I guess its time I asked for feedback.

Alright, to start this post off I'll warn you that it is mainly coming from my mind as I type it. I'm not very good at organizing my thoughts anymore. Besides I don't even know how to start this off.

My question:
What is wrong with me?

So, I don't really know what's wrong or what. Every second of the day I feel lost. As if I'm just living in this world as a complete bystander. I hate everyone I see or speak to and I can't help but pretend to be kind to them. I pretend to care for the world and the people in it but in my mind I know I don't. To be honest I don't even know if I am pretending or if I am pretending to pretend. I have never been close to my family and I've had plenty of people I could consider friends but I left them all behind easily after high school. I've always had relationship issues( lack of feelings towards the other person). Most of the time I can throw up a barrier between me and people I have to speak to. Usually this barrier is just a wall of fake confidence/cockiness. I hold conversations with myself and can clearly see me and myself speaking to one another in my mind.


I pretend to laugh and joke around with the people I work with so no one thinks differently of me. I easily fabricate lies to fit in and I lie to others without hesitation. I know I should be myself, but its hard to be at times. I enjoy seeing others suffer at times, but also at other times I can't stand to see someone do something terrible. My opinions change like day to night. I hate this world and the people in it but I also hate myself at times. Its easy for me to pretend to fit in because people are simple and they don't look through the surface of others. I loathe talking to others unless I want something and especially when they speak to me about things I don't care about. Some days I seem like I listen but at other times I can clearly tell them I don't care about their topics of conversation. I am uninterested in almost everything. Music is the only thing I am active about. I am also uninterested in sex. I've never done it and its just uninteresting to me.

I mainly have to keep my thoughts in my mind instead of voicing my opinions due to my job. There are many more things to list but I feel like this is enough. So if someone can help me figure out what is going on do so. If you have further questions I will answer them and give assistance in figuring out an answer to my question.

Hi Prospero. Hope I can help some...

Prospero wrote:Every second of the day I feel lost. As if I'm just living in this world as a complete bystander. I hate everyone I see or speak to and I can't help but pretend to be kind to them.

What is it specifically about other people that you hate? There is not necessarily anything "wrong" with you mentally. Many people who experience dissociation and/or withdrawal are merely responding defensively to the external environment. Often this feeling of withdrawal from society is the sanest response, given the collective insanity that can pass for "normality". We do live in very strange times. People are bombarded with information, some of it true, much of it complete lies/fluff. Sometimes, if you have kept yourself outside the culture industry, you can feel like you are the only sane person around.

I often think this is what elderly people must feel like - "the world is going insane, I don't understand anyone and nobody understands me".

Prospero wrote:I pretend to care for the world and the people in it but in my mind I know I don't. To be honest I don't even know if I am pretending or if I am pretending to pretend. I have never been close to my family and I've had plenty of people I could consider friends but I left them all behind easily after high school. I've always had relationship issues( lack of feelings towards the other person). Most of the time I can throw up a barrier between me and people I have to speak to. Usually this barrier is just a wall of fake confidence/cockiness.

This is your ego or social persona playing out - the mask we all have to wear in order to communicate meaningfully with other humans. It's illusory, and powerless IF you see the illusion. The difference is, you're awakening to that illusion, whereas most others are still lost in the false identity of ego. In other words, they believe they are what their thoughts tell them they are. Thoughts are influenced and, in turn, our personalities shaped by factors beyond our immediate control. It is madness to identify so intimately with such a malleable and impermanent entity. Yet, we're all pretty much taught to do exactly that.

The problem with awakening to the illusion of ego is that you're no longer on a level of meaningful interaction with other people. I'm not going to be as pretentious to say you're "above" it, but you are "outside" it.

I liken it to a sober person trying to converse with a drunk person. It's like two different frequencies crossing paths.

My advice would be, in the midst of all this - be kind to others. Pretend, if you must, in order to be kind. But don't feel bad because you are pretending or wearing a fake smile. Just know that, yes, it is a game and you are watching it play out from the still place of awareness. What goes on out there has no bearing on who you really are. It's just a game, a construct. But you must be kind to others because many are still trapped in their egoic mind and its conditioning. It's not their fault you can't relate to them as much as it is not yours.

There's nothing wrong with pretending. We all do it every day. I even notice myself being different around different people. But the key thing is to notice it. The game is still fun even when you know it's a game. You don't have to be completely immersed in it, believing the game IS life to enjoy it. That is a dangerous, unstable path to go down.

Your inauthentic life (the game player) is your pretence, your mask, your ego. Your authentic life is that which non-judgementally watches it like anything else that arises in consciousness. Tune in to that frequency at any time and you'll find peace, aliveness, energy to deal with other people's minds in an accepting manner.

Prospero wrote:I hold conversations with myself and can clearly see me and myself speaking to one another in my mind.

