Hey yogi! Thanks so much for putting down your thoughts and for reading my journal. And thanks for being frank and direct. It gives me a bit of jolt, but of the kind "hey, wake up!".
I have confided to a few friends before, and the response has been mostly positive (some were just like supportive at first then meh). I just worry about bringing it up again. I know that society at large has yet to learn about the problems surrounding P (but I was happy to find at my uni's website for "wellbeing" a whole page devoted to 'porn addiction', where they listed, among many things, videos by Gary Wilson). So I am aware that I need to tread a bit carefully, which I am (which is all the more praise for the courage of those who step forward, like Gabe and Mark Queppet, who can become targets by the wrong people).
I wonder if I haven't read that book about habit already, but it might've been some years ago. I'll look it up again. (There's just so many good things to read!)
Himalayan achievement? I know! Which also gives me so much pain, because how did things slip so badly at that point, after all that's been built up? I would've thought that the PMO-induced nerves had quieted down a bit by then, but they woke up in a frenzy, stronger than ever and gave me an exhilaration so strong that I couldn't believe it was not P, but some divine majesty. Is this also just a "ploy" by the habit, trying to tempt me back in? It is the intensity of the experience then and now that has shaken my resolve. I really don't want to live life without this ecstatic experience, but then again, I also don't want to be trapped in the clutched of PMO. The fact I'm so undecided gives victory to the "enemy". But I haven't let up. Once the cat's out of the box, as they say, it can't go back in. I can't go back into pre-PMO days and nor do I want to. There's only one way about it and that is through complete self-transformation and abandonment of all things P and PMO. Though I need to think differently about this intense experience, I cannot just put it down as the delusions of a PMO-mangled brain, as that wouldn't be to do it justice. But the worst thing about it is that there is an idea that there is an experience only PMO can offer, and I categorically deny that--there's nothing special to PMO that cannot be matched in intensity and richness by life without it. Not only that, it's like an offence to reason to pursue something just for purely for a subjective experience: it's like this thought experiment where if you could push a button to give yourself instant ecstasy, would you do it? No, because you reduce yourself to just being a slave to the feeling. Human beings, our reason, is so much more than following pleasure, good feelings, good experiences, because we want ourselves to actually contribute to what is most meaningful to us, otherwise we are just passive observers, slaves to the circumstances, bending the knee to simplistic passions--we want to make our will, desires, thoughts, dreams, etc. real by making it matter in the world and this means converting what is in us into something that exists out there.
I know this rationally so well, but somehow my heart cannot follow me. Maybe this is not my heart but merely my habit.
I think the perspective that this is a habit, and just a habit, and that it needs to be broken and replaced is good, but for me it is not enough to have that. It's good to be able to disengage from PMO, but then it also has this overarching power over oneself such that calling it a mere habit seems to just make light of a situation that isn't all that light. (On the other hand, the situation may be overblown, which is part of the problem.) But given that the habit does have such deep impact on the rest of one's being and has such a powerful hold, taking things up a notch wouldn't be a bad thing but maybe a necessary one.
So I don't mean to not view it as a habit-problem, but not only as that. It is a lifestyle question, and as any lifestyle question it connects with your idea of who you are, your values, etc. These things are in essence spiritual, and I mean spiritual in the sense that they transcend merely practical and utilitarian functions (and not as something extra-mundane and religious), since--at the end of the day--what is good in life? Why do we want to do the things we do? What is life all about? What do we want to make our life about? I think PMO addiction, and likely any addiction, touches upon this sphere and, at the very least, asks us to consider what is of utmost importance to us. What is the ultimate concern? In this context, things may very well seem like a "battle" or "war", if only used as narrative devices, since it relates to 'who' we want to be and that is not a question of habit. This is why I like Universal Man's series on Sexual Self-mastery, since, although it is primarily about quitting PMO, it is more about sexual self-mastery, namely, a bigger project--and one that is not a particular habit but an overall stance towards life. Do you want to actively own your own sexuality or be subjected to it? It goes beyond PMO, which I think is a really motivating and important thing, since one of the key things in recovery is not only to fight the negative but also build the positive: sexual self-mastery is always positive-, active- and on-going: you cannot but realize the project in working towards it. So it is, again, a spiritual thing for me because it concerns the ultimate values.
But as we go forward, both perspectives are needed, I think. We need to reduce it to a habit-problem and we need to enlarge the wounds it opened up and examine them in the most important light.
I realize that I need to back to basics, since I did manage a year I should go back to "bootcamp", and so I'm re-watching a bunch of stuff. Reading pinned posts here and going through Universal Man's SSMG. I say today by the river, at a place I can put my feet down into the river, and just listened for 1,5 hours to the first three episodes. I didn't intend to listen for so long but it felt so good to be outside and to be dealing with this earnestly again that I kept on listening. I then went for a walk where I thought about what I had heard, and I thought about this post you made yogi, and just thought about what I could be doing. There are ruins of past strongholds that once kept me up, and these need to be rebuild, but also, I need to go further than I went last time. Something was still missing before that led me to the relapse and I need to identify what that was.
Thanks again yogi, your posts were really helpful in getting me thinking about this more intensely than before.
Indeed, we do not accept defeat. The fact of us being here--on this forum, writing, posting, reading, listening, educating, analysing, thinking about it--just proves that.