Self-Authoring

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  26 minute read  

Though Sigmund Freud likely created a version of Self-authoring, Jordan Peterson seem to have popularized it (more recently). Regardless of the original creator, the exercise serves a great purpose of internal reflection, which was my purpose for starting this.

Description and background:

Reviews (& breakdowns of the format and prompts):

Past

Completing the Exercise

This exercise is designed to help you develop a clearer sense of your past, by writing your own story. Understanding the defining moments of your life can help to illuminate your present situation, and make it easier to plan and determine your future direction.

During this exercise, you will be presented with a series of pages, providing information, or asking you to define and describe different periods or epochs of your life, and the experiences you had during those epochs.

Before proceeding with the writing, you will be asked to read about:

  1. memory, emotion and stress
  2. the benefits of writing (and of sleeping in between writing sessions)
  3. adopting the correct attitude for beneficial writing.

Memory, Emotion and Stress:

Your mind is always trying to determine the level of danger presented by your environment. When bad things happen to you, your mind and your body react by treating the environment as if it is dangerous, and preparing for emergency action. This preparation is stressful, and depletes you, mentally and physically.

If something bad has happened to you, in the past, your mind cannot be at peace until you have figured out how to avoid having the same thing happen to you again in the future. You can tell how well you have managed this by remembering different important events from the past. If you recall memories that make you feel ashamed, or guilty, or angry, or hurt, and these memories are more than a year and a half old, then your mind is not at peace, and you are still carrying the weight of your past.

Unresolved past issues make your mind and body react as if the day-to-day environment that you inhabit is permanently dangerous. Under such conditions, your body reacts to stress with more preparation for action: for fight or flight, which you may feel, respectively, as anger or fear and emotional pain. If this preparation becomes chronic, your mental and physical health can be damaged. This happens in part because your body produces more cortisol, a stress hormone, when you are endangered. Cortisol makes you ready to act, but your body gets the energy for such action by stealing from your future reserves. Cortisol shuts down your higher mental functions, inhibits your immune system, burns up your available energy and, over time, damages the brain areas responsible for memory and emotional control. Thus it is very important to keep your stress levels within reasonable boundaries.

Writing

Why write? Writing is a sophisticated form of thinking. Thinking prepares you to perceive properly and act intelligently. If you don’t think things through, particularly difficult things, then you are likely to make serious mistakes and to hurt yourself and other people. When you write about personally important matters, you can start to identify the causes of events that might hurt and damage you. You can begin to understand how you might have to change the way you see and think to avoid unnecessary pain and suffering.

You have to mine the information that the past provides to ensure that the present and future emerge positively and productively. It is best to do the writing that is associated with this exercise by entering into a reverie. A reverie is a state of contemplation, like a daydream. Normal focused goal-oriented thought tends to be narrow, precise and expressed in words. Image-laden thought - the movie that runs in your head - is more dream- or story-like. To complete this exercise properly, you have to daydream about the past, and let thoughts and images come to you, instead of controlling them. This can be frightening, if you start to remember unpleasant events from the past. However, it can be very useful to confront things that you are afraid of, voluntarily, particularly if your fears are stopping you from living properly in the present and the future.

Voluntarily facing the remembered things you fear or that you hate is the best way of dealing with them. Don’t rush this exercise, or the ones that follow, if you decide to complete them, as well. They are not something to merely complete. You have to take your time. In a reverie, or a daydream, parts of your mind that haven’t been able to speak because of your focused concentration or moral opinions have a chance to let themselves be known. These are parts of you that need a voice. If you take your time, then you can make contact with parts of yourself that have been shut away. You will need the abilities and energies that are contained within these shut-away parts to deal with the challenges of the present and the future.

Sleeping

It may be best to do this exercise, as well as the present and future authoring exercises, over several days. The research done on the relationship between writing and mental and physical health has demonstrated that sleeping and, more particularly, dreaming, can help you participate more deeply in the writing exercise and consolidate your new ideas.

So take your time and let yourself get deeply into the exercise.

Attitude While Writing

If you are rushed, or distracted, or bored, then you are not doing the writing in a manner that will benefit you. If you are writing about important events, you may find the exercise difficult and emotionally challenging, but it should not be boring. If you are rushed or distracted, then you are trying too hard to finish, or have not put enough time aside to do the writing.

