What is hesitation, if not fear?

And what is dissociation, if not unconscious protection in response to the fear?

But again, the greatest things in life are on the other side of fear… so, I must face my fears, as well as addressing my limits, and when they’re crossed, and how much I’ve been crossing them.

You’ve known many of these things and recall knowing them, but do you know them now? Truly know them? Reminded of the words once thought and spoken by yourself, but no longer in an intimate understanding of them? Eating the menu, but not the meal?

I think about death so much lately, not out of hatred for myself or reality, but because I have been so dissociated I think “when will I die, and have an end to this living-but-not-feeling period”? Not that I want it to end, but just out of curiosity, I’ve been so free floating and separated from reality, how could I genuinely like or even dislike it for that matter?

It’s indifference, neutrality, living between the notes but not as them, living as the null that is what I was cut from, birthed from; the nothingness before birth and after death, the space between the notes, for I’m sure reincarnation and the stream of life and death itself is much like a song, or a series of songs; up and down like a wave, or light, there and gone like the day, and both states are interdependent, and neither are evil; they just, are.

Alas, I’m getting sidetracked again, but in a good way, for speaking these things has always been my deepest passion, likely because it is my best anchor, too, to reel me in to be my eyes rather than just seeing through them.

So that is what I face: dissociation.

Likely, due to a lot of horribly difficult pain I’ve gone throughout my life but been conditioned to downplay it because I always had to be the stronger one or the unbreakable one or everyone would feel weaker, the funnier one or the kinder one or whatever or no one would smile as brightly or I’d be abandoned, to downplay my health issues because it’d cost too much to go to the doctor’s and I was sick of the disappointment I’d cause my dad to feel [I hold nothing against him or others of my family; I love them dearly and for all they’ve done and sacrificed for me, I merely seek to speak how I felt back then, to help me find better where I am now, and here], others to feel, each time I’d ask to see someone because I knew something wasn’t right…

Until I convinced myself it was alright, it was ok, when it wasn’t, and I just let it keep piling on.

Albeit, a lot of philosophy and meditation (essentially my form of it anyways) grew my stress capacity, but I always am going over the speed limit, an analogy my friend Phera made the other night as to how I live…

I’ve never settled for the “normal,” I always have to seek out more like an adrenaline junkie but not for the adrenaline… I don’t feel excitement or adrenaline or whatever for years now, even when near death; the exception to this was when I got out of my dopamine deficit hands-on for a short while - but even then…

My habits, my building of surplus of stressors remained consistent; so if not for adrenaline, it’s likely out of habit, but the habit is built on, what?

What conditioned this habit?

Well, likely also a few factors.

Firstly, once I got a taste of this growth, this chasing of growing myself and pursuing higher consciousness, once I understood its significance or at least, painted significance to it, it gave ME a larger purpose.

So, perhaps my strength building is also my purpose, without the challenge there is no reward - this makes sense, but going overboard 24/7 instead of pacing myself?

It’s sort of been that way from the start…

I’ve never been one for pacing, not even in the mile runs in school, pacing always felt unnatural to me, it felt monotonous.

I guess I might just be the type who enjoys the constant fluctuation, the change, and flowing with it, sort of like a surfer riding along the wave of time and events and all else (or, I guess, for me a snowboarder would make more sense given that I literally am one of those far more than a surfer lol), but does that mean I do it for the adrenaline, even though I can’t feel the effects of adrenaline?

But rather, meaning?

For a philosophical reason I’ve given myself / found woven into reality given the logic I’ve had to work with in this environment?

That definitely plays a part in it, but even then, that wasn’t always built into my roots and wasn’t really even refined to be more consistent and less dissonant up until the past few recent years…

My philosophy now compared to myself in 2023, or even 2018 for that matter, are both very similar, yet extremely different (sort of like everything lol; same, yet different, equal yet unique, old and new, infinitely ancient yet the fresh beginning)…

It has grown, and before 2018 it wasn’t really taken off yet, just ideas late at night, nothing really on paper [or screen] anyways…

So if not founded on this philosophical purpose, then what? Perhaps it is built into me genetically, inherited from my parents in some manner?

