issue I have, is that this grander part of me often overrides the tinier "contextual allowance of fact" part of me.

If I knew people understood where I was coming from, I might have more energy to engage in conversations about things, but I've met less than a handful of people that would get it enough to make it worth it.

so in that regard I am easily viewable as a person who is wasting his life not doing anything about the problems in his world. And yet the people who see what I see ultimately arrive at the conclusion that if all things are relative, problems and solutions are moot, even if they so acutely bother the person who suspects so.

I've come to establish a coined phrase in my head this year... that "Depression is simply seeing what is true". and by true I don't mean absolutely, verifiably true, just a word to mean something like any other word. Life is all about perspective it seems. That is why one man's trash is another man's treasure. It is not the thing itself, but our perception of the thing.

So...

What if I died tonight? And I don't ask this to induce emotion, but, would it matter?

What does it mean that something matters? Does it mean that another thing perceiving it is affected? The meaning of life is that universal question. I've come to, at least for now, stand on the notion that all is all. That sounds fucking stupid doesn't it?

"Goddammit guy, just get over yourself already and shut the fuck up!" right? haha.

What I mean, is that if you are a thing. and you can see other things that arises the question of separateness doesn't it? Consciousness is a real bitch because the thing is the only thing feeling what the thing feels, and yet we see other things that are simply extrapolations of the same stuff that all the other things are derived from. If you can't see the edge of the universe, how can you live your life supposing that there is an edge? And yet so many do it. And I don't find fault in that, because if we all sat around trying to find the edge there would be no time to hunt food and thus we would cease to exist. And yet we do exist and now have more time than we've ever had (if we really wanted to use it) to think about that edge that none of us have seen yet.

To break it down somewhat, I guess I am for the moment simply a thing that hasn't seen the edge, realizes it hasn't seen the edge and yet has an overpowering notion that nothing is absolutely what it is without finding that fixed point. And at the same time supposes that fixed point will never be found while he is alive and concludes that immediate context is necessary to a enacting and sustaining what would be necessary to survive.

All the while, observing thing after thing assume that context is the whole and absolute, finding little interest in conversing with what seems to be a crazy person.

And yet here I am, posting on an Internet to them... Just more of the same undefinable, yet defined jargon we ingest to keep progressing through nothingness.

All the while holding both an understanding of why I keep doing it, and not knowing why the hell I keep doing it. It all just is what it is and I haven't yet found a clearer more genuine way to feel about it.

Happy new year to all of you. I wish you as much trial as it takes to feel accomplished. I wish you as much disease as it takes to feel grateful for your health when it returns. I wish you as much confusion as it takes to give up, yet keep going. I wish you the love and physical affection as your body desires from whom you desire it from.

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As for the new year, I think my only real goal right now is to be ready when it is time for whatever it is time for. I am a little scared, a little anxious, a little excited and a quite a bit curious as to how and what will all pan out.

-Francisco D'anconia

Lonely day

Well, my day has been pretty much depressing, so I am going to sit down, have some wine and proceed to incrementally update this post until it is finished. :)

I have no idea what will come out of me once I start feeling the buzz of truth so you and I are in the same club.

There are so many topics floating around in my head throughout the day. Luckily I was able to share one of them by talking into my phone and uploading it to this blog, but many of them are so powerful that I just want to pull over and fire away on the keyboard. But I just let them sit there rather than half-assidly get them out.

I suppose one of the things that comes into my mind when I think about trading, is that all of life is trading. We are all trading all the time in different ways. Many months ago I met a stranger at a coffee shop. We met on-line and I thought this person might be interesting, but our energies were very out of sync right off the bat. Then, when she told me that she lost a lot of money in the markets and that trading is gambling, I knew we just weren't going to go anywhere... Not because she badmouthed something I loved, but because she was so hurt and so unrelentingly opposed to listening to anything I had to say about it. Hell, I am by no means a religious guy, but if someone wants to tell me about their religion, I am all ears. I love hearing what people think.

As long as it's what they actually think, as if it is their personal insight, rather than something they are relating to me because they think that is what they think. Too many people repeat shit without actually taking the time to think about what is coming out of their mouths.

Anyways, what the fuck am I trying to say here?....

Why do people do what they do. I guess that's the focus I am presenting here, or trying to. More specifically at the moment, why do people want to trade the markets?

Mark Douglas, who wrote a fucking amazing book called "Trading in the zone"

mentions that the prime motivation for a lot of people to get into trading is to be able to exercise complete freedom. I can certainly understand that. He then goes on to mention just how little freedom there is in regards to the ways you must adapt in order to be successful and it is a shock to people. I personally knew from the age of 15 that trading was what I wanted to do for a living. I thought to myself... "People go to college to get the skills to get the good paying jobs... If I can learn to trade, I can bypass that altogether and do something that makes a lot of sense to me and enriches me. Lots of people with the high paying jobs don't even have that." More or less, that's where my mind was at 15 years old. 