It is very important to negotiate with yourself properly when trying to write about important things. Try to think through the fact that spending some time dealing with your past can benefit you in many ways. It can help you escape from the ghosts of the past. It can lower your level of stress. It can help you think more clearly now and in the future. It can help you get to know who you really are and how your life has affected you, positively and negatively. It can help you become healthier, mentally and physically. It can help you enjoy your life in the present, eliminate your resentment and misery, and prepare you to plan for the future.

It is worth putting in the time to reap such benefits. Many times when a person is writing, they are writing for some other person or for some outside reason. If you have done this writing exercise properly you will be working primarily for yourself. What you produce should be a deeply personal document.

General Description

First, you will be asked to divide your life into seven different time periods or “epochs.” These epochs can be as short or as long as you want, depending on how much you want to write about. One epoch might be “Grade School”, for example, while a later epoch could be “First Year University”.

If you have many significant experiences from a particular period of time, that period deserves to have its own epoch.

Next, you will be asked to identify the significant experiences that characterized each of the seven epochs. You can write about as few or as many experiences as you like for each epoch. Finally, you will be asked to describe how each of these experiences has shaped who you are today.

You can write as much as you want. People have written thousands of words while completing this exercise. Other people have written less.

Autobiography

Autobiographical experiences that bring about…

  • Bitter Memories: to be put to rest
    • Explain, resolve, and forgive
    • (Permanent) Attachment to pettiness is weakness
  • Cherished Memories: to be enjoyed and to invoke nostalgia or gratitude
    • Funny
    • Unfunny

Past - Response

Family

Background - Me

I was born in South Carolina, US and lived my whole childhood in Belton, South Carolina. I did not like Belton too much as a kid since I had would preferred to be in a larger city with more things to do. Belton is a small, mostly decaying textile town of roughly 4,000 people. Many folks live meagerly in trailers or government housing and are of a “redneck" or “backcountry” type of mentality regardless of their race or sex.

However as an adult, I miss the area with the peace that it brings me. Although I no longer enjoy seeing my parents there, I do love going back to the town and the property that I grew up on. The peace, quiet, and generally static nature of the town and people gives Belton a stable, nostalgic appearance that barely seems to change no matter how long I have not lived there. I have noticed more people building large houses and moving there since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, where previously there was little activity of this sort. As of this writing, this thankfully has not changed much, but with Belton’s close proximity to Anderson and Greenville, I could see it growing more.

Background - Father

My father was born to an intact family. My grandmother passed away in the 1980s from something heart attack related, so I never knew her. I do not know much of my grandma other than, according to a childhood friend of my dad, she was very abusive to my dad when he was young to include frequent physical beatings. Even my dad told me that he felt a great peace after she died, which I assume to be related. My grandfather was alive until I was about 7 years old. He worked in a local textile mill in their hometown for his whole life, which my dad would also work at briefly during high school.

My dad went to college to study Business. Afterwards, he sold insurance (life insurance, I think) and was in the Army National Guard for some time. He later worked as a Vice President at some local mobile home (trailer) manufacturing plant. He married his first wife, and they had a son and daughter – my half-brother and half-sister. Assumed from many anecdotes, the marriage seemed to dissolve due to the constant anger and rage on my dad’s part. They divorced when my half-siblings were in their teens, and my dad seemingly stopped working permanently. From anecdotal accounts from him (and maybe my mom), he did not want his exwife to get any more of his money since he was already paying child support. My dad met my mom when he was in his early 40s, and while she was in her early 20s – yes over a 20 year age difference. They waited 13 years into marriage before having me.

My dad has never worked as long as I have been alive (and decades before so). His main pastime was occasional, insignificant chores around the house, but he mostly just watched TV during the day. He seemed to possess decent handyman skills from building onto the trailer (my childhood home) to make it appear as a house as well as expanding the electrical wiring to this extension.

Assessment of Personality and Character

My dad paradoxically had great wisdom, a recollection of various historical stories, and sometimes “true” anecdotes of his life while practicing none of the said wisdom himself. Aside from that, he has consistently been a temperamental, angry person. The worst of is anger was his quickness to rage for a random or minor circumstanec as well as how quickly his mood could swing (e.g. from laughing happy to violent threats back to happy again). This behavior was potentially present in his mother according to previously mentioned childhood best friend. He would infrequently become suicidal and threaten to kill my mom and himself if arguments degraded so extremely. I never recall him threatening to kill me. He, by his own confession, was a ravenous alcoholic before I was born.