Genes ofc I’m sure play a part in all sorts of things across my life, but im not a prisoner to my genetics, I am the song sung by them, as much as I am the song sung by my beloved parents, and their parents, ad infinitum to the endless beginning and end, wondrous change…

In other words, it makes more sense to work with what I can change, this song sung and still being sung by the genes, rather than seeking to go in and manually change the pitches of their vocals; besides, I wasn’t always riding life like this, I was disassociated since birth, honestly… Only when I realized the fire in wisdom, well into my academic career and many years of frustration, confusion, and most especially indifference due to the disconnect I had with the very idea of learning, being a human, did I actually start to feel in the driver seat…

Maybe, it is something I was born with and imbued into me from the get go?

However, it is also normal for people to not remember or feel as present in their beginning years, albeit more lucid and vivid as it’s all new and feel substantially longer because of the amount of constant new experiences and knowledge the brain is taking in…

You aren’t as aware of yourself, yet, I suppose, or as aware in general, for wisdom is what grows awareness, and as a child you are the least knowledgeable as it tends to go - as you grow up, aka longer time to experience, thus more experiences, thus more opportunity for analysis and understanding, aka wisdom, aka growth in awareness, aka growth in consciousness, and thus more connected and grounded…?

Again, why does the dissociation creep up again now?

Why come into the world with it, grow it into awareness, and now for it to change back, and double down on it too?

Perhaps I have been also disregarding the shadow space now, for I’ve been in it but only looking to the visible space from within the shadow, unaware of what I’ve been in, mistakenly thinking of myself to be in the picture when I’ve been in its frame, or outside both entirely as an observer of the art.

More specifically, I progressively speak more and more as if my words are more accurate than they realistically are, or I suppose, spoken as if it’s been fact checked by myself when I’ve actually been lapsing in that necessary action; I am less of an “expert” for that reason, and have noticed this.

Further away from being an expert, at least, I likely have never been an expert officially, but that too is subjective, so too are all words but they’re also not without meaning… In our traditional placement of expert, I couldn’t say if I have or haven’t been one at any point in time, for a lot of my work is within a bubble, field notes, or scribbles looking at the art without “official” experts to resonate with me my findings and confirm my accuracy or to point and laugh; I’ve had to fill that role for myself throughout my life as my own echo, but as of late, I’ve let that role slip, and with it my understanding of myself, and my understanding of understanding, and my understandings as a whole, thus furthering my dissociation.

This has made me also feel more insecure, more confused I suppose… more aware that I don’t know what I’m saying for sure, and so I speak less… I speak less and let others talk over me, perhaps that is a lack in confidence although I didn’t realize it on the conscious level as it slipped by me…. I let others make decisions for me, because I’m truly happy with whichever most of the time; this is a byproduct of my inner peace I’ve found over my life….. the effortless action…

But that has been slowly turned into something else, a slightly more skewed version of it, an after image I mistake for the actual image I once had of it, because for me to truly say I am “enlightened” or at least, at inner peace and high awareness and thus embracing being and pursuing higher consciousness and love and etc like I’ve spoken on and still speak of again and again, I also have to be, well, aware…. But I haven’t been, not as much as I once was, at least; again, disassociated.

This dissociation, however, has never been THIS amplified…

A lot of the dystopian shit happening in the world, especially in this country and Gaza, has definitely played a part in it, as well as my effort to always be the most empathetic I possibly can…

I see videos of children blown to pieces, fathers crushed under the army boots of murderers who laugh and joke about the cruelty, talking heads and suits who justify this bloodshed for profit…

It is the most horrible thing I can ever imagine.

At least with a serial killer, it’s just one person, and I can understand a person quite well (Will in the tv show Hannibal, which I’m watching for the first time and more of today as well, heavily reminds me of myself, at least with his “ability” to empathize so much to where he’s aware of being apart of the other) and so I can come to understand the person’s cruelty somewhat as well; never righteous, always terrible, but still… Still human, somehow; still apart of the collective us.

Am I a psychopath for thinking this way?

To some, absolutely; to me, I wouldn’t say so. A psychopath lacks empathy; for me, I think, again, it’s more like Will, where you have so much of it, you realize everyone’s more alike than they are foreign to one another, and so you can’t look in the eyes of someone, or anything, intrinsically to be some demon.

