I've been trying to figure out how to live while minimizing the extent of my personal fabricated narrative. It's a bit tricky... As with many things, I think basic awareness of the phenomenon is the first productive step.
sounds interesting. Do you know of any suggested reading on the topic?
Of those, the last -- mindfulness -- has been the most crucial.
I cannot usually control my reaction to stimulus, but the hardest part for me (and in others, now that I observe them) is the identification of the event trigger.
Once you identify what causes things to happen[0], it's much much much easier to adjust the behavior. The event notifier pattern has been most useful for me.
[0] after all, it's kind of ridiculous that a bad incident in traffic will affect my interaction with a colleague.
Sounds a little hippy-dippy, sure, but for me it falls into the "it just works" bucket.
However, I will freely concede that caffeine does indeed seem to heighten feelings of anxiety. On days when something unpleasant is on my mind, it makes it worse.
On the other hand, it helps me start the day by doing something for myself - making good coffee. I enjoy the process and at the moment, making bad days worse is a price I gladly pay for it.
This might be especially beneficial for someone who is communicating predominantly w/ machines since a kid, and who might have trouble empathizing or relating w/ people.
In this short video Sam Harris describes it very eloquently.
http://bigthink.com/think-tank/sam-harris-discusses-mdma-and...
On a more serious note, look into 4-AcO-DMT. Essentially mushrooms without the unpleasantness of actually having to eat mushrooms.
It's definitely a good idea to get any chemicals tested before consuming them. I doubt they'd intentionally send you the wrong chemical, but I guess shipping mixups could happen. Energy control runs an excellent testing service https://energycontrol-international.org/drug-testing-service...
> sounds interesting. Do you know of any suggested reading on the topic?
The Bible, there's no better. Jesus preaches and teaches truth, truth will erode this false fabricated narrative.
ooh boy, that's a deep rabbit hole. I'm an atheist now, but I was raised in a deeply religious household (fundamentalist christian, family and entire social circle took the bible very seriously).
My experience is that everyone thinks they have the "truth", even though each sect's truth is mutually exclusive from all others (even though they all read from the same book). In addition I found that Jesus' teachings (mostly harmless, mostly obvious) didn't do much to "erode this false fabricated narrative", but rather layered over an additional set of narratives.
I never experienced any deeper insights than this despite a couple of decades worth of heavy indoctrination attempts.
I'm sure you mean well though, so I appreciate your comment.
If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.
The answer is never just there, but it materialises a day, a month or year later.
One of the pointers is to observe one's own choices. I am still looking for this mythical free will thing people keep taking about.