From most of his stories, he was “piss-drunk” regardless of the situation, circumstance, or company. He claims to have stopped drinking upon breaking his leg for a 3rd time and discovering through that that he was a Type 1 diabetic. He has had severe sleep apnea due to his obesity as long as I have been alive, which has likely worsened his mental state and other physical conditions.

I have never like my dad. I always looked forward to the day that I would never have to see him again. He brought me great distress when I was a child and caused a lot of timidness, weakness, and self-doubt through his constant “gaslighting” where I was always wrong whereas he was always right. He would yell, scream, cuss, threaten, demean, and condescend me like he did to his previous family and my mother. His reactions were rarely anticipated and seemed to stem from whims or large swings in his mood.

Due to his rapidly shifting attitude, I am fairly confident that he has always had some mental disorder since even his other children (my half-siblings) confirm the same behavior and temperament from their childhood.

In the most positive assessment, my dad taught me how not to act or live my life. While there was very little positive aspects of his absent fatherhood, I learned very early on who I did not want to be from him. I can name no other positive attributes from him.

Background - Mother

Assessment of Personality and Character

TBD

Background - Half-Siblings

Assessment of Personality and Character

TBD

Epochs

Birth to Elementary School

I do not remember too much of my early childhood other than random memories such as my first bike ride and the sort. My parents put me in a local private school from K-4 to half of 5th grade. This mostly coincided with my mom working her out-of-state plant job (night shift) in Georgia since we were able to afford the private school. I did well in this school; often being the first student to complete my assignments and generally having the highest grade in class. I performed so well that my parents petitioned the school to let me skip the 2nd grade since it was a small class size and very under-stimulating to me, which impacted my demeanor according to my parents. I had no issues going from one month in the 2nd grade to finish the remainder of the school year in the 3rd grade. I maintained my normal school performance.

Midway into 5th grade, my teacher at the time had a lot of health problems, so I had a substitute teacher for most of that fall season. My parents, especially my dad, were rightfully upset that they were paying for me to be babysat while doing busy work.

This roughly coincided with my mom changing jobs due to health problems, so they put me into the local public school in the winter season of 5th grade. Luckily, I knew some of the kids there since they had previously attended the private school before coming to public school.

I played a couple of sports like playing baseball on the local recreation team as well as doing freestyle karate. I enjoyed the socialization aspect of these sports, but I had no long-term desire for them. I quit baseball after the second time that I broke my left arm (from karate) and quit karate on the 3rd time (from falling off a home-made swing). Previously, I had broken my left arm in 1st grade at an off-school playground. These numerous breakages kept me out of sports and being active for a part of my childhood. I also wore glasses from age 8 to 22, so I preferred to not play sports since glasses made them unenjoyable and cumbersome.

Although I was only in the 5th grade of public school for half a year, I got 2nd place in the Accelerated Reader program for reading so many books (and scoring enough points on their respective tests). I would have surely been 1st if I had been there the entire year. Of remembrance, I got most of my points from reading the Harry Potter series (only books 1-5 were published at that time).

Since I was younger and less active than other kids my age, I grew into a sort of chubby, nerdy kid from my youth. I was fortunate to have wonderful kid and people skills, so I did not suffer much from being this archetype in my youth. People also generally liked me, and I enjoyed socializing with many different people.

Middle School

Middle school was mostly uneventful, but I enjoyed it. I cultivated a couple of best friends there that lasted me till the end of high school. I also started band in the 6th grade playing the trombone and eventually joined marching band playing the marching baritone in 8th grade. I continued doing well in school, reading a lot, and even earned the highest History class combined grade in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade such that I got an award upon finishing middle school by the Daughters of the Confederacy (an interesting group to say the least). Again, I was blessed that I enjoyed my middle school experience.

High School

High school set up quite a bit of my life until the present of this writing. I joined Air Force Junior ROTC (AFJROTC) in 9th grade, which eventually led me to the Air Force. I initially had a decent aversion to joining the military before AFJROTC, but that changed after my first year. I greatly enjoyed the friends, instructors, and greater calling that I was persuaded into.

I continued to excel in school and graduated in the top 5% of the school (and being the youngest to do so at 17 years old).

I had my first girlfriend in senior year. She was not my first love interest, but the first who liked me back. We only dated the fall of senior year and went to the AFJROTC military ball that year – I only regret deleting our picture together and losing that memory after we broke up. This ended due to her immature attention seeking habits (getting kisses and attention from others) and my unwillingness to tolerate that.

