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Admittedly socially anxious? Is this a shadow issue? How do you manage through the too bright or too dark times?
In public gatherings I often gravitate towards the edges of the space to get a better view; existing more comfortably in the darker corners of parties. This is something that is becoming more and more apparent to me the more and more I am around people.
Often in a crowd (and without a costume or character as a guide) I want to stay affixed to one spot….I try to get settled, then I begin to change my vantage point bit by bit to gain my sense of comfort within the whole. My mind’s eyes at work, my body’s mind in lurch.
In the last couple years I have been becoming more aware of my addiction to the shadows; and have been noticing my awareness when moving around amongst pals at a party. Staring at the floor and walls more out of curiosity then out of shyness, and noticing folds in drapery and nuances in environmental compositions....more out of genuine intrigue than out of boredom.
The shadows that people cast are usually more interesting than the people themselves………why is that?
Are my behaviors in public about avoiding the "glare" somehow?
Are some people just really really bright, so bright that their darkness is easier to deal with?
Can squinting help in seeing?
Am I a cockroach?
Looking outside myself here a bit, and it seems like by even typing this out now, I am indulging in a kind of “shadow” activity.
Dim?
There are so many subtle variances of brightness and noise...
even here in these online threads.
Being able to maintain both a veiled AND an open exploratory mind while observing shadows can enable otherworldly interactions to exist; allowing for alternative, more enriched environments to be born into being. Sometimes sharing these discoveries with others is the challenge for me.
Is alone computer screen time an ideal refuge for a shadowy mind?
Are "social networking sites" shady by nature?
How about with eyes closed?
to be continued...
In public gatherings I often gravitate towards the edges of the space to get a better view; existing more comfortably in the darker corners of parties. This is something that is becoming more and more apparent to me the more and more I am around people.
Often in a crowd (and without a costume or character as a guide) I want to stay affixed to one spot….I try to get settled, then I begin to change my vantage point bit by bit to gain my sense of comfort within the whole. My mind’s eyes at work, my body’s mind in lurch.
In the last couple years I have been becoming more aware of my addiction to the shadows; and have been noticing my awareness when moving around amongst pals at a party. Staring at the floor and walls more out of curiosity then out of shyness, and noticing folds in drapery and nuances in environmental compositions....more out of genuine intrigue than out of boredom.
The shadows that people cast are usually more interesting than the people themselves………why is that?
Are my behaviors in public about avoiding the "glare" somehow?
Are some people just really really bright, so bright that their darkness is easier to deal with?
Can squinting help in seeing?
Am I a cockroach?
Looking outside myself here a bit, and it seems like by even typing this out now, I am indulging in a kind of “shadow” activity.
Dim?
There are so many subtle variances of brightness and noise...
even here in these online threads.
Being able to maintain both a veiled AND an open exploratory mind while observing shadows can enable otherworldly interactions to exist; allowing for alternative, more enriched environments to be born into being. Sometimes sharing these discoveries with others is the challenge for me.
Is alone computer screen time an ideal refuge for a shadowy mind?
Are "social networking sites" shady by nature?
How about with eyes closed?
to be continued...
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crawlers begin
Sun, March 2, 2008 - 8:20 AM>Admittedly socially anxious? Is this a shadow issue? How do you manage through the too bright or too dark times?
"there's a parking issue"
>The shadows that people cast are usually more interesting than the people themselves………why is that?
"They are sewing rhythmically together"
>Is alone computer screen time an ideal refuge for a shadowy mind?
>Are "social networking sites" shady by nature?
>How about with eyes closed?
"to the ocean"
(")air flows over everything
makes a sound(")
confusion -
coif nouns
~~unbound~~
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Re: social anxiety and the shadows as refuge
Sun, March 2, 2008 - 11:43 PMooooo confessions. . . . my favorite. . .
"The shadows that people cast are usually more interesting than the people themselves………why is that?"
Because the people are boring.
"Are my behaviors in public about avoiding the "glare" somehow?"
Yes.
Not dim.
"Is alone computer screen time an ideal refuge for a shadowy mind? "
No, it is a shadowy refuge, very unideal.
What about social anxiety? You can fixate on shadows and other light phenomena to keep things interesting all you want: but nothing changes the basic facts. The beings that are all around you at all times are what they are. Their shadows are their coronas, their frames, their secret auras, their hidden aspects. But you won't see anything of all that, if you don't first in some sense, register the beings themselves.
