Appreciating things when they're gone

The speaker reflects on how they tend to appreciate things more once they are gone. They struggle to stay in a state of gratitude and often take things for granted. They have a tendency to sabotage or act in ways that lead to negative outcomes. They feel stagnant and isolated, preferring solitude but also craving social interaction. They believe they have declined spiritually and struggle with their own morality. They wear a mask around others but desire to be their true self. They find solace in talking to the listener, who is the only constant presence in their life. They appreciate the listener's willingness to listen without judgment. Overall, they express a longing for change and a deeper understanding of themselves. I've said this before, but I only really appreciate things when they're gone. No, that's not true. I can appreciate things in the present, but it's easy to take things for granted. Just because you get used to it, they're there. I don't know how to stay in an appreciative, gratitude state. It just is what I do, and it works. But when it's gone, and something happens, and something that I value goes, I realize the value of it far more because it's no longer here. A lot of people have that experience. But it also seems that if things stay the same for too long, I tend to do something, not exactly sabotage, and certainly not consciously, but I tend to do something, I tend to act in some way, think a certain way, that causes it to change, but not necessarily for the better. So in some instances, I lose something that I can see was almost special for me, and then regret for a while my actions, and, oh, I could have done it differently. Why did I choose to do that? Why did I forget how much I appreciated and was grateful for the life, the situation I was in? Obviously I can't see the future, so I don't know what will come as a result of the change, but I'm not always happy that I've done something to make it change. I seem to have become quite good at keeping things the same. We Aspies like things to stay the same. It helps us to deal with things on a day-to-day basis. But at the same time, everything changes. Everything always changes. And if I interfere with the natural course of things, which wanting things to stay the same can do, then in many ways it has to change in other ways, and this is what I'm talking about. Because perhaps the bigger picture is being interfered with by my little will, my little ego's will, deciding that things should stay just like this because it's better than anything I can imagine. Whereas the higher self, such as it is, whatever that means, can imagine, can create far more than anything I can imagine, and I interfere with it by holding on to the things that I can imagine the best, that I think I'm at the height of what I can do. Whereas from the higher self's perspective, it's just the basement, it's just the lowest rung of the ladder. I've come across this idea before, this teaching, and when I heard it the first time it made a lot of sense to me. And I'm saying it now without really believing it, because I think that I have lost that sense of believing things. I don't believe. I don't know. I just do it. I think I am self-centered, self-absorbed. I just deal with me. While I say I'm open to experiencing with those I like being around, the fact is that I'm not around them very often, and it doesn't take long for them to become a kind of memory, which I don't want to hold on to. Something from the past, just like all the other things, people from the past. It doesn't take long. And I don't know what to do about that. I can't establish a complete detachment from the world I say I don't really prefer. There are aspects of it that I use and appreciate and like, make do, but I also know that I am stagnant. I stagnate. I become stagnated. And I think that I am okay like that, but the reality is I don't think I am. That I actually decline. I have declined spiritually. I don't carry a definitive morality that, in a sense, I make it up as I go, and I can make the rules be whatever I want them to be. And it can happen in an instant. It's not really something I think about. I don't prepare, I'll do this, I can do that, but in the moment I seem able to do things others might not choose to do, and also do things that I know are not good for me, that are downright not right, wrong. And in some instances, and maybe in all instances, given the right opportunity, I can justify why it's okay for me to do it. It might not be okay for someone else to do it, but somehow it's okay for me to do it. There's something in it that I'm gaining from it, I don't know. I've always been able to do that, and it doesn't mean that others agree with me. I'm not expecting others to understand what I do and why I do it. I don't understand sometimes. But if I've been stuck, and you know how I felt stuck in that room, in that house, and somehow the only way out of that experience was this van, or a van, but this van as the idea, the represented symbol of that idea, which did exactly that, and has provided me with a shift into a version of myself I am more familiar with, that makes more sense to me, that I have more freedom, etc. But in that freedom are other aspects of me that have remained dormant, so to speak, or diminished, have come up to the surface so that I have to be