This was a blessing in disguise because afterwards I went out with a Hispanic girl (though we never officially “went out” since I was graduating in the summer). I cannot say enough wonderful things about her. She was extremely friendly, caring, emotional, intense, warm, beautiful, and more. I appreciated that our times together were always light-hearted and fun with much giggling and laughing. She and I shared many kisses, and she led me to my first sensual experiences. She and I went to prom together, and we had a wonderful time.

I recall a funny “cultural" experience through her by meeting her dad, and him calling me a “maricón” (“faggot” in Spanish). When I understood him and told him the word’s meaning, he was shocked yet proud and came to like me soon after.

College

TBD

Air Force

TBD

Post-AF to Break

TBD

Post-Break

TBD

Present

Faults - Prompt

This program has been designed to allow you to do an in-depth analysis of some of the negative aspects or faults of your personality. It is the partner program to the virtues analysis section of the present authoring program. It is our hope that constructing a clearer picture of your faults will help you understand the impact of your personality traits on your life in the past, present, and future.

It is probably best to complete this exercise if you are in a normal to good mood, so that you can tolerate the self-criticism. If you are feeling sad, lonely, or depressed, you should probably do the virtues analysis instead. This exercise will take you 60-90 minutes, depending on your choices. You will be asked first to read some information about basic personality theory and then to select 2-10 faults from each of five lists of faults (one list per basic personality trait).

Then you will be presented with the faults you have selected, and asked to choose a final list of the faults you think have most interfered with your life. You will be asked to write for about 10 minutes, later, for each fault you choose, after you have rank-ordered them in importance. We recommend that you choose 6-9 faults (for 60 to 90 minutes of work), but you can choose as many as you like. Just remember that you will be asked to write about each one. You will be asked to describe how this fault has impacted you negatively, in the past; what you might have done differently; and what you could do now and in the future to rectify or eliminate this fault.

Background Knowledge

To complete the following exercise, there are a number of things that are useful to know. (you may have encountered this information previously if you have completed the virtues analysis program, but it might be worthwhile to review it):

Everybody’s personality is composed of two higher-order traits. The first higher-order trait is known as plasticity, and can be thought of as the tendency to be flexible, exploratory, curious, and quick to adapt. The second higher-order trait is known as stability, and can be thought of as the tendency to be structured, organized, emotionally stable and focused.

Plasticity

Plasticity, the first higher-order trait, can be further broken down into two sub-traits: Extraversion (the tendency to be enthusiastic and dominant) and Openness (the tendency to be open-minded and intelligent).

Extraversion (Outgoing vs Reserved)
  • Sociable
  • Active
  • Adventurousness
  • Positive
  • Excitement-Seeking
  • Gregarious
Openness (Original vs Traditional)
  • Fantasy-prone
  • Aesthetically-minded
  • Philosophical
  • Creative
  • Intuitive
  • Intellectual

Stability

Stability, the second higher-order trait, can be further broken down into three sub-traits: Conscientiousness (the tendency to be orderly and industrious), Emotional Stability (lack of negative emotional volatility and the tendency to withdraw), and Agreeableness (politeness and compassion, as opposed to belligerence or aggression).

Conscientiousness (Conscientious vs Carefree)
  • Competent
  • Orderly
  • Decisive
  • Achievement-oriented
  • Self-disciplined
  • Deliberate
  • Industrious
Emotional Stability (Calm vs Nervous)
  • Anxious (reversed)
  • Angry (reversed)
  • Hostile (reversed)
  • Depressed (reversed)
  • Self-Conscious (reversed)
  • Vulnerable (reversed)
Agreeableness (Agreeable vs Assertive/Aggressive)
  • Warm
  • Trusting
  • Straightforward
  • Altruistic
  • Modest
  • Compliant
  • Tender-minded
  • Nice

Faults - Response

negative aspects of your personality…

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fault

  • weakness, failing especially : a moral weakness less serious than a vice
  • a physical or intellectual imperfection or impairment : defect
  • responsibility for wrongdoing or failure
  • moody
  • irritable
  • loud
  • abrasive
  • sometimes lacking humility
  • delusions of grandeur
  • very judgemental especially of fat people and the lazy or unambitious who are unhappy
  • aversion to outsiders or out-groups

Virtues - Prompt

This exercise has been designed to allow you to do an in-depth analysis of some of the positive aspects or virtues of your personality.

