Ethos in Current Events

I did not sleep well again last night. I have not had a good night’s sleep in weeks. Not since I quit coffee but I don’t think that this is because of me quitting caffeine. My body is expressing a detox, a cold if you’re into germ theory. My lungs are detoxing. I have a cough in the morning and again at night which is slowly subsiding. Before I discovered that symptoms were the cure I would have just used medicine to turn them off to feel better quicker but I now know the consequences of that. Toxic waste is forced to sink deeper into the tissues which create all those disease states we all know and love. It’s worth supporting the symptoms and toughing them out. It’s not a risky process for me.

I pushed myself too hard today. I was too tired to function. I should have asked to leave early but with the reduced hours I couldn’t bring myself to do so. I now have a four-day weekend so I will have plenty of rest for that. I took a detox bath when I got home and then messaged my teacher on Teams to let him know that I will not be in class tonight. I requested a copy of the notes, we shall see what happens. I would not have been able to power through it. To be honest, I was experiencing a lot of stress about going in tonight. I can either give in, give up or give it all I got. I chose to give up. Fuck it. Just give up. Not every battle has to be won.

To manage the guilt of that decision I cleaned out the fridge and freezer. I have been meaning to get around to it.

Toni, my roommate, has turned over a new leaf. I don’t know where it is coming from but I’ll take it. She has stepped up a bit around here. She is at least cleaning up after herself. She also restructured her eating habits. Cleaned it up a bit. She was also talking about reducing her weed intake.

Aires and Taurus are the main characters this year. She’s a Taurus. It’s nice to see some proactive character development on her end. Even if it is small. My rising is Taurus, I have a Scorpio stellium and a stellium in the 8th house (and in the 6th house, fml). Scorpio will be riding that wave for a bit. It’s a good time to create change for us both.

I noticed a few changes in my body since I quit coffee three weeks ago. The sleep is not going well but I suspect that will change soon. This is frustrating because sleeping is the one thing I can usually get right. This is not something I have to fight with. I don’t toss and turn, I’m not up every couple of hours and I structured it adequately. Most nights I can go out like a light. I’m up at 4 am on workdays and I love it. Waking up is different, for obvious reasons. Some mornings are harder than others but my body is expressing healing so that will change. My appetite is not suppressed for most of the day so I am eating more. I gained 5 lbs. [TMI WARNING] My bowel movements do not function the same way at all. It used to happen after every cup of coffee as it is poison and the body wants to void it as soon as possible. Now I have to wait all day for it to happen. It isn’t over as effortlessly as it used to be either. Now I have to be mindful of fibre. I also urinate less frequently as my kidneys don’t have to support the liver in detoxing the coffee. Perhaps the weight gain is water weight?

While I’m in TMI territory, I encountered something wild. I am too much of a prude to go into it in detail but I discovered a content creator with some interesting content about man’s masculinity from a perspective that I’ve never heard before. To sum it up, it’s about a blindspot in a man’s psychology. He discusses a man’s hormone health as well but that portion isn’t new as it pertains to semen retention and all of those benefits which you can find a content creator preaching about anywhere. However, he believes that masturbation is still crucial for that project. His mental approach to that is what I found fascinating. Mindful masturbation? Meditation masturbation? I wouldn’t know how to categorize it. I’m also open-minded to what he has to say in regard to the psychology aspect. It’s way too out there for most but, in a captured essence, it has to do with the phallus inspiring men to be competitive, to bond, to nurture their masculinity and become in tune with their own bodies. Not necessarily with each other’s bodies. I wouldn’t say that his ethos would be compatible with what men are today. At least with the pressure that comes with being a man. I can see his point about how uncomfortable men are with their own bodies. We are not allowed to be vulnerable.

The pressure of what society wants a man to be was very heavy for me growing up. I could never measure up which is by design. We are to feel like we are always falling short. I actually never gave it much thought, my relationship with my masculinity. That pressure is not separate from me, exactly. I let go of all my identities. They were false idols. The nature of human desire is expansion. We want to expand into everything but we are trying to expand into things that don’t even exist in reality. This is why we are suffering so much. I discovered, within myself, that identities are fictions. They are false idols that I was trying to expand into. I was trying to be the best man. Then the best gay man. The best native man, the best biracial man, the best gay native, the best religious man etc. I thought identity extremism was exclusive to the LGBTetc cult but it is everywhere. Those identities do not exist in reality. I am not in service to them. Nobody has true dominion over me. I don’t owe anybody anything. I let those identities go so that I could become my authentic self and that is how I can add value to others.

Once I started to expand inward all of that pressure went away. I’m not a gender, I have a gender. I’m not an ethnicity I have an ethnicity. I’m not my attractions I have attractions. I’m not political beliefs, spiritual beliefs. I’m not a caste, creed or legacy. I’m an individual consciousness having a temporary human experience. I no longer feel lost, I know who I am. I can participate in those identities and those cults but I don’t belong to them.

My journey now seems to be about completely freeing myself from my desires so that I can govern myself. I learned the lesson early that I am never free from what I do because I am not free from what I want. Now the question is, where do these wants come from? Later reflections.