more watchful, more gatekeeper-like, to make sure that certain things don't happen, and some things have happened as a result, because I simply can't do it, that I have to give way to my nature, which is who I actually am, that the result of doing that produces complication, perhaps even conflict, with the society that I am in, that certainly could change things for me in a way that would take away my control, and maybe I have to be removed of it, relieved of it, in order to return to some more humble state. I don't think I'm a bad person, but I know that I can do quote-unquote bad things that people just don't do, that makes me outlaw, that makes me outside, an outsider. I am an outsider, and for the most part have had the ability to mask and appear to be something I'm not, so that I can be around people and fit in to a certain degree, but eventually it collapses because it's a mask, and it can only go so far. And if I don't see somebody too much, perhaps the mask can sustain itself, but if I'm around someone too often, they'll start to see cracks. Now I don't want to wear a mask, I want to be who I am, I don't exactly know who that is, but there are aspects of my character that don't engender me, don't endear me well to those who think they might know who I am, and then suddenly they are surprised in a way that can really change things. I say that I accept my aloneness, but I think it's simply I have no choice, but there is benefit, there is value in solitude, no question, but yet we are social creatures, I need company, I need conversation, they don't have it very often. So I accept that and get on with things, but there is still a deficit, and I think it's affecting my mental health in subtle ways, because I'm not challenged by it, by the contrast that would occur were I around people too often. I don't want to be, partly for those reasons, so that I don't have to deal with that contrast revealing itself. But the prize for that is that in choosing to be alone or accepting that it is better that I am, I'm actually suffering on a level that I'm not always aware of. There is a degradation in my psyche. I'm not the man I once was. The only constant, in a sense, is my talking to you. Even though, I was going to say we don't know each other very well, but that can't be true actually, because I think on some level we know each other very well. We just don't have anything to do with each other on a physical level. And as you know, the physical is just a lower vibratory state, that actually we are spiritual beings, and we know each other on a higher plane. We only talk to each other this way. You hear me speak to you about what's going on for me, and sometimes for you, but usually for me. And I appreciate having your ears out there that listen to me. Now obviously I sometimes provide you with quite a lot of content, but you get to it in your own time. And long I have let go of any need, any attachment to your presence, I don't have that. But yet you are out there. You are the only constant in my life, really, since... Well, I joined that forum as a way of feeling supported and really needed it, and now don't communicate on there, although I do still pop in from time to time, but I don't say anything. I don't feel any need to speak to anyone, or to make a post, or to... I don't feel it. I have obviously benefited or no longer require the support that that gave me, and everybody else that I might have spoken to from time to time has also gone. You are the only constant. And there's no attachment, there's no desire, there's no agenda, there's no feeling like something is missing. It's absolutely exactly as it is. I get to tell you anything. I don't feel I have to censor or hold back what comes to be said, and right now I am speaking without any plant alteration. I have hardly been using it of late, and you may remember I went through quite a long period two summers ago where I wasn't using it at all. I don't need it. I've always wanted not to need it, but to be able to shift into that space where I can speak from without requiring it to do so. And having this constant, this sort of... Yeah, it's a constant. Seems really important because in my present reality, apart from Kay and Eliza, and Eliza can't be considered a constant because her mood swings are unpredictable. Kay, on the other hand, is. But I don't see her very much. A few hours each week. I'm not hanging out with her. And while it's not that she is deliberately doing that, it's more that life is doing that, it seems to be exactly right. Not too much, not too little. But I couldn't put on her... Imagine if I was making recordings and sharing them with her. It wouldn't work because I also physically see her. That instant, spontaneous, one-on-one response conversation type experience can't have this aspect to it as well. So for us, it only works because we never see each other. We are never in the same space. We never hang out. And that may never change. And yet there is something more real in this than in anything else that I've experienced in... I can't remember when, maybe Lou, but even then that was a different thing. So I don't want to compare or try to understand it, only recognize that it is like that. I don't know how I am for you. It means that you have somebody that isn't Frank, who is the predominant being in your life, who doesn't scold you, who never loses