That “ability,” however, has been severely tested, and more than I have the capability to handle this year especially, with the whole network of psychopaths, sociopaths, greedy narcissistic immature people running the world. And I think that’s where a lot of the dissociation has packed on from.

Again, I wasn’t ever this separate from reality before.

It is far easier to be a ghost, than to live among the living, the loving, and also, the dying.

It is easier to be dead than alive in such a dystopian hellish governance and seeing all of these beautiful souls hurt for all the worst reasons in all the worst ways every single day, and I guess that’s the unconscious reason why, or at least part of why, I think so much about questions like “What was I in my last life? Could I be a bird, a dragon, a whale, something beyond what I have ever witnessed or comprehended in this life in the next?”…

I think so much about what’s “next,” because I’d rather think of anything than what is, anything other than what is now.

Time flies by me like a racecar, I looked at the calendar today and I saw it was the 8th. It feels like it was the 6th just hours ago, and the 1st only yesterday.

The 11th of November feels like a place outside of time, like I never visited it… In a way, I didn’t, because I was so detached, it just slipped through my hands like a vapor; I breathed in and out the air, without feeling my lungs expand and contrast.

The same feeling goes for the past few months; it’s why I take so many videos and pictures, I want them to mean something to me, someday, and if not me than somebody else, somebody who could take these elegant paintings and do them justice, somebody who once was me or felt like it was me, somebody that could be me but isn’t me right now…

Part of the solution is in convincing myself it to be possible; again, I rehearse the words my past self spoke because she knew and understood, now I just speak them because I remember but do not understand them here in this version of now, and so the words, too, are only vapor with no weight.

I lack applying the weight, the connection, here in the now; I hold onto the connection that once was made before, hoping somewhere within myself that it’ll spark connection again here before me, within me, but it fails more than not, because it was never the words that did it…

I was the one, who did the words… who spoke them, in the first place, and if not me then someone else.

It comes from us, as co-creators, artists.

That too I knew and still speak; that time [that just occured seconds ago], though, as I write this…

It felt, connected, more than most of the words I rehearse; it was a tiny glimpse of a rediscovery.

It feels great, or now I’d say, felt great, and I now feel its fading ghost, the reverberation, the ripple after the drop fell into the pool… just like life itself, each moment, every second, every life, every thing, and that’s beyond gorgeous.

There; another rediscovery, another reconnection.

And so I thank you, again, beloved Dao, flow, God, change, whatever word out of the sea of the infinite you wish to give it.

I’m so glad I still grow, even when I don’t feel myself growing, that I still can change, and ride with the change… not just ride it, though, not just observe it, but be it.

To be, me.

That’s what I truly want and always have wanted, but I forget how to do that, again and again and in a brand new way of forgetting each time, which requires just as much of a brand new way of remembering each time, too.

Oh my goodness, it is so so marvelously beautiful.

And that, is what fuels me to live more than anything; to live to live, and to live to share in the being with all else, and to assist in where I can along others’ path within themselves towards rediscovering themselves, in brand new ways, too.

I wish only the greatest and the best for everyone and everything, but when you don’t see that happen for people, when it is stolen from them at least in this moment or chapter or life, it can be shattering.

It can hurt, when you forget the beauty and inevitability of change; you forget so long as you’re not actively embracing in the remembrance of it, but of course, you don’t just remember the whole time you’re alive, or else you’re not living any moments TO remember!

And so, again, it comes back to balance, a bit of everything but not too much of any one thing, just how I love it, just how it is in every way - thus, forgetting that inner peace is inevitable if you don’t only keep remembering it 24/7; if I’m out trying to be something of a wannabe revolutionary, requiring me to remember history and read and go out and speak with people and civil disobedience and etc… I’ve got a million and one more things on my mind, things I never NEEDED to do, for I never NEEDED to do anything to still be and be just as beautiful and infinite (same goes for anything), but the point isn’t doing the bare minimum towards MY peace, the point is doing what should be done towards peace, period.

As much of it, for as many people as possible.

When I say peace, of course, it’s an incredibly jam packed term; self love, universal love, both which requires wisdom, wisdom from another or the self but can’t ever be forced but only if the people wants to change and etc.