Background Knowledge

To complete the following exercise, there are a number of things that are useful to know (you may have encountered this information previously if you have completed the faults analysis exercise, but it might be worthwhile to review it):

Everybody’s personality is composed of two higher-order traits. The first higher-order trait is known as plasticity, and can be thought of as the tendency to be flexible, exploratory, curious and quick to adapt. The second higher-order trait is known as stability, and can be thought of as the tendency to be structured, organized, emotionally stable and focused.

Plasticity

Plasticity, the first higher-order trait, can be further broken down into two sub-traits: Extraversion (the tendency to be enthusiastic and dominant) and Openness (the tendency to be open-minded and intelligent).

Extraversion (Outgoing vs Reserved)
  • Sociable
  • Active
  • Adventurousness
  • Positive
  • Excitement-Seeking
  • Gregarious
Openness (Original vs Traditional)
  • Fantasy-prone
  • Aesthetically-minded
  • Philosophical
  • Creative
  • Intuitive
  • Intellectual

Stability

Stability, the second higher-order trait, can be further broken down into three sub-traits: Conscientiousness (the tendency to be orderly and industrious), Emotional Stability (lack of negative emotional volatility and the tendency to withdraw), and Agreeableness (politeness and compassion, as opposed to belligerence or aggression).

Conscientiousness (Conscientious vs Carefree)
  • Competent
  • Orderly
  • Decisive
  • Achievement-oriented
  • Self-disciplined
  • Deliberate
  • Industrious
Emotional Stability (Calm vs Nervous)
  • Anxious (reversed)
  • Angry (reversed)
  • Hostile (reversed)
  • Depressed (reversed)
  • Self-Conscious (reversed)
  • Vulnerable (reversed)
Agreeableness (Agreeable vs Assertive/Aggressive)
  • Warm
  • Trusting
  • Straightforward
  • Altruistic
  • Modest
  • Compliant
  • Tender-minded
  • Nice

Impact of Personality Traits

There are advantages and disadvantages to each trait, particularly at the extremes. Extremely sociable, extraverted people can be dominant and impulsive, while introverted, quiet people can easily become isolated and depressed. Extremely open people can be scattered and overwhelmed by their own thoughts and ideas, while closed-minded people may become narrow and inflexible. Exceptionally conscientious people can be obsessive about order, judgmental and rigid, while their more carefree counterparts may be messy, undisciplined and careless. People very high in emotional stability may engage in risky, dangerous behavior, while those who are more neurotic can become so preoccupied by anxiety and pain that they are unable to function. Finally, extremely agreeable people may never stand up for themselves, while those who are too assertive can be aggressive, callous and bullying.

Change

Personality is reasonably stable over the lifespan, and is also powerfully influenced by hereditary or genetic factors. Despite this, personality can broaden or even transform. As people age, for example, they tend to become more agreeable, conscientious and emotionally stable.Changing personality means changing habits of action, presumption and perception. Personality change requires the formulation of clear future goals, as well as discipline and practice. People who are too agreeable can learn to stand up for themselves. Disorderly people can become more conscientious. Introverted people can become socially skilled. People who experience paralyzing levels of negative emotion can learn to explore.

Virtues - Response

positive aspects virtues of your personality…

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtue

  • conformity to a standard of right : morality
  • a beneficial quality or power of a thing
  • manly strength or courage : valor
  • a commendable quality or trait : merit
  • a capacity to act : potency
  • hard-working
  • driven
  • good-smelling
  • of modest height
  • funny
  • entertaining
  • mostly thoughtful
  • caring to a reasonable limit
  • wise
  • mostly intelligent
  • honest

Future

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

The full future authoring exercise has 2 different stages, each with a number of steps:

  • In Stage 1, you will write generally about your goals.
  • In Stage 2, you will specify and clarify the nature of those goals, and begin to strategize.

We recommend that you complete the process over two or more separate days. People who allow themselves some time to sleep when they are making important decisions appear to do a better job and to benefit more. The entire exercise will require approximately two and a half hours. On the first day, you might want to complete Stage 1. On the second day, you could complete Stage 2.

You will need to concentrate and process what you are writing, so try to complete this exercise when you are feeling alert and relatively unrushed. Simply follow the on-screen instructions as you go along. If you need to take a short break or two of 5-10 minutes to get up and walk around during the process, please feel free to do so.

You will be asked to write down your private thoughts and feelings. Please type them directly into the box provided. At times, you may be asked to write non-stop, without regard for grammar or spelling. At other times, you may be asked to revise what you have written.