I am coming to feel like I should choose specific topics to write about for each blog entry and write about just that, but that is not the way my mind works, so, for once in my bloggy endeavors I am just going to keep rambling and giving you what comes purely at the moment I am here at my keyboard.

I was thinking yesterday, that about the kind of work ethic it takes to become profitable at trading... I saw myself typing out an expression basically asking the question "What kind of work ethic do you have at your current job?" Are you doing the bare minimum to get by, or are you putting your all into it? Because I'll tell you right now, if you aren't the kind of person who puts your all into your job, even if its wiping down counters and  keeping a restaurant clean, trading is probably not for you. Not because it requires long hours, because depending on the approach you take with it, it might not, but its all about who you are as a person. If our primary goal in getting into trading is because you want to be rich, I think that's the wrong mindset. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with wanting to be rich, but if that is your main goal, it kinda says something about your character in terms of where your true focus is. 

For me, at first, I think like everyone else I wanted to trade and I wanted to be fucking rich from it. I have always had kick ass work ethic though, even since my first job as a grocery bagger... 

I guess my point is, if trading is an escape from responsibility for you, I think you might be looking into the wrong thing. This shit is hard, and you are responsible for everything that happens. 

I remember back when I was 18 years old... I signed up for a network marketing company Called NEWAYS. They had this commitment paper you could sign, and it was a commitment to yourself and your business that you would be making $10,000 per month within 2 years of signing that agreement. Well, I signed it. I had no clue what the commitment truly meant, but I was still approaching it as "If this is a necessary step I must take, then so be it". At 18 years old, 2 years sounds like a long time to wait to make that king of money. It's much easier to buy into the imaginary story you see in your head at that age, its why young people have so much damn drive. They haven't been hurt enough by reality to grow this cynicism about life that they are always seeing in older people. Thats one thing that was always in the back of my mind as a young adult, but never came to the forefront enough for me to realize what it was... That cynicism   people carry so often it seems natural in the adult world so a part of you never questions it... It is so important to try and develop a balance between the two. 

When I signed that commitment I was dead serious about doing it. They had a set "System" that was proving relatively successful. They had a very specifically written letter/script written up that you mail out to people. The response rate was about 1-3%. I don't recall the exact details, but I believed in the system so much, that I maxed out my credit cards for about $3,000 at the time, to send out as many letters as possible. And these weren't just random addresses, these were screened by a company for people who had purchased something through the mail in the last 90 days or expressed interest in doing so. I sent out as much as I could afford and out of thousands of people, I got only 1 response. 

It was a lady, and the first thing she asked me was "How has this been working for you?" and I told her, "You're the first person to respond, this is my first mailing". Well, guess what? That answer wasn't very confidence inspiring, so I never heard from her again. I was determined not to lie about it, or fake my success in order to coax people into joining. I wasn't that kind of person then, and I am still not that kind of person now. 

Anyways, I told my main up-line (anyone higher than you in the order of things) about my response percentage and he was kinda surprised I had gotten such a little response... Long story short, nothing ever happened besides me buying some product and spending a shit load of money on a printing and mailing service. 

Let me ask you this though: Does that mean it was all a scam? I think the average person would say so simply because they got burned, but me, I knew it was all still a viable business. There were simply problems with my approach and it was really not too different than the business of trading. You see, when I decided to put all my credit on the line, I was making a trade. I was doing what most novice traders do, I was betting my entire stake on an opportunity because I hadn't had anyone around to show me the ropes, and if I did, I was far too independent to want to listen. In fact, I recall now that I called another up-line of mine and he said I shouldn't have put all that money into it at once. In the parallel of trading, I traded all my capital away on one opportunity, instead of risking only a portion of it because I had any kind of risk in mind. 

Did I understand the rules? hell yeah: Mail out letters, get a response, sign people up, make money, repeat. Did I understand the principle? Not really. Part of the principle of a business is the one thing most businesses don't spend enough time assessing: Risk. Had I managed things differently, and spent some time talking to the experienced people far above me that where kind enough to make themselves available... things could have turned out differently. 

Was this company a scam? Is it total gambling to be a part of a network marketing company? No, its not, and just because I lost 3 grand to it does not give me the right to declare it as such. And you know what? in the last 3 years, I have driven by that companies main headquarters and seen them remodeling, because things are going awesome with them... I still believe in the power of network marketing, and I still believe that company makes and sell kick ass products.

But... BUT, I just remembered why I lost interest. I remember that after everything that happened, I called the man that mailed me personally to recruit me. I told him something along the lines of "I think I am just going to stick with trading, because with trading, my results depend entirely on me and I don't have to spend so much energy trying to get other people doing what they really don't want to do"

So fuck Neways.

By the way, I am not just posting this blog for myself, I am doing it for you. Not that I am awesome or anything, but it does take a lot of time and I imagine someone reading this and enjoying it. SO, it gets rather lonely and pointless feeling if I keep doing this and no one ever says anything. If you have thoughts or questions, that would be great and I would be happy to respond. 

-Francisco of the clan McCloud.

Fort Wayne, Erndererner.