I ask myself sometimes, what is it I really am even chasing if I can’t even fully define the word such as peace or love or goodness or whatever?

Well, it comes back to my understanding that wisdom need not be 100% described by conventional means, nor need it be a golden ticket to guarantees… but, I suppose part of gaining wisdom, is eventually learning that wisdom itself can flow most freely whence unchained, aka, unconventional.

And it makes sense, again, with my seemingly baked in pursuit and chase of higher and higher consciousness aka awareness which is thru more wisdom aka awareness of things I wasn’t aware of before.

I need not define even this pursuit, for me to still pursue, and I guess in a sense I need not to define “love,” to still be loving, need not define perfectly goodness to still be (or at least try to be) good, and so on.

The goal is not perfection, but participation; so too, again, for life itself.

I write this again now and am reminded that, if I were to (and likely will) put these out on my website or maybe someday a book if I get around to it, if I’m ever anything famous in my lifetime or perhaps the future for my words, who is to say they aren’t fed into one of the countless ever evolving LLMs, and used to defame and discredit my work and thus the message, in order to try and get everyone to circle back into the trap of capitalism or other immature systems of thought as a whole?

To that I say, again, it’s not about guarantees, it’s not about perfection, but participation.

So, here I am, trying again, trying for the sake of trying, writing for the sake of writing, not for fame or the guarantee of a perfect translation or comprehension of my words, but because I am these words.

I am my message.

I am my art, I am my love.

I am me.

I am.

And I’d like to see to it that I can maybe help someone else out there feel that, here, in the moment, in some kind of way, their own unique way, too. Because that’s apart of love as well; giving it. Giving wisdom, unchained and without duty nor grief [is perhaps the most genuine love], along the lines of the great Alan Watts.

I missed writing these long drawn out self notes.

What started as a quick jot down so I wouldn’t forget (because my recall ability has been its worse as of late too, perhaps parts of me are failing or my brain is being a bit silly or the most likely a symptom of the same thing that causes my dissociation), has now turned into perhaps my favorite piece yet.

It’s so funny, each time I make one of these writings or audio logs, I seem to wind up saying the same thing, “oh this is my best work yet!”

It makes sense though; I’m the most me, out of all the me’s so far, the most experienced and I suppose aware, the most battle scarred yet the most strong.

Something like that, anyways.

And each and every piece I make, I try to give it my all.

Sometimes I desperately want to give it my all but am not in the right mindset, not fully “all” in that now aka not fully anchored in the moment (ahem, again, this “accursed!” dissociation I speak of over and over, lol), as you can perhaps tell in some of my videos I’ve edited in the past, maybe even some of my writings, mainly my videos though or other mediums of art.

When I am all here though, and as I write especially it helps me actively remind myself of me and who I am and thus brings me back to now and here, I keep surprising myself just what I can put to the canvas.

I love it, I love writing, I love creating, and I love making things with others, and love loving others.

Speaking of, I’ve been going through this whole polyamory phase as of late. It’s a long story when it comes to my history of it and why I now have arrived at it, but reason I bring it up is, I love it [so far] and to me it makes the most sense.

I fully understand the monoamory perspective as well, given that I once held it; I think both are beautiful in their own way.

It’s far easier to manage than what most would make it out to be; the success of them is determined by the maturity level of the participants, really, how self aware they are and aware of each other and their feelings and desires and goals and etc.

It comes back to balance once again; as something of a pantheist and an anarchist too, it just fits right in with my philosophy.

And to bounce off Pierre Teilhard de Chardin too, makes sense in regard to the “Omega Point” I also fully believe we are naturally flowing towards, no different really than how oxygen and hydrogen flow towards making water (I got that analogy from a friend who goes by the name of “Shreq”); really, it’s entropy.

And entropy, time, life and death, is change.

It’s all, change.

Again, further reason why I am so in love with it, and thus everything, and thus why loving and bonding with as many people as you can as deeply as you can makes a lot of sense to me, for these reasons and more.

However, of course, I have limits, I have only so much time and energy to go around; if I could duplicate myself for infinity, I’d cater to everything and everyone likely, but I don’t have a cloning machine (at the moment, anyways! Lol).