This exercise is meant to benefit YOU personally. Everything you write will remain accessible only to you and those you designate as recipients. The report you produce will summarize your personal goals and strategies. You and your recipients, if any, will be emailed a copy of this report shortly after you complete the exercise.

During some sections, you will be asked to write for specified amounts of time. Please try your best to write for the amount of time specified (so, if it asks you to write for 1-2 minutes, please write continuously for at least 60 seconds).

During this exercise, you will be presented with a series of pages either providing you with information, or asking you to describe aspects of your personality and experiences.

The Ideal Future: Preliminary Notes and Thoughts

In this exercise you will begin to create a version, in writing, of your ideal future. William James, the great American psychologist, once remarked that he did not know what he thought until he had written his thoughts down. When he didn’t know what to write, he wrote about anything that came to mind. Eventually, his ideas became focused and clarified.

Brainstorm. Write whatever comes to mind. Don’t worry too much about sentence construction, spelling, or grammar. There will be plenty of time to write polished sentences later. Avoid criticizing what you write. Premature criticism interferes with the creative process.

Imagining Your Ideal Future

You will start with some exercises of imagination that will help you warm up to the task of defining your future.

These will include 8 questions such as “what could you do better?”, “what would you like to learn about?”, “what habits would you like to improve?”. After briefly answering these 8 questions, you will be asked to write for 15 minutes about your ideal future, without editing or criticism.

Let yourself daydream or fantasize. You are trying to put yourself into a state of reverie, which is a form of dream-like thinking that relies heavily on internal imagery. This kind of thinking allows all your different internal states of motivation and emotion to find their voice.

It might be best to concentrate on your future three to five years down the road, although you may have reasons to concentrate on a shorter or longer timespan (eighteen months to ten years).

Future - Response

Future - Ideal Scenario (stream of consciousness in 15 min)

  • learn spanish to be functionally fluent; maybe learn other languages to minor degree
  • live in a foreign spanish-speaking country with a remote job hustle as a small income flow as well as bartending there to insert myself into the local culture
  • get better friends that have more time for socialization
  • enjoy the climate, history, and beauty of the area; ideally something meso-american related (e.g. Aztec, Maya, etc.)
  • physically manipulate and control my body for gymnastic-like moves such as levers, handstands, etc.
  • maintain good physical health to rid my body of most pain or discomfort like my back and knee pains
  • maintain a close, intimate relationship with someone and explore the world together; synergistically support and challenge each other to grow <– this previously said “wife” instead of “someone” since I wrote it years ago
  • practice the art of writing on a frequent basis
  • write my philosophy and ideas down and open source them to the world to:
    • help folks and have a free, open source detailed account of what I have done and do to have my success whether emotional, physical, social, spiritual
  • practice meditation and mindfulness better on a daily basis to harden and strengthen my mental aptitude; learn and practice the art of proper breathing through different events such as normal, exercise, stress, etc.
  • practice and become good enough at musical theory and guitar to write and express ideas through numerous musical genres and fusion styles including but not limited to metal, country, bluegrass, folk, rock, etc.
  • maintain computer skills to an enjoyable level but without worrying about taking them to an unhealthy “next level” with technologies including buy not limited to Linux, Ansible, Packer, vim, Python3
  • maintain healthy relationship with technology and continue to avoid toxicity of most online so-called “communities”
  • have a low tolerance for bullshit or people deceiving or taking advantage of me; give them mercy and forgiveness if they give forthrightness of their actions but otherwise remove myself from intentional compromise
  • be unafraid to communicate or articulate my beliefs and ideas so long as they are in an earnest, honest, good-intentioned, respectful manner without fear of falling out of the mainstream or group opinion or consensus
  • maybe consider and explore more practical labor or survival related skills regarding carpentry, handyman, wilderness survival, firearm proficiency
  • continue to explore mind-altering substances in a proper and infrequent manner to cultivate abstract and differing thoughts without losing an understanding of reality
  • practice and pass the numerous shit-tests of life
  • continue and practice self-independence and self-strong-headnesses
  • understand that happiness is enjoyable yet fleeting and work rather to build confidence, esteem, contentment, and gratitude without being fearful of expressing the full bandwidth of human emotions in a proper way (e.g. anger itself is not bad when used defensively but uninitiated violence from anger is)

Future - Unacceptable Scenario (stream of consciousness in 15 min)

TBD

Goals (from Ideal Future)

TBD