The shadow of a being is its daimon or its genius. Wanting to see only the shadow, to take refuge there, is an understandable coping strategy in a world that misunderstands itself and runs away from itself to a criminal degree. It is difficult to live in the world as it is. It may seem easier to focus on the shadows. If you are evading something what matters is that you know what you are evading and why. And also what you seek in its place, and how your evasion and your seeking coincide.
Who cares if one is anxious in an environment that any sane person would be anxious in? And good for you if anxiety is a way in which you deepen your perception of mundane environments. Anxiety would be bad if charming society were good. But the facts are the society that is available to us is far from charming, and I think, should produce a good measure of anxiety in any sensitively feeling and thinking being.
Anxiety may be a shadow issue. But the shadow is also a protection issue, and also a promise.
Indulge your shadow. That comes with responsibility. It is easy to feel at what point one has gone too far: at one point one takes refuge. Then both the shadow and the reality abandon. If you suffering from the fear of an addiction, it is only because your conscience knows that you are not yet strong enough for your real perception, that you are using your greatest gift, shadow perception, as a refuge. So what, tell you conscience to F-off, and if it won't leave you alone, then listen carefully, since maybe it is perceiving the shadows and the things in a whole new way.
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Re: social anxiety and the shadows as refuge
Fri, March 14, 2008 - 4:27 PMunbound indulgences have ways of keeping me forever contained.
although, I should be reassured,
having a shadow is like having a guaranteed best friend.
Dear shadow conscience,
thanks for always being here for me….bound through the long and the short….through the faint and the glaring.
There are many aspects.
Although sometimes your incessant presence does become a nuisance….you are always here showing myself to myself…..continually reflecting, and reacting, and thus protecting myself from myself. Are you mocking me? Do you promise to never leave?
haha
Maybe you see me as your shadow too?
This does register as a refuge.
~~~
“Boundaries, always boundaries, and the longing for infinite space.”
~~~
What are the shadows of the mind?
Are they these thoughts that I try to free myself from, no matter how hard I try?
I agree / admit that this excess in computer screen time seems to be dimming my perspective slightly (squint)......but there is some sort of expansion here that I cannot escape from.
Something about facing my own text is an adept exercise in accessing and interpreting my own impulses uttered.
(here becoming the place where my consciousness and subconscious duke it out)
The things people write are sometimes more interesting than the people themselves? why is that?
Are we ever free from what we say?
Are the words that are typed more intrinsically bound to the person typing them than words that they have spoken aloud?
Repetition of thought and of reading seems to deepen the meaning.
Documentation plays a key role in this.
If our physical bodies and the shadows they cast are sewing rhythmically together, then how can one depict anything without always influencing the other?
Do shadows ever take the lead in this life’s dance?
It seems that shadows have a way of stretching further ahead than the body and the mind.....and so this is why shadow impulses are scary and unmediated marvellous to me.
If the subconscious mind is the shadow of our consciousness…..
then by interpreting our dreams, we can discover our own protective refuges? Everything and nothing can be taken lightly in this place. I enjoy indulging the dreamtime.
I want to feel safe while exploring the “darker” corners of these experiences, but sometimes I just simply disappear within this idea.
~~~
“The wall’s strength is not in the stones, but in the spaces between the stones.”
~~~
Yes, I have been to the ocean, and, predictably, the shadows down there at sunset are and serene and spellbinding. I will take the shadow cast by a tree over the shadow cast by a human any day. Perceived stillness is more potent?
If I'm so admittedly caught up and enjoying myself in these forever refracting daydreamy hues, then how can I possibly ever be ready for real perception?
I feel irresponsible and indulgent and even embarrassed. I blame my shadow.
I appreciate the support here about "anxiety" and naming it as a mechanism for self-discovery within this world. Yes, the evasion and the seeking can coincide here.
This is still soothing somehow. -
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Re: social anxiety and the shadows as refuge
Sun, March 16, 2008 - 12:40 PMsocial anxiety~
everyone's got it to some degree, like mathias said: we're anxious cause it's weird out there.
it's a lonely place when you realize everyone's projection has just attempting to connect with a projection of you, and you're really just all these blobby shadows pooled in the corners.
sometimes you just don't want to connect. that's okay!
you are in control of this- it all depends where you move your awareness.
i have seen you play gently in the many subtly shifting shades.
i have seen you hold the spotlight and wake everybody up!
***
subconcious shadows~
we must never assume that someone else sees the same shadow in the same way.
your mind is like a light source illuminating the objects/people/situations/text.
the shadow cast is unique to the perspective of each mind.
when you read what someone has written,
the unspoken subtext is often the most interesting part.
why?
because it's you.
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