I still question whether I’ll return to monoamory after a while of experimentation, but I guess that’s what the experimentation shall perhaps reveal to me in due time.

One of my friends, however, is in their 40s now and has been polyamorous for decades so, it’s not like you’re predestined to guaranteed be any one which path (cough cough, again, life and literally everything and why it’s so cool and beautiful); so, I guess I shall see how it plays out.

Being in a [heteronormative, monotypical, etc.] colonist’s society, however, it is a bit more challenging, given that far majority of people don’t or won’t understand and in fact usually will hate it with just a taste of the potential cons; but so too goes for being trans.

So too for being gay.

So too for challenging the norm, or journeying on an adventure beyond the conventional into the unconventional…

And that’s exactly what I love to do, for the same reason Chris McCandless went into the wild, to enjoy a new and everchanging horizon, to adventure for the sake of the experience of the beautiful unknown.

Guess that makes me an explorer, and so too really for everyone in their own ways; science especially is exploration, and maturity / wisdom in general is found no differently… exploration (within or outside oneself), observation, analysis, potentially new understanding, then rinse and repeat - hell yeah.

Anyways…

It is now 5:42 AM on December 8th, 2025.

I’ve been writing this all for I believe 2 hours now straight.

Time flies when you’re having fun. [;)]

I wanna do a recap, however, why I even started writing to begin with, and if I can settle on any final and lasting (hopefully helpful) conclusions.

So… The issue is with my dissociation, gotcha. But the dissociation is the symptom of something else; there’s a deeper root I need to find and address, and only then can I remedy all its branches, too.

So, if not out of adrenaline, if not solely out of philosophical purpose, then…?

Perhaps, it is how I was conditioned as a child.

As I mentioned earlier, I had to always be the strongest I could, always be there for everyone else and my friends and my siblings and even my parents while still somehow solo defending myself and my feelings, always do what should be done even if it was well beyond my “capacity” of stress or whatever it may be…

I guess I’ve gotten so used to adhering to the protector role, I’m not used to being protected still.

I’ve opened up to it more over the years, but now, with all this horrible shit that’s going on (and has been going on for ages, and really since the dawn of man, I just wasn’t as aware of it til recently), it likely has triggered that nerve within me to go full blown protector mode, “no time” to be the one being protected, no time to be “lazy,” no time to sit still, no time, because the longer I wait to protect, the more others get hurt because I, or at least someone who could have potentially protected them, wasn’t there to protect them, and that feels like the deepest failure.

If I’m not full on maximizing my protector role, then I am left without that meaning I hype myself up to fill, and thus a detachment from reality because I’m not actively filling the role 110%.

…So how do I balance this within myself?

A constant reminder of what I can control and what I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference (serenity prayer I quote a lot I learned from the many AA meetings I went to with my mom as a child)?

Aha… so there it is again; another phrase I repeat again and again, what I once had as my active anchor, is now reeled up - still there, still aware of it, still known, but not deployed, not as actively practiced in the present as it’s meant to be, or at least, without the impact it could have, the effectiveness it could have.

Again, though, life isn’t about just remembering, it’s about acting, too.

All my life I do far more remembering than acting, than just doing, that’s another thing I’m still figuring out.

All these things I’m figuring out, ofc, intertwined with each other… so hard to find THE root, when they’re each a root for each other in a way.

The protector role thing though does feel like it is a pretty good guesstimate for “THE root,” but now to evolve with it… I just don’t know.

I don’t know how to balance the remembrance with the doing, the doing that is the action of actively remembering too, and the remembering of what to do… it’s cyclic.

How do I just do it? I can remember I gotta just do it, but again I’m eating the menu and not the meal… it’s frustrating for sure.

At least recognizing the imbalance, however, is better than sitting on auto pilot forever. But still, damnit…. I wanna sit in that comfy pilot seat. And the biggest problem, or problematic symptom of the problem, is my growing forgetfulness.

I forget, so then I’m not remembering to remember to do, so then I’m neither doing NOR remembering…

Great, lol; it’s a difficult, complex problem to solve for sure, but a fantastic and beautiful opportunity nonetheless.

A new challenge, requiring a new solution… it’s so hard too given that I’ve tried so many solutions already, all of the conventional means I can think of at least… I suppose the unconventional yet again can come to my rescue here, and likely will, because that’s just how I roll, time and time again.