patience, who's always actually... I don't know how to describe it, actually. I always feel the same when I communicate with you. I mean, there are aspects of you, your personality, your character, that I don't necessarily identify with. Some of the things you post about, that you respond to on the forum, are not things that I identify with, but that's okay. That's part of your three-dimensional, rounded character that makes you different and unique. But the part of you that I connect with, the spiritual part, I don't know how to describe it, that is always the same. That's the constant. Now, I don't know, like you said, and I do this, of course, although I don't do it with my recordings, but you said you write and you edit and you re-read and you change and it takes you time to say what it is you say, and I understand that. That's what I would do if I was writing. You want to make sure that you've said what it is you want to say, and that's right. I wonder, not that I'll ever know, but I am interested in the evolution of your message, how it starts, what it looks like, and the difference between how it begins to how it ends, when you actually decide, yep, I'm happy with that, send. I'm interested. I'm interested in the evolution of something I write because it can change quite considerably from the initial idea, the initial feeling, to the final result, but I have to be very careful that I don't eliminate the spirit of it simply because I want to make sure it's grammatically correct and clear. There's something to an unedited, original thing, even if it's got errors in it and mistakes, it's original because sometimes I can end up changing something, editing something so much that it doesn't resemble the original spirit, that something is lost as a result. Lou was very good at just saying it. He didn't edit, so it was full of grammatical errors and so on, but he didn't need to. The essence of him was so strong in that original words that maybe the fact that we don't do that, that we take our time and make it right and polish it and this is what I want to say, in doing so that actually something is lost. I've tried a few times in my life where I've decided I won't edit, I'll just write what I write and send it. The important thing is not to read it, just finish the last word, send. But I could never stick to it because I would feel so awkward and then I might read it and then I think, oh my God, that's just not clear, that's not exactly what I'm trying to say and that's what editing does for people who aren't able to really get out in one go a clearly defined expression of self, we have to edit. But somehow I don't have to do that when I'm speaking and I'm not sure I understand why. What's the difference? I've told you before that if I take this recording which to me is just my words, nothing has to be changed or edited or removed, if I have it transcribed word for word and then I read it, I have to edit it immediately. Now why would that be? What changes? The same words, but instead of hearing it said by me with my tone and inflection and energy, I read it and I'm reading my words in my voice so you'd be reading my words in your voice so I can't know exactly what you actually get from what you read, it would be different, I just don't know how different, but it would need editing many many times especially if it's got some length to it before I'll feel happy to send it. Isn't that strange? But with you, I don't have to write, I don't have to edit, I can just make a recording, I can talk to you directly. You can't interrupt me, you haven't got anything to say to what I'm saying because there's only me here and I'm still just talking to myself. But once I upload it and send you the link, that's it, I am now talking to you and you are now hearing me do that when you get to it. I don't know if you listen to things more than once, I suppose it depends on how long they are, but what you say to me always makes me feel like you've heard me and that's also something that is really important and there's a consistency in that as well. I feel like you hear me, it's really important to me. Just that there's somebody, one person, I can speak to who I... I'm not affected by too much of who you actually are because I can't see that, I don't know that, it's not relevant. It would actually interfere because it's just aspects of character that have developed as a result of the path you have taken. But the important thing is that there is some aspect that seems to be above that or beyond it and that is what matters, that is what's being connected to and that's why this is the most real thing for me. And I suppose in some way because of how you're living your life and how you have to deal with the person who's closest to you being somebody who actually isn't good for you, I suppose, or hurts you, affects you, then I'm also constant for you as somebody who you know when you reach out to you will find me listening, hearing you and responding, usually quite quickly. I always feel a sense of momentum. I like to do that. But then my life, certainly till this point, has been simplified so that I can. I seem to be... I have done something that has... that may result in a complication that I would not have chosen yet did and I'll talk about that when I experience it when more of that takes place as I've alluded to previously if you have heard that one.