This is the internal dialogue we all have to some degree. It sounds like it's more pronounced in your mind. But remember that this duality of "I" vs "me" is completely illusory. It is a divisive tool your mind has constructed in order to make better sense of an increasingly complex environment. It's linked to survival, but a lot of it is superfluous to requirement, as it can easily get out of hand given the multitude of external influences fighting to occupy this internal dialogue. The result is confusion which should, if allowed, result in you asking the fundamental question - "who am I?".

Prospero wrote:I pretend to laugh and joke around with the people I work with so no one thinks differently of me. I easily fabricate lies to fit in and I lie to others without hesitation. I know I should be myself, but its hard to be at times. I enjoy seeing others suffer at times, but also at other times I can't stand to see someone do something terrible. My opinions change like day to night.

Again, all classic egoic behaviour. You enjoy seeing others suffer because it makes you feel better about yourself. Pride, in other words. It's called schadenfreude and is perfectly natural. It can be more pronounced in some people.

Again, don't try to fight it "in the game", rather see it for what it truly is. Notice the feelings of pleasure arising when you see suffering and acknowledge that you've noticed it. I call it "catching myself out", myself being my ego or false sense of self. Sometimes I find myself laughing at it because it can be so absurd yet convincing. The mind is a trickster, but because it is a purely responsive mechanism it can only operate based on its conditioning.

As long as you can detach yourself from and observe the mind doing its little tricks, you will not need to suppress or fight it. You'll just not follow its lead and let it be. The mind should be your slave, not the other way around. You grab it when you need it. Unfortunately, much of society has it the wrong way around. Turn on your TV and flick through the channels, you'll soon see why.

Prospero wrote:I hate this world and the people in it but I also hate myself at times.

Who is the "I" and who is "myself"? You've created a duality there, and it's worth exploring as deeply as you can. Again, try to notice these things in your speech and internal dialogue.

Prospero wrote:Its easy for me to pretend to fit in because people are simple and they don't look through the surface of others. I loathe talking to others unless I want something and especially when they speak to me about things I don't care about. Some days I seem like I listen but at other times I can clearly tell them I don't care about their topics of conversation. I am uninterested in almost everything. Music is the only thing I am active about. I am also uninterested in sex. I've never done it and its just uninteresting to me.

There is nothing wrong with anything you said there. You are simply tired of the inanity of every day conversation. Who can blame you?

And there are many, many people who aren't interested in sex. Don't worry about that. But also remember that it is a very powerful drive in many other people, as much as hunger or the need to go to the toilet. Acceptance works both ways.

If you play music why not meet up with other musicians and "converse" through music? You just need to make more of an effort to find like minded people IF you are not happy being alone so much. The internet is a wonderful tool for finding such people.

Prospero wrote:I mainly have to keep my thoughts in my mind instead of voicing my opinions due to my job. There are many more things to list but I feel like this is enough. So if someone can help me figure out what is going on do so. If you have further questions I will answer them and give assistance in figuring out an answer to my question.

I think that you are between worlds - the world of the ego or conditioned "self" (which is where most of society resides) and the world of being (which is the space in which all conscious experience arises).

First, you need to understand that this duality of mind is an illusion. There is only one being you can call "I" and it is simply watching everything, including the manifestations of your mind - thoughts, feelings, emotions etc.

You are not even the "thinker". Thoughts simply arise and either build momentum or dissolve. When you watch closely, you are not doing as much as you THINK you are doing. At first it is quite scary, especially since neuroscience supports the notion that free will is more lacking than it is active in our lives. But stay with it, because you don't have to try to control or stop anything, you just have to align yourself with life itself - you are simply happening. Just flow with it. People are just happening in your life. Flow with them. You'll find compassion comes a lot more easily when you stop trying to control things.

Your mind will try to convince you that it is "I", but that is merely a superimposition, a construct, over the conscious "I". Mind is, in a way, just as external to "I" as any object in space and time.

We even say: "my body", "my brain", "my mind", "my thoughts", "my sense of self" - who is the possessive "my" in all this?

Secondly, be present. The present moment is where you only every truly exist. Think about it (this is where your mind can help you!). In the past, you existed, but at the time it was in the present moment. In the future, you will exist, but it will be in the present moment.

The mind cannot have any power over you in THIS moment, because mind is a projection that arises WITHIN the present moment. Thoughts and impulses come and go. But what is always there, in every moment, underneath it all, silently watching?

Thirdly, understand that most others are still firmly in the realm of ego and cannot relate to everything above. Don't be ashamed to put on your mask and make some effort to relate and be kind to others, both by listening to what they have to say and by doing things for others. If you've managed to see through the illusion of mind, the inanity of it all won't bother you so much, because everything you do in that state of aware presence will have a joyous, alive energy and clarity that you'll come to know as "life as it is happening".

You may have simply been missing what's right there in front of you.

I appreciate you taking the time to reply to this. I will think about what you've said and I will open my mind to it.

Again I appreciate it.