It does get disappointing and tiring, and when I want a break from taking a break, I have to somehow convince myself it’s ok to take a break while trying to get out of taking a break…

So then, I’m taking a break; the thing I’m tired of doing and want to take a break from…

Guh, such a headache. XD

So then, I guess that’s part of a solution; to feel okay with taking breaks, more so than I am already, not just auto pilot disassociating with the fact I’m taking a break because I’m hyper and passionate and never want to slow down or go at the speed limit, but, being here in the present, connected, yet going slow still. Building back my awareness, my complete peace, and then, I can take it from there. I can find the pace I can keep, slowly balancing myself out more over time, and when I’m going at a consistent pace, I can accomplish far more than my current “DASH-DASH-DASH!” followed immediately by “UGHHHHHH I FEEL LIKE A ZOMBIEEEEE.”

A pace you can keep is better than the theoretical perfect pace you can’t keep, along the lines of the video that really helped me get out of my dopamine deficit for the first time and still reference aplenty now, I forget the channel name though.

Okay.

So how can I feel ok with taking breaks, even when I’m tryna get out of this “break” period aka drained and disassociated already and barely doing shit?

Little things.

Focusing on tiny little things I can do, breaking down to 5% if I have to so I don’t feel intimidated, one step at a time.

Building back my focus, my recall ability, my presence in the moment, my balance.

But gah!!! More buzz words!

At least, to me they feel like em; the words I knew already and have known for ages, but the connection I need isn’t in these words right now - the connection I have to manually do myself, the connection needed for an anchor to remind me of how to connect things manually.

Again, cyclic, frustrating, and quite a massive headache.

And yet, I shall persist as I have before, and will make it out the other end, even if need be in another life, and have my eureka moment.

So, I shall try for the sake of trying.

But damn, is it annoying figuring out where to start, yet again the “just do it!” part of it; like a random spark each time, it feels like.

Perhaps the birth of the universe was no different in that regard, too. :3

If only I could harness that ability… the doing, rather than just the thinking or the remembering pieces of doing: the whole, complete, doing-ness.

Action.

The carrying out part of it, the final yet perhaps hardest step of it, is still what I am building on, what I am lacking most.

And even arriving at that realization is yet another full circle in a brand new way.

Annoying yet familiar, comforting yet…. I don’t know. Strange. Strange strange strange.

I was about to say “mocking” but really, it’s me mocking me if anything.

Wisdom is gentle, and patiently sits there waiting to be recognized, our reactions to it however can be volatile, insecure, or just as open as it is.

Perhaps that reflects the protector part of me.

My guard.

My quick reflex to snap back, because it pulled away my defenses just a tad bit, beckoning change from my current “stable,” comforting & meaningless-feeling state of limbo.

How do I put my armor down, so I can take the hand of change?

I know I have done it a billion times before, but now is a new challenge.

Is the solution really as simple as “just do it”?

Probably.

But damnit, is it annoying lol. But the annoyance is something, a connection I am feeling that anchors me to here, I suppose.

So that’s cool, at least.

Given my ridiculous level of forgetfulness, I’ll likely forget I even wrote this, or at least most of what I wrote by tomorrow morning (or, afternoon, realistically, since it’s now 6:17 AM and I’ll definitely sleep til at least past 2, my sleep schedule has been horrendous, definitely doesn’t help, and is another thing I can fix), so as much as I’d like this whole thing to have an effective level of help for me, there’s no guarantee it will… but as I wrote earlier, I am not writing for a guarantee.

I’m writing, to write. :)

So, I’m gonna eventually put this all on my website and share elsewhere, and if it doesn’t help me as much as I would like it to, perhaps it can help others as much as I also would like it to.

It’s better than nothing.

I’ll figure it out, or at least try to, eventually… but oh my goodness, if I could evolve my doing-ness ability…. The things I could do (pun very much intended).

So many dreams and goals, that float alongside me even now in my suspended state… when I relearn again how to reach and then to grab, I can hold on and soar yet again on a brand new adventure.

Thank you for reading, beloved stranger, my unmet or potentially met friend,

Love,

Ashli

12/8/2025 6:23 AM